DBZ Budokai HD Collection: Official On-Going Thread

[dbboxkaifan]

Although, Dragon Soul has appeared in Japanese Ultimate Blast as a select-able BGM.

Oh, yes, I remember hearing Dragon Soul intrumental-only during the credits' ending of Ultimate Blast video. It was a cool way of closing the game up.

Edit: They first play Dragon Soul and then DBGT's OP.

[theoriginalbilis]

Playthroughs of Budokai 3's (HD Collection) Dragon Universe story mode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfKuEyVFZ8g (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHcvM4Xj1zA (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mzvauchw9U (Part 3)

I'm going to be honest, folks. The music placement isn't half bad in my opinion. It's a shame that the Yamamoto compositions couldn't still be used, but the replacement music is perfectly serviceable. Also, gameplay should be the main reason folks play a game for, not just the music. The only music I've outright disliked so far is the new song created for Budokai 3's opening. It sounds cheap and terrible. I am glad that I still own the original games, but this'll be fun to revisit for the achievements at least.

[VegettoEX]

If it were pretty much any other DBZ game, I'd say a similar thing about the music.

The Budokai games were different, though. They were the first real trek back into the video game world for the franchise after the break in 1997 (semi-ignoring Legendary Super Warriors), and music was hugely integral to the... I dunno what to call it... "composition process" for these games. Beyond bringing Hironobu Kageyama back (specifically in the second game, but also again in the third), bringing in Tower of Power to do the horns, bringing in Steve Lukather to do the guitars, it was just a HUGE deal that so many people of such high caliber were being brought in to direct the sound design.

The music was a bigger part of the experience in those three games than they ever were in any other DBZ game. And this is coming from a guy who bows at the feet of the Super Butōden 2 soundtrack.

[SparkyPantsMcGee]

If it were pretty much any other DBZ game, I'd say a similar thing about the music.

The Budokai games were different, though. They were the first real trek back into the video game world for the franchise after the break in 1997 (semi-ignoring Legendary Super Warriors), and music was hugely integral to the... I dunno what to call it... "composition process" for these games. Beyond bringing Hironobu Kageyama back (specifically in the second game, but also again in the third), bringing in Tower of Power to do the horns, bringing in Steve Lukather to do the guitars, it was just a HUGE deal that so many people of such high caliber were being brought in to direct the sound design.

The music was a bigger part of the experience in those three games than they ever were in any other DBZ game. And this is coming from a guy who bows at the feet of the Super Butōden 2 soundtrack.

I'm going to have to second this. The soundtrack for the first three Budokai games really stands out to me. It pretty much goes hand and hand with the gameplay, and watching some of these videos with the "wrong" music is kind of awkward. I feel like most of the music from Tenkaichi onward was just meaningless background noise, while I've managed to get the original Budokai tracks stuck in my head a few times. I'd almost call some of these tracks iconic if Yamamoto didn't "borrow" elements from Stratovarius and other artists.

[GogetaSSJ2]

Playthroughs of Budokai 3's (HD Collection) Dragon Universe story mode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfKuEyVFZ8g (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHcvM4Xj1zA (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mzvauchw9U (Part 3)

I'm going to be honest, folks. The music placement isn't half bad in my opinion. It's a shame that the Yamamoto compositions couldn't still be used, but the replacement music is perfectly serviceable. Also, gameplay should be the main reason folks play a game for, not just the music. The only music I've outright disliked so far is the new song created for Budokai 3's opening. It sounds cheap and terrible. I am glad that I still own the original games, but this'll be fun to revisit for the achievements at least.

I agree. The replacement music is decent, some of the tracks are from Tag vs Tenkaichi, I liked some of the tracks from that game. I know there is the option to switch out the music yourself, but I don't want to deal with the hassle of going to the dashboard of the xbox 360 or ps3 at the end of each fight and change the song accordingly to each stage.......it just becomes so tedious and unnecessary after a while. I just want to play the game.

[theoriginalbilis]

The music was a bigger part of the experience in those three games than they ever were in any other DBZ game.

I agree with you on the fact that the Budokai soundtrack was excellent and pretty much surpassed all of the previous games in terms of retaining the feel of DBZ, while at the same time modernizing the music and adding some new spice into the library of DBZ game music (i.e, jazz, electronica, and metal.) Outside of the Kikuchi score, I feel that Yamamoto's music best represents what DBZ is all about, especially in the Budokai series. The first things that come to my mind when someone says "Budokai" are the excellent opening themes.

