We all know Dragon ball and if you are here probably you have been a fan since your childhood just like me, and like me you saw these character fights in such a special and violent choreography, and we dreamed of having the style of fighting and determination of these characters but there never was a proper way to do so virtually, until this game and its incredibly fun and immersive experience was published.
The why this game is so good for Dragon ball fans it might be hard to understand for people who where never introduced to the franchise or never really had an interest in fighting/action media. but if instead of seeing the game as just an fighting game and start to visualize it as a Dragon Ball Fighting simulator the image becomes much more clearer. Take for example, the extense character roster available with over 161 fighters (98 if you don't count transformations) some people say that a lot of these characters are just fillers and serve no purpose in-game, but if you think about it and apply the same logic with a game like
Microsoft Flight Simulator it makes no sense to say that there are too many planes, because the variety is one of the main essence of these genre of simulators, this same essence applies to the
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi [ドラゴンボールZ Sparking!] franchise as a whole , the need for this variety of playable characters comes from the simulator-genre nature of the game and not for just "filling" a roster quota. It's not only in the character roster that you can apply this, the wide variety of places and arenas you are able to fight is proof of the same unnoticed nature of the franchise. but these examples are just details compared to the biggest feature of the game: the fighting system.
The way that the game allow the player to control the character is near immaculate and artisticly traced from the original artwork of akira toriyama, the combinations and the flow of these attack combination is simply fun and easy to use for new player but also very rewarding for experienced players who take the time to study the gameplay. it really does makes you feel that you are Goku or Vegeta, etc. Of course, it is not perfect, it is now 16 years old and the technical limitations are there in the light, but as imperfect as it is, having the chance to play this as a kid raised on the anime or manga and being able to bring all these iconic roles to life, it's just amazing.
Nonetheless, as a constant player of the game i can separete my fanaticism and give certain objectivity to understand certain cons against the previous mentioned pros of the games, such as the fact that this game could never stand on its own, mainly because, if you didn't watch the anime it is very hard to connect with the game in the same as someone who is familiar with it, but it is not only that, something that's constantly overlooked is the fact that this game is the culmination of the refinement of the two previous games in the franchise, in fact, a lot of hardcore fans do prefer the directly predecesor:
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 [ドラゴンボールZ Sparking! Neo]. In said game the fighting system was almost identical, the graphic section is indistinguishable one from the other, and the cutscenes are well... existent, thing that leds me to the last and for me the most negative point of the game. There are literally no cutscenes in the game, the only thing that you could consider cutscenes are just when the two fighters just stare at eachother doing some random loop animation and talking the plot of its anime counterpart, whenever some character is killed or attacked with an especific ability, just the in-game animation of said ability is used, no unique animation or action, at most a unique script line is used while the ability is being used, i mean, i could understand from a developing time limit perspective, but how is that the developers didn't even recycled the previous game animation to give the game more life, that i think is the game biggesst flaw.
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is more than just a fighting game, is a meticulously crafted Dragon ball universe fighting simulator, that thanks to it's extremely resemblance to its anime and manga counterpart, stands out among all the other Dragon ball franchise games that despite being far from bad don´t capture the magic of the original work like this game does.