The plot of this game is a brand new story revolving around Majin Buu

The plot of this game is a brand new story revolving around Majin Buu being released in Future Trunks' Alternate Timeline. The controls remain the same, but there are some additional functions that can be used during gameplay.

At its core, combat is the focus of the game. Adventuring is just a means to an end - games like this live and die by their fighting engine. Happily, Budokai 2 takes the first game's move-sets and ups the responsiveness and flexibility. Basically, each character has a base set of moves, and these can be customised on the Boosters screen. By customising and increasing your powers, you're a little less likely to have your backside handed to you in battle - as we found after clearing the first few stages.

[Key features]

- Seven game modes

- 24 unique playable characters

- High-speed Ad-hoc battles with the universe's most powerful fighters

- In-game transformations to make the battle even more intense

- An improved fighting system with over 50 new fighting skills and ultimate attacks

Brand new power level-system in Story Mode

- Network Battle

- Able to change camera angles

In terms of combat in the game, there are 50 new moves to be unlocked this time around, which might just be enough new potential for combos to make investment worthwhile for owners of the original. Also new to the game is the Z-Trial mode, where you can take part in time trials, challenge modes and survival modes. By working your way through these, you can accumulate a bit of scratch and buy new costumes, upgrades, stages and all that jazz.

Combat is actually a lot of fun - the buttery framerate, generally set at 60 frames per second, helps immensely. While the environments and arenas are generally geometrically simple, the cel shading is well done. It suffers from the PSP's lower resolution, highlighting a lot of jaggies, but the character models and movements are excellent and the game generally retains a lot of the charm of the show. The overworld of Namek, on the other hand, is ugly and blocky. Again, this was probably a trade-off for the framerate, but it's still pretty dated looking.