Video Game Blog 049: Dragon Ball Marathon Part 1

When it comes to fighting games, there are those who like Street Fighter and those who prefer Mortal Kombat. There are the Super Smash Bros fans, those who play Tekken, or Soulcalibur, or any number of other fighting games. Me, while I’ve dabbled in the others I’ve mentioned (just substitute Pokken for Tekken) my favorite fighting series by far, without question, is Dragon Ball Z.

Readers of this blog should know that I’ve been covering and reviewing every installment of the Just Dance franchise. (The most recent post can be found here.) I’m all caught up with that series, so of course my thoughts went to what I’d give the series treatment to next. Almost immediately I thought of Dragon Ball Z. I have so many of these games, some of which I haven’t gotten around to playing yet, and years of happy memories of the installments I have played. So this was the obvious choice for my new review series. With that said, I’ll talk a bit about the game I’m focusing on this time before getting into some background.

Title screen. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Dragon Ball Z Budokai was released for PlayStation 2 by Dimps in 2002. It was later ported to the GameCube. I played the PS2 version for this post. This game, of course, is based on the wildly-popular anime and manga created by Akira Toriyama. While not the first video game based on the franchise (that was Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden in 1993) this is the one that really propelled it into a popular ongoing fighting game series on modern consoles. This game featured 3D game models, voice clips from the anime, multiple game modes, and covers the first three arcs of the series.

A legendary clash! (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

My history with Dragon Ball is a pretty straightforward one. As with many of the things I love, my experience with this one originated with my younger brothers. They got into the Dragon Ball Z anime and one day introduced me to it, starting with the first episode of the Trunks sage. I was hooked right away and started watching it myself from that point. Of course, being the completionist I am, I also tracked down the first arc of the original Dragon Ball series. Back then, in the dark ages before the wider internet hit and there were no streaming services, I was very much limited as to what I could find. I had to rely on the recordings my brothers had made from the TV broadcasts and whatever videos I could find at the video store. This is where I found the first dozen or so episodes of the series and the first few movies. I also got a tape of some early episodes in the Majin Buu Saga, but I didn’t have the money at the time to really start collecting VHS or DVDs. (They were really a rip-off back then anyway. Two or three episodes at once for $20 wasn’t a very good exchange rate if we’re being honest.)

The Dragon Ball shelf in my office.

As the years went on and DVD collections came into vogue I snagged the entire series and not only got to see the whole series for myself, but shared it with Cocoashade, who also became a fan. We have gone through Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super, the newer movies, and Dragon Ball DAIMA. I have not subjected her to GT or the rest of the movies yet, but I’m sure those will happen at some point.

I’m currently reading through the manga series, which is not something I had completed before. I love all the iterations of Dragon Ball and the games are no exception. Which brings us right back around to the topic at hand.

For this post I’m not going to get into the particulars of Dragon Ball, its story, and the characters. In a broad explanation, it’s the epic story of a cheerful fighting-obsessed alien named Son Goku and his family and friends as they battle ever more powerful threats to the world and galaxy. The titular Dragon Balls are magical orbs that are hidden around the world. When gathered, they summon a dragon who can grant almost any wish. If you haven’t experienced Dragon Ball, I would highly recommend giving the manga and anime a try. They’re both fantastic.

Good ol’ Vegeta. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

So, with my love for Dragon Ball as a whole, it’s obvious I would gravitate towards the video games based off of it. I came across the first Budokai game in one of the video game stores I frequented and immediately snatched it up. That night I popped it into my trusty PS2 and started brawling. I was in love with the game from the start.

I’ve never been much for fighting games. Or at least I wasn’t. I’d played some Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat when I was younger. I wasn’t good at them, but I did enjoy them in short bursts. When I got older I did put some hours into Soulcalibur II but didn’t continue playing the franchise beyond that. Budokai changed that for me, showing me the appeal of games that pit one fighter against another, testing your skill and patience as you unleash your moves against each other.

As the years went on I got each subsequent DBZ fighting game I could find. The series went from Budokai, to Budokai Tenkaichi, to even more sophisticated and expansive titles. The developers changed, the play style and mechanics changed, but it all feels like one continual series to me. The most recent one I've played is Dragon Ball FighterZ on the PS4. I have a stack of physical discs for some games and the later ones on digital. (The only one I’m missing currently is Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero.) With such a wealth of games stockpiled, it seemed a natural idea to cover these for the blog. However, with the ambitious slate of posts I had planned last year and this year, I figured it would still be awhile before I got around to covering them.

