Dragon Ball Z (Budokai)

This page is incomplete. Kanzenshuu wiki team members are aware that they must edit this page to add missing information and complete it.

Dragon Ball Z
Japanese English "Dragon Ball Z" Title Screen
ドラゴンボールZ Doragon Bōru Zetto Dragon Ball Z: Budokai
Release Date	02 November 2002 (EU PS2) 03 December 2002 (US PS2) 13 February 2003 (JP PS2) 28 November 2003 (JP Gamecube) 28 January 2004 (US Gamecube)
Genre	Fighting
Price	¥6,800 + tax
Developer	Dimps
Producer	Daisuke Uchiyama
Music Composer(s)	Kenji Yamamoto
Playable Characters	23
Copies Shipped	570,000 (JP)
Copies Sold	3 million (World)

Dragon Ball Z, released internationally as Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, represents the franchise's first return to fighting games since 1997's Dragon Ball: Final Bout. The game's story and roster covers the Saiyan through Cell arcs of the franchise, roughly reflecting the ongoing airing of several international television series broadcasts.

All characters and environments are rendered in a fully 3D space, with battles generally taking place on a 2D field with the occasional dynamic camera angle. In addition to basic attacks such as punches, kicks, and energy blasts, players can perform special moves via specific button combinations, as well as super moves via similar button combinations with sufficient energy gathered.

Though the original three games were simply titled with the "Dragon Ball Z" moniker in Japan, the games received a "Budokai" subtitle branding internationally. This branding was subsequently used back in Japan as well as internationally for the two Dragon Ball Z: Shin Butoden games on the Sony PlayStation Portable. As such, the collective series is generally referred to as the "Budokai" game series by many fans for clarity purposes.

Dragon Ball Z was developed by Dimps, who would go on to develop additional games in the Dragon Ball Z ("Budokai") series, as well as Dragon Ball Z: Infinite World, Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit, and the Dragon Ball Heroes card-based arcade game series.

Planning for a new Dragon Ball game on the PlayStation 2 began as early as 2000, with an intended summer 2002 release date slipping to later that year; this placed the game squarely between the launch of the kanzenban and the first Dragon Box release in Japan, an unintended but highly beneficial timeframe.

Gameplay

Game Modes

• Battle (武闘伝 Butōden): story mode
• TBD

Story

Saiyan Arc

Episode Number	Portrait	Title	Summary
1		Include Japanese Title Mysterious Alien Attack!!	TBD
2		Include Japanese Title A Mutually Deadly Foe	TBD
3		Include Japanese Title Saiyan Attack!!	TBD
4		Include Japanese Title Goku's Quiet Fury	TBD
5		Include Japanese Title Super Duel	TBD
6		Include Japanese Title Show Gohan's True Power!	TBD
7		Include Japanese Title Vegeta, Saiyan Prince	TBD

 

Namek Arc

TBD

Artificial Human Arc

TBD

Playable Characters

Sprite	Name	Form	Notes	Status
	Son Goku	TBD	TBD	Immediately Available
	Son Gohan	TBD	TBD	Immediately Available
	Piccolo	TBD	TBD	Immediately Available
	Tenshinhan	TBD	TBD	Immediately Available
	Kuririn	TBD	TBD	Immediately Available
	Yamcha	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Vegeta	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Raditz	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Nappa	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Dodoria	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Zarbon	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Reacoom	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Captain Ginyu	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Freeza	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Trunks	TBD	TBD	TBD
	No. 19	TBD	TBD	TBD
	No. 18	TBD	TBD	TBD
	No. 17	TBD	TBD	TBD
	No. 16	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Cell	TBD	TBD	TBD
	Mr. Satan	TBD	TBD	TBD

Stages

• Wilderness (荒野 Kōya)

Icon	Name	Status
	Grasslands	Immediately Selectable
	World Martial Arts Tournament Arena	Immediately Selectable
	Room of Spirit And Time	Immediately Selectable
	Rock Mountain	-
	Cell Games Tournament Ring	-
	Planet Namek	-
	Valley Plains	-
	Islands	-
	God's Temple	-

Codes & Secrets

TBD

TBD

Theme Song

Dragon Ball Z's opening sequence featured a new, in-game, 3D rendering of "CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" along with the original version of the song itself performed by Hironobu Kageyama. While the opening animation was kept intact in America, the song was swapped to the 1996 FUNimation Dragon Ball Z English dub opening theme, "Rock the Dragon."

