"Butouden's weak point"

Definitely could’ve been much better…

That’s what I thought about Super Butouden, for the Super Famicon. Actually, I played this game after I played Butouden 2 and 3. So maybe I was just let down, but I really didn’t like Super Butouden as much as I would like to; it was a big disappointment. It’s a perfectly average fighting game.

Graphics: 6
The graphics are just a tad above average. There wasn’t much detail, even for an early 90’s game. The backgrounds were not bad, but the characters were. The character pictures looked pretty good, actually, but the character sprites were another story. They were small, with barely any detail. I didn’t like that. The ki attacks also looked kinda cheap looking, as their hands moved ever so slow to shoot a puny blast. Overall, I didn’t like the graphics too much.

Music and Sound: 8
The music in the game was really great, actually. Everything from the intro to the character theme was good. I especially liked Android 16’s theme; it sounds great. So, why didn’t it get a 10? It’s because of the sound.

The sound didn’t really impress me. All the sounds sounded very cheap and fake. Although it’s pretty amusing to hear Goku scream like a girl, just listen to 18’s voice when she fires off a blast. It’s so cheap. But, of course, sound isn’t as important as music to me, (in most cases) so this area doesn’t totally fail; it gets a pretty high score.

Gameplay and Control: 6/10
Well, it’s your basic gameplay: Story mode, Tenkaichi Budoukai (tournament), and one-one-one with another player or the computer. Story mode is fun, but much too hard, which brings me to a complaint. However, the Tenkaichi Budoukai is, by far, the most enjoyable part of the game. It’s fun battling it out with 8 different people in a tournament. And there’s always your one-on-one. An another complaint is that you cannot power yourself up, since that wasn’t introduced until Super Butouden 2 came out. The only way to raise it is to attack your opponent or block his/her attacks. It’s hard and annoying, and you’ll need lots of patience.

The control is pretty shaky. The character floats in the air for way too long. Also, he always ends up going too far in one direction when trying to control him. This leads to a LOT of losses for me. Again, you’ll need some patience, and also some practice to get used to it. Don’t go storming right into a battle, cause you’ll probably end up losing.

Character Selection: 8/10
The characters in this game were pretty good. You’ve got Goku, Vegita, Piccolo, buffed-up Furiza, imperfect Cell, Android 16, Android 18, and Android 20. And in addition, Mr. Satan is a secret character. But it’s hell trying to put the code in. Overall, pretty good character selection.

BK’s Final Word
Well, this is definitely Butouden’s weak point, as I enjoyed Super Butouden 2 and 3 much more. But it seems that it should get higher than a 6! Well, the control messed up the gameplay, and the gameplay messed up the score, because gameplay is such an important factor in a game. If you enjoyed any other games in the Butouden series, I actually recommend you try it out. After all, many people liked this game more than I did. You might like it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/15/01, Updated 02/22/01