There is a definite loss of authenticity now that the music has been replaced. I felt my point was that if I had to pick between a good game and a good soundtrack, I'll go with the good game in this case. Although, I think we can all agree on the fact that the HD Collection lacking any kind of online mode is basically a cardinal sin for a fighting game being released in 2012. If games from over 10 years ago (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Marvel vs Capcom, KOF) can be graced with online fighting, why can't the two best-selling DBZ games of all time get the same treatment?

[NintendoBlaze53]

So I've got the game I'm up to frezza from what I can tell the music's from BT2, BT3, RB & UT but mainly BT2 & UT.
Also you CAN play custom music even during Cutscenes

[Cold Skin]

To me, the scores for Budokai 1 or Budokai 3 don't stand out so much.

Some of them were absolutely great (and sometimes not even used on the actual game or - on the contrary - not included on the OST), like Challengers, Encounter, Daybreak Battle or Cha-La Head-Cha-La's new instrumental... I often play those kind of great tracks!
But 80% of the tracks are just ones I don't even bother listening to. At least, Ultimate Tenkaichi has this number down to 50%. Now I'm worried for the other games involved. I hope they won't take mostly the rough "bad ass" rock songs, but rather focus on the epic, heroic, sad and joyful side of the various OSTs to match the story correctly.

What's important to me is the sense of freshness that this replaced score is going to provide for what is a "mere" HD collection.
Rediscovering your game in HD and with trophies is fine, but discovering all-new elements for the first time is better, it makes you eager and more excited to progress through the game and discover how scenes will be scored, especially when you have an idea of the tracks that might be used.

There's just more novelty with a replaced score, which was one of the strong points of Kai.
To me, it's one of the things that'll make me buy that collection, whereas I might have not bought it without that actual "new" element that could magnify the games' story modes.
There's no point in releasing something if it's (mostly) exactly the same than before. There's got to be something big changed to justify the interest of a new release, and that's the case here.

[LeprikanGT]

Am I the only one thats wanted the music from the show in the games instead of made up music? If I'm PLAYING my favorite show, I want it to SOUND like it.

[Cold Skin]

Am I the only one thats wanted the music from the show in the games instead of made up music? If I'm PLAYING my favorite show, I want it to SOUND like it.

I'd rather not if it was the old Kikuchi score. This upscaled game needs to feel new, not old (it already is old enough as it is even when upscaled, so if you put music that sounds flat old with it...).

If it was the Kai score, sure, why not? But with all the battles the player is gonna live, I don't think there'd be enough up-tempo tracks in that OST to keep up...

Speaking of made-up music, I hope they find a decent place to put Dark Half from Budokai Tenkaichi 2, it's not everyday that you have a Kingdom Hearts 2-like "final battle" music, putting an emphasis on that decisive moment by cutting any rhythm and just having an ominous "the fate of the world is being decided right now" track playing.
Why not when Super Saiyan Goku fights Freezer in the middle of the apocalyptic Namek? Or for the final battle with Gohan and Cell, I guess... But I'd rather have it to the Namek battle, as the context is actually the "end of the world" for real and would match the song perfectly.

[dbboxkaifan]

I agree with you on the fact that the Budokai soundtrack was excellent and pretty much surpassed all of the previous games in terms of retaining the feel of DBZ, while at the same time modernizing the music and adding some new spice into the library of DBZ game music (i.e, jazz, electronica, and metal.) Outside of the Kikuchi score, I feel that Yamamoto's music best represents what DBZ is all about, especially in the Budokai series. The first things that come to my mind when someone says "Budokai" are the excellent opening themes.

Outside Kikuchi's music, Yamamoto was definitely the one that brought the closest DB-feeling to the games.

I know there is the option to switch out the music yourself, but I don't want to deal with the hassle of going to the dashboard of the xbox 360 or ps3 at the end of each fight and change the song accordingly to each stage.......it just becomes so tedious and unnecessary after a while. I just want to play the game.

Pressing the Xbox Home button and clicking to change to the next/previous song really doesn't take that a lot amount of time. Pretty quick actually, personally.

Am I the only one thats wanted the music from the show in the games instead of made up music? If I'm PLAYING my favorite show, I want it to SOUND like it.

I've always wanted so to fix it, I changed the music on Burst Limit, Raging Blast 1 and Raging Blast 2 with Kikuchi's soundtrack.

I'd rather not if it was the old Kikuchi score. This upscaled game needs to feel new, not old (it already is old enough as it is even when upscaled, so if you put music that sounds flat old with it...).

Dragon Ball Kai used the original unchanged tracks, whereas the video games had synthesized versions.

Here's an example of the Synthesized Kikuchi tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBF3540tHSs

The Japanese DBZ games from BT1 to Ultimate Blast all had Kikuchi's music.

[LeprikanGT]

...Was refering to Faulconer's English themes of awesomeness.