Soundtrack

The game's soundtrack was composed and arranged by Kenji Yamamoto. Tower of Power explanation here.

HD Collection re-release soundtrack information here.

Packaging

Dragon Ball Z PlayStation 2 edition instruction manual

Each territory received different cover artwork. America received red-toned cover featuring Super Saiyan Son Goku, Son Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, and Cell. Europe received a non-Super Saiyan Son Goku holding Nyoibō with a series of blue-toned characters lining the bottom (including Spopovitch, who does not appear in the game). Japan received an original illustration of Super Saiyan Son Goku; though only a portion of Goku's top half is present on the cover, a complete illustration was produced.

The Japanese version's instruction manual, both on the PlayStation 2 and Gamecube, is stylized to resemble a classic Dragon Ball tankōbon cover.

Merchandise

Original Soundtrack

A single-disc original soundtrack (KDSD-42), Dragon Ball Z & Z2, was released by... 19 January 2005 for ¥2,800 (tax-included) spanning 28 tracks and covering the first two games in the series. The composition/arrangement is credited to TBD, with...................... piano by Kentarō Haneda (track 5), performances by Y.S. Project (tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) and DBZ Orchestra (tracks 2, 10), guitar by Keisuke Murakami (tracks 1, 4, 5, 6), and soprano saxophone by Jake H. Concepcion (track 7).

Track	Title	Length
1	Light a Fire in your Smouldering Heart!!	#
2	Big Opportunity	#
3	Expectation	#
4	Like the Warm Winds	#
5	The Sprint Towards Victory	#
6	Move Forward Fearlessly	#
7	The Challengers	#
8	Breaking Free	#
9	Countdown to the Deciding Battle!	#
10	Time of Shudders	#
11	The Mightiest Power	#
12	BUDO～Asian Spirit～	#
13	FLaSH RuN aCRoSS THe UNiVeRSe	#
14	Spark of Fighting	#
15	A lot of 'Qi'	#
16	Go Beyond your Limits: The Limit of Ki	#
17	7th Sense: Believe in the Power of the Supreme	#
18	Encounter	#
19	Warrior from a Mysterious Land	#
20	The Battle with All my Force	#
21	Wild-Natured Spirit: Wild Soul	#
22	Soul Vaccination	#
23	Only So Much Oil In The Ground	#
24	Soul With A Capital 'S'	#
25	I'm Gonna Get Over: The Other Side of the Horizon	#
26	Do it at All Risks	#
27	Full of Tears: In the Depths of Sadness	#
28	The Man Called 'C'	#

Guide Book

TBD

Releases

PlayStation 2

Original Japanese Sony PlayStation 2 cover

Dragon Ball Z was initially released on the Sony PlayStation 2.

Nintendo Gamecube

Original Japanese Nintendo Gamecube cover

Dragon Ball Z was re-released on the Nintendo Gamecube the following year featuring a new variation on the cel-shaded graphics.

International Releases

The American and European markets provided additional, ongoing success to Bandai and associated parties throughout the lifecycle of the Sony PlayStation 2; all three games in the Dragon Ball Z mainline series released internationally ahead of their own domestic, Japanese release. These international editions took on the "Budokai" subtitle. All three main territories received different cover artwork, as well.

Jump Festa 2003

Title screen from the game's Jump Festa 2003 edition

A special edition of the game was available for attendees of Jump Festa 2003, held in December 2002. This version's title screen specifically includes the Jump Festa (ジャンプフェスタ, Janpu Fesuta) branding.

