Budokai Tenkaichi was a Game Changer - A DragonBall Z Retrospective

[@Reapanese]

I remember crying as a kid trying to clear the kid buu missions. My mom had to tell me to take a break and try again ☠️

[@gibmajor9547]

For me it was the stay alive with vegeta vs Frieza where I cried and called my brother but right before he came I found out about the stun cheese😂

[@evprince]

Uppercut on repeat a life saver

[@nessdbest8708]

@@evprince loved this video

[@IIIISai]

That was me but for secret mario party 1 minigames

[@Ontiming2023]

I loved my mom cause she spoiled me as kid with video games moms just love there sons man

[@Matthew6248]

Those Survive til time runs out battles against evil Buu are truly Levels From Hell

[@thedevilsleutice]

The Vegeta one made me cry as a lil 8 year old

[@LetPlaySpidey18]

I think survive til time run fighting against kid Buu is a nightmare I think that fight much more harder then the evil Buu fight every game that kid Buu is in I like no no not him

[@LetPlaySpidey18]

This fight will be much more easier if Goku and Vegeta just fusion to fight against kid buu

[@heemcarchannel]

Ahhhhh good times

[@smananderson09]

Fr

[@heemcarchannel]

Ahhh good times. Being in elementary school, playing these games. Can’t wait for Sparking Zero!

[@Abishek97]

That survive for 60 seconds against great ape vegeta felt like hell

[@borneoboi2109]

Well well well

[@chesterandluke]

Can't wait for a video on budokai tenkaichi 2. The story mode is goated

[@ishyk10]

Tenkaichi 2 and 3 are the only reasons there’s been a Wii under my tv through several moves and life changes since 2006. I’m so excited for you to play those for the first time, two genuinely perfect DBZ games

[@tsukinoakuma]

It's likely that they skipped base Vegito vs Buuhan because Vegito went straight to Super Saiyan after fusing in the manga.

[@Smitty_Werbenjagermanjensen111]

We had tenkaichi 2 growing up and that intro was a banger and was never skipped 👌🏾.

[@zKenshi]

FYI They skipped those fights you mentioned because they were not in the manga and were Anime exclusive. The fat buu vs gotenks fight is non cannon and is an off-screen gag fight (vs the full fight in the Anime), and in the manga Vegito immediately goes Super Saiyan after fusing. Also I think you noticed this but there are a lot of visual bugs on the emulated version you are playing here. That extreme ghosting and those random lines. Might be better off using the Wii version for Tenkaichi 2 to avoid these graphical errors.

[@Ontiming2023]

The game was balanced too except for hercule

[@CosmicIsStoned]

Tenkaichi 3 is fine emulated, and so is Tenkaichi 2. Only Tenkaichi 1 has these odd visuals on an emulator. At least in my experience.

[@DavidLucian]

Despite all the DBZ games that have come out over the years, BT1 has the most badass and authentic Intro of all of DBZ games of the Franchise. BT2 and BT3 in my opinion still remains the most Unique and the best DBZ games in terms of content, quality and fanservices. And from the gameplay perspective aspects, these DBZ games that I mentioned are very close to the anime itself because of the Vibe and Charm, I don't know how to describe it but it was, and still is the most Unique DBZ experience you could have with the combat factor. (- Sheer amount de of characters - Transformations mid-battle (powering up and down) - Fusions mid-battle - Fast gameplay that has that "woah" feel - Tons of extra content - Story mode covering all sagas + movies - What If sagas - Shenron having permanent impact on game (character unlocks and whatnot) - Great tournaments that rotate availability - Edit characters with items (buffs) - 5v5 battles - Really Great and Epic Soundtracks - Destroyable environments - Entire stages could be blown up into their "destroyed" alternatives - Mission 100 being a great challenge - Artwork is 10/10 - Sound effects are great - Combat feels heavy and satisfying) Only Budokai 3, Infinite World and the Raging Blast 1 and 2 and all of PSP DBZ games except of Dragon Ball Z Evolution are still considered also very solid DBZ games, also the hidden gem that a lot of DBZ fans missed from PS2 Era of DBZ games is "Super Dragon Ball Z" which is also a real Unique and DBZ game, especially for the different gameplay aspects perspective. 🤷🏻‍♂️☯️✌️

[@ryanlarrison12]

Your killing it with these DBZ retrospectives man, great work!

[@evprince]

Thank you!

