Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension

"A fantastic Dragon Ball fighter"

Though Dragon Ball Z gets quite a bit of praise from many insane fans, it, of course, has many haters. For this reason, you may think that many of those haters would hate a Dragon Ball game. However, no matter how much someone hates Dragon Ball Z, I don't think many people would define Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension as a crappy game. It is a fantastic fighter released on the SMC with many unique traits that make this game much better than a majority of the fighting games available in 16-bit.

Hyper Dimension was released in Japan in 1996, when 16-bit systems were dying, so it came after the Butoden series, which is the series of three Dragon Ball Z fighters also released on the Super Famicon. The Butoden series featured a basic one-on-one option, a tournament option, and a story mode (with the exception of Butoden 3, which didn't have a story mode), and it turned out to be a very simple system. So, Hyper Dimension kept the three modes of play, and added a practice mode for good measure. The one-on-one mode is pretty self-explanatory and seen in virtually every other fighting game released, so an explanation for that is not exactly needed. The tournament mode, or ‘Tenkaichi Budoukai' in Japanese, is also pretty basic; you choose eight fighters, either to be human or computerized, to be randomly put into a tournament chart and battle it out. (These tournaments were common in the anime/manga)

The story mode, of course, features the story, and you'll have to use various characters to trudge through many battles and defeat the villains. Now, unless you can read Japanese, an English-speaker will be turned off by this mode if they don't know the story behind DBZ. Myself, I can only read a little bit, but I am familiar with the manga and the anime, so I know what's going on. Anyhow, you are given some of the story to read, and it eventually comes to a battle with a villain. However, though you are given a variety of different characters to use, you can never actually choose which one you would like to use, and the only battles that really ‘count' are the ones with Goku, the main character of DB/Z. Many people might not be too happy with this, but I view it as a better thing, since choosing your own character would distort the entire storyline, which would not be a good thing. If you happen to be defeated with Goku more than three times, it's game over and you'll have to start all over again.

Now, onto the battles of Hyper Dimension. Since this is a fighting game, good battles are needed for the game to be good, and Hyper Dimension has many unique features to make the battles extremely enjoyable, especially when compared to other fighting games. At first look, DBZ Hyper Dimension appears to be extremely simple, with just a punch button, a kick button, and a button for releasing a small ‘ki' from the palm of the character's hand. Once a player starts to play this game for an extended amount of time, however, they will quickly notice that it's not so simple.

The one major part of the battling system is the life bar. In the Butoden series, the punch button and kick button could be held down simultaneously to charge up your character, engulfing them in their ‘ki' (you can call it energy to make it simple, though it's not completely right). When this was done, the Ki Meter slowly filled up, and when it was filled up to a certain point, you were allowed to pull off big and very strong ki blasts, which sapped your ki bar every time used. In Hyper Dimension, the ki bar and the life bar are actually combined into one bar. This means that when a ki blast was used, it actually took some of your health away. Luckily, the amount of life taken away is very small and killing yourself is impossible, and the hassle of charging up your ki bar is gone, making things much easier and more enjoyable, but at the same time, it takes away quite a bit of the challenge from Hyper Dimension.

The reason DBZ Hyper Dimension is usually enjoyed more than the Butoden series is the fact that the battle system is quite fast to fit the Dragon Ball atmosphere, especially when opposed to the fact that the Butoden battles were rather slow and sluggish. Anyhow, the battles in Hyper Dimension were considerably faster than most fighters on the SNES, and gave it a great feel of the actual Dragon Ball battles of the anime. Also, many features from the anime were also thrown in to make Hyper Dimension even more interesting. An example of this would be when two fighters both throw a punch or a kick at the same time and their limbs collide without actually damaging the opponent. When this happens, the two fighters automatically go into an extremely fast paced battle that you have no control of, and a winner is randomly chosen. After the skirmish, they jump away, and the loser bends over to take a breather while the winner fires a large blast, damaging the opponent considerably. The only flaw with this is that you don't have any control over the extremely fast paced little clash, and it may become unfair if it happens too often.

