I Replayed EVERY Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi Game (Sparking!) 

What's the best Tenkaichi game? Do you think Sparking! Zero will unseat it?

When I was a kid, I used CPU vs CPU to roleplay like my own tournaments, because I wanted them to be as “fair” and balanced as possible. Cuz if I played vs the CPU, I’d always win. So I wanted to be like “who would win between Gogeta vs Vegito” in the most “realistic” way possible. So it was basically my own little DBZ what if simulator. I still fire up CPU only matches in modern games from time to time to scratch that old itch when I’m bored. Like I wanna watch some fighting game matches but the comp players only ever pick the top tiers, so maybe I wanna see something different for once.

you "play" cpu vs cpu to place bets on the fights, its a ton of fun - we had a whole event for a cpu wwe tournament, 10/10

Regarding the COM vs COM fights and who they are for: me and my little brother used to put on COM vs COM battles in the Tenkaichi games and sit back and eat snacks and watch them like they were a TV show or something. We even made our own tournaments and alternate histories where he would pick a fighter and I would make a bracket of fighters for his COM to fight and if he won all I'd own him some candy or we would start with the Raditz saga and let the coms battle and create a random alternate history like this. We of course finished the games as well but yeah, better, simpler and more precious times 😊

Actually, Kenji Yamamoto was NOT responsible for Budokai Tenkaichi 2 and 3. In fact, they grabbed music from those games to replace plagiarized music in the Budokai HD collection and Raging Blast. One name that comes to mind when thinking of these game's composers is Takanori Arima who I'm pretty sure is still working on DB games to this day.

Something to add on in regards to BT3's story mode, there are a lot of hidden What If senarios beyond the What-If Saga if you win or lose specific fights in specific ways. Many people have probably encountered as least one of these but there are a shocking amount of them. You can have Roshi beat Broly if Goku falls and again in GT where Pan takes over when SS4 Goku loses to Baby. You can have Goku beat Majin Vegeta which will cause him to go and beat Dabura. If Majin Vegeta beats Buu, he will go on to fight Babidi. Probably the most bizzare, if you beat King Piccolo without using all the button prompts, Tamborine suddenly comes back to life and then Chichi shows up to kill him.

Raging Blast 1 Tournament mode has a single player vs CPU. just press triangle, it tells you at the bottom and it fills the tournament with random characters.

For the scripted fights in dragon history mode if you just don't follow the script and win with your own skills or specific characters you get character specific dialogues that you don't see anywhere else after winning with them which is honestly a plus imo.

33:12 To this day I do not understand how any one can look at 3's streamlined, events-mid-battle story and think, "Nah I liked it better in 2 when every Saga was padded out to 30 fights and made me sit through six loading screens per battle."

I love CPU vs CPU in fighting games. I use it a lot when I'm tired and don't feel like playing, but still want to watch a match.

2 was definitely my most played one, when I was a kid that’s the only one I had and my god I probably 100% the game 2-3 times, I remember doing all the “what if” scenarios, getting every wish from shenron, unlocking every character and stage…must’ve spent hundreds of hours on this when I was a kid Edit: I take that back, I actually remember begging my mom to take me to GameStop to get 3 and played the shit out of that one too, it’s probably been like 15 years so kinda got them mixed together in my head

I think some people from 4chan used to run a tournament for CPU x CPU matches they would stream on twitch.

Fun watch! I preferred the Budokai games, but the Tenkaichi/Sparking games grew on me over time. I'm looking forward to Sparking Zero! Rest in peace, Toriyama.

Has anyone else noticed that both Budokai 3 and Budokai Tenkaichi 3's opening feature Gogeta fighting Broly years before ot would become canon? Talk about prophetic.

On the CPU vs CPU element, there was actually an entire community built around CPU battles called the Dragon Ball Z League for several years. It had the BT3 roster split up into different themed teams and people on those teams got to pick which characters would be in the active roster, the order, and what customization options they had (with point limits) each week for a sports league style season. It was a great time and ran for years as a live and VOD supported community that even had its own forums and fantasy league system. Great times.

