Budokai 3 vs Tenkaichi 3

It's quite a debate among fans about which of these two games is the better one. Recently TeamFourStar rated their own favorite Dragon Ball games and both Budokai 3 and Tenkaichi 3 were the favorites...

For TeamFourStar Budokai 3 ended up at the first place with Tenkaichi 3 as a close second. Personally I would have put it the other way around, but I can understand their rating for that order.

The general thing about Tenkaichi 3 which makes it my all-time favorite is, that you can fly easily through a big 3D arena and can fight against your opponent using several tactics. Plus we have 98 characters in 161 transformations making that DB game the one with the highest number of playable characters.

It's a game which does not get boring, if you want to fight against a friend once in a while. Selecting five fighters each and go for it. Also one of the only DB fighting games which come close to the real Dragon Ball fights.

In comparison Budokai 3 has not these kind of 3D elements. Of course you can move in a certain way, but the handling is nowhere close to Tenkaichi 3. The Raging Blast games (which were released for the next generation of consoles like PS3) came also close to that way of fighting, but it's not the same.

But still, there are elements in Budokai 3 I still favour: The story mode where you could fly around Earth and Namek (which was similar in Tenkaichi 2), the way you could unlock and add attacks and abilities.

Both games had iconic and awesome soundtrack I still love listened to today, although the ones from the Budokai series have its special flair (although some of the were reused the the first Tenkaichi game).

Generally: Both games set its benchmarks and are despite being older than 10 years still loved by fans around the world. And successors would be highly appreciated as many fan modder adding new characters from the Super series into these classic games (especially Tenkaichi 3).

So whichever of both games you prefer, I can understand both sites. 

Tenkaichi 3 Modding: 5 versus 5 battles from 2016!

In December a new updated version of DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 Latino Edition came out and with its new characters the game became even more awesome! How great it is I'd like to share with a few 5 vs. 5 battle I played against a friend.

'Tenkaichi 3' is despite being almost 10 years old still a fan-favourite - as I explained in another article. You can see that going on YouTube finding lots of battles with modded characters from the currently running new TV series Dragon Ball Super or even additional old ones who never made it to the official games. I tested the recent Latino Edition, where are lots of new characters included. Here's a short overview of the character selection:

Goku Black, Zamasu, their fusion, Hit, Cabba, SSJ Blue Vegetto, Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Super... it's all in it. Of course less important characters were replaced with new ones, but maybe they'll find a way to extent the amount of characters in the future.

Me and a friend are always enjoying the 5 versus 5 battles. Last time we did seven of these battles with new and old characters mixed up! Here's the result (Spoiler: I won the most of them :D).

Battle 01

Goku Black vs. Hit

Goku Black vs. Piccolo

Kid Buu vs. Piccolo

Kid Buu vs. SSJ4 Nappa

Super 17 vs. SSJ4 Nappa

Super 17 vs. Zaiko

Super 17 vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

Freeza vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

Vegeta (Buu Saga) vs SSJ Blue Vegeta

  Battle 02

Vegeta (Buu Saga) vs. Whis

Broly vs. Whis

Freeza vs. Whis

Freeza vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

Goku Black SSJ Rose vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

Goku Black SSJ Rose vs. SSJ Blue Vegetto

Goku Black SSJ Rose vs. Piccolo

Goku Black SSJ Rose vs. Gine

Zamasu vs. Gine

                                             

  Battle 03

SSJ2 Vegeta vs. Beerus

Kid Trunks vs. Beerus

SSJ Gotenks vs. Beerus

SSJ Gotenks vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

SSJ3 Gotenks vs. Golden Cell

Frieza vs. Golden Cell

Frieza vs. SSJ Cabba

Goku Black vs. SSJ Cabba

Goku Black vs. SSJ Future Trunks (Super)

Battle 04

Goku Black vs. SSJ4 Vegeta

Goku Black vs. SSJ Goten GT

Baby vs. SSJ Goten GT

Baby vs. Piccolo

Nova Shenron vs. Piccolo

Frieza vs. Piccolo

Frieza vs. SSJ Future Trunks (Super)

Frieza vs. SSJ4 Goku

Super 17 vs. SSJ4 Goku

Battle 05

Goku Black vs. SSJ4 Vegeta

Frieza Final Form 100% vs. SSJ4 Vegeta

Frieza Final Form 100% vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

Frieza Final Form vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

SSJ2 Teen Gohan vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ Future Trunks (Super)

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. Piccolo

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ4 Goku

Battle 06

Goku Black vs. SSJ4 Pan

Goku Black vs. SSJ3 Kid Goku GT

LSSJ Broly vs. SSJ3 Kid Goku GT

SSJ4 Broly vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

Kid Buu vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. Piccolo

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. Omega Shenron

Frieza Final Form 100% vs. Omega Shenron

Battle 07

Frieza vs. SSJ Blue Vegeta

Frieza vs. Piccolo

Majin Vegeta vs. Piccolo

Goku Black vs. Piccolo

Goku Black vs. SSJ4 Goku

Kid Buu vs. SSJ4 Goku

Kid Buu vs. SSJ Future Trunks Z

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. SSJ Future Trunks Z

SSJ Blue Bardock vs. Gine

These were my final battles of 2016 with the most recent mods at that time. Maybe this year I'll create my own mods after having made a bit experiences on how a few things on modding Tenkaichi 3 work - like exchanging music or downloaded characters. Let's see what 2017 brings - maybe even a new official Tenkaichi game? Better not giving up the hope and if not, there'll still be more mods!

Are split-screen games a thing of the past?

In the past few years the split-screen options in video games began gradually to disappear. And now it went that far that even racing games do no longer have an offline 2P mode.

Let's start with an example: The F1 racing games which are released by Codemasters every year. In F1 2011 you could even do a whole season with 2 local players against each other. In the 2012 version split-screen was still possible, but just single races - same as in 2014. But in F1 2015 and in the current 2016 version the split-screen disappeared completely.

So just multiplayer online racing? Or bringing your own console to a friend and at best with your own TV? That makes it even more complicated. Especially at times where the TV screens are getting bigger which would make 2P racing even more exciting. Are the gaming companies expecting that with faster Internet connection the people don't meet anymore? It rather forces the people to stay at home playing with friends also being at home.

Of course adding a split-screen needs extra resources and so on. Ok. But for me F1 2015 was a wake-up call in terms the direction they're going. I already know a few people who didn't buy it - same as F1 2016 - because they found it that there's no split-screen.

Same with with the current generation of Dragon Ball fighting games, where I already gave some thoughts in another article. In Xenoverse the local 2P mode is quite limited and not even split-screen. That's why I still have my PlayStation 2 with Budokai Tenkaichi 3. A real fun game, especially with split-screen!

As far as I know with Nintendo they're still doing it right. Imagine they would remove the split-screen from Mario Kart. Can't think of that. At Nintendo they know that people still meet and play against each other. It's part of their concept and their success. Are the Xbox One or PS4 players rather the ones who prefer to play at home alone? Of course there are many games which are made to play as a single player. But still, at the point where a Formula One racing game no longer has a split-screen, something goes really wrong.

Obviously the protests are not big enough, the producers are getting through with it. It's still sold, but it could be sold more often. But maybe not copies enough to compensate the effort adding a split-screen? I can't repeat myself often enough: It's going in the wrong direction. It has a bad impact on the peoples social lifes. More isolation. And so on.

You can find petitions against it, but are they working? Surely not enough. But you still find lots of people being frustrated about it like me. Or is it just the older generation growing up with split-screen video games now missing it? And the younger generation won't care? I do really hope there's a change in the future, hopefully already for games like F1 2017, but I doubt it.

Give it some thoughts, feel free to comment.

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 Modding: Latino Version November 2016

After a few attempts modding the Tenkaichi 3 game following some instructions myself I found a completed Latino version with up-to-date mods.

It's interesting to see what's actually possible investing time and energy into an almost ten year old game to update it with current characters. It's still a fan wish to make a successor of the very famous PlayStation 2 game.

Recently I mentioned that for changing the background music you have to take care of the file size of the music file. Making sure it's not bigger than before.

In the Latino version they were able not only to use way longer music tracks, no, there were even more than the usual 20 tracks you usually chose before the fight. I don't know yet how, but it's surely interesting.

It was also possible for them to add some characters - not just changing them. Some stages were also changed like Kamis Lookout now has a dark sky. There's also a stage were you solely fight in the Earths stratosphere.

In terms of characters you can clearly say that Merged Zamasu is quite superior to others. Especially one long combination attack. 

And attention concerning using other costumes: The games freezes after you chose the 3rd or 4th costume of certain characters - Whis for example. Better checkout the video above to see what's possible.

