Butouden Franchise

Discussion of all things related to Dragon Ball video games (console and portable games, arcade versions, etc.) from the entire franchise's history.

Moderators: General Help, Kanzenshuu Staff

User avatar
ecrockedboston
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:55 pm
Location: Boston
Contact:

Butouden Franchise

Post by ecrockedboston » Thu Feb 23, 2017 7:44 pm

[img]t[/img]

Which was your first? Which was your favorite? For older fans, what was your first exposure to the series?

My favorite is Super Butouden 1. I liked the cast of characters, and I always thought the gameplay was the best.

My first was Super Butouden 2, which also happened to be the first game I played on an emulator. I remember being floored, as SNES games and consoles were still being sold in stores. Imagine being able to pirate any Xbox 360 or PS3 game with ease on any home computer... That would be what it was like. One foot into next gen, one foot in previous gen. Of course, imports were rare at the time, so it really was for that purpose more than anything.

My first exposure was from animated gifs. The internet was a completely different landscape in the 90's compared to today. For instancw, if you were to search "Dragon Ball" on Yahoo, the favorite search engine of the time, you would likely find more fan sites than anything official. These sites would often host art, gifs, and maybe video clips. Popular gifs were from Super Butouden 2, with Goku performing a kamehameha, or Vegeta performing final flash. I used to save these gifs and pit characters against eachother to mimic battles on my own homestead website :)
One who consciously devises memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others. Writers of manifestos and of commercials are typical memetic engineers.
-Memetic Lexicon

jamiljamtheman
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 279
Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2015 2:00 am

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by jamiljamtheman » Thu Feb 23, 2017 8:57 pm

If Final Bout counts, then that was my first. It also was my first Dragon Ball game and one of the things that began my liking of Dragon Ball.

If it doesn't count, then Extreme Butoden on my 3DS :D I love that game. I have yet to try the SNES originals but they seem pretty cool. I HAVE played the bootleg Famicom "port" of Super Butoden 2... :lol: and I've also played the bootleg Genesis "port" of final bout which uses resources from the butoden games

User avatar
ecrockedboston
Beyond Newbie
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:55 pm
Location: Boston
Contact:

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by ecrockedboston » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:34 pm

jamiljamtheman wrote:If Final Bout counts, then that was my first. It also was my first Dragon Ball game and one of the things that began my liking of Dragon Ball.

If it doesn't count, then Extreme Butoden on my 3DS :D I love that game. I have yet to try the SNES originals but they seem pretty cool. I HAVE played the bootleg Famicom "port" of Super Butoden 2... :lol: and I've also played the bootleg Genesis "port" of final bout which uses resources from the butoden games
I remember when english Final Bout was going for crazy money before they rereleased it. I actually imported it because it was leagues cheaper. To think I loved that game once... I tried playing it recently, amd let's just say time has been unkind.
One who consciously devises memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others. Writers of manifestos and of commercials are typical memetic engineers.
-Memetic Lexicon

User avatar
Hellspawn28
Patreon Supporter
Posts: 15191
Joined: Mon Sep 07, 2009 9:50 pm
Location: Maryland, USA

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by Hellspawn28 » Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:45 pm

SB2 was my first. I played it in early 2002 several months before Budokai 1 came out. It's one of my favorites next to SB3. I got into the DB fandom later than most people did (I became a fan in early 2001), so I do remember going on AOL and looking up Gifs from the SNES fighting games on my dial up Internet. I also remember back in 1999, kids in the Computer Lab would look up DBZ gifs, they would look up gifs of SB2 and Hyper Dimension.
She/Her
PS5 username: Guyver_Spawn_27
LB Profile: https://letterboxd.com/Hellspawn28/

User avatar
Thanos
I'm, pretty, cozy, here...
Posts: 1630
Joined: Thu Jan 04, 2007 2:33 am

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by Thanos » Fri Feb 24, 2017 1:24 am

I think I played Super Butouden 3 first on major frameskip because computers were shit and couldn't even handle Super Famicom games in 2000/2001, hahaha.

2 is my favorite, for sure. The character roster was cool at that time, the stages were pretty neat, and... the music. God, the music. So great. So atmospheric and represented that weird but amazing alternate video game version of DBZ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G0Ca0l96c4

Good times.
Thanos before Thanos was cool.

User avatar
coola
I Live Here
Posts: 3360
Joined: Tue May 15, 2007 7:33 am
Location: Poland

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by coola » Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:58 am

I liked 2nd the most, didn't like 3 becasue lack of Story Mode, 1st was ok, but Perfect Cell was bloody difficult, if someone beats him without save states, congratulations, you are super player :)
My Twitter: @kamil198811
Bulma fan
Thanks to Discotek:
Magic Knight Rayearth get DVD release in 2015 and Blu-Ray release on 2016
Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas get DVD release in 2015

User avatar
VegettoEX
Kanzenshuu Co-Owner & Administrator
Posts: 17541
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:10 pm
Location: New Jersey
Contact:

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by VegettoEX » Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:17 am

Moving this over to the "Video Games" sub-section.

