Tenkaichi 3 has a reputation for having the largest roster of playable characters of any Dragon Ball game. Er, not counting the card-based smartphone one. It’s not intending to be a world-class fighting or action game but it does succeed at being a “Dragon Ball simulator”, making you feel like you’re playing the show. The strength of the game is in its breadth of content, not its depth.

That’s not to say that the game doesn’t have nuance. There’s mechanics and controls that were too much for me to get my head around; luckily you can still have a fun experience as a Dragon Ball Z fan by turning the difficulty down and blitzing through story mode. This presents scenarios to you out of a menu, covering all sagas of the show, most movies, also bits from GT and DB, and even a handful of what-if scenarios. And if picking them from a menu sounds dull, they’re actually really charming; each of the many menu screens in the game is hosted by a different character from the show who chatters away at you.

It is a fun novelty to have such a wide range of playable characters, including an encyclopedia of biographies. Problem is, they essentially all play the same with slight differences. This aids accessibility but when characters don’t feel unique then it doesn’t really matter who you’re playing as, apart from the aesthetic value… or, again, as a way of embodying your favourite moments or characters from the show. Spike’s Raging Blast and Xenoverse games presumably improve on the mechanics somewhat but from what I gather the fundamentals are the same, and for sheer immersion and fanservice it seems Tenkaichi 3 hasn’t been surpassed.

I certainly had fun with this, and was even challenged at certain points in story mode even if a winning strategy boils down to flying away, charging, and spamming special attacks. The Wii version boasts gimmicky motion controls (ugh) which I forced my brother to try one day, but fortunately it also supports Gamecube and Classic Controllers. Also the localisation is a bit sloppy, with inconsistent and typo-riddled English text. Essentially, this is not a brilliant game but for fans there’s much to love. Sparking!