Best DBZ fighting game

[emperior]

I liked Burst Limit gameplay and liked even more Shin Budokais' gameplay. The aura burst from Shin Budokai really makes the game feel more like DBZ games. I also like Super DBZ's 2.5/3D gameplay. A perfect DBZ game for me would have gameplay similar to that of Shin Budokai, graphics like Burst Limit and 3D gameplay (not like in Xenoverse or BT3 though, but more like in Super DBZ)

Budokai 3 was a little boring and broken and high-level fights are boring to watch.
Tenkaichi 3 on the other hand is one of my favorite DBZ games but it's not really a fighter and a competitive scene couldn't exist also because of the spam and the unbalanced characters.

[Rinsankajugin]

Before I can talk about favorites, let me do a little classification work.

From years of playing fighting games, I can deduce that the fighting game genre can be divided into 5 sub-genre:

• Traditional: Moving left and right on a flat stage. EX: Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct
• Side-Stepper: Moving left and right as well as around the opponent. EX: Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Tobal
• Brawler: Moving left and right on a multi-layered stage. EX: Super Smash Bros, Jump Stars, Playstation All-Stars
• Arena: Moving in all directions on a fully 3D stage. EX: Virtual On, Anarchy Reigns, J-Stars
• Virtual: A fighting game where the player has a first-person or transparent 3rd person view. EX: Punch-Out, Chivalry, The One

So looking at DB's library of fighting games, here's how to categorize them:

• Traditional: Butoden, DBZ Arcade
• Side-Stepper: Ultimate Battle 22, Budokai, Super DBZ
• Brawler: Supersonic Warriors
• Arena: The Legends, Tenkaichi, Zenkai Battle Royale, Battle of Z, Xenoverse
• Virtual: VRVS, Kinect

Out of all of them, my faves would have to be Super DBZ, Tenkaichi 3, Infinite World, Ultimate Butoden and Xenoverse.

[Hakkan]

I didn't play to last generation of DBZ game (Raging Blast, Burst Limit and Xenoverse) but Budokaï 3 was great ! Tenkaïchi were good but so repetitive...

I have a great memory of Snes games but when I play them now, I'm bored...

I never played to this one but did you know "DBZ Shin Butoden" on saturn ? It looks good :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoBk6y8 ... tml5=False

Good legacy of Snes gameplay with original character sprites of DBZ Ultimate Battle 22 but much more dynamic !

[Desassina]

I liked Burst Limit gameplay and liked even more Shin Budokais' gameplay. The aura burst from Shin Budokai really makes the game feel more like DBZ games. I also like Super DBZ's 2.5/3D gameplay. A perfect DBZ game for me would have gameplay similar to that of Shin Budokai, graphics like Burst Limit and 3D gameplay (not like in Xenoverse or BT3 though, but more like in Super DBZ)

Beautiful post, man! I absolutely love Shin Budokai and Burst Limit, the former for having refined the series' gameplay, and the latter for having added spectacle in ways that were good. It reminds me of the X-Men movies: after ending the main line at the Last Stand (Budokai 3), the franchise had to step back and rejuvenate with First Class (Shin Budokai), before the former could be continued and tied to the latter in one entry: Days of Future Past (Burst Limit). There's a reason why Burst Limit is considered a Budokai 4, while the PSP game had to exist for it to have happened

[TheSaiyanjin2]

The Budokai series represents what is the closest of the traditionnal "Versus Fighting", and in terms of gameplay it's a notch above all other DBZ games (including Super DBZ).
Next, high-level fights in B3 are very entertaining (maybe less in IW cause of the broken fatigue bar), saying the opposite is truly to act in bad faith.

Anyway, I think SBAR has the most refined cancel system and the most technical gameplay in all Dimps DBZ titles.

[Bansho64]

The Budokai series represents what is the closest of the traditionnal "Versus Fighting", and in terms of gameplay it's a notch above all other DBZ games (including Super DBZ).
Next, high-level fights in B3 are very entertaining (maybe less in IW cause of the broken fatigue bar), saying the opposite is truly to act in bad faith.

Anyway, I think SBAR has the most refined cancel system and the most technical gameplay in all Dimps DBZ titles.

Of course you would know how the system works You're an awesome player dude.

[Quebaz]

So looking at DB's library of fighting games, here's how to categorize them:

• Traditional: Butoden, DBZ Arcade
• Side-Stepper: Ultimate Battle 22, Budokai, Super DBZ
• Brawler: Supersonic Warriors
• Arena: The Legends, Tenkaichi, Zenkai Battle Royale, Battle of Z, Xenoverse
• Virtual: VRVS, Kinect

If you're including Legends in the Arena category then I don't see why Supersonic Warriors wouldn't also be there, likewise, Ultimate Battle 22 belongs in the Traditional category.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Infinite World.

[TenshinFan]

Am I really the only one who thinks Tenkaichi Budokai 3/Sparking Meteor was the best fighter? I like how it integrates DB and GT characters, as well as movie villains.

[Darknat]

Am I really the only one who thinks Tenkaichi Budokai 3/Sparking Meteor was the best fighter? I like how it integrates DB and GT characters, as well as movie villains.

You are not alone there. I still play it today on my ps2 and I still consider it better to any DB fighting game that came after it both as a fighting game and in presentation and content.

Sadly, they reworked the gameplay on the Raging Blast series and even though they are not bad games, I don't think they really improved the formula.