That changed, though. Tragically, in 2024 Mr. Toriyama passed away, leaving behind an impressive body of work and uncountable fans. I always had planned to do a post about what Dragon Ball Z means to me, but was saving that for a future date. Still, in honor of a creator who meant so much to me, I wanted to do something. Between the long-running manga, the various anime series and movies, the games, and my long history of being inspired and entertained by the franchise, I knew a full post would take more time and attention than I have to spare right now. So instead of the post I had hoped to do (and someday still may) you get the first in-depth review and run-down of many, many fighting games based on the world and characters of Dragon Ball.

So, anyway, enough backstory. Let’s talk about this game. For these posts I will be judging the games by several factors: how much entertainment and playtime they gave me, amount of content to unlock, ease of play, and how well they capture the spirit and simulate the experience of Dragon Ball. When I cover more games in the series, I will also compare and contrast them with each other.

Goku beats Krillin’s ass. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Being a fighting game, the gameplay is naturally centered around battle. You face a single opponent at a time with your chosen character and defeat them. The way this is done is either by reducing their hit point bar to zero or by propelling them out of the ring in Tournament Mode.

Krillin is now about to take a Kamehameha to the face. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

I won’t get too technical with the gameplay, but the moves you can use in battle consist of normal punches, kicks, blocking, and Ki (energy) blasts. (I almost never block. I’m bad at that aspect.) You can also grapple your opponent and swing them around. Since we’re in the world of Dragon Ball, you can of course fly as well, continuing your battle in the air.

Practice your combos! (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

There are also special moves specific to the character performed by doing combos— a series of punches, kicks, energy, or combinations of these. (For example, the Kamehameha is done with four punches followed by energy.) In order to perform the special moves, you need enough Ki gauges. The Ki bar is filled by attacking your opponent or by charging using a combination of buttons. (This does leave you open to attack, though.)

This all sounds pretty typical for fighting games. However, one unique mechanic is the ability to transform. With enough Ki, some characters can transform into a more powerful form. The Saiyans (Goku, Vegeta, etc.) can attain their Super Saiyan forms. Goku can’t go higher than his first Super Saiyan form, but they included three levels of King Kai Fist as transformations. (Kaio-ken is Japanese.) Trunks and Vegeta have their “Super” forms beyond the first Super Saiyan level.

Some characters that you wouldn’t expect have transformations. Kid Gohan and Krillin have “Unlock Potential”, which they earned in the Frieza Saga in the anime. Piccolo’s transformations are his fusions with Nail and Kami. Hercule actually gets one too. It’s called High Tension.

As for the bad guys, Zarbon gets his Monster Form. Cell has all three forms plus his Powered form. Frieza, however, goes straight from his base form to Final Form. I’m assuming it’s because they wanted to include his 100% Power form where he gets all bulging muscles. You can also equip him with his spaceship capsule. When he falls in battle he comes back as Mecha-Frieza.

Character select. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

This game contains the smallest roster of characters of the majority of Dragon Ball games. There are 23 characters in all, which includes three forms for Gohan. (Kid, Teen, and Great Saiyaman.) This number of characters does not include the transformations, since those are performed during battle and are temporary. (Some later games feature the transformations as separate characters.) Everyone gets an alternate costume you can select as well, which helps differentiate when using the same character as your opponent.

The usual characters you would expect are here, including plenty of the villains. They included two members of the Ginyu Force and two of Freiza’s slite soldiers. For some reason they left out Android 20/Dr. Gero. Chiaotzu and Videl are also not in attendance, but they appear in later games.

Many of the characters have to be unlocked and are not available at the start of the game. Most of these are unlocked by defeating them in Story Mode, and the others by beating World Tournament at higher levels.

Stage select. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

There are nine stages you can play on, which is also lower than later games. These are all locations from the anime like Planet Namek, Kami’s Lookout, the Budokai Ring, the Cell Games Ring, and others. After a particularly big attack, the environment can get trashed. You can even destroy the Cell Games Ring.

The main menu. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

A big part of the game is Story Mode. This allows you to play through the story of the anime with short cut scenes and key battles. There are 29 Story chapters in all, broken up into three Sagas.

I love Story Mode. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

I won’t go over the story here… like I said before, if you haven’t experienced it, you should consider giving it a try. The story is broken up into battles and narrated like the episodes of the anime were. There are even title screens, making them feel like episodes.

Vegeta’s scenario. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

The interesting part comes in after completing all the story chapters in a Saga. This is where a new chapter unlocks that shows a “What If” scenario where you play as the villain of the Saga. The first one involves Vegeta. Upset about his comrade Nappa’s death (even though— spoiler— he’s the one who killed him) he defeats all the good guys and then goes Super Saiyan long before he was able to attain that level in the series.

