Son of a . . . I somehow forgot Super Mario RPG for the SNES. I can't believe myself, that's definitely in my top three for that console.
BT3 is obviously one of my favorite games in the franchise considering it made my Wii list, and I like it almost as much as Budokai 3. However, I simply prefer the traditional set-up for fighters then the behind the back set-up from BT3 and that's the main reason why I prefer Budokai 3 over that.
As for Infinite World, it always surprises me to hear people prefer that to Budokai 3 considering the fact Infinite World is just a watered-down version of Budokai 3, at least in terms of gameplay. And this isn't debatable, Infinite World uses the exact same engine, and almost all of the same mechanics. The mechanics they chose not to port over were Dragon Rushes, Hyper Mode (though if I recall correctly they have something similar), and Beam Struggles. In terms of Dragon Rushes and Beam Struggles, these two additions were great because they were both things you'd see in actually fights in the anime. Besides being fun additions, they really added to the sense that you're playing a Dragon Ball Z game, not just a fighter set in the DBZ world. To be honest, I'm baffled to why they removed Beam Struggles, the others I kind of get but this I see no reason for why.
As for Dragon Rushes, I'm not going to explain the mechanic to much but to me it was perfect. The mechanic was great fun (though there was an overall lack of variety in reaching the end, outside of the special capsule ones, I think there were only three ending animations for it, but still a small problem), and unlike a lot it wasn't cheap and there was actually a method that would allow you to protect against the CPU or attack against them. Was it full-proof, no? But I had a great success rating with it. And due to the way the mechanic worked, it lead to some great intense moments, waiting to see whether I defended myself successfully or if I got all three attacks done and won. It's very satisfying to complete and can be devastating to be on the receiving end but it's not always a death sentence or victory, I like that. Often times it's just an aid/determent, and of course you could go the entire battle without using it.
As for Hyper Mode, like I said I believe there's something similar, but it's no where near as good in here. Hyper Mode basically the mode you have to enter in order to perform Dragon Rushes and Ultimate's. While in it, your ki depletes at a much faster rate (and depletes fully), and if it fully depletes you'll be fatigued and opened to attack. Meaning that entering hyper mode adds risk to the gameplay. I mean for the most part you kind of have to suck to not be able to activate a Dragon Rush up until a certain level but still. With Ultimates especially, since if you miss one you lose five ki bars (fun note, however much ki you have when you enter Hyper Mode, is how much you can use throughout Hyper Mode. Meaning if you only have two ki left but activated it with seven full bars, you can still do your ultimate which normally costs five). Since Infinite World removed this mechanic, now all you have to do is save up the ki for it (which isn't exactly difficult - not that the game is easy, I don't recall that being the case). Basically, most of the risk and strategy are removed from IW because of this, but not only that, the variety is removed. In B3 you had plenty of variety in fights, you could focus on Dragon Rushes, Ultimates, or not even deal with Hyper Mode (granted, the CPU might decide differently).
So gameplay-wise it's definitely a watered-down, simplified version of Budokai 3, and you can't argue against that. Certainly, you can argue it's more fun due to that, but for me, the increase depth and variety in Budokai 3 is much more fun for me than the simplified variant Infinite World showcased. So much so, that the only reason I played Infinite World for an extended period of time was because I played it before Budokai 3.
However, it's not just gameplay, it's story mode. I loved the little mini-game, dragon missions that are frequent in Infinite World's story. Even with those though, it doesn't top the greatness of B3 story. Having separate stories for like eleven different characters was an awesome idea, especially since one of those characters was Broly. Not only that, but the idea of being able to fly around and do other stuff outside of just fighting the story battles was great. Whether it was finding Dragon Balls, or just funny cutscenes. Not only that but the story had a lot of reasons to play through multiple times, which Infinite World didn't. Like playing Goku's story a second time will add GT into the story, not to mention that you can also do some what if scenarios like facing Cooler on Namek after beating Frieza or dealing with Broly instead of Buu. There are others, and it would take like three playthroughs to experience everything Goku's story has to offer. Some other instances off the top of my head is Krillin's story initially ends at the Frieza arc, but the Cell arc at least gets added during the second playthrough (not sure about the Buu).
