The Sega Saturn classic never left Japan.
When we talk about Dragon Ball video games, we have several slogans assumed. One of them is the mantra that Shin Butoden was the best Dragon Ball game of the 90s. A title that never reached the west and that remained exclusively for Sega Saturn Japan. It was the definitive version, in principle, of the Butoden series that was so acclaimed in Super Nintendo, although it maintains a surprising connection with the not too well received Ultimate Battle 22. And although it knew how to solve the majority of problems that the game of Playstation, never reached the levels of excellence attributed to it through those screenshots we saw stunned in the magazines of the time.
Because that is the great myth that ended up in the air: that Shin Butoden was the ultimate Dragon Ball. The top work of the 2D fighting of Goku and company. And anything farter from the reality. His spectacular sprites and static images, a template of brilliant characters for the time and that would hold the type today and the obvious step forward at a technical level regarding Super Nintendo played in favor of the collective imaginary, eager for new titles of a phenomenon like Dragon Ball in our country and more when Ultimate 22 had not curdled with its 3D scenarios, its lack of split screen and those special attacks that had neither strength nor spectacularity.
We had a team of enviable characters that encompassed the great heroes and villains of the three arcs of Dragon Ball Z, divided into three groups. Villains: Zarbon, Reecom, Ginyu, Frieza, Cell, Dabra, Majin Buu and Super Buu. The heroes: Goku SSJ2, Gohan SSJ2, Majin Vegeta, Young Trunks, Trunks, Piccolo, Goten, Goku SSJ3 and Mr Satan. And secondary characters: Krillin, Tenshian, A18, A16, the Great Saiyaman, Kayoshin, Gotenks, Mutenroshi, Little Goku and Gogeta. Yes, the separation of villains / heroes / secondary is already a bit treatable in itself.
27 fighters, the same as Ultimate Battle 22, who faced each other in different scenarios that stood out for, some, their originality. We could face on the road where Vegeta ends up shattered by A18, in the hyperbolic time room, on the ship that Babidí creates to absorb energy from the Saiyans or on the grounds near the house that Buu is built to live with Satan. Also in Namek before exploding. It was one of its attractions, as was the fact of being able to hit and send the opponent to the back of the stage, turning the perspective of it.
All this, added to a cast of movements superior to that of Ultimate 22 and the Butoden format applied to the game, gave wings to Saturn's game compared to Playstation. In this installment we could move around the stage starting the screen and, therefore, launch special attacks with their respective animation. We could also give blows that plunged the rival into a puddle in Namek. Even in the vicinity of the Kame House, it was allowed to fight underwater. But the virtues ended here.
Shin Butoden's main, but not unique, problem is his conception. The small size of the scenarios left us in an unfriendly situation: we had a development of fighting in a space more worthy of Hyper Dimension but with Butoden controls and actions. And of course, that doesn't fit anywhere. The grace of the Butoden, with its number of Ki attacks, special at a distance and movement on the stage, is in the charge of energy, in keeping the distances and hitting the enemy based on movements. The grace of Hyper Dimension is to bring Dragon Ball closer to the most classic 2D fight, where normal hits are protagonists, combos are present and special attacks need speed of execution. There broke the harmony.
The closeness between characters made the combat system fail, with strange hitboxes, blows that threw you to the ground and when you got up you were at the mercy of the enemy because of the proximity of the rival, the inability to open enough space between fighters and special attacks that without Split screen it took a world to load … To add that getting a split screen far enough away was a chimera, because the rival was always a few steps away. In addition, the rhythm of the fight for the knockdowns, for the attacks that sent the enemy off the stage or for those that sank him in some area of the stage, was greatly hindered.
The feeling when you start Shin Butoden is that you want to like it much more than it does while playing it. It looks good, has spectacular attacks and you can recreate the great confrontations of the series, but it was archaic at the level of response and how the characters developed in combat. In addition, elements were lost regarding Super Butoden 2, such as the fact of not having a shock of waves, leaving Saturn a system similar to the first Super Nintendo game.
There were no missing fanservice items designed for the applause of the staff. A kinematics that reused elements of Ultimate Battle 22 and that presented us with the majority of characters (far from the brilliant scene of Final Bout), those faces opposed to the beginning of the fighting between the characters that were going to fight or Expressive faces of the characters when they will receive a special attack from the opponent, first of surprise and then of confidence before responding to the attack. Although some animations were lost that were in the delivery of Playstation at the beginning of the fighting.
At the level level, it had a story that did not have much secret beyond a devilish difficulty and arcade routes with certain custom endings for each character, being able to play versus, tournament mode where the classic ring stage was available, and a mode for teams where we chose five fighters and we had to take down the five rivals. The most surprising thing was to arrive with Mr Satan. It is a modality in which we control the great champion (¿) while betting on who will win the Tenkaichi Budokai fights. The grace is that we could manipulate the fighting by throwing objects on the stage, using a gun to annoy the other rival, put mines or give objects to the character we bet on to improve their statistics.
Shin Butoden, in short, was not a bad game. But he was not the best Dragon Ball in history as he had defended for years. In fact, as Butoden was not as balanced or playable as the second installment of Super Nintendo, and paled in several aspects. And as a fighting game I was far from Hyper Dimension options. He had a dream template, stunning graphics and was much better than Ultimate Battle 22, but the non-arrival in Spain of the title mitigated him excessively, dazzled by those images that HobbyConsolas gave us and left us speechless.
That said, I also had some spectacular Meteo Attacks, some of which we have compiled in these gifs for all of you to enjoy:
