Top 10 Best Dragon Ball Games Ever Made

Few anime franchises have been adapted into as many video games as Dragon Ball, and unlike a lot of licensed properties, the series has genuinely benefited from that volume. Different studios have taken wildly different approaches over the decades, arena fighters, open-world RPGs, handheld action games, and a handful of them stand out as great regardless of the era they came from.

This list ranks the ten best, weighing combat feel, roster depth, and how well each one captured what actually makes Dragon Ball’s fights work on the page and screen.

10. Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku II and III

The Legacy of Goku trilogy on Game Boy Advance took a different structural approach than almost every other entry on this list: a genuine action-RPG format, complete with exploration, leveling, and a real sense of progression rather than a straightforward arena fighter.

The second and third entries in particular are widely regarded as some of the best licensed anime games ever released on a handheld system, adapting large stretches of the Z storyline with a surprising amount of care and detail for what was, at the time, a comparatively low-budget genre of game.

What makes the trilogy hold up specifically is pacing. Rather than rushing through story beats to get to the next boss fight, Legacy of Goku II and III let players actually explore the world between confrontations, gathering items and building up their characters gradually, which gave the games a sense of investment that a straightforward arcade-style fighter from the same era couldn’t match on the same hardware.

9. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

Kakarot took the opposite structural approach from the Budokai and Tenkaichi lineages, building a full open-world RPG around Goku’s entire life story rather than a roster-based arena fighter. Players fish, farm, and explore alongside the Z Fighters between story beats, giving the game a slower, more lived-in pace than any other entry on this list.

It doesn’t always nail its combat, which trades some of the series’ signature speed for a more grounded RPG feel, but the sheer scope of story content covered, stretching from the Saiyan Saga all the way through Dragon Ball Super material in later expansions, makes it one of the most complete narrative packages the franchise has ever produced in game form.

The small, everyday details are what fans remember most fondly, though: side activities like fishing alongside Goku’s friends, or cooking meals that grant temporary buffs, give the game a texture of ordinary life inside the Dragon Ball world that no arena fighter on this list has ever attempted to capture. It’s a different reason to love a Dragon Ball game than raw combat spectacle, and it earns Kakarot its own distinct spot on this list because of it.

8. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2

Xenoverse 2’s defining feature is player agency: rather than simply picking from an existing cast, players build and customize their own original character, then insert that character directly into reworked versions of the franchise’s most iconic story moments.

Years of continuous post-launch support have turned it into one of the most content-dense games on this entire list, with new characters, story content, and modes added long after its original release. For players who want to live inside the Dragon Ball universe as their own character rather than just replay existing fighters’ stories, this is still the deepest option available.

Its social hub, Conton City, also gave the game a different feel from a typical fighting game lobby, letting players see other custom characters running around between matches, forming loose communities around shared training and mentor relationships with established characters from the show. That online, persistent-world layer is a big part of why the game has maintained an active player base for years after most licensed fighting games would have faded from relevance.

7. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2

Budokai 2 doesn’t get discussed as often as its more famous successor, but it deserves credit for ambition: it introduced a board-game-style overworld mode layered on top of the traditional arena fighting, letting players navigate Dragon Ball’s story through a more interactive structure than a simple menu-driven story mode.

That experiment didn’t fully stick as a franchise standard, but the fighting itself was a real step up from the original Budokai, and it laid groundwork the series would build on more successfully in its next numbered entry. Its capsule-collecting mechanic, letting players customize a fighter with items gathered across the overworld mode, also planted an early seed that later entries in the wider franchise would develop much further.

6. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2

The middle entry in the Tenkaichi trilogy expanded the roster and refined the wide, open 3D arena combat the series introduced with the original Tenkaichi, adding destructible environments and a noticeably larger character list that pushed the franchise’s roster ambitions further than any fighting game had attempted up to that point.

It’s frequently remembered as the entry that proved the Tenkaichi formula could keep scaling up without losing what made the original special, setting the stage directly for the trilogy’s most beloved entry. Its Dragon History mode also deepened the story presentation considerably from the first game, giving players branching paths through key story moments rather than a single fixed narrative sequence.

5. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3

For years, Budokai 3 was considered the definitive Dragon Ball fighting game, and it still ranks highly among longtime fans more than two decades after its original release. Its massive character roster, deep skill customization system, and surprisingly thorough story mode set a bar the series would spend years trying to match.

What separates it from earlier Budokai entries is polish: the combat finally felt fast and responsive enough to match the source material’s own frantic energy, and the sheer number of playable forms and transformations available gave fans a sense of completeness the franchise’s games hadn’t achieved before.

Its Dragon Universe story mode also deserves specific credit for how it handled alternate what-if scenarios, letting players explore diverging story paths rather than just replaying the anime’s events beat for beat. That willingness to let players meaningfully diverge from canon, rather than just rubber-stamping the same story every Dragon Ball game tells, gave Budokai 3 a replay value that a lot of licensed anime games from the same era never bothered attempting.

4. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero

The newest major entry on this list arrived with one of the largest rosters any anime fighting game has ever assembled, over 180 playable characters spanning the entire Dragon Ball franchise, and it leans hard into spectacle, letting players stage battles between characters and eras the anime itself never put in the same room.

