"Fireball motions" and the like provide the majority of special move inputs, along with "dial-a-combos" (as seen in Mortal Kombat 3 and the Tekken series) for closer, hand-to-hand combat.

[1] This is a basic arcade mode, in which the player can use either a normal, or custom character to fight their way through seven opponents (receiving a Dragon Ball for each victory) and gain experience on the way.

Battles all take place in the world tournament ring (with the same background music each time), and last a single round.

If the player wins the round, they play a "roulette"-style game in which their selection endows them with items such as additional experience, extra health, Dragon Balls, etc.

Upon collecting seven Dragon Balls with a custom character, the player may enter this mode to summon Shenron.

These characters gain experience from fighting, allowing them to learn new special attacks and raise their statistics.

There are 30 available slots for custom characters, and they may be used in Original, Z Survivor, Training, Summon Shenron, and Versus modes.

Color schemes, art styles, and even loading screens are all nods to the original Japanese Weekly Jump serialization and collected tankobōn run of the series.

For example, the orange on Goku's gi is not in the saturated shade of vermilion depicted in the TV series; images on the main menu are significant colored images from the manga; loading screens mirror the original Japanese tankobōn cover art; sound effects are written out during battle when an excessively-hard hit connects; etc.

Jouji Yanami is evidently one of the unlockable "Narration" voices for the game, even credited in the "Original Mode" ending sequence.

The score of the game features at least two remixes of background music composed for the Dragon Ball Z TV series by Shunsuke Kikuchi.