Dragon Ball Z - Super Butouden
Dragon Ball Z - Super Butouden is a Super Famicom fighting game released in 1993 developed by Tose Co.. It centers on combat encounters, move inputs, and offense-defense reads, with controls, information, and pacing arranged around television output, a directional pad, shoulder buttons, and a six-button controller.
- AI score · out of 10
- 5.6 / 10
About this game
Dragon Ball Z - Super Butouden is a Super Famicom fighting release centered on combat encounters, move inputs, and offense-defense reads. Short bouts use character differences and rising difficulty for variety, with progress divided into stages, tasks, matches, or growth milestones that make its immediate goals understandable. Its value depends on whether these rules continue to create judgment and room for mastery rather than on campaign length or series recognition. Short campaigns are judged by repeat-challenge value, while longer ones are judged by variety, pacing, and recovery after failure. Animation, hit feedback, and readable arenas create match tension, while sprite animation, scrolling, color, and chip-based audio jointly carry readability and atmosphere. The main genre-specific friction is that button mapping, move recognition, and cpu behavior can affect match balance. In addition, password or battery saves, multiplayer accessories, manual dependence, regional language, and cartridge enhancement chips can affect original-hardware use. This description covers only this release and excludes emulator features, modern-port conveniences, and content from other platforms.
Collected in series
Dragon Ball games turn the manga and anime’s battles into fighting games, character-building adventures and action RPGs. You might assemble a tag team, create your own fighter or revisit Goku’s journey between explosive encounters.
Recommended games
Related game recommendations on this platform
Super Famicom / SNES
AI review
AI reviews are subjective assessments, not player ratings. See each review for its evidence and limitations.Published date:
Inventive split-screen energy duels, poor fighting feel.
The first Dragon Ball Z: Super Butouden brought an unusual idea to Super Famicom fighting games: at long distance, the screen divides to show both combatants, creating room for ki blasts, defensive responses and counters that evoke the anime's enormous scale. A ki resource adds some cost to indiscriminate attacks. Story and local versus modes give fans a reason to sample the roster, although only eight fighters are immediately available and five more require a code. The platform-specific French retrospective values the long-range concept but strongly criticizes slow responses, heavy movement and unforgiving special-move timing. Those faults make actual exchanges much less reliable than the premise suggests. Recognizable character sprites and sampled voices supply some franchise appeal, while animation, backgrounds and music are much less convincing. It remains interesting as a historical experiment in anime-style combat, especially with another fan present, but not a refined competitive fighter. This assesses the first SFC game only and does not borrow improvements from its sequels.
Strengths
- Creative split-screen long-range system.
- Story and local versus modes for fans.
Weaknesses
- Slow, heavy controls.
- Uneven animation and stages.
Who it is for: Fans exploring early Dragon Ball fighting-game history.
Play notes: No sequel systems or improvements are included.
View scoring basis
| Dimension | Review state | Score | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dimension Story and versus modes give options, but hiding several important fighters behind a code is clumsy. | Reviewed | 5.6 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension Split-screen ki duels capture the series' scale, but sluggish movement harms precision. | Reviewed | 5.7 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension Familiar faces and voices help, while stiff animation, stages and music underdeliver. | Reviewed | 5.8 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension SFC response delay, heavy movement and strict move timing make reliable play difficult. | Reviewed | 4.8 / 10 | Not provided |
Review sources
Not provided
Core information
- Developer
- Tose
- Publisher
- Bandai
- Release date
- 1993
- Platforms
- Super Famicom / SNES
- Content kind
- Game
- Release state
- Released
- Region
- Worldwide
- Official website
- Not provided
- Offline minimum players
- Not provided
- Offline maximum players
- Not provided
- Online minimum players
- Not provided
- Online maximum players
- Not provided
- Categories
- Fighting · Primary genre
- Tags
- Fast-pacedMain Story Under 10 HoursMelee CombatShort SessionsFantasyCombosReal-time CombatAnime Style2D GraphicsReplayableSolo-friendlyPlayer versus Player
- Supported game languages
- Not provided
- Requires base game
- Not provided
- Standalone
- Not provided
- Age ratings
- Not provided
- Play modes
- MultiplayerSingle player
- Perspectives
- Side view
Release editions
- Super Famicom / SNESWorldwide1993
Game gallery
Sources
Not provided