My introduction to the series and favorite remains the second game. The story mode is great, focusing on something different for the time, and striking Goku out as a normal playable character was bold even back then.

Can't help but plug the retrospective podcast episode we did on the series!
:: [| Mike "VegettoEX" LaBrie |] ::
:: [| Kanzenshuu - Co-Founder/Administrator, Podcast Host, News Manager (note: our "job" titles are arbitrary and meaningless) |] ::
:: [| Website: January 1998 |] :: [| Podcast: November 2005 |] :: [| Fusion: April 2012 |] :: [| Wiki: 20XX |] ::

User avatar
Nejishiki
I Live Here
Posts: 2406
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2016 11:45 am

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by Nejishiki » Sat Feb 25, 2017 2:23 pm

If I'm remembering things right, I bought Dragon Ball Z Shin Butouden & Dragon Ball Z The Legend together way back when, making the former my technical first. However, I have clearer memories of playing Dragon Ball Z Super Butouden 2 & Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension with frequency (easier setup!). At any rate, I discovered the video games during my initial exposure to Dragon Ball's anime adaption (through subtitled tapes). It was inevitable due to my entertainment habits in the late 90s. Dragon Ball, in general, wasn't particularity sought out for. It was something I obtained from happenstance while adding to my martial arts movie collection.

User avatar
DBZAOTA482
Banned
Posts: 6995
Joined: Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:04 pm
Contact:

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Tue Mar 07, 2017 8:55 pm

Ultimate Battle 22 was my first but Super Butouden 2 is the best.
fadeddreams5 wrote:
DBZGTKOSDH wrote:... Haven't we already gotten these in GT? Goku dies, the DBs go away, and the Namekian DBs most likely won't be used again because of the Evil Dragons.
Goku didn't die in GT. The show sucked him off so much, it was impossible to keep him in the world of the living, so he ascended beyond mortality.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:31 am I'm just about done with the concept of reboots and making shows that were products of their time and impactful "new and sexy" and in line with modern tastes and sensibilities. Let stuff stay in their era and give today's kids their own shit to watch.

I always side eye the people who say "Now my kids/today's kids can experience what I did as a child!" Nigga, who gives a fuck about your childhood? You're an adult now and it was at least 15 years ago. Let the kids have their own experience instead of picking at a corpse.

Yalos
Not-So-Newbie
Posts: 90
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 2:14 pm

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by Yalos » Mon Mar 13, 2017 3:59 pm

I only played Extreme Butoden. It sucks, Fusions is better.

User avatar
VegettoEX
Kanzenshuu Co-Owner & Administrator
Posts: 17541
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:10 pm
Location: New Jersey
Contact:

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by VegettoEX » Mon Mar 13, 2017 6:23 pm

Yalos wrote:I only played Extreme Butoden. It sucks, Fusions is better.
Would you care to expand upon that in the interest of discussion?

Extreme Butoden comes from a highly-regarded developer with all the makings of an otherwise competent game (combos/chains, weight to the movement, etc.). Are you not a fighting game fan? Have you played many fighting games? What are you looking for in a fighting game? Are you looking for more story than game engine? Something else entirely?

Personally, I only ever had the chance to get waist-deep with the game, and wasn't able to explore a lot of the deeper mechanics and balance as much as I would have liked. For all I know it totally falls apart in those areas, but I somehow doubt it, and it seems a little strange to write it off with a single "it sucks" statement and then go on comparing it to a completely different kind of game (fighting versus strategy/RPG).

That's like saying "applesauce sucks, cayenne pepper is better". Like... yeah, they're both types of food in a way, but have totally different purposes...?
:: [| Mike "VegettoEX" LaBrie |] ::
:: [| Kanzenshuu - Co-Founder/Administrator, Podcast Host, News Manager (note: our "job" titles are arbitrary and meaningless) |] ::
:: [| Website: January 1998 |] :: [| Podcast: November 2005 |] :: [| Fusion: April 2012 |] :: [| Wiki: 20XX |] ::

Yalos
Not-So-Newbie
Posts: 90
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 2:14 pm

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by Yalos » Tue Mar 14, 2017 7:09 am

VegettoEX wrote:
Yalos wrote:I only played Extreme Butoden. It sucks, Fusions is better.
Would you care to expand upon that in the interest of discussion?

Extreme Butoden comes from a highly-regarded developer with all the makings of an otherwise competent game (combos/chains, weight to the movement, etc.). Are you not a fighting game fan? Have you played many fighting games? What are you looking for in a fighting game? Are you looking for more story than game engine? Something else entirely?

Personally, I only ever had the chance to get waist-deep with the game, and wasn't able to explore a lot of the deeper mechanics and balance as much as I would have liked. For all I know it totally falls apart in those areas, but I somehow doubt it, and it seems a little strange to write it off with a single "it sucks" statement and then go on comparing it to a completely different kind of game (fighting versus strategy/RPG).

That's like saying "applesauce sucks, cayenne pepper is better". Like... yeah, they're both types of food in a way, but have totally different purposes...?
I didn't have fun with him, the fighting system is pretty boring and the replay vaule sucks.