Raging Blast 2 not having a story mode is fine. I mean it’s not like we haven’t seen it before.

CPU VS CPU fights were pretty fun cause sometimes I would witness something like Kid Gohan defeating SSJ Goku which was a real laugh😂😂

Yeah i'm ngl, I always hated BT1. Not being able to transform in-game always really got under my skin, and it instantly made me drop it once finding that out as a kid

Oh man, I’ve been waiting for this one! Today was a bad day, but this made up for it! Thanks, Niosai!

Dude I love your content! Especially this and the Soul Calibur video. Keep up the good work bud

I was just binging your Budokai and Tenkaichi videos and then I woke up and got notified about this. Well, here we go!

Brilliant video! So excited to fire up Tenkaichi 3 again after work

lets goooooooooo! been waiting for this! Get some sleep now!

We used to make bets on CPU v CPU fights.

From what I recall, Raging Blast 2 just always did in-fight dialogue no matter what mode you were in. As long as the characters in the fight you chose were compatible, they would talk mid-fight. Say you go and play SSJ2 Goku and Majin Vegeta, they'll have special starting dialogue and talk throughout the fight. Didn't need to be in Galaxy Mode, could be in VS.

The CPU vs. CPU comment tickled my funny bone like you have no idea. What led me to this video was Twitch channel point gambling on CPU vs. CPU fights for Tenkaichi 3. It was a grand old time. The best moment had to be when we had a Human Z-Fighters vs. Broly and a Saibaman. Yamcha was doing WORK on Broly. Broly tags in Saibaman. Saibaman starts schooling Yamcha and Yamcha just TAGS OUT. HE KNEW WHAT WAS COMING. It was great.

On CPU v CPU, there's a fantasy sport league thing for BT3 called DBZ League. It's pretty amusing. Basically custom built characters under specific themed teams duking it out.

The best thing about the progression of the og trilogy is that by the time i get to the third one, every character has their own unique moves and fighting style. There may be some exceptions but from what I remember every character played and felt different from anyone else. Love that attention to detail from the devs

Man, I wish the assets for Ultimate Tenkaichi we're used for a better game 😭 Thanks for this nice look back at the series though! Really excited for Sparking Zero. 💙

OH YEAH! Niosai back at it again! I need to see what the Raging Blast hype was about!

Don't know if anyone said it yet but you can battle the AI in Tournaments by pressing Y/Triangle after selecting your character in Raging Blast 1.

I began replaying DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 about 6 months ago. Enjoyed every bit of and also felt so nostalgic, I remember as a kid I had to wait for a very long time between loading screens but I was patient enough to do it cause the gameplay was so good. It feels nice to not have to wait that long anymore with how much better tech is today.

Absolutely loved this video man, I played all these games religiously growing up and then when sparking zero came out I went and played all 3 BT stuff again 100% long live dragon ball , Rip to the sensei legend who made my childhood 🧡🖤 akira toriyama.. 🙏🏼

Maybe an unpopular opinion byt Ragung blast 2 is underrated and the roster is so fun. I also love the galaxy mode. After so many games the story mode of DBZ became dull so galaxy mode was appreacited and differnt. I think thats why xenoverse story was so fun. It was a different story.

14:52 well i actually do love CPU VS CPU mod in old games. i do like watching them, i emulate games on my phone and this mod does help past the time during break at work when i am eating :)

My friends and I would do CPU vs CPU battles and do fake bets using monopoly money!

Awww I know this video was posted like over a week ago and I understand how long this probably took to put together aannnnddd while it's obviously not been an eternity since.. well you know.. Damn.. it just still feels fresh. That mid video break to appreciate the goat got me. R.I.P. Toriyama-Sensei. ❤ And great video brother! ❤

I've been waiting for this video, thank you for the good food

thank you akira, you will remembered for the rest of my life

BABE WAKE UP, NIOSAI MADE A BUDOKAI TENKAICHI VIDEO!!!!