But another great thing about the game, dare I say the best part, were all the RPG elements and I'm not just talking about capsules. In story and Dragon Arena, you can increase everyone's attack, health, ki, arts, ability, etc. I absolutely love this, and you can definitely tell it makes a big impact on the gameplay. I had trouble with Raditz the first playthrough, the second playthrough (since you don't go back to level one) I absolutely destroyed him. It also makes Dragon Arena an actually fun mode. For those unaware, Dragon Arena is basically a mode of a couple hundred opponents all increasing in levels with different stats, it goes up to the level cap which I believe is 99 (never got there myself, stopped at 70 something [I plan to remedy this with HD collection]). Anyway, fighting tougher opponents, and leveling up all the characters (and yes, I play as them all, makes it longer and funner [if someone loses, there out of the rotation though]) makes the mode unbelievably fun and stops it from being a non-mode, like the unlockable mode (Fighters Road?) in Infinite World was for me. Yeah I played it, but there was nothing really too it. It didn't have any progression in the way Dragon Arena had, it was just a bunch of battles.
Not that Infinite World doesn't have stuff over Budokai 3 though. The Transform Capsule was pure genius, although having Breakthroughs in Budokai 3 made it alright. Also, I'd say it has a better roster than Budokai 3. But those are the only two things I'd give over it, and they aren't really big things since I still love the B3 roster. Infinite World could've had stages over B3 too if they weren't lazy and didn't just port over all the B3 stages without adding any themselves. Also did Infinite World not have a World Tournament mode? If so, that sucks, love that mode. That's another point for Budokai 3 too.
I'm not trying to change your mind by the way, just figured I'd explain what the big deal is with Budokai 3, as well as explain why I'm not the biggest fan of Infinite World. Did not plan on rambling on for this long but I can't help myself.
I get that, it's just most of these eleven pages have been comprised of Final Fantasy talk, I figured it only made sense to make the suggestion.
BaraaKhalaf92 said:
BT3 is obviously one of my favorite games in the franchise considering it made my Wii list, and I like it almost as much as Budokai 3. However, I simply prefer the traditional set-up for fighters then the behind the back set-up from BT3 and that's the main reason why I prefer Budokai 3 over that.
As for Infinite World, it always surprises me to hear people prefer that to Budokai 3 considering the fact Infinite World is just a watered-down version of Budokai 3, at least in terms of gameplay. And this isn't debatable, Infinite World uses the exact same engine, and almost all of the same mechanics. The mechanics they chose not to port over were Dragon Rushes, Hyper Mode (though if I recall correctly they have something similar), and Beam Struggles. In terms of Dragon Rushes and Beam Struggles, these two additions were great because they were both things you'd see in actually fights in the anime. Besides being fun additions, they really added to the sense that you're playing a Dragon Ball Z game, not just a fighter set in the DBZ world. To be honest, I'm baffled to why they removed Beam Struggles, the others I kind of get but this I see no reason for why.
As for Dragon Rushes, I'm not going to explain the mechanic to much but to me it was perfect. The mechanic was great fun (though there was an overall lack of variety in reaching the end, outside of the special capsule ones, I think there were only three ending animations for it, but still a small problem), and unlike a lot it wasn't cheap and there was actually a method that would allow you to protect against the CPU or attack against them. Was it full-proof, no? But I had a great success rating with it. And due to the way the mechanic worked, it lead to some great intense moments, waiting to see whether I defended myself successfully or if I got all three attacks done and won. It's very satisfying to complete and can be devastating to be on the receiving end but it's not always a death sentence or victory, I like that. Often times it's just an aid/determent, and of course you could go the entire battle without using it.
