And by accessibility, I'm mainly referring to "can visually impaired people play it?". DBZ is such a visually-based franchise that I kinda doubt there are many issues with accessibility in DBZ games for people with hearing impairments (though please correct me if I'm wrong...).
And just for reference: my vision is to the point that I don't bother looking at the screen most of the time, but it hasn't always been that way (though it has always been bad enough to be dubbed legal blindness).
So the games I can cover are, in order of having played them: Super Butoden 3 (SNES/Super Famicom), Ultimate Battle 22(PS1), Final Bout(PS1), Legends(PS1), Super Butoden2(SNES), Super Butoden(SNES), I always forget the name of the Genesis/Masterdrive game (Buyu retsuden or something like that?), Legacy of Goku(GBA. ...
), Budokai(PS2), Budokai3(PS2), Super Saiya Densetsu (SNES), Hyper Dimention (SNES), SPARKING!(PS2), Sagas (PS2), Budokai2(PS2), SPARKING! Meteor(PS2), Shin Butoden(Saturn), Legends(Saturn), and Super DBZ(PS2).Let's start with the easy one: Super Saiya Densetsu.
I still have no idea how to play this game.
I get the impression from here that even without being able to understand the Japanese text, the game is easy to figure out.
Now, when I first played this game was after my vision got useless-in-video-games bad. I get the impression that had I played it before 2003, though, I'd still have had a hard time figuring it out. I did try it with multiple people watching, and still no dice.
On a more hopeful note: Super Butoden is rather straight forward.
Well, 2 and 3 are. The first one has a more complicated menu system, and the font and color schemes and character select screen just didn't work for me. It's still playable, though. I wasn't able to find the soundtest for a few years, though.
.In terms of gameplay...
Well, it's not fast-paced or stat-based (either of the three), so it's relatively straight forward and on the easy side.
SB1 has the "I fly into you!" thing, which both makes the game ridiculously easy to beat, and also makes it possible to tell when you're near an opponent.
But that only gets us so far, I'm afraid. SB1 is sluggish in the department of flight and ki, but quick in terms of fancy melee moves, which both Vegeta and Freeza can use to create all kinds of "What side am I on?" confusion--the most annoying fault of any fighting game that isn't in stereo. (Ok, I had trouble with that in the past twenty-four hours when bug-checking a game of my own design that was built to avoid this problem...).
SB2 and SB3...
Well, the flight system, while the same, is a lot smoother in these two, so if I get lost, I can just hop into the sky (or the ground if the fight's in the air) and hurry off to the side I want to be on.
The big problem is that there's no way to tell how close one is until an attack connects. Since I played these more when I could see better, I tend to forget that issue... but it certainly exists, and since distance plays a huge factor into what sorts of moves one can use in these games, that's a rather big issue.
(I got Super Butoden3 for Christmas 2000, and we brought it along with us on a roadtrip. One night with it at the hotel and I found the hidden menu and figured out the movelist and auto-super portions. Not sure what the rest of it does... but the colors and font in SB3 were pretty well perfect for me, to the extent that, having forgotten Dabura's name, I got reasonably close to figuring it out by reading the kana on the select screen (I somehow missed the extremely-obvious "Bu" part.
).)SB3 does have another issue of sorts--that being the two sky arenas. When you go to the lower portion, there is no landing sound. It's not too big a deal for me as the player, but it makes it easy to lose track of where the opponent is.
(I didn't find the colors of these stages too problematic pre 2003, but did prefer the blue-sky Tournament arena and the Grassland/desert-place to fight in. I thought the other arenas were cool, of course... XD ).
Hyper Dimention is a game I only played after 2003 (If it's not clear by now, that's about when I stopped watching the screen. Almost.), but I haven't had any real issues with it. Though I'm pretty sure there are some interesting aspects of gameplay that I'm not experiencing fully (the side-stepping and the aerial combat... By the way, I can't seem to ever remember / figure out how to knock people into the sky in Hyper Dimention. I only think it has to do with X...
).Menu-wise, HD is fine, so far as I can tell. I haven't actually messed with it much without someone else present; mostly just starting story mode, but I've gotten into the Soundtest all fine and well unaided.
