Dragon Ball Z: Buyū Retsuden is a fighting video game developed and published by Bandai and Ecofilmes for the Sega Mega Drive in 1994. Only Japan and some Western European countries got it. It is based upon Akira Toriyama's popular Dragon Ball anime franchise.
I was not a fan of that Dragon Ball anime series. But this fighting game based on it is pretty good in spite of the Sega Mega Drive's hardware limitations. Kids in my country during the mid-1990s can play it darn well even though the menus are in Japanese.
The Story
Any Dragon Ball anime fans in the house? This game is in Japanese. Whoever can make sense of the Dragon Ball anime series story arc shown here, I welcome and deeply appreciate your comments below
The Graphics and Sound
The graphics are well done. All the characters are detailed and look like in the anime series. The backgrounds and everything, in general, are not as colorful as they could be. Overall, they are still okay. This is especially true when the characters do their super energy blast attacks. All in all, the graphics are okay enough for the console.
The music is mediocre. There are not even that many tunes in this game to listen to. The sound effects are a little better. There are even some voice samples for the characters from the TV anime series.
The Gameplay
It is a fighting game of the old Dragon Ball anime TV series with 10 characters to choose from. It is just like the old Street Fighter and Fatal Fury fighting games.
Navigating the menus in Japanese is not difficult since it is a fighting game.
Each character has dozens of techniques and moves that make you have a hard time remembering each and every one of them though some are quite useful and powerful. You can use energy blasts from the anime and it’s cool to see it. You can fly in the air and move to the ground. The two-player mode is here so you can play with your friend too! Creating combos will help you win the battles.
The controls are good but there are damn too many to remember to confuse you. Also, the powerful moves are too hard to use as they are a combination of buttons and you must do them quickly.
The replay value is just okay if you want to play as every character in story mode. Or have a match against the 2nd player who knows how to play the game.
My Verdict
Dragon Ball Z: Buyuu Retsuden may be a hidden gem of a fighting game on 16-bit systems. It is a good and fun game. The Dragon Ball anime series fans or just fighting game fans are recommended to play/get this one.
Play it with a friend on the Sega Mega Drive console or play it on some frickin' good emulator.
Let's keep on gaming in the free world!
