Stats Time!
Play Time 6h 25m
Goku Level 155
Gohan Level 141
Goten Level 107
Trunks Level 104
Vegeta Level 102
Stop the madness! Is this one of the rare DBZ games that I didn’t own before now? Yes, I finally took the plunge and got the game at long last. It’s a very solid sequel to the last one and the gameplay continues to be quite excellent. Leveling up never feels like a grind here and the game seamlessly throws some of the movies into the plot. It’s all handled very well and while the game is not particularly long, it makes for an enjoyable experience.
The game’s plot adapts the Buu arc from DBZ as you’ve probably guessed. If you’ve never watched DBZ before, it involves the world’s strongest heroes coming together to defeat an evil genie. They’ll need team work and a lot of heart in order to win this round. The text boxes do a good job of adapting the whole arc and keeping in enough details to ensure that you still know what is going on the whole time. It’s a good way of blasting through the arc while still knowing enough to bluff your way through a quiz.
The gameplay is the same as the two predecessors. It uses an overhead view as you can punch or shoot energy blasts. If you can block, then I’m not sure how as I never bothered. Punching is the way to go here and with each level up you can power up a stat. Go for Strength and ignore everything else. The rest are borderline useless by the end while strength will allow you to one shot all minions. This allows for easy level ups and then you can build up your defense. You can also turn Super Saiyan which gives you extra energy and increases your speed. I didn’t notice it actually amping up the strength of my attacks, but it must have had some kind of effect. The gameplay is easy to pick up and you’ll likely have it mastered in no time.
One thing that I’ve always really liked about this series is how easy it is to level up. You can gain 50 levels in a quick 30 minute run and even faster if you’re in the right place. At times, you’ll get a whole level up for each individual minion that you defeat. Considering that they go down like flies, this results in a huge rank up to your characters. It’s quite impressive to be honest and is the single best RPG at the leveling system. It puts titles like FF VII to shame where you’ll have to fight for a very long time to make any kind of head way. I’m still rather sore at that game for making the climax so much work. It’s not so much the difficulty but the fact that if you save in the wrong place…you’re doomed. It’s just going to be game over for you from then on. More on that in another review though.
The game holds up really well when it comes to the graphics and the soundtrack. The sprites are all pretty fun and the images that the game uses for the text are unintentionally funny as well. The characters are constantly yelling and panicking throughout which doesn’t always fit the lines, but that’s part of what makes it enjoyable. As for the soundtrack, there are a number of good themes here. One of them is a remix of a rock theme from the anime, but sadly it cut out all of the rock elements which was a little disappointing. DBZ 2 is still the best when it comes to the soundtrack because of the great Cell theme, but the music here will still get you into a nice groove.
There isn’t a whole lot for replay value after you beat the game. You can max everyone out and grab a bunch of items, but that won’t buy you all that much time. The fact that there is any post game content is still a plus though. The actual game’s story is roughly 6 hours so maybe you could take it to 10 or so by the time you’re done with everything. You’ll likely be buying this game for a very low price so the time is not bad. Especially when you consider how good the game is. Quality over quantity and all that right?
One thing I’d highly recommend is stocking up on food while you can. Save your money for most of the game and then just buy as many Onigiri’s as you can for the final part of the game. I’d also recommend leveling up Vegeta a little since you’ll need him at the end and otherwise it’ll be a little tough to beat Buu. Ideally you want to be at around level 130 or so because then you can finish him quickly. Never use any money to buy equipment since the enemies will all drop a lot of it towards the end of the game. Also, put on the heavy boots and gear to get level ups faster. It makes quite the difference and considering that the game was already easy to level up in…this almost feels criminal.
Overall, Dragon Ball Z: Buu’s Fury is a solid way to end the DBZ adaptions for the GBA. It was a really good trilogy and a very underrated one for DBZ. Granted, I’ll still take Budokai and Tenkaichi any day, but this was a great way to play on the portable. The series did everything that it could with the RPG format and I can’t imagine another title taking it out. Maybe if they ever made a big budget DBZ RPG with anime cutscenes and an awesome plot I suppose. For the GBA though, they maxed it out. I highly recommend checking this game out and seeing what you think of it. Now I just need to get the GT GBA game and I’ll have completed that saga of Dragon Ball adaptions. The gameplay shift is a little unfortunate, but I like beat em ups as well so it should be fun. Until then!
Overall 8/10
It’s good to finally have the show dubbed! Now I can officially say that I’ve seen the hit sequel to DBZ. Good things are to come! I shall have a review for this series when it is finished in America.
