Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Gets New Browser Version
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is one of the most iconic games in Dragon Ball Z history. Launching on the PlayStation 2 in 2002, it marked the beginning of the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series, which saw a total of three games and…
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is one of the most iconic games in Dragon Ball Z history. Launching on the PlayStation 2 in 2002, it marked the beginning of the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series, which saw a total of three games and paved the way for the separate Budokai: Tenkaichi series.
With a flood of games getting "vibecoded" (yuck) browser versions recently, it was only a matter of time before another classic made its way there—and it has. The original PS2 version of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is now fully playable in Chrome, Firefox, and on your mobile devices.
You Can Now Play The Whole Of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai In Your Web Browser (Or On Your Mobile Phone)
Vibecoding is a bit of a dangerous buzzword at the moment. Historically, when players decompiled a game, they came together to decipher its binary code, translate it into C++, and port it to PC. Generative AI is doing much of the legwork, and we're seeing a flurry of these titles. Titles like Halo: Combat Evolved and Need for Speed Underground 2 have received browser versions because of this.
While it's great for overall game preservation, it completely destroys the community element of decompilation, and ultimately, it's AI.
The latest game to receive this treatment is the PS2 classic, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, a 1v1 fighter set in the Dragon Ball universe. It received middling reviews on launch, earning a 67 on Metacritic, but it has since gone on to become a cult classic, with Dragon Ball fans recognizing the impact it had on later games in the series.
The port, framed as an "independent, non-commercial, open technical research demonstration," includes the full game and runs at 60 FPS. It is not affiliated with any of the original rights holders, including Sony, Bandai Namco, Shueisha, or Toei Animation, but it does work fantastically.
It features the full Story Mode, Duel Mode, World Match, Practice, and the Legend of Mr. Satan. It even comes with a full save file, that includes a range of locked characters.
Although a handful of games have made their way to browsers, others are receiving more complete PC ports. Super Mario Galaxy was decompiled at record speeds, and so was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Things could be starting to slow down, though, as generative AI platforms put guardrails against this in place for fear of copyright infringement.
If you've got an itch for a Dragon Ball game, we just went hands-on with Xenoverse 3, and we had a blast. In his preview, our resident Dragon Ball Z lover George Foster said, " I somehow came away from Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 more excited than I already was. As much as I would have loved a slightly prettier Xenoverse 2, the big push to do something new is going to have me counting down the days until the next step in the series is finally upon us."