Unleashing the Ultimate Dragon Ball Fighting Game Tier List!

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Dragon Ball sits near the top of shonen anime and manga, if not on the very throne itself. When it comes to influence over the shonen genre as a whole, Dragon Ball may only be surpassed by members of the Big Three or perhaps Fist of the North Star. Of course, the sheer magnitude of Dragon Ball‘s success as a franchise extends not only to anime and manga, but to the world of gaming as well.

Although the term originates as a descriptor for a target demographic, shonen can also be understood as shorthand for battle manga. This shorthand is largely thanks to Dragon Ball itself, which was one of the earliest shonen manga series to generate massive popularity among international audiences. Thanks to the action-packed sagas found within the pages of Dragon Ball, it’s no surprise that fighting games would prove to be the perfect genre for an adaptation.

Dragon Ball has earned plenty of video game adaptations over the years, but its fighting games have often proven the most popular. Many titles within Dragon Ball‘s fighting game history can be organized into either the Budokai Tenkaichi or Xenoverse series, although there are exceptions to every rule. Regardless, many of these titles hold drastically different priorities from one another, and can be appropriately judged along those lines.

Tiers Dragon Ball Fighting Games
S Dragon Ball Fighterz, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
A Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
B Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
C Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Dragon Ball Legends

S-Tier Dragon Ball Fighting Games

Although a tier list is subjective by nature, there’s very little dispute when it comes to the title of best Dragon Ball fighting game. Dragon Ball Fighterz pushed the limits of how anime art styles could be translated into a video game, and injected new life into a fighting game community which was desperately struggling at the time. Fighterz sits at the perfect cross-section between casual Dragon Ball fans and competitive fighting game fans, which helps it pull ahead of its competitors that mostly appeal to one group or the other.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is currently the most recent game on this list, and just so happens to also be one of the best. Sparking Zero is a direct continuation of the beloved Budokai Tenkaichi series, and does the impossible by nearly outdoing these classic titles. It would be more objective to state that Sparking Zero has updated the series for the modern day, and that is an impressive feat in its own right. Sparking Zero is hardly designed for tournament play, but the sheer content density on display is second to none.

A-Tier Dragon Ball Fighting Games

The Budokai Tenkaichi series has become practically synonymous with classic Dragon Ball games. Although each version has its own merits, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 stands atop of the pyramid for good reason. Between its roster size and story content, Budokai Tenkaichi 3 remains nearly unmatched to this day. Even with Sparking Zero surpassing Budokai Tenkaichi 3 in a few ways, Tenkaichi 3‘s approach to What Ifs remains unchallenged by its successor.

Just like the Budokai Tenkaichi series shaped the perception of traditional Dragon Ball video games, the Xenoverse franchise has a strong influence over the modern gaming adaptations of the series. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 combines elements of action-packed fighting games and immersive role-playing games, and leverages its time-travel concept to craft unique additions to well-known narratives. To this day, Xenoverse 2 continues to receive fresh content alongside each new Dragon Ball release, ensuring that it remains as engaging as any other game on the list.

B-Tier Dragon Ball Fighting Games

Considering it was released only a year after the first game, one would be shocked at how much Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 improved on the series’ formula. Budokai Tenkaichi 2 contains double the content of its predecessor, and helped to deepen battle mechanics significantly. In fact, Budokai Tenkaichi 2 and Budokai Tenkaichi 3 both contain features the other lacks. This makes Budokai Tenkaichi 2 well worth a revisit, and doubles as the reason many could even rank it above Budokai Tenkaichi 3.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi barely falls short by comparison. Still, there’s no doubt that it laid a foundation that nearly every subsequent Dragon Ball game would follow. Including 64 characters and 10 stages on a first outing is no small task, and Budokai Tenkaichi can even be credited for inventing What Ifs, which help developers to include stories that can still surprise players despite their general familiarity with Dragon Ball‘s best story arcs.

C-Tier Dragon Ball Fighting Games

When compared to its competition, Dragon Ball Xenoverse drew the short end of the stick. There’s simply very little reason to return to the title anymore, as it was outdone by Xenoverse 2 only one year after its release. In simpler terms, Xenoverse walked so Xenoverse 2 could run. Xenoverse can still be upheld for introducing so many concepts and mechanics that have been developed by its sequel, but there’s no doubt that the underdevelopment of its gameplay could be felt if one were to take Xenoverse out for a spin today.

Dragon Ball Legends isn’t a bad game by any means, it simply can’t compete with its peers on this list. Although it is billed as a fighting game alongside the rest, it is equal parts a card battler. Combined with the limitations inherent to a free-to-play mobile game, Legends lacks the mechanical depth found in the many expansive fighting games developed throughout Dragon Ball‘s history.

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2025-03-16 21:07