It represents the current high-water mark for sheer scale in the franchise’s gaming history, and its arena-destruction combat system carries forward the open, 3D-space fighting the Tenkaichi trilogy pioneered decades earlier, updated with modern production values.

Beyond the roster size, the game’s presentation leans heavily into recreating specific, iconic camera angles and dialogue exchanges from the anime itself during fights, giving even a casual, low-stakes match a sense of cinematic weight that earlier entries in the franchise’s history could only approximate with far more limited hardware. For a franchise built almost entirely around escalating, dramatic confrontations, that attention to presentation detail matters as much as the raw character count.

3. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3

Before Sparking Zero, Tenkaichi 3 held the title of the franchise’s most complete roster for years, and it remains a classic among longtime fans. Its wide-open 3D battlefields, enormous character list, and surprisingly deep combat system set a template that fighting games in the franchise are still measured against nearly two decades later.

Its lasting reputation isn’t just nostalgia. The game’s combat holds up as a satisfying translation of Dragon Ball’s fast, wide-ranging aerial combat style, which is a large part of why it kept its status as the fan-favorite entry for so long even as newer games released around it.

2. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi (the original)

Before either of its sequels expanded the formula, the first Budokai Tenkaichi is the game that introduced the franchise’s signature wide-open, destructible 3D battlefields in the first place, a departure from the more traditional side-scrolling arena style the earlier Budokai games had used.

It’s easy to overlook the original entry in a trilogy once its sequels refine and expand on the formula, but Tenkaichi’s contribution here is foundational rather than incidental. Nearly every fighting game on this list that followed it, including Sparking Zero decades later, owes its basic combat philosophy, free movement across a large destructible arena rather than a fixed side-on stage, to the template this game established first.

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 remains the entry most likely to come up in a conversation about the franchise’s best game, which is why its placement below FighterZ is the most contested call on this list.

1. Dragon Ball FighterZ

FighterZ is widely considered the single best Dragon Ball game ever made, and the reasoning holds up under real scrutiny. Arc System Works, the studio behind Guilty Gear, brought 2.5D fighting-game expertise to the franchise for the first time, resulting in stunning, fluid animation paired with a combat system deep enough to support a serious competitive fighting game community.

It manages something very few licensed anime fighting games pull off: being simultaneously accessible to casual fans who just want to see their favorite characters fight, and rewarding enough mechanically to hold up at a competitive level. That combination, rather than any single flashy feature, is exactly why it sits at the top of this list.

Its story mode also deserves specific credit for structure. Rather than a single linear campaign, FighterZ builds its narrative around three original protagonists exploring a mystery involving clones of the franchise’s established cast, which lets the game revisit iconic matchups and forms across the series’ history without replaying the anime’s plot beat for beat the way so many licensed Dragon Ball games before it had already done. Combined with its status as a respected entry on the competitive fighting game circuit, complete with major tournament presence for years after release, FighterZ earns its top spot on merit that extends well past its impressive visuals alone.

Which one to start with

For a newcomer, the choice comes down to what you want. FighterZ for the best combat, Kakarot to play through the story, Sparking Zero for the largest roster and the most spectacle. All three are current-generation and easy to find, which is not true of most of the older entries above.

Emulation and rerelease collections have made several of the older entries far easier to reach than they were a decade ago, which is worth checking before assuming a classic is out of reach.

Others that came close

A few more games deserve real recognition even outside the numbered ten.

• Super Butoden (SNES) holds an important place in the franchise’s fighting game history for introducing many Western fans to Dragon Ball gaming for the first time, years before the more famous Budokai and Tenkaichi lines existed.
• Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden (3DS) offered a surprisingly deep 2D fighting experience on handheld hardware that rarely gets its due credit next to console entries.
• Jump Force placed Goku and other Dragon Ball characters alongside heroes from across the wider Shonen Jump library. It earns a mention purely for the novelty of watching Goku and Naruto trade blows in the same official game, even though its combat drew more mixed reviews than any dedicated Dragon Ball entry here.

Comparing across four console generations

A Game Boy Advance action-RPG and a modern arena fighter are barely the same medium, which makes one ranking across this franchise’s history an awkward exercise from the start. This list leans on combat quality, roster ambition, and lasting community reputation rather than sales figures alone, and it deliberately includes multiple entries from the same sub-series, Budokai, Tenkaichi, and Xenoverse, where a franchise clearly iterated its way toward something great across several releases rather than nailing it in one shot.

For how these entries compare against licensed fighters from other franchises, including where FighterZ sits in the wider genre, see the best anime fighting games.

Common questions

What is the best Dragon Ball game?

Dragon Ball FighterZ. Arc System Works brought genuine fighting-game expertise to the franchise, producing stunning 2.5D animation alongside a combat system deep enough to sustain a serious competitive scene.

Which Dragon Ball game has the biggest roster?

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, with over 180 playable characters spanning the entire franchise. It carries forward the open, destructible arena combat the Budokai Tenkaichi trilogy established.

Is Kakarot worth playing?

If you want the story rather than the fighting, yes. It is a full open-world RPG covering Goku’s life from the Saiyan Saga onward, with side activities like fishing and cooking that no arena fighter attempts.

Which Dragon Ball game should I start with?

FighterZ for combat, Kakarot for story, Sparking Zero for spectacle and roster size. All three are current-generation and easy to find, unlike most of the older entries.