Thank you so much for the Tribute in the middle after the BT Trilogy games of the video

Tenkaichi Tag Team is my favourite. You have 2vs2, great gameplay, nice graphics, no BS characters (seriously, Tenkaichi 3 has way too many fighters), good looking UI and you can play it on PS Vita

I remember having a lot of fun with the Galaxy mode in RB2. It made me use a lot of characters i otherwise wouldn’t and actually made some underrated characters like Tenshinhan into one of my mains.

when i was little (8-10 year old) I was an EXTREMELY easily scared child so videogames terrified me (if an enemy attacked me in a videogame I felt in danger in real life). But I did love watching my big brother play BT3 so when he wasnt playing I just loved roaming the menus and set up cpu vs cpu fights, imagining the story behind the fight. It was like playing with toys... virtually.

Sometimes I match the com type items with either their respective character or a character I believe would fight as described in the actual show & pit them to see which character gets the most overall wins.

In Tekken I customized characters like my friend group and we had them fight each other CPU vs CPU, it was pretty hype and fun, in Dragon ball we did that in Budokai just to place bets on who would win every once in a while, your hands get sore and sweaty after playing for a while during the summer

back in the day me and my friends where heAVY INTO THE SERIES AND WE used to run cpu vs cpu on max difficulty to see certain match ups and see how cpu uses certain chars to get a idea of how to use a character you havent played with yet. me an my couzin would do cpu vs cpu match and watch while we are eating and study the cpu

As a defender of Ultimate tenkaichi I wanted to point some of my own positives - Hero mode was REALLY fun with how you can customize moves and train with people to learn those moves - the combat while still being very dull does have a few cool manipulations. For instance Vegeta will favor the green single fist option so most of the time choosing the opposite will win against him. Not ever character works like this but you can manipulate the AI like this in some cases Took me a while to get around to this video lol but great work dude!!

I love these Dragon Ball Z games!

In tenkaichi 2, and 1 to a lesser degree, my brother and I loved that we didn't have to stay locked on, we made our own adventures in the little maps, it is one of my favorite memories of my childhood

Persona has anime cutscenes as well in their game series and all of them have animated openings and are so cool. It's a JRPG game series and it has good story in each mainline game

Me and my friend used to love watching cpu battles in between our matches. Since we have different tastes, we'd take bets and root for whatever our favorite characters/sides were. Especially since I'm a Goku main and he loved to play Vegeta and Frieza.

I used to use CPU vs CPU in games like smash bros to decide what characters i wanted to learn, the winner being my main for the next week, and in ultimate I’ve used the 8 player battles of the same character to let the game decide what alternate costume i would use. However I cant see why you’d do it in this game

You can change the direction of a charged attack in tenkaichi 2 by holding the left stick while charging. And you can ( not for all) change the direction by rush attacks ( like a sprint )

As for CPU vs CPU fights I think a good example of how fun they can be is watching Alpharad's Smash Bros CPU Tournaments. Dude constructed an entire story with them. As for my personal experience with Budokai Tenkaichi my introduction to it was my cousin's copy of 2 on his PS2, then a few years later getting 3 for the Wii. My brother and I has previously owned Budokai 2 on the GameCube and rented Budokai 1. We played the hell out of BT3 and had a blast, trading between battles to experience the story. And I distinctly remember my brother being extremely good with Namek Saga SSJ Goku and me maining Arale. A few years later we got Raging Blast 2 for the XBox 360 and had a ton of fun with the "Story" mode and trading off to play individual character modes.

Give the designers for the UI and menus a raise. They are works of art and are not appreciated enough.

Tenkaichi Tag Team is honestly super fun. Probably one of the best fighting games on the PSP. Also you don’t have to press only circle. Press the other buttons at the same time as well and it will work better

I can’t stand tenkaichi 3. My favorite part of budokai tenkaichi 1 and 2 was going through the huge story mode and unlocking all the characters. Tenkaichi 3 on the other hand has an incredibly lackluster and barebones story mode that doesn’t justify its existence because you barely unlock anything for completing it. Also nearly every single character is automatically unlocked at the start. And they took out unlocking characters with fusion items. It felt so cool using the knowledge of the series to intuit what item goes with what to unlock the character. But now it’s just all gone. And no one ever mentions this.

