Dragon Ball Z :
Budokai 3
Post Nostalgia #4
The still a little nostalgic Adolescence
Type of Game
The best possible and imaginable Dragon Ball gaming experience. Full stop. A concept that doesn't spark debate, but ends it.
release date on our machines
November 2004, well after Super Butoden 2 and its brilliant dialogues, well before Dokkan Battle and its... nothing.
Developer
Dimps Corporation, a studio that I imagine is doing rather well, responsible for lots of Dragon Ball games and lots of other stuff.
Publisher
Bandai S.A., which I imagine is in even better shape than Dimps. That's a fairly safe bet.
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3, unavailable anywhere? WHAT?? You could still buy it on the PlayStation Store in HD a few years ago. Another stab in the back to our fond memories.
During the four years I spent lazing around at university, I had to find something to keep me busy. Sometimes, parties and my PC weren't enough, and although I have no memory of when or how the PlayStation 2 arrived at my house (it wasn't mine anyway), I was determined to use it! All that remained was to find the game I was going to treat myself to for the occasion. Not the ones I had access to at Leyland Lampion's, like Burnout 2 or Final Fantasy X, since I already played those enough there. My head spun when I started looking, faced with a plethora of crazy games that promised me the most epic adventure of my life. And instead of choosing at random between four JRPGs, the genre I had decided to go for, I learned about Budokai 3. Well, first I learned about the 2, but with the information that the 3 had just been released. Thanks to my then-girlfriend's little brother. In the end, that was the only conversation I ever had with him that lasted more than three words. I hadn't touched a Dragon Ball game since Super Butoden 2 on Lionel Mortadelle's Super NES ten years earlier.
A rightful return to the roots
For a big fan of the related manga, cartoons, trading cards, magazine articles and all sorts of other goodies, it was a bit of a bummer! So I used this argument on me to convince myself that I was making the most logical choice in the world. Farewell Tales of, Star Ocean, Breath of Fire... Hello to being an even bigger DB universe groupie than before, much to the chagrin of many of my friends.
A profusion of punches
I still struggle to understand why I bought a fighting game, when I'd already had my fill on PS1 with Tekken 3, Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha and Rival Schools. But there you go. Since I was seven years old, Akira Toriyama's work has led me to make a whole bunch of regrettable decisions, decisions that I still make today, right Dokkan Battle? But hey, I admit that the cel-shaded graphics really appealed to me; I thought the technique was a great fit for Dragon Ball, as well as being innovative in 2004. In fact, I don't think there has been much progress in this area since then. But the almost entirely 2D perspective won me over, reminding me of the cherished hours spent playing good old fighting games. Let's call it 2.5D, because you can rotate the camera by taking small steps to the side, which adds a nice dynamic to the fights. The fights, by the way, are a slap in the face compared to the 16-bit era! The fast-paced gameplay makes poor Super Butoden look like a slow-motion cuddle fest.
And much easier to get to grips with, without becoming too difficult to master perfectly. Special attacks aren't launched at random, but with a simple button press after certain conditions have been met. And then you get to transform in the middle of the game! Talk about a Final Flash to the face! Goku can activate the Kaioken, then transform into Super Saiyan 1, 2, 3, 4, but also fuse DURING COMBAT into Gogeta, Vegetto or Gogeta Super Saiyan 4 (thank God Dragon Ball Super didn't exist yet)! Each form unlocks one or more associated techniques for even more style. Cell can evolve by absorbing C-17, then reach his perfect form, AND RETURN AS SUPER PERFECT CELL if he is knocked out. Can you believe how huge that is? I don't think so!
