Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi Game - Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is a 3D fighting game initially released for PlayStation 2, developed by Spike, and published by Atari (Bandai in Japan). Three games were released in the series (2005, 2006, and 2007), with the last two being re-released on the Nintendo Wii. This was followed in 2010 by Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team on PlayStation Portable and Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011.

Before Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi was developed, a different series by the name of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai had already been released on PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. Despite partially sharing the same name, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is a completely different series. The only aspect of the games that are shared is that they are both based on the award-winning Japanese manga Dragon Ball, and thus share a similar character roster. The naming decision was potentially part of a marketing strategy to use the success of the previous game series.

Gameplay

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is a third-person beat ‘em up game. The camera is behind and slightly to one side of the player’s character. This allows for much greater control in the open free-roam environment. There are a number of techniques that are featured in the game’s combat mechanics such as vanishing dodges, special attacks, stuns, and rushes. The player might boost towards the opponent and launch a flurry of fast attacks, combine it with a strong attack that stuns the opponent, and then launch them with a grapple or blast them with a special attack. Ki is used for energy attacks, vanishing dodges, and special attacks. Ki can be charged quickly, but can also be regained gradually during the fight. Special attacks come in two forms, Blast 1 and Blast 2. Blast 1 is a special attack that provides almost a support effect, such as auto dodge, full ki, and so on. Blast 2 attacks are special attacks such as energy attacks or physical rushes (Kamehameha or Kaioken attack, respectively). The character also has an ultimate blast that requires a maximum ki gauge to use and is often capable of dealing a great amount of damage.

Game Modes

There are a number of game modes, including the typical story mode found in other games (Z Battle Gate, Dragon Adventure and Dragon History in the Tenkaichi series). The story modes are fairly extensive, covering much of the series’ main points and even going on to provide some what-if scenarios. Cutscenes are featured in the games before and after the battles in the first games, though cutscenes are sometimes shown during the battle in the third game as well (often to advance the story or to offer a special technique or transformation). Variations of the tournament mode are also present in the series. One of which being the famous Tenkaichi tournament, while the other is the Cell Games in, where the final combatant is always Perfect Cell.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi

The first game in the series features a fairly groundbreaking roster of 64 unique characters with 90 different forms (for example Super Saiyan, Zarbon’s transformation, Frieza’s transformations, etc). The music for the international release and Japanese release were different. The original Japanese release contained music from the original Japanese series and some music from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT. The international release, on the other hand, contained mostly reused material from the previous Budokai series. Interestingly, for a fighting game, there are different types of characters that all have special passive abilities. For example, the Androids will not appear on the HUD radar display and can absorb energy attacks (depending on the character). Also, large characters like Broly or Super Trunks will not be affected by a small character’s physical attacks (the same applies for Great Ape transformations). Characters using a scouter can lock onto the enemy without them being in their sight. However, the scouter will break after the character has taken a certain amount of damage. Mr. Satan cannot knock back any other characters with physical attacks and characters like Majin Buu regenerate health over time, just like in the anime.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2

The second release gave fans a significantly improved roster of 100 characters and a total of 136 forms. Five additional characters were also added to make up for a delayed release (those characters being Evil King Piccolo, Frieza Soldier, Cyborg General Tao, and Pilaf’s robot). In this addition to the series, the ability to transform mid-battle was added instead of each form being its own separate character, like in the first installment.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3

The final entry in the series showcases what seems to be a lowered character count at 98 characters, however, they 161 forms become available. Upon release, this was the biggest character roster of any Dragon Ball game. Not only that, but it also boasted one of the largest rosters of any fighting game on the market. The game also includes a crossover character, Arale Norimaki, from the Dr. Slump series.

Links

Dragon Ball Series
Dragon Ball Z Series
Dragon Ball Kai Series
Dragon Ball Super Series
Dragon Ball GT Series
Super Dragon Ball Heros
Akira Toriyama