Cell’s scenario. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Frieza’s scenario isn’t all that interesting. He defeats all the heroes, uses his dragon wish for immortality, blows up Namek, and heads to Earth to conquer it.

Cell’s scenario is my favorite one because it gets creative. In this one while he tries to absorb Android 18, Krillin gets in the way and is absorbed instead. This has an unexpected effect on his “Perfect” Form.

Poor Krillin. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Yeah, he becomes a weird Krillin/Cell hybrid. Realizing he’s weakened, Yamcha (himself the weakest of the heroes— there are memes about it) decides he can defeat Cell on his own.

Even crippled by a low power absorption, Cell is more than a match for Yamcha. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

This fight was actually pretty challenging, but when you defeat him, Cell ends up being destroyed by Tien… who’s, I would say, one level above Yamcha, power-wise. (The poor humans couldn’t keep up with the Saiyan power creep.)

Hehe. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Cell wakes up, revealing it was a nightmare brought on by the boredom of waiting for the Cell Games to start.

It’s time to D-D-D-Duel! (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

So what about the other game modes? Duel mode is what you would expect. This is your standard 1v1 battle either with two human opponents, a human against the AI, or even two AI battlers if you just want to sit back and watch the game play itself for some reason.

Right in the Little Cell. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

In Duel mode you can practice your skills and even used customized characters. (More on that soon.) It keeps tracks of your wins and you can adjust the time limit.

Now for the main event. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

World Tournament mode is basically the main portion of the game. While Story Mode comes first in the menu and has plenty of content, the game is called Budokai, after all, so the true focus is on the World Tournament… the Strongest Under the Heavens… the Budokai itself.

I wonder who will win? (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

In Tournament Mode, you select your character and their costume, choose the difficulty, and are sorted into brackets that determine your opponents. You can choose Novice, Adept, and Advanced. Each one increases the number of opponents, but also the prize money (Zenie) you win for succeeding. Unlike in Story Mode, where the goal is winning by Knock Out, in Tournament you can also win by Ring-Out. This is accomplished by hitting an opponent hard enough to fling them out of the boundaries of the arena.

Hehe, Bubbles. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Two other modes are Practice and Options, and there really isn’t much to say here. Options allows you to change the language and various other settings. Practice is like Duel mode, but your opponent doesn’t fight back, so you can practice your combos without worrying about counterattack.

Hey Mr. Popo is here. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Edit Skills is where the Zenie comes in handy, and also where we customize characters.

Whoa, wait— Death-Moves? I need some of those! (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Mr. Popo’s Shop is where you spend the Zenie you’ve earned for capsules to use in customizing your character. You can also buy Dragon Balls here as rare shop listings. Getting all seven Dragon Balls allows you to summon Shenron, who gives you a choice of one of three Breakthrough Capsules. Those allow you to equip your character with all their moves at the cost of every skill slot. (So if you have a Breakthrough equipped, you can’t equip any items.)

All the capsules lined up. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

In Edit Skills you can see what capsules you’ve collected for each character and what they do. It’s also the best place to keep track of what you still need to collect. Each capsule has a trading card style description that explains the move or item and how to perform any combo associated with it.

Vegeta’s Capsule List. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

In Change Caps, you actually customize your character. You can equip them with moves, transformations, and items. Above you can see my build for Vegeta. I gave him both his transformations, the most useful moves, and two items. The Armor helps increase his defense and Super Holy Water reduces damage.

This is where the strategy really comes in, as you only get 7 slots. Some items take up multiple, so you have to decide what’s most important for the way you play.

Now for the TRUE Story Mode. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

The final menu item, looking almost like an afterthought, is a sort of extension of Story Mode, The Legend of Hercule. Yes, he’s called Hercule in the game because that was his name in the American dub of the anime. (A case of localization overcorrecting to keep parents from freaking out.) I still think of him as Mr. Satan, since that was his original name. My manga translation refers to him as Hercule Satan, so they found a way to combine the two names, which is fine.

Another side note, Mr. Satan is one of my favorite characters in the series, alongside Vegeta, Krillin, and Goku himself. I don’t know, there’s just something very likable about the blustery, self-important jerk. Especially after he conquers his fear to help Gohan during the Cell battle and later befriended Fat Buu. Plus he raised a cool, strong daughter, so he can’t be all bad. Yeah, the lying to the entire world for fame thing was pretty awful, but we’ve all got our negative traits. Anyway, I find him to be an enjoyable and layered character beyond the two dimensional wrestler stereotype he was clearly created to be.

Unleashing some whoop ass on Yamcha. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

While the Legend of Hercule is part of the same game, it does feel somewhat different and is done in a retro Arcade Style with its own start screen and everything. Other than that, it plays the same and features the same characters and moves as the rest of the game.