Anyway, I'd suggest to test it yourself, it's truly fun and interesting. And if you don't want to listen to Spanish voices instead of English, you can always select Japanese.

DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 HD Remake - Why people want it

It was THE Dragon Ball Z fighting game for the PlayStation 2. 161 characters and the way of fighting came really close to how it would be in the TV series. Despite many new games have been released since then - many fans want that game from 2007 back.

The currently quite popular Dragon Ball games are Xenoverse and its recently released successor Xenoverse 2. These games are in terms of story with the Time Patrols quite interesting and playing it online is also quite cool. 

But - in my view - the fighting system or the handling itself is not as fun as in the final part of the Budokai Tenkaichi series. I admit, nostalgia is also playing a part, but playing a Dragon Ball game having been released since then is mostly disappointing, if you know Tenkaichi 3 from 2007. 

Of course, the story in Tenkaichi 3 was quite short and easy to get through, but it's always awesome for having a fast 5 vs. 5 match against a friend. The controls are easy, the battles are fast and really fun - and that after almost 10 years.

Modded Tenkaichi 3 games on YouTube

An update on the current console generation like PS4 would have much potential. Especially now, where the Dragon Ball universe has expanded with new characters and the story of Dragon Ball Super. And people are still loving Tenkaichi 3 - just go to YouTube and look for videos of modded Tenkaichi 3 like grognougnou's channel.

You'll find videos of fusions with SSJ Blue mods with millions of clicks. I also couldn't help and modded my Tenkaichi 3 game with instructions and downloads being published on another website. So Namco Bandai would surely sell enough copies if they would release an updated version of Tenkaichi 3 for the PS4 or other consoles. And how often you read comments like 'best DBZ game ever made'?

Answers from Bandai Namco

Such a re-release happened in 2012 with Budokai and Budokai 3 being released as 'Dragon Ball Z Budokai HD Collection'. So what's the situation with a new Budokai Tenkaichi 3 release?

The guys from the YouTube channel Rhymestyle actually talked to a guy from Bandai Namco about this topic in January 2015 (see video above), the man seemed interested, but they never heard of him again. 

And if you the Internet about that topic most reports are from the first half of 2015 - but apparently no recent information. It seems that it was considered, news of that possibility were spread, but that was it.

There were also several petitions, but all I could see was that they were closed by now never reaching 6,000 signatures. 

Interestingly, Treevax (the guy who is working on game concepts for a possible Raging Blast 3) also got some answers from Bandai staff concerning Tenkaichi 3 - but this is from February 2013:

Will there ever be a Tenkaichi HD Collection?First, you must know that making the Budokai HD Collection has been a real copyright maze. This is one of the reasons why we didn’t have Budokai 2 in the collection. Though, they succeeded into obtaining the rights, and made the game. I’ve been told that making Tenkaichi HD Collection would be even more complicated. Thus, it might never been made, because of copyright issues (game content, BGM…).

So, copyright issues... I'm aware within the Budokai series there were tracks produced by Kenji Yamamoto, but facing some plagiarism issues around 2011 the composer didn't produce any more Dragon Ball music. About Tenkaichi 3 I just know that the theme song 'Super Survivor' was produced by Yamamoto. So there's more behind it.

To sum this up: Many fans want it, but there are apparently issues with the rights making this even more difficult. I don't know if they're working on it or not - we may just have to be more patient...

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 Modding: New characters and stages

Maybe you have already seen several Tenkaichi 3 gameplay videos on YouTube showing new characters like Beerus, Whis or the Super Saiyan Blue in the old PS2 game. This tutorial will show you how it's done.

Just to be clear: I'm not able to create my own characters, but thanks to guys like Kinnikuchi (check out his blog) you can download new characters and stages to modify your own game.

Note: Your PS2 has to be able to run copied games - either with having an integrated chip, using ESR or running the game from the local or external hard disk drive - or via LAN if you like it that way. For testing this whole scenario I would recommend you to have an emulator, but more on that later.

1) Copy the disk to your PC
The first procedure is the same as you would change the background music of the game: Extract your DVD to a local folder in order to apply the patches.

2) Download the patches!
Go to the blog of Kinnikuchi and download the characters or stages available on the download page. And to be clear: These patches don't extent the amount of playable characters - certain characters (mostly weak ones from the first Dragon Ball series) are replaced with the newer characters. Sometimes characters are added by replacing a costume, or some characters do even have new costumes for themselves. Also the new stages are replacing other stages.