Not to mention the system of items that can be used during combat (including those that enable fusion or resurrection), destructible environments, energy battles when two waves of Ki collide, super special techniques, dodges that teleport you behind your target... it blew my mind for months. The story mode is also impressive. Not because it lets you relive most of the battles from the manga, anime and GT that we know better than our own family, but because it gives us the freedom to explore an open world however we want! Yes, our character flies from one destination to another, but we can take detours if we want, perhaps to complete a few side quests. At the time, I had set my mind on creating an ultra-comprehensive, ultra-stylish, and mega-impossible-to-achieve Dragon Ball RPG concept.
Well, I drew heavily on Budokai 3 to locate the important places on the map of Earth, but also on Namek! In fact, I had never seen a map of Namek before, which gave me immense satisfaction. And just when you think you're going to finish it quickly, no! Because the characters you play level up, and then you can spend the points you earn on the characteristics you prefer, such as strength, defence, special attack power, and item effectiveness. In fact, the protagonists have a set number of slots to carry these items. These take up more or less space depending on their usefulness, which opens up a whole range of crazy possibilities and tactics. In my case, I had built up a Freezer who couldn't transform, but who could almost kill anyone with a Death Beam ; you know, the ray he fires with a single finger.
​And if he died, he came back as Mecha Frieza. How cool is that! Dragon Ball + progression system = guaranteed addiction! I did the same with Cooler, who came back as Metal Cooler, and also Majin Vegeta, who blew up even more people than Frieza with his Atomic Blast (must be heard in English, with the most gravelly voice in the world). And that was it, I was hooked, just like I was hooked at ten years old in front of a pack of Power Level cards at your favourite newspaper stand.
Soundtrack from the Demon Realm
​The music alternates between heavy hard rock and funky house-style grooves. Generally speaking, the former accompanies combat and world exploration sequences, while the latter features in the menus. But sometimes this isn't the case, and you'll also come across other tracks that don't seem to fit in anywhere. In short, it's not particularly consistent, but you more or less get used to it. And then there's that very distinctive guitar riff style. It's so reminiscent of an anime theme tune, exuding nineties Japanese animation and games like Soul Blade or Bloody Roar 2, reminding me where I came from. Obviously, I would have preferred the real OST from the episodes and films. But hey. The fact that we poor little Europeans weren't allowed to hear the original Japanese voices also hurt my little Earthling heart, which was not at all trained by Master Roshi. Oh! This sacrilege is worse than addressing a Kaioshin informally! Give me Goku's shrill voice that never changed, Vegeta's crazy screams, and Frieza's awesome laugh! It's a shame I missed out on the total perfect because of that. I had just watched all the Dragon Ball Z DVDs in the original version, which is why I attached so much importance to it. I bought the DVD box set in China, just like Warcraft III, yeah yeah! I raided the pirated disc shops over there.
Goku Super Skynet 4
When all that remains is to advance our characters in the more or less infinite mode of chain battles, the game quickly turns into relatively tedious farming sessions. And to earn a slightly interesting amount of experience points, you have to fight increasingly difficult battles. After a while, the AI became untouchable; you needed a lot of luck to avoid being wiped out as soon as your opponent touched you once. And then he dodged everything, moved super fast and could take a hell of a pounding. I ended up getting tired of getting beaten up thirty times a day without being able to lift a finger. I felt like Krillin against Cell after he absorbed C-18, which, with a little imagination, pretty much summed up my love life at the time. Who coded an artificial intelligence with infinite destructive potential like that? Haven't you seen Terminator or something? You bunch of lunatics!
Come on, let's give it up! Later, I tried again with Budokai Tenkaichi 2 on Wii, but I didn't get into it as much, far from it. Too much 3D, fewer cool mechanics... and launching a Kamehameha by drawing an upside-down L in front of my nose with the Wiimote quickly got on my nerves. The same goes for FighterZ even later on. The old-school side-view fighting game formula suits me better than anything else that's been tried with the Dragon Ball licence since then. A Budokai 3 with its share of DLC to keep it up to date in terms of roster, cool new mechanics and minor visual fixes would have been more than enough to keep me happy for the next ten years. Bring me the Dragon Balls, damn it !
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