[@xyno2112]

I didn't have the game, but a friend of mine did, I remember vividly us struggling with the kid buu missions, particularly the Mr.Satan one, that and us beating Ultimate battle with a no z-item 3rd form frieza by spamming death beam barrages

[@PDilling]

The new game being called Sparking Zero makes way more sense now! :3

[@slambamcam]

Can’t wait for Sparking Zero🔥

[@nicholasemiranda3057]

In 2005 There’s this episode of Two and a half man where Alan asks Jake what more does he want after letting Evelyn spend time with him one of the the things he said was the new Dragon ball z game and this came out the same year so could this have been the game he was talking about

[@superexclusive452]

This game is basically what got me into Dragon Ball. My dad gave me a dragon quest cover box and inside was this game. Lol. By a twist of fate

[@1KQ_]

Tenkaichi 2 was the one out of this trilogy that i never owned as a kid and its been a blast playing it, cant wait for your breakdown of it.

[@blackwarrior1897]

BT1 was the blueprint for this series. So there were a lot of flaws. BT2 did a whole overhaul and fixed alot of what BT1 had. I will always appreciate BT1 however, no matter clunky it was. It was evidence that they were trying. BT2 serves that they learned from their mistakes as best as possible

[@1KQ_]

@@blackwarrior1897 im with you there. Out of BT and BT3 I had the most playtime with BT as it was my first dragon ball game so I'll always have a soft spot for it. It's crazy seeing how advanced BT2 is even compared to BT3 when it comes to the story.

[@blackwarrior1897]

@@1KQ_ yea. BT3 is the best in terms of mechanics, but maybe BT2 had a better story. BT2 condensed on the story a little more. BT3 really condensed hard and focused on the core fights of the series. But all the game set the standard of what a 3D DB game should have.

[@TheSubZero187]

So here’s my story. There was one day when I was in 6th grade, my mom and my aunt decided not to send me and my cousin to school and took us to the stores with them. Somehow I got my mom to buy me this game since it was $20 and me and my cousin got home mind you on a school day and we just played this for a few hours. Then he left and I immediately jumped into the Dragon History and it’s one of my favorite memories.

[@NexGenStriker]

I remember having fun with this game as a kid. I also vaguely remember some of those fights being pretty hard in the story mode lol. Being able to move around in the environment and destroy things was cool and I enjoyed hunting for dragon balls in the stages. The only thing I didn't like about this game when I played it was how you couldn't transform and had to pick each transformation as a separate character.

[@BobtheExile]

15:04 if I had to guess, they skipped that one because it was actually just filler, it wasn't shown in the manga. The manga had it happen offscreen as a gag. I can't think of any other reason why they'd skip it, if it wasn't that it doesn't make any sense, as you said.

[@BobtheExile]

16:07 at this point I am convinced that it was because of filler because this is another instance of filler being omitted; in the animal, Vegeto fought Buu for a while in base form, but in the manga he goes SSJ right away. It seems this game takes manga events into account more than it does anime

[@JoeHakai]

honestly i feel like they are just having fight 1 to 1 with the dragon ball manga since the manga skipped the base gotenks fight and just showed him beat up and vegito going straight too super vegito but that is also the only logic i can think of for why its like that

[@geraldineyorarou2221]

14:52 in the manga it's a throwaway gag that the ANIME wrongfully made into a real fight

[@r.babylon2885]

I had no clue it was called Sparking originally. Suddenly Sparking Zero makes sense

[@MAZZLE.MCFAZZLE]

Yes it's the Japanese name, Sparking

[@TamsinV]

Fantastic video! Really can't wait for you to cover Tenkaichi 2 and 3 - I hope you're aware that those both have lots of What Ifs but they're frequently "hidden", wouldn't want you to miss them like I've seen happen to other creators

[@evprince]

Oh, thanks for the heads up, I'll take some extra time to try and cover everything.

[@thesidneychan]

​@@evprince I think omega Shenron is in tenkaichi 3 as well. They basically added more characters.

[@ghostmkc4045]

Im hype for Sparking! ZERO!!!

[@saschaberger3212]

Unironically can't wait for playing through the whole DBZ story for the 29th time.

[@heemcarchannel]

@@saschaberger3212with the extra what if options

[@Tay234.]

I remember getting scared when gokus voice randomly changed to Japanese

[@stewhv94]

Okay but Chaiotzu kicking Guldo in the face upon defeating him makes that fight 100% worth including lmao

[@evprince]

True.

[@Browneyedbakedpotato]

Hell yeah dude, new video!!! I love all your videos man, and I’m looking forward to the kotor livestream this coming Thursday!!

[@evprince]

Can't wait to see you there m8!