3) Prepare the extracted folder
Within the tutorial download from Kinnikuchi you'll get the AFS Explorer and an *.afl file. Before applying the patches, start this explorer tool and select 'File', 'Import AFS file'. Choose the PZS3US1.afs (from your extracted directory). Now import the file name list (´Advanced', 'Import file name list') by selecting the downloaded afl file in order to prepare your game for the new patches and changes within the game. Finish the process by clicking 'File', 'Update'. The game folder is now ready to be patched.

4) Apply the patches

Each download contains a folder with (mostly) a picture of the character/stage, a Readme file (where you can find out what will be changed with this new character/stage) and a dkz file which is the patch. 

Open the patch with the DKZ Studio and select 'Patch', 'Apply patch in folder', where you select your extracted folder. This can take a few moments to finish. 

Now you can apply any of these downloaded patches in the same way. Just read the description in order to make sure that you don't override some characters you may want to keep.

5) Burn it and test it!

In the final step I'd recommend to burn the complete game folders with IMGBurn. In order to test it properly it would be helpful to have a savegame with all characters unlocked. These are available in the Internet, you may just have to convert them for your PS2.

But to make sure if everything worked out, you should better do that with an emulator like PCSX2. 

And if every change is fine, try it on your PS2 - either burned on a disk or installed on your HDD. Have fun with these new characters and enjoy immersing into the world of Dragon Ball Super in an old familiar game!

Budokai Tenkaichi 3 Modding: Changing the background music

This tutorial shows you precisely how you can change the background music from the classic PS2 game Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3.

Back in 2013 I already made a tutorial about this topic here on my blog, but this time I want to go more deeply into it with having more knowledge and experience about it - also with additional video material.

Note: Your PS2 has to be able to run copied games - either with having an integrated chip, using ESR or running the game from the local or external hard disk drive - or via LAN if you like it that way. For testing this whole scenario I would recommend you to have an emulator, but more on that later.


1) Copy the disk to your PC
Select a folder to copy the content of the DVD on your local drive. It contains the folders 'BIN', 'DATA' and 'IRX' plus two files to give the disk an ID (also it looks different depending on the version - EU or US). For the music modding you just need to focus on the folder 'DATA'. 












2) Open the AFS file with '2' in it using DKZ Studio
Within the folder 'Data' you'll find a file named like PZS3US2 (in the US version) or PZS3EU2 (European version). You need to open this file with the tool DKZ Studio, which you can find online.

As you can see then this archive is filled with a huge amount of files from the game, mostly with character voices or noises as adx files. With double-click you can listen to every piece of sound because luckily the software has en adx player included.


With this huge amount of files it's divided in three pages and you'll find the actual background music close to the end of the third pages. The files are named like this: zs3_00_US.adx (again, US version).

3) Changing the background music
So and here's the interesting part: In order to change the music you need to convert your music to the adx format. So you need to go and check for the PES Sound File Converter. With that tool it's pretty easy to do. Click on 'Add' to select the files you want to convert, go 'Next', select the output folder and the process will run. And: Also mark that the song should run in a loop!

Before in terms of the file itself there's only one thing you need to look after: The size. As you can see in the screenshot above all the files are having a size between 3 and 5 MB. The created adx file should have a lower size than the file you want to change it with in order to work without any conflicts or error messages. So you need to shrink your mp3 files to a lower quality. I used the video editing tool Sony Vegas for that, but there are surely better ways to manage that.

So let's say you now have an adx file with a suitable file size, then you need to rename it to the file you are planning to change it with. Then, - in DKZ Studio - right-click the music file which is about to change, click 'Import' and select your converted file with the same name. If no error message shows up, the whole process worked out. Now, do the same with other music tracks you are planning to change. You'll also notice on the file icon which files were already changed.

4) Create a patch
With every change done the whole thing should be saved. By using 'File' and 'Save' I sometimes ended up not having the correct size of the afs file which meant lots of files were missing.

So I recommend the following way: Create a patch with all your changes! So go to 'Patch' and select 'New Patch (With Modified)'.

A dkz file will be created. The file includes your music and after double-clicking it you have to select 'Patch' and then 'Apply patch in folder' before choosing the destination folder. So go to the place where you extracted your DVD and select the 'DATA' folder. All changes will be applied. Now check if the file size didn't drop and also the changing date of PZS3US2.afs should be quite up-to-date.

