Dragon Ball Z: Gekitō Tenkaichi Budōkai (ドラゴンボールZ 激闘天下一武道会 Doragon Bōru Zetto Gekitō Tenkaichi Budōkai, lit. Dragon Ball Z: A Fierce Battle at the Number One Under Heaven Martial Arts Gathering) is the first fighting video game based on Dragon Ball Z. It was released only in Japan by Bandai on December 29, 1992, for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was unique in that it came with a special card reader attachment for the NES, the Datach Joint Rom System, which requires several special cards to be swiped in order to add characters and items in the game.
Overview[]
Dragon Ball Z: Gekitō Tenkaichi Budōkai is the very first game to come packaged with the Datach Joint Rom System add-on. The Datach Joint Rom System is a hardware capable of scanning information from the barcodes on special trading cards, which were sold separately from the add-on. There is no traditional character select screen contained within the game, nor is a single playable character in the game usable by default, as the player had to swipe a card through the reader to send new characters and items directly into the game.
The game features many playable characters from the series (at least 28) and most of their transformations, with a corresponding trading card for each. There is also cards for varying versions of each single character, all with completely different attributes, statistics, and usable special moves. Each single version of a single character has only one special attack.
Playable characters[]
Every playable character within the game is selectable and usable only via swiping their appropriate trading card through the barcode reader.
- Goku (Base, Super Saiyan)
- Teen Gohan (Base, Super Saiyan)
- Vegeta (Base, Super Saiyan)
- Future Trunks (Base, Super Saiyan)
- Krillin
- Yamcha
- Tien Shinhan
- Chiaotzu
- Piccolo (Base, Fused with Kami)
- Raditz
- Saibaman
- Zarbon (Transformed)
- Captain Ginyu
- Frieza (1st Form, 2nd Form, 3rd Form, Final Form 100%)
- Android 19
- Android 18
- Android 17
- Android 16
- Cell (1st Form, 2nd Form, Perfect Form)
Battle Stages[]
Trivia[]
- There were only seven games made and released for the Datach Joint Rom System, including Gekitō Tenkaichi Budōkai, all of which were generally known as "Barcode Battlers".