Years before the Xenoverse era, Dragon Ball fans had another series regarded as the “definitive” game adaptation for the series. The Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi series, originally published by Bandai Namco, is still considered by fans one of the best game adaptations based on Akira Toriyama’s original manga.
And as it’s constantly proved by Dragon Ball Super’s mere existence, this franchise isn’t dying anytime soon. And those games are trying to follow the same immortality path.
A new official trailer for a new Budokai Tenkaichi title was revealed during the Dragon Ball Games Battle Hour 2023 stream. The event is composed of basically tons of DB games tournaments happening at the same time, so Bandai Namco figured out that it was the best time to showcase a new game for the series fans. And god damn, they were right.
Better 16 Years Late Than Never
With this nostalgia-filled trailer, the new graphics for this upcoming title (with seemly no official name or release date yet) are displayed through Goku turning into his Super Saiyan Blue form, confirming that Dragon Ball Super content will be included, like it or not.
The biggest title in the series was definitely Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3, released on 2007. This third entry contained over 150 characters available right from the start and had quite a diverse pool of characters. Many were just different versions of the same character (they had five Gokus, for god’s sake!), but it was ultimately fun to have so many characters.
It’s still very popular to this day, and it was able to amass a loyal fanbase dedicated to keeping it alive through many mods and unofficial updates. Just Google “Tenkaichi 4 mod” to see tons of playable characters and transformations introduced to the series years after the original game was even released.
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Entries such as Tenkaichi Tag Team or Ultimate Tenkaichi had a good reception but were never regarded as a “true successor” to the big title from the PS2 era. But with this new trailer (which might just be an actual Tenkaichi 4), the series is finally making its comeback for modern-era consoles with all of its elegance.
The series was never meant to be a traditional fighting game (this honor’s reserved to FighterZ) and is more of a “hey, you can turn Super Saiyan and throw power beams!” kind of game, and that was all it ever needed. This new entry has to bring something new to the table if it aims to be more than a mere nostalgia-filled pack disguised as a new game.
But don’t get your hopes up as the whole thing’s still in its early development stages and might take quite a while before it’s actually out. No info on platforms either, so all that’s left for now is to wait and see which new hair colors Goku and Vegeta will be getting in this game.
Published: Mar 5, 2023 11:35 pm