5) Burn it and test it!
I'd recommend to use IMGBurn to create an ISO file with the extracted DVD files including your changed afs file. Confirm the suggested label name and let the process run.

With a completed ISO image you need to find a way to test it. A quick and fast check would be possible with an PS2 emulator like PCSX2. You only need to find a matching BIOS. Of course you can also burn it or copy it to your hard drive directly but it would be good to know if it really works.

If you changed the first file (zs3_00_US.adx called 'The Meteor') you directly notice after the intro video if the process worked.
To check all the background music, go to 'Duel', select two fighters and while selecting the stage you can move to the right to check all the BGM. Have fun to fight with your own music!

And did you notice the screenshots with the new characters? If you want to see more, visit the blog and other channels of Kinnikuchu. A tutorial from my site will follow soon.

Downloaded PS2 savegames and ULaunchElf

So you want to play a PS2 game with everything unlocked, but you don't wanna go through the whole game again - luckily the Internet is filled with savegames. But how can you use them?

When you go through the Internet you'll find savegames in the following formats: 

xps, psu, max, pws, sps

But when you start ULaunchElf and check the Memory Card you'll find out that every savegame has its own folder with a few files included. So you'll have to extract the files and copy them in such a folder.

For doing that you need this tool: PS2 Save Converter

Using the tool itself is quite easy: 

1) Extract the savegame file

Open the tool, select your savegame and then you'll see three files listed below. Right-click each one and select 'Extract File'.

One of these files has an ID like in my case BASLUS-21678DBZT3. It's DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3.

2) Copy extracted files

Create a new folder and copy all the files in it. Rename the folder to the same name as the ID of the game. Now you can copy the folder to an USB drive and start your PS2.

3) Copy savegame folder to your Memory Card

Open the homebrew tool ULaunchElf, connect your USB drive and select 'Mass'. Copy the savegame folder, go to your Memory Card and select 'McPaste'. Copying will take a few second, it's still USB 1.1.

4) Check and start the game

Reboot your PS2 and go to 'Browser' to check if you can see the savegame icon in your Memory Card. If so, start your game and your files will be loaded.

PS2: Replacing the background music of Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3

In the Japanese edition of Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (in Japan published as Dragon Ball Z: Sparking! METEOR)  we have the many tracks from the TV series unlike in the US or European version where this soundtrack was substituted with a new music. But now we have the opportunity to exchange the soundtrack with the original soundtrack or anything we want.

Note: You'll find a more up-to-date version with more information about changing the BGM of Tenkaichi 3 here.

The first step is that we of course need the PS2 game to make an ISO-image out of it. Any burning application like IMGBurn should be able to create such a file. This ISO-file you have to extract - recommended with a zipping tool like 7-Zip.

After extracting the output files should look like this:

Then you need this software (Google is your friend):

DKZ Studio 

PES Sound File Converter

In the folder 'data' you'll find three afs-files. Most important for replacing the background audio is the file pzs3eu2.afs (the letters 'eu' might be different depending on where you're from).

This file has to be opened by the DKZ Studio. Then you see the archive is divided in three pages - you have to go to the last one (3) and scroll almost to the end.

The PS2 audio files are in the adx-format. The background soundtrack is named like zs3_00_US.adx and so on. In the next step you should convert your favourited music from mp3 to adx. That's why you need the PES Sound File Converter: 

After selecting the file, click 'next', chose a destination folder and press 'convert'. You may check the first setting for making an adx-file with a complete loop.

Following that you have to rename the output file with the same name like the file to be replaced with (like zs3_00_US.adx). Then you need to use the DKZ Studio again, right-click the adx-file to replace and select 'import'. Then chose the before created adx-file.

The adx-file has now been replaced and you should save the afs-archive (floppy disk icon as usual).

For having a proper ISO-image to use, the original file pzs3eu2.afs has to be exchanged within the ISO-image.

Luckily the DKZ Studio is also able to open ISO-images. Now you only have to do the same with the afs-file like done before with the adx-file. Right-click, replace and save - and know you have a modified ISO.

Ok, I have read in forums that it's also possible to simply create an ISO out of the extracted files. Unfortunately this ISO never really worked in an emulator - the image could never boot.

Yes, an emulator. Before burning it or copying the image to PS2 hard disk it would be better to test the image previously. The PCSX2 is always a good way to find it out if everything works.

If you have chosen the z3_00-adx-file you'll hear the confirmation that it worked directly at the start screen...

So let's go!