Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension

"Not bad, not bad at all..."

Well where to start? This game is great, one of the best fighting games on the SNES, and the best DBZ fighting game bar DBZ legends. I believe this sort of game makes me want to right threatening letters to game companies asking why they don't pick up the rights to well crafted games like this. Anyway onto the actual review.

Graphics:
Wow. In more than one word, Damn good. These are superb and extremely detailed. The backgrounds, the fluid movements, the characters, the special moves, the opening they all look great! Well okay so the characters look a little heavy handed and dark compared to their Manga/Anime counterpart, but oh well they still look cool.
(9.5/10)

Music/Sound:
The music isn't really that good, but it's the best SNES DBZ soundtrack in my opinion, but it doesn't compare to that of Street Fighter Alpha 2 and the like, a bit disappointing actually. The sound effects are pretty much everyday fighting game sound effects, groans, grunts, blasts, kicks and so on they still above average though.
Then on the other end of the scale we have the voice acting... now this is superb unlike a lot of other 16-bit fighters (including some of the DBZ ones) the voices aren't very crisp or clear but this game is superb. You can hear every attack call and actually make it out, the finishing quotes are also extremely well done. I just wish I knew what Cell, Piccolo and a few of the others were saying! But then again this high quality might just be because of the small quantities of it...
(8/10)

Story:
Well the story is very faithful to the manga, sadly it skips one of my favorite parts of the manga; the Saiyan saga. Thankfully it skips a lot of the Furiza/Namek saga! Thank god for that!
Well onto the actual story you start off as Piccolo and fight Furiza you then fight Furiza as SSJ Goku, after you win the scene switches forward about 5 years to when Cell absorbs Androids 17 and 18, you then fight Cell as Vegita, and then Goku, if you win you move onto fight Mr. Buu and Majin Buu, then 3 bonus battles (depending on how many times you continued after getting game over.) So not many points for originality.
And after 2 or 3 tries the story does get a bit boring, mainly because the whole mode is a set scenario unlike in Butouden 2 you pretty much chose what happened. Oh well, sacrifices must be made in games.
(9/10) For closeness to manga
(8/10) for overall story score

Gameplay:
Now apart from the graphics this is where this game really shines. There are ten characters here as opposed to the usual 8 in the previous Butouden games. Sadly, Mr.(fat) Buu, and Vegita (a usually superb, and incredibly agile, fast and strong character) are practically with boring and useless moves. Some of which are incredibly hard to pull off (Vegitas Galactic Gunfire, anyone?). An interesting new idea is the life bar an energy bar setup, they are both contained in the same bar! Meaning battles could go on forever with the right amount of strategy and recharging your health at the right time.
Another welcome addition is the desperation system which is not unlike the KOF desperation system where you are then permitted to completely pummel the opponent with over the top moves of death and destruction!
One thing that slows the gameplay down is definitely the strange move combinations, but this isn't very much of a problem and is only a minor flaw.

Overall:
Like I said one of the best DBZ fighting games on all of the systems, bar Legends, this game is let down by a boring story mode, a lack of characters (for a list of the missing ones see bad points), average music and often frustrating controls.
(9.1/10)

Overview:
Good Points-
-Fun
-Superb Graphics
-Fun Gameplay
-The return of story mode
-Tenkiahchi Budoaki mode
-Fully Customizable versus mode.
-Most of the characters.
-Good voice acting

Bad Points-
-Average music
-Average effects
-Vegita and Mr. Buu are pathetic and useless
-No Krillin, Tien, Trunks, Android 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, Raditz, Nappa, non- super saiyan Vegeta, The Ginyu force,and child Gohan.
-Often frustrating controls

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/15/01, Updated 09/15/01