The "Where are you?" thing doesn't seem to be a big deal with Hyper Dimention. I don't know why; I guess it's just the nature of the gameplay?
The inability to monitor health, though, kinda makes desperation attacks even harder to pull off. Not that I remember most of them.
(That's also an issue with the Super Butoden games: that is, I can't monitor the power meter, and nothing alerts you to when you are at full power. Pre 2003, I tended to watch the bar in SB3, but I didn't pay it so much mind in SB2.)
The Genesis game (Buyu Retsuden?) is reasonably similar, accessibility-wise, to the Super Butoden games. Kind of in between SB1 and SB2; the menus aren't too bad, other than the options menu.
The Character Select setup is something I forgot to mention. For Hyper Dimention, SB3 and BR, there are clear boundaries to where the cursor can go, so it's rather easy to pick who I want. This isn't so simple in SB or SB2; if I ever lose track of where I am, I just have to pick someone and base my next selection on where the character I just picked is (meaning I have to do a whole fight with someone I might not have wanted to use).
(Super Vegeta in SB1 does block the cursor moving left/right, so that kinda helps. If he's unlocked.)
Moving on to the PS1 era:
I do in fact like Ultimate Battle22. I freely admit, though, that the graphics are pathetic--and even when I could see better, I didn't really care about game graphics so long as I could play it. (Hence, no Mario 64 for me. Boo.)
But I do think that the fact that I could tell how aweful the graphics were says that the contrast was excelent, most of the time.
. I seem to recall some situations involving Chibi Vs Chibi fights in which I could get lost, but that might have had more to do with my TV than the game.The main menu is extremely simple.
The character Select screen isn't; it's nothing resembling even rows, loops, and all of that. It's a good thing I have it memorized. XD
Distance and "what side am I on?" are issues here, but again, running away is pretty simple. The lack of a sound to anounce people taking flight is a problem, though. If a sound is in play at the time--mainly powering up--it freaks out while the other character changes altitude, but that is only kinda helpful.
You can't keep powering up once you've maxed out, though, and it's very easy to tell how much power a given attack will take (and most characters make sound when exhausted), so UB22 beats the Super Butoden series on that.
Oh, but how about Final Bout?
The in-game graphics are similar to Mortal Kombat 4 in that I could play better without looking than if I was trying to pay attention.
Final Bout did much better than MK4 in that regard, though. With MK4 I was lucky to tell where the characters were, let alone who was who (not a problem on the previous MK games). And yeah... the PS2 MK games really should use stereo better.
The Final Bout menus are more confusing than those that came before. I don't blame them for an attempt at being different, of course; it's just that trying to explore the different modes wasn't particularly worthwhile.
(Random tidbit: When my vision started declining from "Blah I can't read pencil and fonts smaller than 20-something (on a good day)" to "I don't even bother looking anymore", one of the things that made it obvious that something was changing was the ball at the VS screen on Final Bout. You know, the shiny red Dragonball-like thing? It gradually looked less like a shiny ball and more like a ball that had been left in the sun too long.)
I don't have much else to say about the accessibility in this game, so let's do something new...
~ LEGENDS ~
Saturn Vs. PS1?
Well, now, there is a catch, here.
My PS1 copy of Legends is pretty clearly a bootleg, despite the sender's claims to the contrary--there is no music other than in the fights, the intro almost always caused the game to freeze (It's unplayably freezish now, and my Japanese-playable PS1 is dead), and... umm... so maybe those were the only indicators. I guess it came in a crappy thin case?
The contrast on the menus didn't work so well for me as with UB22, but it wasn't that troublesome. Catch is that I did have to use my vision a lot to tell if something worked or not, which is a bit of a problem now.
The character select system... I kinda like it, even though it has the little problem of "all the SSJs look overly similar". Heck, I've copied it in failed projects of my own (though with considerably more audio)
But let's take a look at gameplay?
The very first fight I started was a three-on-three. Oopse.
The down-scaling of the visuals left me with no idea what was happening. The audio was different from what I was used to, so during this fight it only confused things further.
After pressing buttons for several minutes I managed to locate a tiny Gohan floating to one side that would occasionally have a glowy sphere on his hands when I'd press square. Success?
