Its hard to believe that Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 came out 20 years ago on PlayStation 2. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 is considered to be one of the most memorable fighting games from the 2000’s decade. The Budokai 3 game was developed by Dimps and published by Atari or Bandi depending what country it was released between 2004-2005. Budokai 3 had pretty much everything one could ask for in a DBZ game at the time including fast-paced action, cel-shaded graphics, non-canon characters, cool stages along with impressive animation sequences. It was obvious that Dimps did everything they could to make Budokai 3 better than its ’03 predecessor. The story mode in Budokai 3 was far better than than Budokai 2 but not quite as good as the original which had cutscenes that closely followed the anime. The story mode in Budokai 3 allowed players to play as multiple characters such as Goku, Vegeta or Gohan and mainly consisted of roaming around the earth and dialogues before battle. The gameplay mechanics in Budokai 3 were also modified so that the battles were more similar to the DBZ. Budokai 3 had gameplay mechanics such as: beam struggles, teleport counters, fatigue, hyper mode and more. Budokai 3 also one of the first games that included all of the transformations of characters such as Goku, Frieza and Cell which was a pretty big deal at the time. The ability to play as fusion characters like Vegeto, Gogeta and Gotenks was also a strong positive in Budokai 3.

The inclusion of non-canon movie villains like Cooler and Broly along with their respective transformations definitely put Budokai 3 above its ’03 predecessor. The inclusion of unlockable bonus characters added to the overall value of Budokai 3 because players always had someone new to play as. The voice-over acting for the characters along with the narration of the story for Budokai 3 was top-notch. The reason why Budokai 3 was such a big deal during the 2000’s was because it preceded the legendary Budokai Tenkaichi trilogy from ’05-’07. Budokai 3 was an addictive fighting game that had a basic learning curve which appealed to casuals while having the gameplay and action that hardcore DBZ fans loved. While the graphics for Budokai 3 looks outdated by today’s standards the game itself is every bit has fun today as it was 20 years ago.