Another unique aspect thrown in is the ability to fly in the sky. In the Butoden series, you can also fly in the air, but the one major flaw that it had was the fact that it was barely changed from the ground. You still must stay on one level, and have the ability to jump and raise yourself only to be pulled down the main level in the air. Hyper Dimension greatly improved upon this, by allowing you to rise up and stay at whatever level you wish to allowing you to move anywhere onto the screen. With this, your battlegrounds are not limited as much, and you can simply do battle by floating around anywhere in the screen, as if in 0G. The one problem with this mode was that the battle slows down slightly, and it becomes much harder to hurt your foe while slowly floating around the screen.

However, in the Butoden series, flying was very simple; all it took was the push of one button to rise straight up into the sky level of the battle course. However, it wasn't so simple in Hyper Dimension. Now, you are required to input a button sequence that causes you character to use a sharp, swift kick upward, and you'll have to connect that kick with your opponent to knock them right into the air and go up with them. Once in the air, another kick was sometimes possible to knock your opponent back onto ground, except that the ground is actually a platform raised very high above the ground. With these multiple levels of height and width (it was also possible to knock them left or right onto another environment), the battle stages were very large and a great place to fight in, considering all its different environments pulled straight out of Dragon Ball.

There are ten possible characters to use in Hyper Dimension. While this might be laughable by today, it was nice after the Butoden series, which featured roughly eight fighters in every game. Also, each fighter was extremely varied, unlike some instances in the Butoden series, with several unique attacks for every character, and different speeds, strengths, and weaknesses assigned to every single character, making them much more diverse. This accounts for quite a bit of replayability in the game and always makes it very fun to play.

If you're ever in a jam during a fight with a tough opponent and your health is about to go down from one more punch, desperation attacks are here in Hyper Dimension to help you out. All of the characters have at least one desperation attack, and although it's usually rather hard to pull off, they prove to be invaluable when the power of the attack is considered. They always knock off very large amounts of damage, and in the case of one character, you'll have two different choices of desperations. All of them must be used strategically, (like almost every other move in the entire game) but once mastered, it is a pleasure to use them to slaughter your foe and watch a very visually impressive attack.

Which brings me to the graphics of Hyper Dimension. Simply put, the graphics could very well be the best graphics ever seen on the SNES, and if not, most definitely one of the best games in the visuals department. Everything in sight is beautifully detailed and anything pulled out of the anime looks nearly identical to its look from the show. The backgrounds are extraordinarily well done, looking pretty much exactly like it does in the anime and manga, giving off a typical Dragon Ball atmosphere that causes any Dragon Ball fan to rush right out and start playing this game.

The animation of Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension is absolutely phenomenal. It holds more data than any SNES/SFC game because of a special decompression chip in the cart, and all of the frames of animation fluently combined makes it an astounding game in the animation department. Assuming you know the Dragon Ball Z characters, just try using Gotenks and charging up your ‘ki', or take any other character and execute a simple attack, and then marvel at the animation wonders. Almost every single attack and movement is wonderful, making this one of the best SNES games to look at.

The music featured in Hyper Dimension was actually quite a disappointment after the Butoden series, which featured fantastic, fitting music for all the battles. However, it was still well done, combining several different tracks filled with various different tempos and beats to fit your liking. The tunes fit in well with the environments only if the right one is chosen, as usually the player can choose which track to play before the fight initiates. If a good choice is made, it makes for great, fitting music to listen to during a fight, but otherwise may seem slightly out of place, even though nicely composed.

The controls are virtually perfect in Hyper Dimension. If you can't read any Japanese, navigating through menus may be rather irritating, but gameplay controls are very responsive, simple, and easy-to-learn, allowing a player to become masterful quite quickly if taught how to effectively use combos and large blasts.

Final Word
If right now, you are saying to yourself, “Well, I think Dragon Ball Z is retarded so that means the game must be stupid too,” then go off and miss out on this fantastic fighter. Any kind of fan with a good taste for one-on-one fighters should enjoy this game, regardless of their opinion towards Dragon Ball Z. With possibly the best graphics for the system, fantastic, fast-paced gameplay, and a whole lot of fun and replay value, Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension proves to be an outstanding 16-bit fighter that should be tried out by almost everyone. The only bad part is that this game is very rare, and could easily be sold for over $150 on E-Bay, but emulation is always available. :-T In any case, just try to find a way to play this game, and disappointment should not exist.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/01, Updated 10/30/01