Actually, it wasn't a problem once I figured things out. Especially in Story mode. And the Aura thing makes characters easier to spot.
That, and Story Mode (Easily spotted on the menu because of that big "Z" in front of it) didn't have many three-on-three fights.
I did tend to keep my eye on the screen during this game, though. The controls are very simple, sure--up is always forward, down is always back--but it's still easy to lose track of distance, especially in a one-on-one fight, if you aren't watching. (I think pre2003 I did try to play without looking because of the simplicity of the controls. Ouch.)
The character-swapping during storymode is kinda tough to get the hang of. The only way to tell if a character will be in or out upon returning to the fight is one awkward word under the character's portrait in a much smaller font than is usual. Absolutely no audio cues (though I can understand why; the whole system is supposed to simulate the anime, so we can't have videogame noises interrupting). Unless you're watching the screen and can see well, controlling who's out when in a timely fashion takes as much care as the fighting itself.
Yeah, about that fighting.
The PS1 and Saturn copies that I have are very different when it comes to two specific--and extremely frequent--sound effects. Those being the "power up" sound and the "flying around" sound. I don't know if it's because of the dubious legitimacy of my PS1 copy, or if the games actually differ in this regard, but the PS1 version has these sounds as far more subtle and actually helpful at determining what's happening, while on the Saturn version they are certainly higher quality, but loud and in the way (it's impossible to distinguish the sound from one character from that of another).
Add to this that I was only able to play the Saturn version toward the end of 2007, and we have nothing but frustration. But hey, the menu and cutscene music/narration works on the Saturn? -_-
I think visuals are a necessity to stand a chance at Legends, though. Sure, there's a very simple strategy called "Block until the enemy tires, then spam basic attacks". This isn't quite so simple without being able to view the screen, though--the power meter fills/empties very quickly, there is no audio indication as to when characters are exhausted, sometimes it's hard to tell if a character is powering up or just floating with an aura, it's hard to tell if, even after a failed series of attacks, the other character is close to yours, Etc.
Which is just plain annoying, because if it weren't for this Legends would still be awesome.
To the PS2 era~!
I don't care for the Budokai Series. Why?
I rarely have any idea what's going on. Since stats play a big role in the effectiveness of attacks and defense, it's often hard to tell if I'm just completely lost, or if someone's broken my defenses, or ... what?
Typically, the outcome of a Budokai (1, 2 or 3) battle in which I'm involved seems to be a matter of chance rather than a matter of skill.
But hey, Budokai3 has talking menus! Well, now, isn't that convenient! (It is.)
Doesn't help with the capsule system in the slightest, of course.
I prefer to just ignore the capsule system entirely. It is 100% inaccessible unless someone extremely patient is narrating. Which is pretty pointless and annoying.
Dragon Universe in B3 is an awesome concept, and seems to have awesome content. I can't do jack with it, of course, but eh.
To be fair to DU, though, I haven't tried it much; I kinda just messed with the controls a bit not expecting anything to work.
For Budokai3, I basically played the role of Zordon, throwing out coordinates from a walkthrough to my cousin who was playing.
The Budokai fighting system, despite lacking stereo at a time when stereo is completely viable, isn't completely inaccessible.
For instance, when one dashes, it's clear based on the sound whether one is moving toward or away from an opponent. The problem is, with the pacing of Budokai battles, taking the time to do such a test can cost the entire fight.
And of course, this means arenas with ringouts are totally lame and I hate them.
I'm still not entirely sure what the up/down directions do in the Budokai series.
On the brightside, exhaustion / full power are relatively easy to play by ear, along with beam-struggles, whatever those close-up melee struggles are called ("burst mode"?), and I guess Dragon Rush.
Things like fusion, though? I haven't really tried, but I can't expect them to be doable unaided.
Though I have almost 100% success stopping my opponent from doing potara fusion.
Random tidbit: Budokai was both the first PS2 game I played, and the last game I tried to watch the screen while playing (I think stopping wasn't particularly conscious on my part).
~ SPARKING! ~
All the criticism leveled at the SPARKING! series is certainly well placed.
Despite this, SPARKING! is galaxies more accessible than the Budokai series, featuring what is, in single-player, almost complete 3d sound, decent series-believable audio cues for just about everything, and oh hey, talking menus.
