After a long absence, Dragon Ball Z game adaptations are turning their focus back to the Budokai Tenkaichi series. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 4 was revealed to a massive amount of hype, as while the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai trilogy was considered to have more legitimacy as a fighting game, the Budokai Tenkaichi trilogy had more casual appeal. The original series featured a ton of dream scenarios and a roster that eventually grew to encompass Dragon Ball Z, the movies, GT, as well as the original Dragon Ball - and even a crossover with Dr. Slump.
The weight of expectation on Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 4 is immense, and whoever is developing it will need to bring their A-game. Due to the massive gap in time between Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and 4, not all the series’ built-up content will likely return. This new title needs to carefully select the most exciting characters to bring back, all while ensuring that the resulting game doesn't feel too shallow. Building a worthy successor to Budokai Tenkaichi is a Herculean task, but a focus on one of Dragon Ball’s signature moves - fusion - could make the process smoother.
Fusions Have Become an Inseparable Part of Dragon Ball Z
Over the course of its run, Dragon Ball Z established plenty of iconic elements that its adaptations strove to replicate. Ki blasts, aerial martial arts, charging, and transformations came up again and again. One other trademark Dragon Ball technique that was introduced late into DBZ's run, fusions, first appeared around the middle of the Buu Saga and have remained an emergency gambit for certain characters to power up beyond their usual limits. Goten and Trunks demonstrated the Fusion Dance version of the practice with Gotenks, who was able to quickly match a ghostly Goku's Super Saiyan 3 form with practically no effort.
Transformations spread from there, though not very far. Goku and Vegeta used the Potara Earrings to fuse into Vegito during their fight with Super Buu, and the Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn movie introduced Gogeta as their Fusion Dance result. Gogeta got his own uniquely red-haired Super Saiyan 4 form in Dragon Ball GT, rounding out the four codified fusions available in Budokai Tenkaichi 3. All fusion took was placing the component characters on a single team and choosing to fuse instead of transform. Despite this, the other fused fighters - including Super Buu’s absorptions, Majuub, and even Kibito Kai - were just treated as normal transformations. Budokai Tenkaichi 4 has a lot of potential to rectify and expand this aspect.
Budokai Tenkaichi 4 Can Truly Represent Dragon Ball’s Fusions
Since the days of GT, new fused characters such as Merged Zamasu and Kefla have risen to prominence, and both Vegito and Gogeta are now canon with access Super Saiyan Blue. That's not even getting into fusions like Vegeks happening in Dragon Ball Heroes and other non-canon material. Budokai Tenkaichi 4 has enough material to make fusion more prominent than it was in past games, and doing so would help it stand out. The basic, easy-to-understand formula of placing two characters on a team and selecting their fusion mid-battle should remain in Budokai Tenkaichi 4.
One approach to modifying fusions would be making them temporary, but much stronger than a regular transformation. There could also be some fun bonuses mixed in, such as failed Fusion Dance forms as joke options or Vegeta using his Forced Spirit Fission ability to instantly break fusions. An especially interesting setup would be enabling duplicate characters to fuse like Super Android 17, opening the mechanic up to the whole roster. It's too much to ask for this arena fighter to include bespoke fusions for every character like in the 3DS Dragon Ball Fusions RPG, but every chance Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 4 finds to include a fusion should be taken.
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 4 is currently in development.