As for Hyper Mode, like I said I believe there's something similar, but it's no where near as good in here. Hyper Mode basically the mode you have to enter in order to perform Dragon Rushes and Ultimate's. While in it, your ki depletes at a much faster rate (and depletes fully), and if it fully depletes you'll be fatigued and opened to attack. Meaning that entering hyper mode adds risk to the gameplay. I mean for the most part you kind of have to suck to not be able to activate a Dragon Rush up until a certain level but still. With Ultimates especially, since if you miss one you lose five ki bars (fun note, however much ki you have when you enter Hyper Mode, is how much you can use throughout Hyper Mode. Meaning if you only have two ki left but activated it with seven full bars, you can still do your ultimate which normally costs five). Since Infinite World removed this mechanic, now all you have to do is save up the ki for it (which isn't exactly difficult - not that the game is easy, I don't recall that being the case). Basically, most of the risk and strategy are removed from IW because of this, but not only that, the variety is removed. In B3 you had plenty of variety in fights, you could focus on Dragon Rushes, Ultimates, or not even deal with Hyper Mode (granted, the CPU might decide differently).
So gameplay-wise it's definitely a watered-down, simplified version of Budokai 3, and you can't argue against that. Certainly, you can argue it's more fun due to that, but for me, the increase depth and variety in Budokai 3 is much more fun for me than the simplified variant Infinite World showcased. So much so, that the only reason I played Infinite World for an extended period of time was because I played it before Budokai 3.
However, it's not just gameplay, it's story mode. I loved the little mini-game, dragon missions that are frequent in Infinite World's story. Even with those though, it doesn't top the greatness of B3 story. Having separate stories for like eleven different characters was an awesome idea, especially since one of those characters was Broly. Not only that, but the idea of being able to fly around and do other stuff outside of just fighting the story battles was great. Whether it was finding Dragon Balls, or just funny cutscenes. Not only that but the story had a lot of reasons to play through multiple times, which Infinite World didn't. Like playing Goku's story a second time will add GT into the story, not to mention that you can also do some what if scenarios like facing Cooler on Namek after beating Frieza or dealing with Broly instead of Buu. There are others, and it would take like three playthroughs to experience everything Goku's story has to offer. Some other instances off the top of my head is Krillin's story initially ends at the Frieza arc, but the Cell arc at least gets added during the second playthrough (not sure about the Buu).
But another great thing about the game, dare I say the best part, were all the RPG elements and I'm not just talking about capsules. In story and Dragon Arena, you can increase everyone's attack, health, ki, arts, ability, etc. I absolutely love this, and you can definitely tell it makes a big impact on the gameplay. I had trouble with Raditz the first playthrough, the second playthrough (since you don't go back to level one) I absolutely destroyed him. It also makes Dragon Arena an actually fun mode. For those unaware, Dragon Arena is basically a mode of a couple hundred opponents all increasing in levels with different stats, it goes up to the level cap which I believe is 99 (never got there myself, stopped at 70 something [I plan to remedy this with HD collection]). Anyway, fighting tougher opponents, and leveling up all the characters (and yes, I play as them all, makes it longer and funner [if someone loses, there out of the rotation though]) makes the mode unbelievably fun and stops it from being a non-mode, like the unlockable mode (Fighters Road?) in Infinite World was for me. Yeah I played it, but there was nothing really too it. It didn't have any progression in the way Dragon Arena had, it was just a bunch of battles.
Not that Infinite World doesn't have stuff over Budokai 3 though. The Transform Capsule was pure genius, although having Breakthroughs in Budokai 3 made it alright. Also, I'd say it has a better roster than Budokai 3. But those are the only two things I'd give over it, and they aren't really big things since I still love the B3 roster. Infinite World could've had stages over B3 too if they weren't lazy and didn't just port over all the B3 stages without adding any themselves. Also did Infinite World not have a World Tournament mode? If so, that sucks, love that mode. That's another point for Budokai 3 too.
I'm not trying to change your mind by the way, just figured I'd explain what the big deal is with Budokai 3, as well as explain why I'm not the biggest fan of Infinite World. Did not plan on rambling on for this long but I can't help myself.
Cloud said:
I get that, it's just most of these eleven pages have been comprised of Final Fantasy talk, I figured it only made sense to make the suggestion.