CPU vs CPU is fun to watch. Like a sort of neutral "who would win" without player interference

I used the CPU vs CPU battle a lot actually! Sometimes you just want to do something else while watching a fight go down or you and your friends want to pick fighters and place bets it’s fun!

Just in time for the gameplay presentation in the morning

you ALSO forgot to mention that you can find the DragonBalls within the stages' destructible environment set-pieces like "buildings, Giant rock formations, ships, trucks, etc."

Aaaaah the colors of this roster makes me cry of happiness... bro... i will cry as soon as i start the game

as a kid i loved ultimate tenkaichi because of the graphics, artstyle, character creation and giant boss battles…. thats it 😭😭

I thought I was watching a video from a year or two ago so seeing the Akira Toriyama bit was surprising. Great video, good stuff

Sometimes it's fun to just watch the game you enjoy in a fairer fight than one where whatever character you pick to face the cpu will win.. and sometimes you see a strategy pulled off you wouldn't have thought of

I respect people who put timing in their videos

Just got Budokai Tenkaichi 3 a few weeks ago and I love it!

in Ultimate Battle mode in the original Tenkaichi u forgot to mention that there are "imposters" who break in and challenge you every so often that (i believe) aren't on the list to fight

Mannnn as a recent fan of DB (binged the series last year from the og DB to super, except for gt, kai and anything after super) now i wish I actually got to play some of these games... Oh, how one can only dream.

I only had tenkaichi 1 as a kid and the soundtrack still gets me hype af. Crazy how u can play all of them on emulator now, little kid me would of died from happiness

C'mon now, pitting Yamcha against anyone and seeing if he'll win in a CPU vs CPU is fun

You forgot to mention every character's unique move when pressing circle in Raging Blast 2

I was the person that did COM vs COM. Sometimes it's just fun to watch your own "what if" or remake scenes from the show without replaying the story directly.

I remember watching cpu vs cpu fights on raging blast 2 because I just wanted to watch someone else play or if I was doing something else on the side

CPU vs. CPU, also known as COM battles can teach new players how to operate unfamiliar characters effectively, view techniques they might not yet know how to perform, and they can also be great for streaming, if you want to record or commentate over footage. They are like training options.

I thing i remember is in BT2 I would roleplay as a kid and HIDE behind buildings in the city…(time to recover for example trunks vs androids/ future Gohan.) so I liked being able to knock and open far away and then run and hide…the cpu would fly around the map usually til they found me but usually I would find them again when I was ready….idk I enjoyed doing that instead of nonstop fighting til the fight is over

There was a streamer some years back that did CPU vs CPU fights and we got to bet channel points on who would win.

There was also Dragon Ball Z Battle of Z that looks a bit similar to the BT games but more arcadey. Never played it though so have no idea if it was actually BT-like. Nice video!

I honestly enjoyed the occasional CPU vs CPU fight, it was a way of letting a "dream match" unfold before me. If Sparking Zero has it , I'm defiantly gonna do a CPU vs CPU fight between Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Super Saiyan 4 Goku (if GT stuff is in the game).

14:50 i may not have done it in the budokai games, but im 100% the person who watched all CPU smash melee tournaments. in fairness, you can also crank up the insanity with items, but thats sorta the thing. its was so much fun to watch, and my cousins and I would wind down after several matches by kicking back to watch the CPUs go at it

I used to do CPU VS CPU all the time as a kid. When you put the Ai on the the hardest difficulty setting the fights can get really crazy and I actually learned a bunch of tech by watching the CPUs going at it.

13:15 damn trunks that was cool

Plenty of use for CPU v CPU. Friends can pick the combatants and place bets, you can set up your own 'Tenkaichi Budokai', you can take a break to go eat pizza, etc etc

Zenkai battle reminds me of the battle of Z. that game feels like a fever dream...

