Best Dragon Ball Z Games of All Time
5. Dragon Ball FighterZ
DBZ has released dozens of games over the years. Some good. Some bad. But with the release of FighterZ now seems like a good time to look back at some of the best Dragon Ball Z games of all time. Starting with none other than FighterZ itself.
With the release of Dragon Ball FighterZ, there’s been a lot of hype around the series lately. Not too surprising considering, just how important the franchise is in anime; but what is also surprising is just how much of a prolific video game franchise it has been.
Despite having literally dozens of fighting games split across several different console generations and series, the franchise has had shockingly few “good” fighting games.
This isn’t to say the games are bad at all, but they often lack the depth or nuance that comes with most other fighters out there. Street Fighter, Tekken, even Smash Bros has a lot of technical skill involved, but Dragon Ball?
A lot of their games were pretty simple and unbalanced when all is said and done.
Then comes FighterZ, a game built not only to be accessible, but rewarding to the technically skilled players as well.
It’s a game filled with fanservice, an excellent fighting system, and a surprisingly robust story mode. It’s very likely that in the long run FighterZ is gonna become a standout among Dragon Ball games. Possibly even the best, but let’s let some more time pass before crowning it.
Best Dragon Ball Z Games of All Time
4. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
Speaking of goofy fun, next up we have Xenoverse 2. The Xenoverse series takes the what-if scenarios that have been recurrent in Dragon Ball games for decades and just builds a whole game around it.
While most of the ideas and concepts have their origins in Dragon Ball Online, it was the original Xenoverse that first brought that fun of creating your own original character and fighting through the franchise history with their own unique spins on how things could have played out.
However, note that this is Xenoverse 2. That’s because while the first game was a beloved hit with the fans, it did have a number of issues that stopped it from being truly great.
Issues that, thankfully, were ironed out in the sequel. Better combat, more customization options, more characters, moves, levels, it was just Xenoverse 1, plus more.
Best Dragon Ball Z Games of All Time
3. Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans
If you’ve actually heard of or played this game before then hats off to you. Attack of the Saiyans is one of the hidden gems of Dragon Ball games.
Originally released on the Nintendo DS, it was a JRPG that retold the story of the Saiyan Saga and had you controlling a number of the Z Fighters including Goku, Gohan, Krillin, Yamcha, and more.
Despite only covering one saga of the series, Attack of the Saiyans actually gets a lot of mileage out of the setting.
The world is rife with nods and allusions to the delightfully bizarre world and the combat is made incredibly fun with some truly impressive animations and sprite work.
By being a JRPG it also manages to offer up a style of Dragon Ball game you don’t really get to see, making it not only unique but worth checking out for any serious fans out there.
Best Dragon Ball Z Games of All Time
2. Dragon Ball Z: Buu’s Fury
Oh hey, another classic Dragon Ball game on a handheld with RPG mechanics, how about that?
All jokes aside, Buu’s Fury is a fantastic game. It’s technically the third game in the Legacy of Goku franchise – top-down action RPGs that had you take control of the Z Fighters and fight your way through all of Dragon Ball Z.
The games got progressively better, soon developing its own unique and enjoyable combat system that allowed you to punch and blast your way through damn near everything.
The big thing that separated Buu’s Fury from its predecessor, however, was the customization options.
This was the game that allowed you to equip different items, allocate stats, and just make your characters into completely different builds for tons of replay value.
On top of that, the game featured a ton of side content for a GBA game with an incredibly robust post-game that kept people playing for hours on end. It was also just really charming to see the Buu Saga told with 16-bit sprites. Complete with MIDI versions of the iconic Bruce Falconer tracks and all.
Best Dragon Ball Z Games of All Time
1. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3
At last we come to the best Dragon Ball game, and really, what else could it have been?
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 is considered by many to be DBZ gaming at its finest. Before FighterZ this was the game everyone pointed to, and with good reason. Budokai 3 was the first game that really established what modern games from the franchise would become.
It was the first console game to cover the entirety of Dragon Ball Z, and even bits of GT for good measure. Its story mode was robust and featured a fully-explorable open world complete with hidden items, battles, and alternate storylines you could use to progress the game in new ways.
It also featured the most refined combat the Budokai series had ever seen up to that point, taking cues from the two previous games and cranking up the action and style to 11.
Combat was fast, responsive, and most of all it just looked really cool and fun to play. This game came out right at the peak of the show’s original run in the West and it not only captured everything the fans loved, but it set the bar for games from the franchise going forward.
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