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Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury

Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury

Written by Byron Blunk on 12/19/2004 for GBA  
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By now, you’ve probably developed an opinion of the Dragonball Z series. For me, I’ve never had much interest, but I’m aware of its rabid following. It’s with this lack of knowledge that I approached Dragonball Z: Buu’s Fury for the GBA. Before this, I thought Vegeta was a line of children’s books or a food group.

From the onset, the game tosses you into a story that’s already in progress. After a quick look back, I found that this was the third game in the GBA’s “Legacy of Goku” series. Unlike most RPGs, this also gives you high level characters at the beginning. You start around level 50 instead of at level one and your characters seem to be both incredibly strong and level-up extremely quickly. Sometimes, defeating one person will cause a level-up. The game has a lot in common with standard-RPGs, like character development, item collection and use, talking to people and so on. The combat system is straightforward real-time action fare, a bit like the old school Zelda games. You have basic punch attacks and a collection of special moves that include projectiles, teleportation and more. There’s lots of combat, but it’s usually very easy as multiple punches seem to dispatch most foes.

Where it starts to differ from most RPGs is the storyline. While I’m not sure if this sort of thing is typical for the DBZ universe, the story is certainly more unique than many RPGs available. You’re dropped into what’s basically more of a comic book story with lots of super strong characters with super powers and a super villain (Buu) to defeat. The pacing of the game is also fairly quick. It doesn’t take too long to complete chapters, but there a few “level gates” that bog down the progression a bit. These require certain characters to be a particular level before you can enter, which forces you to engage in some busy work combat to gain strength. While you can’t save at any time, there’s plenty of save points scattered out the game. This is critical for a portable game, since you could have to put down the machine at any time.

As you progress through the game, you’re introduced to more spiky-haired heroes that join your party and are each used depending on the situation and the plot. While it is fun to play as incredibly strong heroes, this makes a lot of the combat in the game rather easy if you can beat people in one punch. If the characters weren’t strong enough to begin with, they also have a “Super Saiyan” mode, which gives you even greater strength and yellow hair temporarily.

I liked that the characters had the ability to fly between locations, so there wasn’t this huge amount of random battling between towns. While the effect is basically the same as flying the airship in the SNES Final Fantasy titles, there’s just something cool about tooling around the over-world, Superman-style.

If you’re looking for a fun action-RPG to pass some time as you travel this holiday, Dragonball Z Buu’s Fury is a solid, but not mind-blowing game. I had fun with the title, despite very little prior knowledge about the series. Dragonball fans I’m sure will take a run at this from a much different perspective.
If you’re looking for a fun action-RPG to pass some time as you travel this holiday, Dragonball Z Buu’s Fury is a solid, but not mind-blowing game. I had fun with the title, despite very little prior knowledge about the series. Dragonball fans I’m sure will take a run at this from a much different perspective.

Rating: 7 Average

* The product in this article was sent to us by the developer/company.


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