Since he can’t fly, he’s equipped with a jetpack to bring himself to the other fighter’s airborne level. Hercule has a great move set. My favorite move is Present For You, which I have captured in the below screenshots.

The ultimate fate of any gamer. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

YEAH!

Our hero, the savior of Earth! (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

I liked the Legend of Hercule mode, and think it added a bit of fun to the game. This is more of the “what if” aspect of the series, showing what would have happened if a more competent Hercule had actually competed in the Cell Games and won, earning his ill-gotten title of Savior of Earth. You really have to learn his moves and practice fighting with him in order to clear this mode, so it also added a bit of challenge to the whole thing.

Oh no! (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

And that’s Dragon Ball Z Budokai! I know I went on a bit long, but bear with me a little longer. Next up is my thoughts and assessment of the game.

Going Super Saiyan! (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

Upsides: There is a lot of content in this game. Lots of things to discover and unlock. I like the transformation mechanic and the ability to customize your character. The fighting is easy to pick up and there isn’t much of a learning curve. The battles are relatively fast-paced with well-balanced move sets and decent AI opponents. I really liked Story mode, reliving key moments of the series through the battles. The bonus villain scenarios were pretty cool, showing the story from different angles. Deviating from what you know can be jarring but interesting.

Downsides: The controls are a bit slow, the combos needlessly difficult, and there is a lot of grind to unlock everything. I found myself going through the World Tournament on Advanced mode over and over to get enough Zenie to buy everything. Never mind how many times I had to enter and exit Mr. Popo’s shop, waiting for an elusive Dragon Ball to appear. The roster of fighters is rather small, reducing some of the replay value.

For the overall rating, I give it four out of seven Dragon Balls. It’s a solid game with lots of replay value, but the later games did things better. It does well setting the stage and providing some good nostalgia, but there was plenty of room for improvement. The fighting is clunky but easier to get into than some of the later games. (Especially the Tenkaichi series. We’ll get there.)

That’s more like it. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

As for how it captures the spirit of the source material, I think it does a fine job. Again, later games put you into the battle a bit better (Raging Blast in particular sticks out in my mind), but this one has plenty of iconic moves, revisits a big chunk of the story, and gives you the experience of gathering the Dragon Balls and selecting your wish. The game strives to put you into the roles of the characters, making you feel like you’re fighting their battles, improving your skills with training, and overcoming the seemingly insurmountable odds before you. In this way, Budokai is a big success, but like I said, there are later games that do all that better, leaving this one to look primitive in comparison.

That said, in some ways, the later games never again achieved the simplicity and purity of vision that this one managed. I was struck by a lot of nostalgia when I fired this game up. The music, the sound effects, the graphics and gameplay. It made me happy in a way most of the later games in the series (aside from Budokai Part 2) didn’t quite manage.

While Dragon Ball Z Budokai was followed by many later games that improved on the graphics and gameplay in a myriad of ways, I’ll always have a fondness in my heart for the game that started it all. The simplicity, the familiarity, the nostalgia of playing iconic battles from the anime and manga… this game is a classic to me. Hopefully I got some of that across in this post.

The Dragon Ball Z Budokai trilogy especially were my go-to weekend relaxation for a long time. After a long, difficult week I would settle in with a drink and fight battle after battle, progressing through the game content, unlocking new fighters, moves, and items, and slowly gathering the Dragon Balls.

Nowadays work is easy and I stopped drinking, but I still had just as much fun revisiting this game. It was fun, comforting, and exhilarating. This game and all those that followed it provided me with hours upon hours of fun. They also served to get me into the fighting genre. I now own several Mortal Kombat games and all the Smash Bros games along with the dozen or so Dragon Ball fighting games I already owned. Every time a new Dragon Ball comes up on sale I snatch it up along with any DLC it may have. For this series I will replay all the ones I already went through and finally delve into all the others I have stockpiled. (I’m really looking forward to the ones I have on my PS5 and Sparking! Zero looks incredible.)

Krillin finally turns the tables on Goku! (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)

And that’s it for this edition of Dragon Ball Marathon! I know we only covered one game, but I also had to set everything up and paint you a picture of what this franchise means to me, so I figured it would be fine to stop after one this time. This turned out very long for a video game post anyway. Next time we’ll cover the next two installments in the Budokai series, 2 and 3.

Thank you so much for joining me. I had a great time revisiting this game that I spent so many enjoyable evenings playing when I was younger and I look forward to not only revisiting all the other follow up games, but the ones I haven’t gotten to yet. Know that I appreciate you and I will be back soon with more video game goodness.

Mr Popo has taken so many of my Zenie. (Credit: Akira Toriyama, Dimps)