Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury

"The LOG series takes two steps forward... and two steps back."

Anytime a new Dragonball Z game is released you can always expect two things. Fans of the series will be delighted, and no one else will care. The series has always been met with criticism, while the games have been looked at as sub-par. Such is the way in the DBZ universe.

Things seemed to be on the upswing though when Legacy of Goku II was released. The game was light years ahead of it's predecessor in all categories. Sound, graphics, gameplay, and over all fun, you name it and LOG II was well ahead of the first.

Naturally, when you make such improvements to a game, fans expect even more when a new one is to be released. Legacy of Goku III: Buu's Fury delivers in some places, but sadly it falls short in others.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphics for LOG III look to be rather untouched. It obviously uses the same engine as LOG II and I guess Webfoot decided that it was better not to fix something if it wasn't broken. The graphics on special ki attacks were touched up a bit, but that is about as far as it goes.

Even after that fact, the graphics are still quite good for GBA standards, so I won't score lower than a 7.

Sound: 8/10

Again, things seem to be rather un-changed from LOG II at all. While the game does manage to continue to capture some of the shows memorable themes (something even Budokai has failed to do), nothing new was added. Ki blasts and beam attacks still sound the same, and even the music for the world map is exactly the same.

Like the graphics, the sound is still good for GBA standards and the fact that the shows music is managed to be captured almost perfectly, I have to still give it an 8 in the sound department.

Gameplay: 7/10

There's quite a bit to talk about here...

When I first began to play the game, I was thinking to myself how much had been improved. The changes are obvious from the start (most of them anyway). The key elements remain the same, there is however something new to look out for in the "Block" button. Yes, by holding the R button your character will block. Something that has been much needed in the series.

It was not until about halfway through the game where I began to notice that ugly side of this installment. It is obscenely and unbelievably easy! What do I mean by easy? I will put it to you like this... on my first play through the game the only time I ever had to stop and level up was to get through a character door (remember those from LOG II?).

Character doors are everywhere in this game. Most of the time in the previous game, they were only to get to secret areas. Now the game forces you stop and level up just to continue the story. But why? There is not a hard boss in this game to be found. Even a certain "Legendary Super Saiyan" makes an appearance in the game, but he's a total push over.

The game also features a new way of restoring health and ki. Instead of enemies randomly dropping energy balls and food, they instead drop other items which can be stocked in your inventory and used when you need them. Foods restore your health, while drinks refill your ki. Not only that, nearly every enemy drops money (zenie) as well. You can use your hard earned cash to buy items in stores, and even buy cloths and accessories that give you a boost to your stats. Sounds neat huh?

I thought this was all cool at first too, I quickly found out how useless it was though. When you level up, your health and ki are refilled to full capacity and your characters level up so fast that there is never a need to use any of these items!! I kid you not, I think I used 3 health items my entire play through, two of them on Buu's final form! What about cloths, armors, accessories and such? You will probably find things just as good, if not better than what you can get in any shop. At the very end of the game there is a new shop that is "secret" where you can get the best items in the game. Up until that point though, I never bought one thing from a store.

And let us discuss leveling up. One good addition to the game is that when you level up, your stats no longer go up randomly. Every level you are given 3 points to distribute to your stats. Your basic stats are Strength, which effects melee attacks, Power, which effects ki attacks, and Endurance, which effects defense. There are however two problems with this system. 1) you can easily dump all of your points into STR and be insanely strong from the start which makes the game way easy. And 2) again, you level up so fast that it makes it that much more easier to steadily increase your strength. Your skills do cap off at some point though. If you are level 65, your max strength can only be 65. If you are level 78 your max strength can only be 78, etc.etc. This is true for everyone except Gohan, and only after he becomes Mystic.

Another new addition this time around is the SSJ system. Once you begin to transform you will see a yellow bar begin to fill over top of your normal green ki bar. Once the bar is full, you transform. It does take a little longer to transform than before, but the pay offs for this make it worthwhile. First off, all ki attacks you fire while SSJ drain off of your SSJ bar, not your green ki bar. So, going SSJ and not using any ki and just using melee attacks, enables you to stay in SSJ for quite a while compared to previous LOG games. And trust me, you won't be using much in the way of ki attacks anyway.

That is the last thing I will touch on... Ki attacks remain to be horribly underpowered. The only thing I will say is this, why spend points into your power when you could just raise strength and do twice as much damage? Why would i want to do 5,000 damage over 3 seconds, when I could just punch them twice over 1 second for about 8,500 damage? It is just way faster and more effective to use melee attacks.

Replay ability: 6/10

I don't see any reason to play through this more than twice. You may miss a few things your first time through and want to go back a second time to get them, that's about it. The game took about 11 hours to beat, and that included the time it took me to get about half of the Z exhibits and almost all of the Hercule exhibits (special items in the game, I'm sure you get something for getting them all). I would make an educated guess that it would take maybe 13-14 hours to get everything in the game NOT including maxing out your characters.

Fun Factor: 6/10

I could not stop playing at first, then as time went on I found myself wanting to play LOG II. This game is just way too easy. It's almost like you are just watching the story happen but to continue on you have to fight a few enemies for ten minutes. I didn't at any point feel the need or even want to stop and level up a character. There is no need to do so at all except where the game forces you to. My advice, play it once, try out multi-player, then go play LOG II.

Rent or Buy?

If at all possible, rent it first. Even though I have no place around me that rents out GBA games... Borrow it from a friend first!! But hey, I know how DBZ fans are. And if you are anything like me, you will buy the game either way just to say you have it. But it can wait, you aren't missing much.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/15/04