Dragon Ball Z – Super Butouden I,[b] known as Dragon Ball Z in Europe, is a 1993 fighting video game developed by Tose and published by Bandai for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is based upon Akira Toriyama‘s Dragon Ball franchise, and was its first fighting game. Its gameplay consists of one-on-one fights, with a main six-button configuration, featuring special moves, as well as three playable modes.
Due to the popularity of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior at the time, producer Toshihiro Suzuki chose to work on a fighting game when assigned to a new project due to it being his preferred genre. Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden garnered mostly positive reception from critics; most reviewers praised the presentation and gameplay but others felt divided in regards to several design aspects. The game sold approximately 1.3 million units in its first two months of release in Japan.[1]
Super Butōden would spawn several sequels; including Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 2 (1993), Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 3 (1994), Dragon Ball Z: Shin Butōden (1995), Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butoden (2011), and Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butōden (2015).
Gameplay – Dragon Ball Z – Super Butouden I
Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden is a fighting game similar to Street Fighter II. Players fight against other characters in one-on-one matches and the fighter who manages to deplete the health bar of the opponent wins the bout and becomes the winner of the match.[2][3] The game features three modes of play, a roster of 12 playable characters and their respective transformations with five additional characters being unlockable via cheat code. Characters available are Goku, Piccolo, Vegeta, Frieza, Android 20, Android 18, Android 16, Cell, Trunks and Gohan.[4]
Super Butōden uses a customizable six-button control scheme.[2][4] Special moves are present in conventional format, with most commands consisting of button combinations.[4] Characters can also dash back and forth by pressing L and R respectively.[2][3][4] Players can also charge their Ki gauge by holding the Y and B buttons to unleash a Ki blast attack.[2] Unique to the game is the split-screen feature;[5] when one of the two combatants moves far away in the playfield, the view is split to keep both fighters shown in a single screen while their positioning is kept via an on-screen radar
