The games have been a constant of the medium for over three decades now. This is a franchise🏅 that never stopped thriving as far as video games are concerned. Even when Dragon Ball was off th🅰e air, games still released roughly eve🔴ry single year. That said, as prevalent as Dragon Ball ga💯mes are, almost all of them share the same bad 𓆉habit: the story.
Time and time again, the games decide to adapt the story. Which is fine, and it's occasionally done well, but more often than not ends up being a retread of material that was handled with far more grace iꦬn the source material. Every now and then, however, developers get bold and develop original stories for Dragon Ball games. Some are even good. Here are the best 10.
10 Fighterz
Fighterz i🍎s an amazing ✨game and arguably the best fighter the franchise has produced, but it has a very mediocre story. Android 21 is a painfully underwritten villain, characters are slop🦄pily handleꦅd, and the localization changes so much that anyone who can’t understand Japanese is forced to endure a different script.
So why is it included? Ther♚e aren’t that many original Dragon Ball stories in the first place, but Fighterz does get points for being ambitious. It genuinely does try to do something interesting with the cast and lore. It jus🧸t ends up failing more often than not. It’s the video game story equivalent of Dragon Ball GT.
9 Dokkan Battle
Dokken Battle’s story is really, really weird. To the point where most people who play the game don’t even bother trying to comprehend what’s going on the timeline sprawling narrative. Certain stages have a unique dialogue based on difficulty, some events are adaptations of story material, and some♎ arcs are just straight-up nonsense.
However, it is interesting to watch the story play out, especially when Trunks is getting himself involved in timeline shenanigans. It results in a story that never quite knows what it’s doing, but has fun trudging 🍒🐠itself along from beat to beat. If nothing else, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is always a good thing.
8 Ultimate Tenkaichi
Ultimate Tenkaichi features two story modes: a traditional𓄧 adaptation, and a “Hero Mode” where players create their character and play out a story that takes place a seemingly long time after the end of Dragon Ball GT. That’s the strangest part of the game— Hero Mode is something o🦩f a sequel to an anime sequel.
To be fair, Dragon Ball Super didn’t exist at the time༺ so it’s not unreasonable for a game dev to want to follow up the anime’s story. This a♏ctually wasn’t the first time a Dragon Ball gamꩵe would style itself as a sequel to 🉐the anime, but Ultimate Tenkaichi centering itself in a GT centric world doesn’t do it any favors.
7 Supersonic Warriors 2
Like the original Supersonic Warriors before it, Supersonic Warriors 2’s story mainly centers itself around What-If sඣcenarios. Where Supersonic Warriors went crea🥃tive with every🅷 single one of its stories, however, Supersonic Warriors 2 is a bit more focused aꦕt the expense of making character arcs feel narrowe𒉰r in scope.
Supersonic Warriors 2 doesn’t develop characters comprehensively enough in its story, featuring a much worse translation than the first game’s to boot, but the scenarios are generally very interesting and opt more for novelty than making sense. That in itself has val๊ue, especially 𒉰since Supersonic Warriors ha❀ndled most of the traditional What-If scenarios will enough.
6 Xenoverse Series
A pseudo-sequel of sorts to Dragon Ball, Xenoverse expands the series lore considerably— even if said lore wilౠl always be locked to Heroes and Xenoverse. The series mainly centers itself around timeline shenanigans, using Trunks as the “main character” alongside the player’s avatar. It’s mostly a retread of the origina༺l series, but it 🐟works well enough.
Xenoverse is at its most interesting when it’s taking from Heroes and Dragon Ball Online. As much potential as Xenoverse wastes with its time travel nonsense, it expaꦇnds the mythology of Dragon Ball in a way ꦺthat adds genuine sc🅠ope. In many respects, XV’s lore is preferable to Super’s.
5 Shin Budokai
Ta🥂king place two years after the eveꦡnts of the Majin Buu arc, Shin Budokai was Super before Super, telling a self-contained story in a ti🅰me of peace. Unlike Super, however, Shin Budokai ke🉐eps itself simple. Although a sequel, it chooses to 💛adapt Fusion Reborn of all things, fleshing it out considerably.
Surprisingly enough, the🐟 story is handled rather well. While it’s certainly lacking when it comes to character work, Shin Budokai is an entertaining story in the world of Dragon Ball. It also tries to keep itself in-line with the anime continuity. It’s fun to i🌟magine Shin Budokai as a proper, alternative sequel to DBZ.
4 Dragon Ball Fusions
Dragon Ball Fusions doesn’t even attempt to shove itself into th💧e canon,🐬 instead just using the Dragon Ball aesthetic as a means of dressinဣg up a really good turned based RPG. That said, it’s not as if Fusions just uses the ser♉ies’ style. It’s a love letter to Dragon Ball in almost every sense, and the expansion of Fusion is handled🧔 with plenty of charm.
Fusions’ story is like a Pokemon story. No, it’s not high art or ev💞en all that compelling most of the time, but it’s charming, well told, and sucks the audience in. Dragon Ball Fusions also opts for something unique♕ narratively, refusing to just use the cast and have them fight a🌱 new villain like in the films.
3 Legends
Dokkan Battle’s other half, Legends tells a surprisingly good story in spite of basically being Fan Service: The Game. The actual story beats aren’t too impressive or compelling, but the character writing has no right being as good as it is. Shallot is an interesting protagonist who’s just as 🎃fun to follow as Goku was.
Legends also does a great job of fleshing out minor villains. Nappa,🧔 in particular, ends up feel🐼ing like a real person. It’s all very bizarre and none of the characterizations in the game can transfer over to the main canon, but Legends offers something few Dragon Ball games do, a story wheღre the writer clearly cares.
2 Supersonic Warriors
By nature, Supersonic Warriors is grounded in the story of the series. It doesn’t deviate far, but it deviates enough so its What-If scenarios end up wildly entertaining. Where else can players experience a story where Piccolo, who is now the main character in⛄stead of Goku, revives Demon King Piccolo so he can merge with him?
Every character has their own story where they’re the star. Want Gohan to finish the Buu arc as the lead? Play his story. Want Krillin to save the day and learﷺn some techniques from Kaio? Play his story. There are even three story modes that end up covering Dragon Ball Z almost in full. Supersonic Warriors really has all its bases covered.
1 Shin Budokai: Another Road
The Future Trunks arc before Dragon Ball Super brought Trunks back, Shin Budokai: Another Road takes place a few years after the end of the Majin Buu arc and sees the Z-Fighters in the main timeline helping Trunkไs sort out his Majin Buu situation. The story does end up leani꧑ng heavily into the fan service later on, but Another Road ℱdoes a good job of bringing Trunks back int༒o the fold.
Not just that, the story actually seeks toꦰ develop the ch🔯aracters, giving them definable arcs— a rarity for even the best Dragon Ball games. Another Road is by no meᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚans perfect, but it has🅷 the most engaging original DB story by far. Really getting everyꦫthing it can out of its premise.