Domestic Media Coverage

• V-Jump, October 1993 issue, "ビッグタイトル疾風怒濤５大情報！！"
• TBD

Commercials & Trailers

• TBD

International Media Coverage

• Shonen Jump, January 2003 issue, "Video Games — Dragon Ball Z: Budokai"
• Electronic Gaming Monthly, January 2003 issue, "Preview - Dragon Ball Z: Budokai"
• Electronic Gaming Monthly, February 2003 issue, "Review - Dragon Ball Z: Budokai"
• Animerica, April 2003 issue, "Review - Dragon Ball Z: Budokai"

Legacy

Alongside the third game, the first Dragon Ball Z was included as part of the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai HD Collection in November 2012 in America and Europe; Japan did not receive a localized release. Aside from "Rock the Dragon" being kept as the opening theme song, the game's entire soundtrack was replaced. The HD Collection also retained some censorship previously only seen in the European edition of the game.

Additional Notes

Full body artwork of Son Goku used for the Dragon Ball Z Japanese cover art

In 2016's Dragon Ball 30th Anniversary: Super History Book, producer Daisuke Uchiyama stated that the company expected base sales due to nostalgia demand, as people who grew up with the series were coming of age with disposable income. Due to outside distributor demands, Bandai made international versions and were surprised with these sales, having initially figured that these would just be a bonus on top of what they sold in Japan. The game ended up selling around three million copies; as such, Goku was seen at Bandai as blazing a trail in their overseas business for the new generation of games and hardware.

The game's production was slow in its early days due to the development process not quite being in place yet; though the game was planned for release in summer 2002, its schedule kept slipping, eventually releasing internationally in late 2002 with a Japanese release in early 2003. The 3D cel-shading came out of their trying to find a way to make it feel more like Dragon Ball. At the time there was not a lot of information about how to achieve that type of result, and so the team would make three differently shaded versions of the characters and combine those; this amounted to three times the work and three times the cost. Uchiyama and the development team felt the final 3D models were better for it compared to what they started with, and the end product, particularly by the time Dragon Ball Z 3 was developed, showed a night and day improvement that speaks for itself even today.

Though only a cropped portion of the image was used in the final product, a full body drawing of Son Goku used for the game's Japanese cover art was in fact produced.

Bandai's advertisements for the game went for a sense of speed with characters like Freeza and Cell, and used a minimalist approach in its posters; it had been some time since Dragon Ball was in the public consciousness, so they saw this as fanning the anticipation among people ahead of the game's release. Some advertisements that focused on ideas that would create an impact and strike but were ultimately not used included a black-and-white close up of hands doing the Kamehameha, as well as a mock quiz asking readers to fill in the box for the missing part of a bowl of rice (representing "Gohan") pointing to an empty space and then pointing down to to bread (representing "Pan").

Game Credits

• Executive Producer: 平野 雄二
• Chief Producer: 宮河 恭夫
• Producer: Toshihiro Suzuki
• Chief Director: 島田 晋作
• Coordinator: 飛天 一助
• Game Design: 久保田 昭史, 田島 昭司, 清水 厚二, 竹花 欣也
• Programming: まるこ父, JCパジャマズ, まるこ
• Graphic Design: 玉井 裕和, 高橋 雅行, 荒井 翔子, M.柏木, ボージャック鈴木, ザンギャそば, TAKO仙人, 服部 大三郎
• Toei Animation: Kōzō Morishita, Sei'ichi Hiruta
• Scenario Draft: Takao Koyama, Sumio Uetake
• Sound Work: Kenji Yamamoto, SWITCH・E, Kumatarou
• Battle Character Base Drawings: Tadayoshi Yamamuro, Naoki Miyahara, Hideko Okimoto, Akemi Seki, Naotoshi Shida, Yukio Ebisawa, Kazuya Hisada, Tai'ichirō Ohara, Satoru Iriyoshi, Takashi Nashizawa
• Assistant Work: 渡辺 浩孝, 清水 泰臣, 磯貝 健夫, 金子 孝治, 麻生 佳子, 亀 えりか, 檜桓 賢一, どんきー

External Links

Dragon Ball Z - Official Bandai Games Page Mirror