I liked simulating fights as a kid with Cpu vs Cpu

CPU vs CPU fights were dope for me actually for a lot of reasons. I wish more games had it I used it mainly to see if beating certain characters with other characters was even possible. Like Jeice vs SS4Gogeta. Also to see at a base how big the power gap was held constant for user error when i'd get whooped by my friends. I'd watch the matchup that i cant win to see how the computer beats whatever i suck at. All sorts of stuff. Sometiems id see the computer do odd stuff and build off it. Best way i can explain it is, I play souls pvp now and i think i got the same tbing from this tbat i get from watching souls pvp vids on youtube

You can sway in bt 2 as well I loved it

That funny animation from BT was hilarious to me and my brothers as kids, i thought we were the only ones who made fun of that 😂 glad to know we weren’t alone

Thanks for the video bro. I still own all of these games minus the Kinect and tag team game, and Zenkai but I definitely have knowledge of those games as I've played about all Z games from NES until new gen. Can you do make another video like this but focused specifically on how each one did transformations. As this is one of the most distinct differences between all Z games. For an example Tenkaichi & Raging Blast gave us different moves for each transformation while Xenoverse you didn't receive a new moveset with each transformation. Raging Blast, Xenoverse, & Kakarot allowed us to be able to de-transform. However Tenkaichi & Super DB Heroes are the only games that allow us to turn into Giants outside of the Giant Namekian form in Xenoverse, while Ozzaru's, Hirudegarn etc are unplayable in Xenoverse, Ultimate Tenkaichi, Raging Blast, Kakarot, etc etc. Tenkaichi 2 & 3, Tenkaichi Tag & Budokai 2 & 3, Kakarot, Buu's Fury SDBH, & i think raging blast as well are the only games that allow in game Fusion as an option/ mechanic. It's details like this that makes the wait for Sparking Zero more exciting thinking about different features or mechanics of each game, and things we hope returns or is better.

By the time we got to Raging Blast 2, the fan base was getting pretty tired of retreading the DBZ story over and over, so they finally tried to do something different, and it's a big reason we get more original stories now, where every game has some link to each other through the Time Patrol stuff (I thought it was a welcome surprise in Kakarot). It has me wondering if Sparking Zero will retread the Z story, of if it'll do something more original that it too ties into the Time Patrol stuff that seems to have it's own elseworld Dragon Ball story being told through the games...I'd prefer them keep that up.

legend of korma game also had its one original style animated cuts

me and my friends always wach cpu vs cpu fights and bet on the winners. (also we do what ifs for all the dragon ball games)

I was a kid when I played these so what we would do is watch CPUvsCPU fights and make up what if scenarios around the fights and see them play out. Which was not biased by the difference in skill level between me and my friends. It was a story making mode essentially. It also did not take them any extra coding work so they probably just tossed it in cuz why not. I will actually be really sad if it's not in Sparking Zero.

I really wish people would talk more about the level of customization ultimate Tenkaichi gave you for the custom character 😮‍💨. You could change your aura color AND melee foghting style to copy other fighters.

I remember I was in highschool when Tenkaichi 1 came out. I was playing Budokai 3 before that and was so excited at the thought of flying around areas fighting on ground but also in air and underwater. I didn't like Tenkaichi 1 as much as Budokai 3 but it was ok. I thought Tenkaichi 2 was much better and played it a lot. I think Tenkaichi 3 was the best. I played 3 on the Wii. I kind of wish all 3 were remastered for modern systems.

fun video id love to see the same style for the budokai series and butoden series

I grew up with the anime he created, it definitely has a very special place in my heart and soul during my childhood days and even now. RIP To The Legend Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball Z Universe, Thank You for all of the entertainment you're provided. Your Legacy will never be forgotten... 🙂🙏☯️🙃 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. ✌️

in bt3s story mode if you don't follow the script you can get new dialogue and what ifs, like max power (buff) roshi vs broly

Fun fact ranging blast 2 has a different opening song for earlier releases of the game and the tenkaichi 2 opening song came later