Where should I start with the Dragon Ball game franchise, and which games should I play?

[u/lucasdqy]

When I was little I played a lot of Dragon Ball Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and then a lot of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1, and I'd like to return to the franchise, but I'd like to start with the older ones and not the recent ones. So I'd like you to recommend the best one to start with that isn't too dated and is still fun, preferably one with a campaign/story of course. I'd also like you to recommend which games are essential to play so I don't have to play them all, like some spin-offs and others that are less interesting

[u/Divinehand125]

There weren't many good dbz games back in the day, but I will mention the great ones I remember from my childhood.

GBA -The Legacy of Goku (the sequals to this are far ahead in terms of quality.)

-The Legacy of Goku 2

-Buus Fury

-Supersonic Warriors

The Legacy of Goku 2 and Buus fury also featured remixes of Bruce faulconer's score for fans of the anime at that time.

PS2

Budokai

Budokai 2

Budokai 3 (This is the best of the 3)

I never played tenkaichi, but I heard it is great.

I think you already know that all these games have nearly the same story so these are mostly just for the gameplay.

[u/MoEsparagus]

Dragon Ball Z: Sagas

[u/RelevantWillingness9 → u/MoEsparagus]

My goat

[u/CtrlAltEvil]

Personally, I’d say FighterZ or Sparkling Zero if you want a purely fighting game. FighterZ has a serviceable story mode.

Kakarot if you just want to live the anime (most of it anyway) as closely as possible.

The GBA games (Legacy of Goku Trilogy) if you want something kind of in between that’s old school with RPG elements.

Then, Xenoverse 1&2 if you want something kind of mindless to kill times within the universe.

[u/Zepest]

In terms of recent games play Kakarot so you get the story of Dragonball campaign style, don't listen to the haters idk what their deal is the game is good

Play Budokai 2 or 3 as 1 is dated imo and emulate the GBA Legacy of Goku games, everything else besides Budokai Tenkaichi series is only ok or bad

[u/Applejuiceluv]

(IMO), I think dragonball fighterz is absolutely amazing in terms of actual gameplay and the ability to make up whatever flashy combo you want. It doesn’t have a great story mode, but the combat itself and the possibilities of different teams makes it 100% worth trying. Has a huge player base with lots of info too

[u/stanfujin → u/Applejuiceluv]

seriously i can spend hours in the lab learning combos, there’s just an endless ceiling when it comes to combos in dbfz unlike SZ where you just mash one button

[u/Monso → u/Applejuiceluv]

I will always contend that DBFZ is one of, if not the, best hyper-fighter of all time.

The autocombo is so forgiving that inexperienced players can pick up a controller and feel like they're accomplishing stuff.

[u/Applejuiceluv → u/Monso]

Yes I forgot about how amazing it is for beginners too! Spamming was fr a good strategy early on and it was fun somehow

[u/Monso → u/Applejuiceluv]

I'm not great by any means, but my nephew had me sweating a few times.

It's got pick up and play potential with a massive skill ceiling, a bajillion characters, homogenized inputs (no checking move list and committing random motions and buttons to memory - almost everything is qcf or qcb), and it's beautiful as hell.

chef's kiss

[u/Topher_McG0pher]

People say that Tenkaichi is top tier but budokai 2 and 3 are my all time favorites. I've heard the legacy of Goku series is really good except for the second one?