Overall 7/10
This is one of those games where you have to ask yourself…is more content always a good thing? I’m going to be honest, I’d like the game a lot more if it didn’t have the story mode that’s present in the game. It’s a shame that more modes can actually be bad for once and it’s a lose-lose situation since I’d be sad if there was none included as well. So I ask…does a bad story mode hurt the game enough for me to deduct a star or should it stay high?
The Budokai series is quite different from Tenkaichi in the sense that it is a 2D brawler. I always enjoy those although it’s safe to say that I still prefer Tenkaichi even though I’m going through a 2D fighting crisis right now. Tenkaichi just revolutionizes 3D gameplay and I never get tired or playing it. Budokai, on the other hand, feels a little limited at times. There’s only so much that you can do as your options are a little limited. It’s not as polished as something like Street Fighter, but the fundamentals are there and the controls are easy to grasp. The problem is that a lot of the game is locked out unless you complete tedious grinds.
For example…you start the game without signature characters like Vegeta and Frieza. I’m really curious to see how the character select screen looked at the beginning and I really should have checked when I had the chance. If you do not defeat them the right way in story mode, then you’ll continue to have to play the game without them and that can be a shame since there’s no way you’ll want to play Story Mode again. Just about everyone is unlocked through Story Mode or with the Dragon Balls, but the unlocks are not easy or quick. They take time.
Let’s go back to why Story Mode is no fun. You start on a Mario Party map and your goal will either be to make it to a location or defeat enemies multiple times. For a fighter like Frieza or Cell, you may have to win 3-4 times and then do that against some of the minions as well. Each turn feels like it takes a long time and you can imagine how sad it is to lose a level after going so far. It shouldn’t sound that bad in theory, but the fights really add up. Even the fact that the story takes a lot of new twists and turns cannot save the final product. You’ll end up just wishing that it was all over after a while. Without the unlockables at every corner I may not be as harsh on the Story Mode. As it is, it’s definitely one of the worst fighting game ones out there.
Aside from that you have other modes like Good ole multiplayer and Tournament Mode. Multiplayer is where you will spend the bulk of your time of course since fighting games like this one are best enjoyed with friends. That’s how it’s always been for the genre and it’s why nothing can beat a truly good fighting game. Tournament Mode should also be decently fun and you’ll earn some money out of it so you can buy some skills. Speaking of which…that’s another unlockable that is rather unnecessary.
Your characters actually don’t have their iconic attacks at first. Mind Blown right? It puts you at quite the disadvantage in Story Mode at times. Imagine playing Goku and being unable to use the Kamehameha. You can find the skills throughout the stages and get them at the shop, but locking a character’s moveset is unprecedented and certainly not in a good way. I really don’t know what they were thinking with this one and it’s a prime example of what I like to call “artificial replay value.”
The graphics are fairly solid. Goku’s voice acting is certainly great as he sounds a lot like Sonic. I feel like this started to change as the games got newer, but the retro ones still have this effect. The blasts are fun to watch and while more effort could have been put into the stages, they look good. The opening cinematic is also a blast and those always added an extra touch to the DBZ series. The soundtrack is a little more forgettable and I can’t actually recall any tunes at the moment, but I remember them being fairly good. Not every game can be the next Sonic right?
Budokai is a little on the old side and it shows, but this still did start the legendary franchise off right. If you like the gameplay here, then you should check out Shin Budokai. It’s a modernized version of this one and naturally it’s been greatly refined. Tenkaichi also came out due to this game so we owe it a lot. I also feel bad for the title since it didn’t ask to have such a terrible Story Mode. It just happened and the game ended up paying the price. We’ve asked the tough questions, but this DBZ title still beats some of the newer ones…sorta. It’s a closer fight than I’d like to admit.
Overall, This review may have been a little on the negative side, but this game is still a good one. When you take away all of the fluff, gameplay is still the most important feature in any game and that part is still done well here. Learning how to block and fight effectively is what will make you a true DBZ warrior. Part of why Story Mode was so difficult was because I didn’t know how to charge my Ki. I still have no idea how to do that even though it’s usually very easy to figure out. Still, the extra difficulty made everything a little more intense so that’s good. I definitely recommend getting this game, but don’t play the Story Mode as it will sour your experience. Despite this game being on the legendary Gamecube console, I actually prefer Budokai 3. The amount of in game lockable content is just too much. It would be good if you could unlock them naturally, but otherwise….I don’t think so. In closing, ignore everything about the game and just head straight to Vs. Mode. That’s the best way to have fun, but good luck with that since you won’t have Vegeta or a number of other cool characters. Maybe they could animate Story Mode and then take out the gameplay when they do a remake someday. That would be the best of both worlds.