[theoriginalbilis]

...Was refering to Faulconer's English themes of awesomeness.

Outside of an American-produced DBZ game (Legacy of Goku/Buu's Fury, etc...), that score will never be used in any game. It's not really known about or well-regarded in the non-English speaking DBZ communities. That, and FUNimation doesn't deal with Faulconer Productions anymore either. It would definitely be interesting to hear in a console game though, I know of some modded DBZ games (ROMs/digital downloads mostly) where people have replaced the Budokai/Tenkaichi scores with the Faulconer or Kikuchi music.

[InfernalVegito]

Am I the only one thats wanted the music from the show in the games instead of made up music? If I'm PLAYING my favorite show, I want it to SOUND like it.

No you're not. I never really cared much for the made up replacement. Although some tracks do make me nostalgic very much and I appreciate and love them for this. Other than that I always envied the Japanese audience for the show's real score in their games.

[Insertclevername]

Yeah, the Kikuchi score would be great! Too bad we probably won't see a NA or PAL release ever with music like that. Best stick with imports.

[dbboxkaifan]

A while back I read on these forums AB Groupe had the licence rights to Kikuchi's music but seriously, what for? They make no use of it, except for Dragon Ball series and whatnot in France.

Unreleased video game soundtracks some of you might want while playing this game. Weren't uploaded by me (nor do I use MediaFire any more).

Ultimate Blast - Kikuchi & Takaki music
Pt. 1 > http://www.mediafire.com/?cdi94o5ab20j9ml
Pt. 2 > http://www.mediafire.com/?gdc833b7gmebync

Dragon Ball Z - Budokai 1
http://www.mediafire.com/?2ln5bj7e50taw1m

Dragon Ball Z - Budokai 1 (Bonus Tracks)
http://www.mediafire.com/?gc1tz0xrdnyn477

Dragon Ball Z - Budokai 2
Pt. 1 > http://www.mediafire.com/?euqe5ob2krhz9qk
Pt. 2 > http://www.mediafire.com/?cp1fh645ia8wwee

Dragon Ball Z - Budokai 3
Pt. 1 > http://www.mediafire.com/?l00qf4mmpxxc8xx
Pt. 2 > http://www.mediafire.com/?0mgx3917172l5m5

[kei17]

A while back I read on these forums AB Groupe had the licence rights to Kikuchi's music but seriously, what for? They make no use of it, except for Dragon Ball series and whatnot in France.

Unreleased video game soundtracks some of you might want while playing this game. Weren't uploaded by me (nor do I use MediaFire any more).

*snip*

Thanks for the links, but they all sound badly raspy because of being inappropriately downsampled to 44,100 Hz.

[dbboxkaifan]

Try this blog http://soundtrackheaven.co.cc/search/?q=budokai it has the audio game rips in FLAC.

Seems unnecessary for gamerips to be in FLAC format but who knows maybe it takes use of the lossless audio codec.

I got BT2 and BT3 OST from this blog they sound better than the average audio tracks available on the internet but has the PS2 audio limitations of sounding crystal clear.

[Cold Skin]

I have the game and have played a few stories on Budokai 3 so far, si here are a few pieces of info (though I guess you can figure it out by checking Youtube videos):

- Most of the menus and 2D graphics (for example when characters talk in story mode) have an amazingly better resolution. Only little weakness I've seen so far is in the writings in the speach bubbles and when they sum up the story at the beginning and end of each arc (those fonts have a poor resolution, letting a lot of ugly pixels appear, especially for the latter).

- The 3D graphics look great in high definition, and it was not just upscaled, there is a special glowing effect applied and better lighting in general. It all looks very nice (comparison videos are available on Youtube, and even without putting the video on full screen, you can tell this collection has much more "complete" graphics, the old version seems very simple in comparison).

- The replacement music is very good in my opinion, the tracks showing up on the map or during the menus are appropriate, and the guys seem to have selected some of the most recognizable and appropriate tracks of all the soundtrack library they had access to. So far, special congrats for the "epilogue text" music which gave me chills, fitting very well for telling the happy ending to a specific destiny.

- Unless my memory fails me, loading times are much faster. By getting crazy on your controller, you can maybe make 5 Saibaimen appear at most (5 seconds loading approximately). I don't think it's possible anymore to have the red Saibaiman showing up, then.

[Hellspawn28]

I still don't why people think that they fuck up the PS2 comparison screen shots when they don't look much different from any normal screen shot on places like Gamespot and IGN. The HD version of Budokai 1 looks much better given that it looks cleaner and smother. I remember the graphics for Budokai 1 look bad even back in 2002 when I first played it around December 2002. Budokai 1 came out the same time as games like Morrowind and Tekken 4, and those games look much better looking IMO.