[@Vintagesonic1]

Great video, Evan. Personally, this was my first ever Dragon Ball game. Back then, all I was just a little kid and I didn't know what anime was or anything like that. All I knew was that Dragon Ball Z was a cartoon on TV that had videogames made of it. In fact, it was only like 5 or 6 months ago I actually decided to watch Dragon Ball for the first time after avoiding it for years and years. I always heard people say that all the anime was is just the characters screaming at each other and powering up for like 50 episodes straight. I thought that sounded mind numbingly boring so I never gave it a chance. The thing that ultimately got me to watch it was a video by Totally Not Mark talking about the horrible DBZ home releases, which lead me down a rabbit hole that I found incredibly interesting and made me want to watch the show for myself in the best quality I could. So I basically binged the entire series from Dragon Ball to Super (+ GT, Super DB Heroes and Super's Manga). Now I would consider myself to be a Dragon Ball fan and I'm surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. Anyways, back to Tenkaichi. My memories are quite vague from the time, but all I can remember is playing the game with my dad. We were both terrible at the game and didn't know what we were doing, but we still had fun. I pretty sure I ended up trading in the game at EB Games, probably to get like a few dollars for it or something. But an interesting thing about me at that time is that I loved taking pictures. My grandparents bought me a digital camera, which i still have today and I used to take pictures of the games I rented and bought before trading them in or returning them. One of those games was Budokai Tenkaichi, which I still have that photo on that camera to this day. Other tidbits from that time I can recall is that there were two stages I'd always like to play in. It was the one where Vegeta got rekt by Android 18 and the Cell Games Arena.

[@soulking0782]

I loved the soundtrack when i was younger still do but something bout this soundtrack just made the experience better

[@KhameCat]

Very much enjoying the video! A small note about the b roll that you might find helpful if it was your recording and you play this game regularly: Those ghosts appearing on transformed characters are caused by emulation upscaling and can be mostly addressed with manual graphics overrides. There are a few settings to change and it can be a pain, but I’d actually recommend checking out the Budokai Tenkaichi 4 mod page, as they offer a config file for PCSX2 that works really well for the base game and other mods as well. If it doesn’t bug you, feel free to ignore! But it bothered the crap out of me when I started playing this game upscaled, and it was good to find out that an easy fix exists!

[@evprince]

Yeah, thanks! 100% going to get it fixed for BT2 and 3.

[@kevinfigueroa5444]

I never even noticed that the characters usually absent from these games are characters Vegeta fights 😂. No wonder I also felt a similar way to you as a kid

[@yao.aboagye]

Yeah on the what ifs I actually like Broly vs Vegeta and Mecha Frieza vs SSJ3 Goku cause it feels like the developers actually were able to predict these character's returns haha

[@alicekoopa2518]

Tenkaichi 1 established a new way to experience a dragon Ball Z game. And Tenkaichi 2 made massive improvements on fighting gameplay as well as a powerhouse story mode. Tenkaichi 3 had the best and most fleshed out extended roster and a cool story mode but the story was also kinda lack luster and nothing extraordinary but i liked the cutscenes a lot in 3. But Tenkaichi 2 story was definitely better.

[@OwlBeBack25]

Goku’s super saiyan 4 aura is a really interesting color in this game it’s dope

[@Jairrzz]

Game became child’s play you learned you could someone stuck onto the unbeatable combo punch punch guard

[@chrisp3082]

Great video!! Would love a full trilogy breakdown since your budokai video was so incredible

[@evprince]

Working on it!

[@tomhibbert6486]

Great video I have a theory on the movie battles its probably because most general audiences wpuld be more familiar with the series then the movies so they added a few movie battles to test the waters on if they would be generally well received plus like you said its a different developer

[@jaraxu_]

Sparking zero now makes a lot more sense

[@SpiderBen]

It’s always a good day when a new Review drops! Can’t wait to watch this one!

[@r.babylon2885]

Best Dragonball game intro ever

[@Magikarp-4ever]

Best intro ever period

[@UwUBrick]

34:24 vegeta is doing his final impact attack he did against fat buu when he was trying to redeem himself, i wouldn't call it his "antagonist state"

[@ColdRavensNest]

Ur content kicks ass man, keep it up!

[@evprince]

Thank you so much!

[@ColdRavensNest]

@@evprince Thank You for ur effort and in depth breakdowns, excited for your BT2 video brother. Post Notifications are on!

