Reviewed by: Mistereyedee
Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension, released in 1996, is the very last of the Dragon Ball games on the Super Famicom. Bandai was getting ready to start working on upcoming PlayStation titles at the time, but they decided to have some fun with this final installment before jumping ship. While critically-acclaimed by many hardcore fans of the franchise, I feel that this game is far from perfect; oftentimes a big, dramatic step down from the Super Butouden games. In this game you get to play as the following characters: Super Saiyan 2 Goku; Piccolo; Mystic Gohan; Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks; Majin Vegeta; Super Saiyan Vegito; Frieza; Perfect Cell; Fat Buu; Kid Buu.
Well, let's get on with the review.
Story: 4/5
Nothing special about Story Mode, really. The story pretty much starts off at the tail-end of the Frieza Saga, and ends as soon as you defeat Kid Buu. There are a few bonus battles at the end of the game, but in order to access them you cannot use a continue more than once (on fights you are required to win). One thing I absolutely hate about Story Mode is how most battles start off in the same stage. Talk about laziness from the pixel artists' end.
Graphics: 3/5
The graphics are rather a step down from the Super Butouden games if you ask me. The reason for this is that while the character portraits and the backgrounds look visually appealing, the character sprites have way too many pixels around them (especially their clothing). Effects look nice, but they're not that impressive to look at.
Sound: 4/5
The sound effects and character voices sound just fine. There is nothing else to add here. Moving along...
Music: 3/5
I honestly just couldn't get into the soundtrack I'm afraid -- I only like one or maybe two of them. Much of my disdain for the BGM of this game has to do with the fact that the songs sound too "relaxed" for me (kind of like the problem with the music of Super Butouden 2). I mean, heck, you're knocking the shit out of your opponents, not square-dancing for Christ's sake! Yawn.
Control: 5/5
The controls are simple to understand: Y for punches, B for kicks, A for Ki, X for throws or knocking an opponent up/down/across the stages, and L/R for dashing (while using the directional pad). To power up, just hold B and Y. You can also do sneak attacks by moving to the side and striking your opponent unsuspected by pushing R (if you are facing right) or L (if you are facing left) and either Y or B (varies from character-to-character).
If you are fighting in the air and both you and your opponent punch or kick each other at the right time one person will fly over to the back, and the other will fly a bit up front. If you are in the back, you'll have to push either X (blocks fireballs) or Y (dodges Ki blasts), although it's anyone's guess as to what your opponent will do instead to trick you (which makes it all the more exciting, haha). But if you end up being the offender you may choose either A (fires a Ki blast) or B (shoots a bunch of fireballs). You and your opponent will keep changing places after every two strikes, until either of you get hit more than the other.
Gameplay: 5/5
Your typical 2D fighter, except with a bit of a twist: combining the fighting techniques of Street Fighter II along with the stage-shifting of Mortal Kombat. You have the benefit of knocking your opponents up into the air, as well as knocking them over to a distant area (which worked well since the fights in the manga/anime involved a lot of shifting).
If your health is in critical level (your health bar should be flashing repeatedly when it gets that low), you may perform your character's special (if you know the button combinations). They may be a bit hard to pull off, but are worth the effort since they can easily take away more than 80-100 off of an opponent's health.
Another cool feature is that unlike having both a health bar and an energy bar on the older Super Butouden games, Hyper Dimension only uses one bar (for both health and energy), thus if you shoot out a Ki blast you'll lose some of your own health. Once the health bar is down to 1, however, you'll still be able to shoot as many more blasts as you'd like to. But it's always a good idea to recharge your health as much as possible when in critical level (only takes about a few seconds to regain adequate amounts of health before resuming combat, assuming your opponent is on the opposite end of the screen).
In case you have any problems pulling off some moves or specials, you can always go on Training Mode (sparring partner is just a dummy, and no one will lose any health). Thanks goodness for that; I hated having to plug in a second controller just so I could practice my moves on other fighting games of that time period.
Challenge: 2/5
Pathetically easy, that's what this game is. Even at the "hardest" difficulty level (which is 4 on Versus Mode) the fights are ridiculously easy. On the other hand, Fat Buu usually gives me a lot of trouble when fighting him in the air (because of his constant spamming of antenna attacks). I suppose the bonus fights at the end of Story Mode added a bit of a challenge, so my struggles (every now and then) with Fat Buu and the bonus fights save this part of the game from having a measly 1.
Fun Factor: 4/5
This game is loads of fun at first, but eventually gets boring. I usually just play the game via Story Mode, but everything is already predictable enough to the point where it's just no longer worth playing. It's like watching the same movie over and over again, knowing exactly what's going to happen.
Overall: 30/40
Hyper Dimension was a great release, with innovating game mechanics (for its time) and colorful visuals. If you are a fan of the Dragon Ball franchise and love fighting games, there is no reason you shouldn't give Hyper Dimension a try if you have never even played it before. Best way to play this game would be to emulate it, unfortunately, or cross your fingers and hope to win the actual thing on eBay auctions (get ready to shell out your entire week's paycheck!).
