Dragon Ball Z (Budokai)

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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

Unlike prior Dragon Ball fighting games, combat in Dragon Ball Z isn't limited to two-dimensional space, with players able to sidestep around their opponents to position and avoid attacks. Standard attacks are divided between punch, kick and energy attacks which each share a designated button on the controller along with the 'guard' command. Each player also has an energy meter, which can either be charged or increased by attacking the opponent. Players can trigger a transformation, or execute Special attacks by inputting the correct sequence of commands, provided the player has enough energy.

Dragon Ball Z also utilizes a customization system, which allows players to equip characters with up to 7 "Capsules" that grant the characters new abilities such as special attacks and transformations. Capsules are divided into three categories, "Ability" (能力), "Physical" (体術) and "Support" (能力). The strength of certain capsules can be increased by attaching multiple to the character. Capsules are able to be traded between players using the PlayStation 2 or GameCube's Memory Card.

Game Modes

• Story Mode: Fight across the story of Dragon Ball Z from the Saiyan Arc to Cell Arc, along with special "What-If" side stories.
• Duel: Fight against another player/computer, or watch two computers fight each other.
• World Tournament: Fight your way up a tournament bracket to become World Martial Arts champion and earn prizes.
• Practice: Practice your skills in the game.
• Skill Edit: Attach skill capsules to fighters to grant new moves and transformations.
• Legend of Mr. Satan: Defeat all the fighters at the Cell Games as Mr. Satan while undergoing a gauntlet of different handicaps.

Story

Saiyan Arc

Episode Number	Portrait	Title	Summary
1		謎の異星人戦士来襲！ Mysterious Alien Attack!!	Battles: Goku vs. Raditz
2		Include Japanese Title A Mutually Deadly Foe	Battles: Piccolo vs. Raditz
3		Include Japanese Title Saiyan Attack!!	Battles: Piccolo vs. Saibaimen (x6) Piccolo vs. Nappa
4		孫悟空の静かな怒り Goku's Quiet Fury	Battles: Goku vs. Nappa
5		Include Japanese Title Super Duel	Battles: Goku vs. Vegeta
6		見せろ！悟飯の底力 Show Gohan's True Power!	Battles: Gohan vs. Vegeta
7		Include Japanese Title Vegeta, Saiyan Prince	Special 'What-If' episode, depicting the scenario where Vegeta defeats Earth's fighters. Health does not recover between matches. Ends with Vegeta turning Super Saiyan after being enraged by Yajirobe. Battles: Vegeta vs. Goku Vegeta vs. Kuririn Vegeta vs. Gohan

 

Namek Arc

Episode Number	Portrait	Title	Summary
1		Include Japanese Title Let's Go to Namek!	Players go through a series of trials that aim to teach core game mechanics as Goku approachs Namek. Ends with battle against a 'virtual' Vegeta Battles: Goku vs. Vegeta
2		ベジータ快進撃！ Vegeta's Attack	Battles: Vegeta vs. Zarbon Vegeta vs. Reacoom
3		悟空、到着！ Goku's Arrival	Battles: Goku vs. Reacoom Goku vs. Ginyu Ginyu vs. Goku
4		Include Japanese Title The Road to Super Saiyan	Battles: Vegeta vs. Freeza (First Form)
5		Include Japanese Title Freeza? Or Vegeta?	Battles: Vegeta vs. Freeza (Final Form)
6		悟空、復活!! Goku's Revival!	Battles: Goku vs. Freeza (Final Form)
7		Include Japanese Title The Legendary Super Saiyan	Battles: Goku (Super Saiyan) vs. Freeza (Final Form)
8		静かなる激闘 A Quiet But Fierce Battle	Battles: Goku (Super Saiyan) vs. Freeza (100% Final Form)
9		Include Japanese Title Raging Freeza	Special story scenario depicting Freeza's battles on Namek from his perspective Battles: Freeza vs. Gohan Freeza vs. Piccolo Freeza (Final Form) vs. Vegeta
10		Include Japanese Title The True Ruler	Special 'What-If' episode depicting the scenario where Freeza defeats Goku on Namek Battles: Freeza (100% Final Form) vs. Goku (Super Saiyan)

 

Artificial Human Arc

Episode Number	Portrait	Title	Summary
1		Include Japanese Title A New Threat	Battles: Goku (Super Saiyan) vs. Artifical Human No. 19
2		超サイヤ人ベジータ Super Saiyan Vegeta	Battles: Vegeta (Super Saiyan) vs. No. 19 Vegeta (Super Saiyan) vs. No. 18
3		Include Japanese Title A Wicked Omen	Battles: Piccolo vs. Cell
4		忍び寄るセル Sneaky Cell	Battles: Piccolo vs. No. 17
5		Include Japanese Title Vegeta's Confidence	Battles: Super Vegeta vs. Cell (Second Form)
6		セルの完全体完成!! Perfect Form Cell Complete!!	Battles: Super Vegeta vs. Cell (Perfect)
7		Include Japanese Title Cell's game begins	Battles: Goku (Super Saiyan) vs. Cell (Perfect)
8		悟空を超えた戦士 A Warrior Beyond Goku	Battles: Gohan (Super Saiyan) vs. Cell (Perfect)
9		Include Japanese Title Gohan Explodes!!	Battles: Gohan (Super Saiyan 2) vs. Cell Jr. (x7) Gohan (Super Saiyan 2) vs. Cell (Perfect)
10		最後の決戦!! The Final Battle!!	Battles: Gohan (Super Saiyan 2) vs. Cell (Perfect, Power Form)
11		目指せ！完全体 Aim For Perfect Form!	Special story episode where Cell attempts to absorb No 18. Ends with Cell accidently absorbing Kuririn. Battles: Cell (Second Form) vs. No. 16 Cell (Second Form) vs. Kuririn
12		恐るべき刺客 A Cold-Blooded Assassin	Special 'What-If' episode depicting the scenario where Cell fights against an enraged Yamcha after accidently absorbing Kuririn Battles: Cerurin vs. Yamcha