They should revive the Sparking series with the gameplay from Sparking Meteor, and a few new things from Raging Blast 1&2.


However, Sparking Meteor had it's flaws too,:
-The arenas textures didn't mesh well with the cell shading characters (DBSuper did a better job if memory serves).
-Most characters improved their moveset, but some of them seem to have been neglected (kid Trunks, Buu Saga Gohan, and Vegeta).
-Story mode misses several important battles. In my opinion they should have done a mix between Sparking Meteor and Sparking Neo story modes.
-A few abilities and special effects from Sparking neo were discarded (the melee attack from Sparking Neo that you do super fast on Sparking mode, or the smoke when Buu charges).
-Tournament mode was worse than in previous installments.

[Rostir]

Pre-post warning: I've included some high-level play and combo videos of the games I mentioned to ilustrate my points, please watch them to get a better understanding of what I'm talking about and because some of them are also super entertaining.

Tricky tricky question, we're in 2016 and just on fighting games alone, Dragon Ball has a huge list of them with varying types of gameplay that when put back to back makes some hard to judge against another, just on the 3D Fighter alone, the Budokai games play nothing like Super DBZ and on the 2D side, something like Hyper Dimension plays nothing like Extreme Butouden and so on.

With that said, we can judge all these games based on 2 things. 1: How good the gameplay mechanics are. 2: How these mechanics (when used properly) make the fights feel like the show.

For the most part, the majority of highly regarded games succeed in atleast one of those things, Hyper Dimension is good in that it's a solid fighter for the SNES (if not a little broken due to 100% stun combos and frametraps) but it lacks some of that over-the-top action from the same time period that the game represents. Extreme Butouden while being a bit simplier than HD manages to find a good balance between being a good fighter and also at representing the Dragon Ball fights on a 2D plane, (but dear god is it broken as balls due to the assists), so I can guess you could say that Extreme Butouden is a better DBZ fighting game than Hyper Dimension.

Budokai, on the other hand, felt like the best middle-ground between functionally and accessibility. Deep, but still capturing a lot of the flash and flair you'd expect of a DBZ fighter.

I completely disagree with this notion because unless you're spamming Dragon Rush and special moves 24/7, the Budokai series have almost nothing in common with the DBZ fights, IMO, High-Level Play of Budokai 3 is a uninsteresting happy-slaps fest up to eleven due the combo system (which is the most un-DBZ thing by the way) being the only thing that really matters with the neutral game being non-existant (specially in Infinite World with P+K being so dominant, along with other issues like specials moves only serving as combo finishers/filler). To make things worse they were finally starting to mix things up in Shin Budokai 2 with finally getting rid of P+K system and introducing the Aura Burst and all of its variations, you finally had more options in the fight (both offensively and defensively) than just aproaching and spamming jab only to discard most of the improvements in Burst Limit and IW.

As for the Tenkaichi/Sparking games, my opinion of them changed drastically over the years as I've started to understand how they really work. They aren't traditional fighters in any way, shape, or form but IMO that's the best thing that you can say about them. While the character roster isn't as varied as we'd like, the actual mechanics starting from Tenkaichi 2 add so much depth to the whole thing because of how good and fast the movement is, things like quick-stopping/rising/descending to move around your opponent, stepping-in to avoid a Rush Super, manual dashing instead of auto-dashing to get a normal hit during a pursuit instead of send-away blow, etc. are all interesting things that add up and man, it looks great in action. It may not have the most varied roster or the best combo system, but the freedom it gives you can't be surpassed, making it a great multiplayer experience.

PS: the Raging Blast games are a joke and it's ridiculous how they butched up the movement system as much as they did compared to the Sparking entries and while the offensive additions are nice (and the cancel/chain system in RB2 is pretty neat), they feel like a slog compared to BT3.

But you guys know me and of course I had to talk about Super DBZ in this thread. This one for me is the best, it takes some basic cues from traditinal 2D fighters (inputs,basic combo-system) and mixes it up by adding a lot of DBZ-flair creating a unique good experience, in a way, It's pretty much like Pokken Tournament in that it takes the premise from other well-known fighters, simplifies it and adds its own spin to make it unique.

Super Dragon Ball Z is a great fighting game but it didn't really feel like a DBZ fighter

Again, I completely disagree with you because Super DBZ is IMO the best representation of the best parts of DBZ fights on a 2.5D/3D plane in that there's going to be a lot of close quarters combat but you have to lookout for all the energy attacks as well, with no breaks in the action, and unlike the Budokai games, there's a consistent neutral game (first match illustrates my point) with jump-ins, the different dash-ins and pursuits serving as mix-ups to the ordinary melee attacks as offensive options and parrying (with it's own limitations otherwise it would make Supers useless) on the defensive side to keep things flowing, even the combo system while sure, a bit wierd and sometimes repetitive (take note that some of these would never happen in a real match) still do resemble something out of DBZ with all the flying and jumping around in them. Also, it is super hype.

TL;DR: You can't go wrong with Super DBZ and Tenkaichi 3.

Thank you, thank you

[dbs fanboy]

Budokai Tenkaichi 3!!!!!!!!, however, Budokai 3 would be near that level.

[Saiyan Soul]

Best fighter? Hmm, I'd have to go with Burst limit, it had it's flaws but it gave me such a rush. That and BT3, I'm starting to see RB2's potential now though.