[@dylaytch]

This makes my day a little better 🙏

[@justsomeshinychewtlewitham6097]

15:00 I think thats because in the manga both of those fight never happened (Gotenks was off screen and Vegito skiped to SSJ)

[@CoolDUDE_2665]

Man this one brings Me back, the first dragon ball game i ever owned (not the first one i played but first i owned) it was alot of fun playing against friends, having challenges on fighting each other with one as an op character the other as a weak one and having a great time! Then there was the story mode... And that's where it all changed, i hated the survival missions and got a bit fed up with certain missions like the cell juniors, having to play as each character and doing the same fight again. But in the end it was all worth it to unlock most of the characters. (I still prefer BT3 though, i just enjoyed it the most out of the series. Mainly cause of the roster)

[@nicklenuts]

Yes sir remember asking if you were gonna do this hell yeah

[@FutureDeep]

Imagine messing with a memory impaired eternal dragon by just making stuff up once you get to the end of Z.

[@nora-yc6fi]

So then Beerus showrd up- I'm being facetious/I'm joking

[@alicekoopa2518]

I be playing all 3 Tenkaichi games via emulation on steam deck and it's incredible since these were some of the best games I ever played.

[@jashualascencio7688]

I first played budokai 3 with my cousin since he had it and as a kid I loved it so much when I saw a copy of budokai tenkaichi in a swap meet and bought it immediately I played it more than any other game but then I lost it which sucks since I have every ps2 game I have except that one which honestly was my favorite game of all time I’m really glad you gave it a retrospective

[@rayclam8079]

BT3 was what BT1 should have been. But there was a lot more money to be made by releasing a few incomplete sequel friendly versions first.

[@shreddybrek]

Mate thats so cool this is now your full time job. I've been in Japan the last 2 months wrestling so not had much time to watch your videos. This was my first in a while - great to hear you're doing well with the channel man!

[@evprince]

Love to see you still training like Goku out there!

[@Niosai]

Yooooo can't wait to dig into this one 👀

[@evprince]

Yo, fan of yours! Cool to see you here!

[@SSJ491]

Will you cover Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3, Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team, and Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi games?

[@evprince]

@@SSJ491 I plan to!

[@OcctobersXO]

Those intros into these game where life you would never skip them shit was too fire 🔥

[@adityakhanna113]

Evil Buu featured in Buu's Fury in a cutscene, but wasn't really playable.

[@nora-yc6fi]

Pretty sure (at least, from a non dev perspective) the reason there aren't so many base form then redo the fight as ssj this time, is because it'd be some mega padding and be kinda tedious Really weird that they got ssj4 Gogeta in this game and no Omega, the weirdest omission to me in any game (least until Sparking Zero comes out and we see that full base roster)

[@slambamcam]

Only been 5 min and I alr know this gonna be a certified banger!

[@AndrewPineda-o5v]

Loving these Dragon Ball retrospectives, can't wait to see your thoughts on Budokai Tenkaichi 2 & 3

[@R1ck_Ryder]

OH YES! been waiting for these

[@Magikarp-4ever]

Actually it wasn't just Deftones it was Revelation by American Pearl that was playing during the very end battle ❤️❤️❤️❤️ best outro to a fight ever

[@alicekoopa2518]

Yes, yes it was. It changed everything. Im actually replaying this one and its the one that has been the longest time since playing. Its ao crazy going back and playing the first one. I bought every Tenkaichi game right at release for all 3. And im still enjoying them to this day asbmy favorite dbz games ever. The runner up for me jest ti the Tenkaichi trilogy has to be super sonic warriors 2 on DS. That gane was also insanely Incredible

[@JonathanReid-v4n]

You’ll love tb2 and 3 trust me! They are alot better than the first

[@Jay_Walker92]

Wtf...did this man just say he's never played Tenkaichi 3??? TENKAICHI 3

[@andrewblose3057]

I love these videos, would love to see some on the Raging Blast series!

[@MattCraftDotDerp]

everyone saying that Gotenks vs. Buu and Base Vegito vs. Buuhan were skipped bc they weren't in the manga doesn't track bc Chiaotzu vs. Guldo is a reference to the anime filler where the Ginyu Force invade King Kai's Planet and get bodied by the gang. so clearly they weren't that concerned about adapting only the manga battles.

