Been playing Budokai 3 lately...

[DBZAOTA482]

It still stands as the best overall DBZ game. FighterZ may be a better fighting game and Budokai Tenkaichi 3 may be better at simulating the action of DBZ, but B3 isn’t a slouch in either areas. It’s easy to pick up and play but it has a surprising amount of depth and complexity beyond its simplistic exterior. It’s a shame people didn’t catch onto how deep the game’s mechanics truly were when it was fresh.

Also, its roster is fantastic. Almost no variations of the same characters nor is it filled with useless characters like BT3 plus unlike BT3, most (if not all) have their own combo platforms and different strategies.

For example, Goku is an all-rounder with all the beginner-friendly combos (>pkK-, kkkK-) but his more advanced combos (>pp<PPP, <P<P, >kkPkk) require a lot of precision and timing. He’s also one of the few characters with an infinite that ignores damage scaling (Dragon Fist).

Contrast him with Broly- a bulldozer who has a lot of priority attacks and is good at getting past the opponent’s defenses but is very slow. He’s also a big target and lacks range so his defensive game is poor.

Lastly, it has a single-player campaign (Dragon Universe) that is so good that several DBZ games have tried to imitate but never could replicate till Xenoverse, which is like a crossbreed between a fighting game and a RPG. Once you’ve played through everyone’s story in DU (except Broly’s), you will unlock Dragon Arena where you can level up characters even those without a story in DU. What’s more is that the level up system isn’t integral to the game like Xenoverse.

 

[Papasmurf]

The lack of Dragon Universes for characters like Goten, Trunks (both incarnations), Cell, Freeza and Boo was crap tho. Especially when the likes of non-canon Burori amd Oob got story modes.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

nor is it filled with useless characters like BT3

I'd say this part is somewhat arguable. Sure, the roster was solid in terms of variation of important characters, but I'd say it's hard to argue that there weren't bottom tier character as in BT3. For example, Saibaiman (unless facing Yamcha) or Cell Jr. have little going for them. Same for Raditz with his lack of an ultimate.

As for the debate of Budokai 3 VS BT3, I'd still say BT3 is the better game for a few reasons. I'd say the roster, whilst quite verbose, was pretty essential for covering as wide of a scope as DB, Z, the Z movies and GT. The alternate variations of the same character was kinda inevitable, given the complexities of providing the movesets essential for covering all of a character's iconic elements wouldn't be fully realised until the Raging Blast games' Super Attack customisation. I'd also say these alternate variants get somewhat underrated in their variations, with their differing combos, regular attacks and Blast 1 & 2s offering very different styles of playing. In fact, I'd say some elements of character differences provide far greater variation when it comes to customisation. For example, flightless characters have to severely change their battle plan on a Tournament stage and mitigating that weakness comes at a cost, as does trying to buff up a character with naturally low health.

I'd say the area where BT3 shines the most is in the modes outside of its story. Beyond unlocking 2 characters and the Cell Games, the player isn't given much incentive to play Dragon Arena for long when its structure is quite repetitive and the only additional goal being to level up the non-DU characters. Meanwhile, BT3's equivalent is infinitely more expansive. You have Sim Dragon being a very unique way to unlock one of the rarest items in the game, Mission 100 having some very interesting themes for the teams made of it as well as some of the restrictions offered meaning you can't just cheese it with the same team, Survival being a challenging test for bragging rights and Disc Fusion bringing in both Ultimate Battle variants from the past two games. Then you have the Tournament mode having far more varied types of tournaments, with many characters to unlock from specific requirements.

The lack of Dragon Universes for characters like Goten, Trunks (both incarnations), Cell, Freeza and Boo was crap tho. Especially when the likes of non-canon Burori amd Oob got story modes.

Tbh a Goten/Kid Trunks story mode would feel like filler without some heavy what-if options, since their only major battles would be against Gohan/Vegeta and fighting Evil Boo as Gotenks. If they went the Dynasty Warriors 5 route where all available characters get a story mode, however, his inclusion would be more understandable. It's a shame Budokai 3 didn't go that route, considering the voice files suggested there would be some interesting what-ifs available.