I've had my "WTF just happened?" moments with these games, but generally speaking, it's more like I'm actually playing than with Budokai or post-2003 Legends. Even when in multiplayer--when the spacial clarity of sound is reduced to accommodate both players--it's reasonably possible to make sense of what's happening.
Sighted players still have the advantage when it comes to knowing how to evade attacks, or how/when to turn around if targetting isn't working (BT1), and exploring the areas is considerably less fun if you can't see them (none of the cars, buildings, trees, Etc make any sound unless they explode), but these aren't especially important to the overall gameplay.
The team system in BT3 isn't quite as easy to work with, since the talking menus stop before the character select screen (which is completely reasonable), but I've managed so far, I guess.
How about Sagas?
I've said a number of times that Sagas comes across as a game that I would have made. The glitches, reported graphics querks, and awkward loading / cutscene situations... eh, even aspects of the upgrades system, I guess... it all gives me this sense of my 2006-2007 programming style (Note that I was not good enough to make something as "good" as Sagas then... Ur... or now? ).
The menus of Sagas... I don't even know. I haven't bothered with them much--I usually play co-op.
The character select setup works. It'd be nice if the alternate outfits and versions in Pendulum mode were in a more cronological order (I.E, SSJ2 Gohan being last), but it's usually not important enough for me to complain.
DBZ games (at least those I've played) have always allowed you to back out of a character selection so long as you haven't gone too far from the character select screen, and with the anouncing in Sagas, that's a legitimently useful ability.
As for gameplay... Stereo. Faux "3D", at least in terms of volume-to-distance.
Targetting is helpful, and teleportation is uber-helpful. A little too helpful--it could well render the ability to free-roam kind of pointless--but somehow it works just fine for me.
The "Protect such-and-such" stages aren't something that I can do well, though. I have no idea where what I'm protecting is, or how it's being damaged, or how to stop it from being damaged. I try to focus on melee attacks more than ki attacks, but even then, that involves teleporting to where the enemies are, which can make it possible to lose track of whatever I'm supposed to protect (if I had the foggiest idea of where it was in the first place).
So typically I just stand around and occasionally roundhouse things and let the other player do most of the work in those stages. Feh.
Oh, and is it just me, or does the radar get louder with closeness (r3)?
Of course, the in-game menus are important. The upgrade screen, movelists, options and such--I haven't really tried messing with them, but it'd take memorizing them, I'm pretty sure.
That doesn't account for knowing how many coins one has, or in-game things like whether one has full ki, or how full an SSJ gauge is.
Since I almost always play Sagas in Pendulum mode with another player, though, I don't care so much about those.
And since I can't see these horrible graphics problems people talk about, I don't care about those, either.
Let's take a brief PS2 break to mention these two:
Legacy of Goku: I really just played this out of curiocity, knowing full well I wouldn't be able to do much of anything with a GBA game. I can't say much other than "lol".
Shin Butoden: Oh, dear.
I researched this game a good deal years before I got it. I got a Saturn just to play this game.
I finally got it Christmas 2007. Couldn't figure out the device to play Japanese games on the Saturn on my own, played it on my mono TV, and only had one controller, so couldn't do any practicing or anything.
So basically, I just pressed start until I wound up playing as Gohan against Krillin, and losing horribly, and that's it.
I think this is when I went from keeping mostly quiet about my vision online to being annoying about it.
I mean, I found walkthroughs detailed enough to make navigating the menus and character select easier. But the fighting? I'm stuck for now. Blah.
I think this was a big factor that led to me making a simplified fighting engine the following summer, with the specific goal of making something I could complete and play, with anything the rest of you would care about being secondary. Somehow that wound up stable enough that I've made three separate Sidescroller-ish things based on it, one of which involves several DBZ characters. Hmm.
I suppose this just leaves Super DBZ.
My copy is apparently bad somehow, frequently freezing. Like... so frequently that we only ever play in practice mode.
But the in-game audio is quite possibly the most me-friendly of all the DBZ games I've played.
(I keep finding myself trying to play it like my games, though, Hehehe... I guess I get a vaguely similar feel from them, despite the huge differences in quality. )
So in conclusion, I really need to play Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.
