Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3

The third installment in the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series begins another tournament of champions where only one fighter can prevail. As one of the characters from the Dragon Ball Z animated series, you can…

88 16 November 2004

Fighting Action

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 is a fighting developed by Dimps, released 16 November 2004 on PlayStation 2. The main story takes about 10 hrs to finish.

Verified 29 Sep 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 is

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 is a fighting game developed by Dimps and released in 2004. It was published by Atari, Inc.. It is available on PlayStation 2 only.

The premise, in the publisher's words

The story mode in Budokai 3 takes place on a world map called Dragon Universe. This mode consists of 11 playable characters traveling around Earth or Namek during the four main sagas of Dragon Ball Z: Saiyan Saga, Frieza Saga, Cell Saga, and Majin Buu Saga, while collecting items such as money, capsules, Dragon Balls or unlocking other characters for use in the other game modes. The various characters are each unlocked by completing a required task within Dragon Universe (for example, Dr. Gero is unlocked by defeating Dr. Gero with Yamcha in the Androids Saga). The Dragon Universe has a high level of replayability due to events in the game potentially changing from…

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a side view perspective. Its themes are action. It supports multiplayer. Local play supports 2 players. Available modes: Multiplayer and Single player.

Where it sits in the Dragon Ball series

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 is the 51st of 179 entries we hold in the Dragon Ball series. The next entry was Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure in 2004. Its critic score of 88 is 21 points above the series average of 67. That makes it the highest-rated entry in the series.

See all 179 Dragon Ball games in release order →

How it was received

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 holds a critic score of 88 out of 100. That places it above 94% of the 981 rated fighting games in our database, which average 68. Games released in 2004 averaged 70, so it scored 18 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 84, across 144 votes.

How long it takes, and what that costs

The main story runs about 10 hrs. Completing everything takes closer to 15 hrs, roughly 1.5 times the length of the critical path.

What it launched against

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 launched on 16 November 2004, within three weeks of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords. It reviewed better than 3 of the 4.

Released around the same time: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

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