Super Dragon Ball Z (PlayStation 2)

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Super Dragon Ball Z
Japanese English "Super Dragon Ball Z" Title Screen
超ドラゴンボールZ Sūpā Doragon Bōru Zetto Super Dragon Ball Z
Release Date	29 June 2006 (JP PS2) 18 July 2006 (US PS2) 28 July 2006 (EU PS2)
Genre	Fighting
Developer	Arika, Crafts & Meister
Producer	Noritaka Funamizu
Playable Characters	18
Copies Shipped	? (JP)
Copies Sold	? (World)

Super Dragon Ball Z for the Sony PlayStation 2 is a 2006 home console port of the game of the same name originally released to arcades the previous year. As opposed to the "Budokai" and "Sparking!" series, the gameplay adheres even more closely to that of other traditional, competitive fighting games, focusing exclusively on arcade and versus modes.

All characters and environments are rendered in a fully 3D space. 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.

Super Dragon Ball Z was developed by Arika and Crafts & Meister, with Akira Nishitani and Noritaka Funamizu serving as their respective companies' key development figures.

Game Modes

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

Playable Characters

Sprite	Name	Form	Notes	Status
	Son Goku	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Vegeta	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Kuririn	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Piccolo	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Son Gohan	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Freeza	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Trunks	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	No. 18	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	No. 17	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	No. 16	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Cell	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Chi-Chi	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Boo	n/a	Description	Immediately selectable
	Mecha Freeza	n/a	Description	Unlockable
	Demon King Piccolo	n/a	Description	Unlockable
	Son Gohan	n/a	Adolescent	Unlockable
	Majin Vegeta	n/a	Description	Unlockable
	Videl	n/a	Description	Unlockable

Stages

• Wilderness (荒野 Kōya)

Codes & Secrets

TBD

TBD

Theme Song

Super Dragon Ball Z's opening sequence features in-engine displays of character movements accompanied by Hironobu Kageyama's "CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA (2005 ver.)" as a theme song. While the opening animation was kept intact in America, the song was swapped to a new instrumental piece.

Soundtrack

The game's soundtrack was composed and arranged by...

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

Guide Book

TBD

Releases

Following its original arcade release, Super Dragon Ball Z was exclusively released on the PlayStation 2. The game has received no subsequent re-releases or remasters, though it was included as part

International Releases

Title screen from the game's French localization, La Légende Saien

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.

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"

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

Original Nintendo Super Famicom box

• 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