 — uhhh. That's drunk. There were a total of seven different Dragon Ball Z games released for the Super Nintendo and not a single one reached North America, so let's take a quick look at each game. Just a personal note real quickly. I only have a passing familiarity with the Dragon Ball franchise – I know most of the characters and the tropes – and that was created by Akira Toriyama. But just to let you know, I'm looking at these games to see if they're worth playing today. I'm not gonna nitpick story details or anything like that. Starting with Dragon Ball Z Super Seiya Densetsu, this is a turn-based RPG that never left Japan, but there is an English patch available. And it's a remake of sorts, combining elements of two Famicom games, Dragon Ball Z Kyoshu Saiyan and Dragon Ball Z2 Gekishin Frieza. This was developed early on in the Super Famicom lifespan and it shows. This looks closer to an NES game than anything else, and since it's an early 90s JRPG, you better believe it's got a crazy encounter rate that'll drive you insane. This game does at least have kind of an interesting battle system. In each random battle, your party is dealt 5 cards. In the upper left of each card is the number representing attack strength, with one representing the weakest attack, and Zed being the most powerful. The lower right is the defense power, the cards with the blue letters in the middle are the energy attacks, and the yellow letters represent the more powerful attacks. If you want to know more about each attack in detail, there's plenty of info for you on Game Facts. The battle system is nothing too in-depth, but it is something a little different than what you may be used to. What I find funny is that, yeah, this game has a total grind fest, you seriously just grind like crazy to prepare you for the next boss fight. But I mean, isn't that what Dragon Ball Z is? So in a way, you can't really fault the game for being so grind heavy, I guess. I just wish they'd pick some better battle music. Ugh. This is exactly the kind of tune you have to mute after a while and just put on some headphones. This is a classic case of a game where, on its own, I can't recommend it, but if you're a Dragon Ball fan, you'll love this. It's only for the story and for the 12 playable characters, and each has special moves that are taken from the show. The story even has certain wrinkles added to it, like when certain characters in your party go down, it could potentially unlock a cutscene or new dialogue, or even a new special power for another character. So yeah, even though it's muddled by the absurd and counter-rape making the game very grind heavy, Dragon Ball Z Super Saiya Densetsu is worth checking out if you're a fan. Next we get to the Dragon Ball Z Super Butoden series, or Super Fighting Story series. The one-on-one fighting games, I mean, of course they are, it's Dragon Ball Z, would you expect, a series of pachinko games? Well, just don't let Konami get ahold of this franchise. Anyway, there's four games in the Super Fighting Story series, and while of course they have the traditional two-player versus mode, the real standout here is each game's story mode. Well, except the third game, but we'll get to that. But yeah, again, if you're a fan, you'll dig these games, I'll just quickly introduce each game before talking about the gameplay. The first game was released in Japan and in PAL regions where the title was simply Dragon Ball Z. There's 13 playable characters and the story ranges from the Piccolo Junior arc to the end of the Cell games. There's a mostly-completed English patch you can use here that can help you follow along. The second Super Fighting Story game was released in Japan and in specific PAL regions where it went by the title Dragon Ball Z, La Legends Saiyan. Here you've only got 10 playable characters and the story follows the Cell games, but it's presented in a different way. You don't have to win every fight to proceed with the story. Even if you lose, you get some unique story elements and you can still complete the game, giving this one a ton of replay value. Again, there's a mostly-completed English patch you can use to follow the story. I should let you know that Goku is not playable right away in the Super Famicom Edition, but there is a code you can look up that lets you unlock him and Broly immediately. The third game in the series also only came out in Japan and specific PAL regions where it went by the title Dragon Ball Z, Wolf Tim Menace. Again, there's 10 playable characters, but this game has no story mode at all. Sure, it looks good and sounds good, but because it doesn't follow any events from the manga and anime, then fans probably won't be as impressed with this one, and it comes across as kind of a low-effort cash-in. The fourth game is Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension, released in Japan and in PAL regions. This game has the best visual style of the four, probably because it's the only one to utilize the SA-1 ship, the same accelerator chip that's used in games like Kirby Superstar and Mario RPG. Also, the story mode is back, covering the Frieza arc up until the end of the series, and if you play the PAL version, you don't need an English patch, but for what it's worth, there is one available for the Super Fam competition. So, how do these games actually play as fighting games? It's pretty typical stuff from a moveset standpoint, ranging from real simple moves like sweeping the bottom of the D-pad, then pressing A for a fireball from Goku, for instance, to some really complicated stuff for real, devastating attacks. Again, there's plenty of info on game facts if you want to learn some of the more in-depth combinations here, but what's really cool is that each move is true to the character, so there's a ton of fan-friendly stuff here. I should note quickly that Hyper Dimension is the only game of the four that features SNK-style desperation moves when you're low on health, and they're actually not that complicated to pull off, which is nice. There's some other interesting wrinkles in the combat system, and they're consistent through all four games. For instance, the L and R buttons can dash your character left or right, you can press and hold Y and B to charge your special power meter or your key, but most importantly is the X button has you fly up into the second tier of the stage, so to speak. Yeah, as you probably noticed from the footage, you can fight in mid-air, that's pretty cool. They made the stages here huge to the point that you can drift away so far from your opponent that you're both depicted in split screen and you have to utilize the radar beneath your life and key meters to attract your opponent. It's a pretty cool touch, although it can be frustrating to get the hang of, especially since all four of these games play a little on the choppy side. Don't get me wrong, the combat of all four is still perfectly okay, it's just not exactly ideal either. Certain inputs aren't always the most responsive. Still, again, I'm gonna sound like a broken record here, but if you're a fan of Dragon Ball Z, the first two games and the fourth game, Hyper Dimension, are really worth checking out, mostly because of the story modes, especially in the second game since it's a bit more open-ended and you don't get an automatic game over for losing. The third game is just kinda there. There's no story mode, you can skip that one. The first game plays the clunkiest of the three, so if I had to recommend what I think is the best of the bunch, it would be the second game and Hyper Dimension. Both are very fan-friendly where the combat is easy to pick up and play, but there's also a bit of depth to them, plus with the added novelty of fighting in mid-air and bouncing between screens, they're easy recommendations. They're not gonna compete with stuff like Street Fighter II Turbo or Killer Instinct, but they're still pretty fun games. Finally, we've got two more RPGs that came out within months of each other in Japan in 1995, Dragon Ball Z, Super Goku-den, Totogeki-hen, and Dragon Ball Z, Super Goku-den, Kakse-hen. Both have finished English translation patches and I point that out because these games are extremely text-heavy and entirely story-driven. Totogeki-hen follows Goku's adventures at the beginning of Dragon Ball all the way to the final battle with Piccolo, and okay, I said I don't know a whole lot about Dragon Ball, but I know enough to be confused as to why this game is titled Dragon Ball Z when it just follows the original Dragon Ball story, probably just another attempt to cash in on something popular. Kakse-hen continues the story, starting at the 23rd World Tournament to the final battle with Frieza, with Gohan also occasionally becoming a playable character. Anyway, the combat here isn't anything special, but it doesn't need to be because this is pretty much just an interactive manga. Well, interactive in the sense that it gives you the illusion of choice, but still, this is just another way to present the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z stories. The visuals look nice and do a fine job representing the source material, and the music is pretty good, but I do have to imagine if you're a fan, you'd already know these stories pretty well, so to be honest, I'm not really sure to recommend these or not. This is more of a, here's what this game is, public service announcement, more than anything. So if you like what you see, then go check them out. All right, I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.