Before the Budokai games, there was Dragon Ball Z: The Legend on the Saturn, an up to 3 vs. 3 fighting game featuring 2D sprites moving about in 3D worlds. The game released in Japan in early 1996 followed by a partial / limited Euro release (France, Spain, Portugal only) later that year. The PAL in-game text is French while spoken dialogue remains Japanese. With a slick interface, this targeted release capitalized on the anime’s extreme popularity. For one or two players!
My brother and I played and finished this game on the Saturn at the time. It’s approach is much different than it looks at first. The blue/red bar at the bottom center represents which team, heroes/enemies get the upper hand. In order to fill the bar with either the blue (heroes) or red (enemies), each team need to attack the other and when it’s entirely with either color, they’ll automatically launch a super special such as Kamehameha or Genki Dama, etc.
It tries to simulate as closely as possible those lightening fast battles and combos from the animation. While the game itself is not super engaging, those who are fans of the show will be more than satisfied, specially once they actually learn how the game wants to be played.
It’s quite unique and I can’t think of any other fighting game with such approach, it’s something that Treasure would probably do if they ever created a fighting game. Wait, they did with Yu Yu Hakusho for the Mega Drive and that game is also unique and is from another great anime!