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.
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... 
and I've also played the bootleg Genesis "port" of final bout which uses resources from the butoden games