User avatar
Kunzait_83
I Live Here
Posts: 2974
Joined: Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:19 pm

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by Kunzait_83 » Sat Apr 08, 2017 12:01 pm

My first Butouden was the original Super Butouden, which I originally played around when it first came out in 1993. While the game has aged incredibly poorly very quickly, at the time when it was new it was seen as strikingly original and unique (because at that point it certainly was) with aerial and ground planes and split screen combat that was incredibly distance oriented. Its easily the most unpolished and poor playing of the whole series, but it certainly captured attention and was the starting point that laid the foundation for the others to come.

My favorite entry is a toss-up between Super Butouden 2, 3, or Shin Butouden. Hard to pick really. Super Butouden 2 was the first truly solid game in the series (a quantum leap over the original by far), and has some fun levels and a really deep story mode (that did the whole "original, non-reenactment DBZ story" thing long, long before Xenoverse), while Super Butouden 3 is easily and without a doubt the best playing and most mechanically sound entry with phenomenally smooth controls (though lacking in strong single player modes).

And Shin Butouden is such a well rounded package (giant roster that was by leaps and bounds the biggest and most diverse of its day, numerous gameplay modes including the awesome and creative Mr. Satan Mode, stunning spritework directly from the actual anime's animation staff circa the Boo arc, standout soundtrack even by the Butouden series' usually high standards, etc.) that really the only reason I don't immediately pick it as my go-to favorite outright is that it just doesn't play QUIIIIIITE as silk smooth as Super Butouden 3. If it were possible to transfer Super Butouden 3's gameplay onto Shin Butouden, you'd have an immediate classic.

Bu Yu Retsuden is rock solid as well, but Shin Butouden in many ways feels like a better, more improved upon version of that game (though the Genesis music on it is really damn good: love that character select theme).

If we count Hyper Dimension as part of the series though (some people do, some people don't) then that one would have to take the prize as my favorite by far, just on account of its amazingly fun, intuitive combat and controls. And of course those eye-popping graphics and spritework, which felt like they were less SNES and more PS1/Saturn-quality.

My first exposure to the series was preview articles in various game magazines for the first one when it was upcoming. I was just getting into the series proper by the end of 1992, and I was of course very much eager to get my hands on a good Dragon Ball video game. One of my earliest bits of exposure to the series in fact (before I even started watching the anime or becoming a full fledged fan) was various magazine articles for Dragon Ball games, so I already knew that the series had had its share of games by that point. I was also a massive, massive fighting game fan, and Super Butouden was immediately eye catching with its innovative split screen mechanics, flying, gigantic Ki attacks straight out of the series, etc. I made a point of importing it as soon as I could, though my first time ever actually playing it was via a friend's copy a little ways before I got my own.

I've said this a lot in the past, but it bears repeating here: the Butouden series was to pre-dub, original-run fans what the Budokai series is to post-dub, Toonami-era fans. Throughout the early to mid 90s, Butouden was Dragon Ball's flagship fighting game franchise, and the center of gravity around which all the other DBZ games orbited. I personally think that while the series is certainly MASSIVELY uneven (that first game just does not hold up at all, and Final Bout is easily one of the all time worst Dragon Ball games ever), the Butouden series is overall when push comes to shove the vastly superior series of fighting games, being lightyears more innovative, original, risk taking, and - when they're at their best at least - much better executed and demonstrating more depth as fighting games (not that any of them will of course be mistaken for a Capcom or SNK game in any way).

And anyone who's never had any exposure to its legendary soundtrack is doing themselves a great disservice by not correcting that and giving it a listen ASAP. For my money, its the only music composed for something DB-related (by Yamamoto no less; where the hell was the guy who made THIS music when it came time for Kai?) that in any which way lives up to and stands shoulder to shoulder with Kikuchi's original anime score. None of the other composers who've tackled this series have ever made anything that's memorable or striking enough to make me immediately associate their work with DB, not even Yamamoto himself post-Butouden. Kikuchi and Yamamoto's Butouden work though are as indelible and iconic and immediately evocative of Dragon Ball as Toriyama's pencils.

I've always wanted to see if it were possible for someone to take the arranged versions of some of these pieces and actually score some scenes from the anime with them. Would certainly be a hoot.
http://80s90sdragonballart.tumblr.com/

Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

User avatar
Rory
I Live Here
Posts: 2746
Joined: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:15 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Butouden Franchise

Post by Rory » Sat May 20, 2017 4:41 am

If we're gonna include the titles that don't share the same... well, title, then Ultimate Battle 22 was my first. I sunk a lot of time into that game, blew my mind just being able to play as these characters on my Playstation.

Favourite Butouden game? It's real tough, I don't really feel like it's fair to bring Ultimate and Extreme into the equation, they're just too far removed from the other games and don't really expand on what the originals did, instead going off and doing their own thing (though both are great and have a lot to offer to Dragon Ball games in general).

I'd say Shin Butouden for the Saturn was a beautiful culmination of everything I loved about that series, bringing the aesthetic from UB22 (minus the disgusting 3D rendered backgrounds) to meet with the more refined/well paced mechanics of Butouden 3.

So yeah, probly' that. Just a shame we never got it.

Post Reply