Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3

aka: Dragon Ball Z Sparking! Meteor
Moby ID: 40017
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is a 1vs1 fighting game based on the anime/manga Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama. It includes the apocalyptic battles and the essence of the Dragon Ball series following the main story of the popular manga. As in the previous games of the series, you'll have to select your character (over 162 characters with their own movements and combos) and fight against a friend or the computer in many different game modes with many different stages and weather/time conditions.

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is the third game of the Budokai Tenkaichi series and features some new things like new characters, Battle Replay to capture your fights and save them to a SD card, night and day stages for more accurate battles following the history made by Akira Toriyama and a Disc Fusion to unlock new modes with the need of previously released games Budokai Tenkaichi and Budokai Tenkaichi 2. There are also new combos and movements as well as the possibility to take control of the Giant Apes for the Saiyans.

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

378 People (359 developers, 19 thanks) · View all

Cooler™, Meta-Cooler™, Spopovich™
Cui™, Babidi™
Bojack™
King Cold™
Alien Announcer™
Captain Ginyu™, Lord Slug™, Senbe Norimaki™
Arale Norimaki™, Bulla™, Puar™
Dodoria™
Tapion™
Hercule™, Frieza Soldier 2
Piccolo™, Yamcha™, Syn Shenron™, Omega Shenron™, Vegeta™, Great Ape Vegeta™, Majin Vegeta™, Grandpa Gohan™, King Vegeta™, Great Ape King Vegeta™, Zarbon™, Recoome™, Burter™, Jeice™, Salza™, King Piccolo™, Budokai Announcer™
Android#17™, Garlic Jr.™, Android#13™, Fusion Android#13™, Super #17™
Fision Machine Pilaf™
Machine Pilaf™
Zangya™
Chi-Chi™
Cell®, Tambourine™
Pan™
Trunks®, World Tournament Announcer™
Play-By-Play Announcer™
Turles™, Great Ape Turles, Hirudegarn™
Android #16™
Nam™
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 74% (based on 38 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 16 ratings with 1 reviews)

Reviving the series

The Good
The Dragon Ball series created by Akira Toriyama has many different games since its success. Many systems has games inspired in the popular series and most of the games made are fighting games. There's no doubt that this genre is the most suitable one for Dragon Ball, anyway, there are some RPG and platform-beat 'em up games which are really good. Dragon Ball: Budokai Tenkaichi is probably the best series of fighting games inspired in the Dragon Ball universe, and this one, the third one, is the most complete of them all. The game has all the good things of the previous ones and new things like characters as well as new mods to be played. All the good things that you could say about the previous ones will do for this game. If you've never played a game of the series, you'll face incredible battles with a unique easy control system, you can do super attacks with a really simple combination, and the cell shading are perfect for a game like this making it have correct graphics. If you like Dragon Ball, this is your game.

The Bad
It's not easy to master your skills at the beginning, and the control system is a bit strange, but when you've mastered it you can fight incredible battles reviving the spirit of the anime/manga. Maybe the game could be more accurate to the world created by Akira Toriyama if the characters were much more different. They're different, of course, but it's possible to win a battle with Mr. Satan against Freezer, it's really difficult but you can do things like that.

If you've played Budokai Tenkaichi 2, this game is like a expansion pack of that one, with new movements and characters but nothing really special.

The Bottom Line
Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is the best fighting game made based on Dragon Ball Series, it completes the good things seen in the previous one and features new moves and playable characters as well as mods. If you don't like fighting games and the Dragon Ball series, escape as far as you can from this game.

PlayStation 2 · by NeoJ (398) · 2009

Trivia

Record

As of 2010, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 holds the Guinness World Record for largest character roster in a fighting game, having 161 playable fighters.

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Related Games

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
Released 2005 on PlayStation 2
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2
Released 2006 on PlayStation 2, Wii
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai
Released 2002 on PlayStation 2, 2003 on GameCube
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3
Released 2004 on PlayStation 2
Dragon Ball Z: Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu
Released 1996 on SEGA Saturn, PlayStation
Dragon Ball Z Trilogy
Released 2008 on PlayStation 2
Dragon Ball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu
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Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 2
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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 40017
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by NeoJ.

Wii added by Evil Ryu.

Additional contributors: Spenot, Patrick Bregger, sgtcook.

Game added May 13, 2009. Last modified March 29, 2024.