 

Playable Characters

Portrait	Name	Forms	Techniques	Status
	Son Goku	Kaio-Ken x2 Kaio-Ken x5 Kaio-Ken x10 Super Saiyan	Kamehameha Teleportation Kamehameha Rapid Fire Kamehameha Genki-Dama Zanku-Fist Dragon Throw Super Dragon Fist	Immediately Available
	Son Gohan	Potential Unlocked Super Saiyan Super Saiyan 2 Great Saiyaman	TBD	Immediately Available
	Piccolo	Fuse with Nail Fuse with Kami	TBD	Immediately Available
	Tenshinhan	-	Kikōhō Dodonpa Volleyball Fist Consecutive Fist Machine Gun Fist	Immediately Available
	Kuririn	Potential Unlocked	Kamehameha Kienretsuzan Zanku-Fist Fierce Continuous Fist Continuous Strike	Immediately Available
	Yamcha	-	Kamehameha Wolf Fang Fist Wolf Fang Ki Blast Wolf Slice Fist Tiger Strike	TBD
	Vegeta	Super Saiyan Super Vegeta	Galic Cannon Final Flash Big Bang Attack Final Bride Meteor Flash Nosedive Crash Meteor Break	TBD
	Raditz	-	Double Sunday Saturday Crush Exciting Year Weekly Special Day Crush Dynamite Monday	TBD
	Nappa	-	Break Cannon Deluxe Bomber Giant Attack Megaton Throw Breakstorm	TBD
	Dodoria	-	Dodoria Beam Dodoria Ultra Spike Dodoria Big Blaster Dodoria Typhoon	TBD
	Zarbon	Monster Form	Possibile Cannon Hyper Elegant Magnum Super Beautiful Arrow Missing Screw Extra Graceful Cannon	TBD
	Reacoom	-	Reacoom Eraser Gun Reacoom Bomber Reacoom Buster Magnum Reacoom Maximum Vulcan Reacoom Hyper Swing Special Fighting Pose 3 Special Fighting Pose 4	TBD
	Captain Ginyu	-	Milky Cannon Body Change Processed Power Crush Parmesan Shower Ginyu Strike Ginyu Special Special Fighting Pose 1 Special Fighting Pose 2	TBD
	Freeza	Final Form 100% Power Mecha-Freeza	Death Beam Death Ball Killer Ball Freeza Nightmare Meteor Crash Evil Dance	TBD
	Trunks	Super Saiyan Super Trunks Super Trunks 2	Buster Cannon Finish Buster Burning Attack Blast Attack Energy Burst Rapid Fall Slash Meteor Break	TBD
	No. 19	-	Photon Shot Drain Life Power Break Rolling Crush Cybernetic Pain	TBD
	No. 18	-	Power Blitz Energy Field Power Strike Power Falling Star Buster Swing	TBD
	No. 17	-	Power Blitz Energy Field Power Strike Power Falling Star Buster Swing	TBD
	No. 16	-	Rocket Punch Hell Flash Devil Crush Killing Neck Throw Finishing Splash	TBD
	Cell	Second Form Perfect Form Perfect Form (Power)	Kamehameha Ultimate Attack Genki-Dama Negative Power Rain Cybernetic Raider Lasso	TBD
	Mr. Satan	High Tension	Dynamite Kick Satan Special Present For You Satan Critical Attack Satan Miracle Bomber Satan Ultra Dynamite	TBD

Stages

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!!	1:35
2	Big Opportunity	5:20
3	Expectation	1:07
4	Like the Warm Winds	2:31
5	The Sprint Towards Victory	4:06
6	Move Forward Fearlessly	2:05
7	The Challengers	1:48
8	Breaking Free	2:15
9	Countdown to the Deciding Battle!	1:30
10	Time of Shudders	2:22
11	The Mightiest Power	2:41
12	BUDO～Asian Spirit～	1:45
13	FLaSH RuN aCRoSS THe UNiVeRSe	1:35
14	Spark of Fighting	1:47
15	A lot of 'Qi'	1:50
16	Go Beyond your Limits: The Limit of Ki	1:45
17	7th Sense: Believe in the Power of the Supreme	1:38
18	Encounter	1:55
19	Warrior from a Mysterious Land	1:44
20	The Battle with All my Force	4:12
21	Wild-Natured Spirit: Wild Soul	2:30
22	Soul Vaccination	2:49
23	Only So Much Oil In The Ground	2:50
24	Soul With A Capital 'S'	2:35
25	I'm Gonna Get Over: The Other Side of the Horizon	2:19
26	Do it at All Risks	2:25
27	Full of Tears: In the Depths of Sadness	4:25
28	The Man Called 'C'	3:19

Guide Book

An official Dragon Ball Z guidebook was published by Shueisha and released in Japan on 13 February 2003 for a retail price of ¥1,000.

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

Dragon Ball Z - Official DVD Promotional Preview (JPN)

Dragon Ball Z - TV CM 1 & 2 (JPN)

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai - TV CM 1

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai - TV CM 2

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