Overall 7/10
I now own the Blu Ray! Definitely one of the best DBZ films out there and helped to erase the memories of Battle of Gods. This film is only matched by legendary titles like Broly and Android 13, but may even surpass them!
It’s been a while since I got to play a new DBZ game so now I’ve finally gotten to end that draught. It’s great that the Butoden series has finally reached America. DBZ has had many great series like Budokai and Tenkaichi so this just adds onto that list. The fact of the matter is, DBZ has a great track record with the video games. Battle of Z was a little disappointing and likewise with Ultimate Tenkaichi, but most of the games are all stars that didn’t just start out as amazing titles, but have withstood the test of time. This one is a portable incarnation so it may not have the same amount of depth as some of the other DBZ fighters, but certainly enough to keep you going for quite a while and the gameplay is solid.
There is a story mode in the game, which briefly covers the manga series. They cover it all in 10 battles so you can imagine that this is a heavily abridged version. It can be quite funny to go through if you pretend that you’ve never seen the show since you would be seeing a very different version of the events. There are also “What If” stories for many of the main characters like Goku and Vegeta. I use the quotation marks since they can barely considered What Ifs as you are mostly just going through the story mode from their points of view. A pretty big missed opportunity if you ask me. A fun What If was the final story that you unlocked after beating the others though, which shows it all from the villains point of view. We get to see Broly and Bardock with new origin stories to fit them into the canon universe and it’s pretty fun. The story doesn’t make a whole lot of sense though and most of the events have no real logic or rhythm to it, but these things happen.
The soundtrack is solid and there are quite a few good tunes to be found in the game. The action themes are memorable and there are a few good villain themes as well. It’s a very small soundtrack, but one that works quite well. The graphics are good as well and should remind you of the classic DBZ arcade games. It’s fun to see the characters standing tall, which makes the fighting gameplay more fun. It’s part of the appeal for the Street Fighter games. You like to have tall 2D fighters who aren’t minified so that you can really feel the combos. The opening cutscene that plays when you turn the game on is also really good and it’s always great when the DBZ games add this in for that extra impact. You can see some cool hypothetical battles this way.
As far as the character roster goes, there are 25 playable characters. You’ll be able to play as just about all of them in the story modes, but not all of them so that gives you an incentive to play some regular battles or enter the Adventure Mode. Adventure Mode greatly helps the replay value of the title since it’s quite long and should provide you with a bit of a challenge. There are around 75 support characters who will jump in to help you if things get rough. Naturally, these allies are extremely useful if you decide to increase the difficulty or if you want to play the game competitively. I never really used them and just focused on my standard combos, but that’s not technically the right way to go about this.
As for the core gameplay, think of it as your average 2D fighter. You have your normal combos and projectiles to mix things up. Each combo can be extended and you can also knock an opponent into the sky to start following up with some aerial attacks. The two dimensions are fun and having support characters naturally deepens the actual combat system. On easier difficulties, you can get by with just spamming the Y button over and over again (Which is what I did) but naturally that won’t work against stronger opponents. The gameplay is definitely solid and that’s certainly the most important part of the game.
As referenced earlier, there is definitely a lot of replay value to be found here. You can play through all of the stories and complete Adventure Mode. Doing all of the stories should take around 4 hours and I’m not sure how long Adventure Mode is. There are a variety of other modes to delve into and the fact that this is a fighting game also strengthens the replay value since it can be fun to just pop it in and start winning once in a while. If you have a friend who owns the game, then all the better!
I looked around and it seems like Japan has online play for this game. At the time, the U.S. version did not and I can’t tell if we ever got the mode. If we didn’t, that’s a little unfortunate, but certainly not a dealbreaker as I wasn’t really planning on doing online all that much anyway. If it does/did get patched in, that’ll still be a fun bonus though. Online play is the future and as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of local play, then it’s always worth it.
Overall, Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden is a solid fighting game and a nice way to continue the DBZ saga. It’s good to see the series alive and well as the franchise is getting its second wind with the new Dragon Ball Super anime and other merchandise that is now readily available. I look forward to getting some more Dragon Ball Z games eventually. I definitely recommend this title and any fighting game fan should definitely enjoy it.
Overall 8/10
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