Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi lets you play as more than 60 characters from the Dragon Ball Z TV series. You can battle using authentic special attacks of each character as you run, fly, and swim through…

63 6 October 2005

Fighting Action

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is a fighting developed by Spike, released 6 October 2005 on PlayStation 2. The main story takes about 10 hrs to finish.

Verified 18 Oct 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is a fighting game developed by Spike and released in 2005. It was published by Atari, Inc.. It is available on PlayStation 2 only.

The premise, in the publisher's words

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, released in Japan as Dragon Ball Z: Sparking! , is a series of fighting games developed by Spike based on the Dragon Ball franchise by Akira Toriyama. The series was published by Namco Bandai Games in Japan and Europe, and by Atari in North America and Australia until 2008. Since the third game, Bandai Namco has handled Dragon Ball game publishing in all regions, effectively ending Atari's involvement.

Description from Wikipedia · source

How it plays

It is played from a third person perspective. Its themes are action. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component. Available modes: Multiplayer and Single player.

Where it sits in the Dragon Ball series

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is the 56th of 179 entries we hold in the Dragon Ball series. The next entry was Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 2 in 2005. Its critic score of 63 is 4 points below the series average of 67. The highest-rated entry is Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 at 88.

See all 179 Dragon Ball games in release order →

How it was received

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi holds a critic score of 63 out of 100. That places it above 28% of the 981 rated fighting games in our database, which average 68. Games released in 2005 averaged 67, so it scored 4 points below the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 68, across 91 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 Tenkaichi launched on 6 October 2005, within three weeks of Shadow of the Colossus, Call of Duty 2, Sid Meier's Civilization IV and Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy). All of them reviewed better.

Released around the same time: Shadow of the Colossus, Call of Duty 2, Sid Meier's Civilization IV, Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy).

Cheats and codes

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

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