When I was a kid I was obsessed with Dragon Ball Z, an obsession that was overpowered only by my love for all things Spider-Man. I watched it on Toonami every Saturday, I practiced doing the Kamehameha, and I had to have every single DBZ action figure or video game I laid eyes on. So of course when I got a GameCube, my first home console, for Christmas way back in 2003, one of the games I got with it was Dragon Ball Z: Budokai.
The only Dragon Ball game I had actually played up to that point was Legacy of Goku 2, so when I first popped in Budokai my little 6 year-old mind was blown to pieces. Full voice acting with the actors from the show, in-engine recreations of the intros from each saga, actual honest-to-god combos, beam clashes, it was almost everything I ever wanted from a DBZ game. Back then, to me, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai was a perfect video game.
Of course, as an adult I can clearly see the game’s flaws. Shallow combat, forgettable music, a repetitive story mode, transformations that only last a few hits before reverting, and the exclusion of the Buu Saga are all things that, if I take off my rose-colored glasses, make Budokai mediocre at best. But I’d be lying if I said this game didn’t still have a massive soft spot in my heart. It might just be the nostalgia talking, but I still have a ton of fun revisiting this game. While it’s far, far from perfect, there’s a whole lot of love for DBZ put into this package that even some later Dragon Ball games don’t match. Sure, there’s no reason to go back it as its sequels improve upon it in every way, but it was one of my introductions to my favorite home console ever and I’ll always appreciate for that.
The only Dragon Ball game I had actually played up to that point was Legacy of Goku 2, so when I first popped in Budokai my little 6 year-old mind was blown to pieces. Full voice acting with the actors from the show, in-engine recreations of the intros from each saga, actual honest-to-god combos, beam clashes, it was almost everything I ever wanted from a DBZ game. Back then, to me, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai was a perfect video game.
Of course, as an adult I can clearly see the game’s flaws. Shallow combat, forgettable music, a repetitive story mode, transformations that only last a few hits before reverting, and the exclusion of the Buu Saga are all things that, if I take off my rose-colored glasses, make Budokai mediocre at best. But I’d be lying if I said this game didn’t still have a massive soft spot in my heart. It might just be the nostalgia talking, but I still have a ton of fun revisiting this game. While it’s far, far from perfect, there’s a whole lot of love for DBZ put into this package that even some later Dragon Ball games don’t match. Sure, there’s no reason to go back it as its sequels improve upon it in every way, but it was one of my introductions to my favorite home console ever and I’ll always appreciate for that.