14 DAY TRIAL // With Spike in charge of development, publisher Atari is to release the next chapter of the Dragon Ball Z saga on October 31, 2006. Budokai Tenkaichi 2 will combine action, fighting and role playing elements into a rich story mode that goes through all previous Dragon Ball titles. Their fully 3D acrobatic flying and fighting has become a landmark in the manga infused scene, with over 100 playable characters and 15 destructible environments. As expected, single and multiplayer scenarios span over nine different game modes for total domination over your opponents.
The story mode presents a fundamentally different playing experience when confronted with the first Budokai Tenkaichi game. Within the Dragon Adventure Mode, Goku and Piccolo fly around a gigantic world map and land in different places to start battles. Characters level up after each fight. Instead of a linear progression, several choices can now be made concerning the next move, adding to the role playing element. You can either move to the next great storyline battle or simply attack side-quest opponents in order to strengthen your team. Wandering through the many cities, you can purchase customized items from shop owners or play various mini games over the expected 60 hours of gameplay.
Maybe the most intriguing new feature is the ability to create customized characters. Once players join the Data Center, they can set up individual fighter patterns with the respective stats. Unique pass codes will be generated upon completing the combatant in order to recreate the warrior at ease. There's talk about having Spike simulated matches using fan custom codes to determine the best created fighters out there. While it's still unconfirmed, there's a good chance codes will have the same result on the PS2 and Wii versions of the game.