[@Magikarp-4ever]

Dayum you like Android 13 too? Sweeeeeet thought I was the only one, how TFS included the nut punch was hilarious

[@sketchymtg]

It’s funny that you say it plays as well as you do. Once you play 2 and 3, going back and feeling how stiff the first game was is crazy! They really improved the movement to the point the first one is miserable

[@Waterypeanutbutter]

I totally forgot the tenkaichi games released on the Wii as well

[@ramonzaragoza3551]

I’ve been buying older consoles and finally got to play this on my PS2. I SPENT 2 HOURS STRAIGHT DYING TO BOJACK AND HIS STUPID SUPER ARMOR

[@mangodango1733]

This game united like half of my classes in 5th grade

[@one1virtuoso]

I have fond memories of me and my other dbz nerd cousin sleuthing out all of the fusions to get characters

[@JasonRoofie]

A lot of the fights you criticized for being skipped like base gotenks vs buu and base veguto vs buu were filler fights only present in the anime. And back to back vegito fights would be super redundant. Tenkaichi 1's structure really suffers from the inability to transform or trigger story scenes mid combat

[@PoohKalonji_97]

9:36 “ You’re gunna pay , I’m gunna make sure you pay ! “

[@evprince]

Modern game publishers be like ^

[@supergeniuswithattitude1432]

15:29 it’s more manga accurate then anime accurate vegito went super right off the bat in the manga

[@r.babylon2885]

I recall being annoyed that the balls move, making it even more difficult to grab them up when youre being pursued.

[@n.henzler50]

33:10 look, I might just happen to have that saved on my phone as a reaction GIF.

[@Flipitmixit]

Goku fought Broly in space, why would earths city map make more sense?

[@QuebazPT]

Base Gotenks and Base Vegetto were skipped because... those fights are not in the manga

[@theultimateawesome5516]

Makes no sense considering they had movie characters so they could just use those moves

[@rightinthedome9973]

I had no idea that BT series even existed until 2011

[@1080Tae]

BUDOKAI TENKAICHI was the first game I rememberer asking for on my birthday and getting from my grandma.Spent hours playing but didn't have a memory card so we had to leave it on till the plastic melted on the bottom of the ps2

[@evprince]

That's how you know it was real.

[@1080Tae]

I picked it out from toys r us too

[@Heazytoohot]

Amazing video, you’ve gotta look up emulator fixes for games though before you capture footage. The lines and the ghosting from using pcsx2 are way distracting lol

[@mackmane1291]

33:10 W mans 😂😂

[@Magikarp-4ever]

Oh man I remember trying to hit those little stupid cell juniors. And having to repeat that Buu gotanks level because you get the dragonball easy in it from the column lol I love Taopaipai too

[@anthonycrawford5828]

If you're not talking about playing against your buddy toe to toe in split screen, you don't really know this games true glory

[@nintendofan707]

Please check out the Tenkaichi 4 Mod Edit: Of course after you review the rest of the trilogy. Its a great mod that's built off of Tenkaichi 3. Adds characters from Dragon Ball Super, As well as updated the main story to add events from Super. To unlock everything you just unlock characters and stages as you normally would with the normal Tenkaichi 3. Its still being updated. Check out gameplay footage on youtube if your curious.

[@metalsnake262]

Waiting for budokai tenkaichi 2 retrospective❤

[@evprince]

Coming soon

[@coopernut]

2 is the best one

[@2kdavv]

LETS GOOOOOOO

[@jacobwest7]

Theyre not useless characters side characters like them are fun to beat up

[@GothicSnowLeopard]

Prepare yourself for Tenkaichi 2 because that game's story length is even twice longer than this game

[@spartanq7781]

What are you doing man? The sequels are infinitely superior play them already! It's been almost two decades.

[@evprince]

On it 🫡 videos soon

[@spartanq7781]

@@evprince That goes for the Raging Blast games too. I find them better and worse at the same time.

[@ultimate-x-james2533]

I hope sparking zero fixes by using the correct maps and I mean different maps from the show and movies not the same ones

[@swiperightshow]

Isn't alot due to the GB restrictions on a PS2 disc

[@itsofficiallypluto3670]

Idk it seemed like a great progression from the DBB series

[@AnthonySotoDiaz]

I swear I heard something different at the opening

[@Calibcookx]

when you get to bt3 its a mod by team bt4 you gotta check that out bro

[@Martialartfruituser]

I remember playing Tenkachi before and...I remember not liking it as much as Budokai. I think it was just too different for me, didn't like the ways they changed it, and how it played. Luckily 2 and 3 changed that.

[@KronosSion]

Without question this is the weakest of the trilogy it is part of. Two is a MASSIVE step up and Three built on that in all the best ways, with a bunch of little quality of life fixes an additions, like attack names, colors, fleshed out move sets and everything else. Especially movement. BT3 is legendary for a reason: It's the closest any of us got to playing the anime for a good long while.

[@crimsonking440]

"why would you want useless characters?" Wtf you mean? Tien and yamcha are more useful than zarbon and dodoria?