Dragon Ball Z – Buu’s Fury is the third and final installment of the Legacy of Goku series. It takes place several years after the Cell games.

Since I played this game before, I decided: why not make a review! I want to demonstrate that even girls play these types of games, *giggle*. Without further ado, here’s my review!


Graphics - 8

The graphics are good, but kind of weird if you ask me. There’s nothing wrong with the terrains and cities on the game, but the characters are a bit different. I think it’s safe to say that the characters of these games come in all shapes and sizes.

It’s a bit awkward to see little muscular chibi men fighting other muscular chibi enemies. It’s kind of hilarious when I think about it. But hey, that’s the GBA graphics for you.

The character portraits are very well done; with some characters having more than one portrait. The drawings look slightly different from the anime, perhaps a litter better. I think that the characters look much cooler in their portraits than in the anime.

[Breakdown]
-Graphics are good.
-Character portraits are very well done.
__________


Sound - 8

The music is good. It’s not as extraordinary as a Final Fantasy game, but it is pretty darn catchy. Each location has its own themes, and the best part is that they aren’t similar to each other. So you can count on hearing different themes when entering a new place.

The types of music given are great for searching and grinding, which is what the gameplay is mostly about. The sounds give off a good fighting spirit, as it should. And the sound effects aren’t bad either. It makes beating the daylights out of an enemy very enjoyable.

[Breakdown]
-Music is very good.
-Makes the game enjoyable.
__________


Addictiveness - 6

Since the game mostly points out where to go in order to progress in the storyline, it can keep the player playing the game until the end is reached. Being not so difficult, this game can be played from the beginning all the way to the ending of the storyline. Also, there are things the player can do other than the story. This will be discussed in the Depth section. For now, I will explain some things that can be enjoyable in the game.

A must-have mechanics for the DBZ series is the ability to fight. The game provides this as well as the elements of a RPG and an action/adventure game. Having these made the game very fun to play.

However, since the game is very easy to beat, there isn’t much hours put into it. This game takes less than 24 hours to completely beat the game. So for this reason, the addictiveness score goes down.

[Breakdown]
-Fun game.
-Doesn’t have a lot of hours put into it.
__________


Story - 6

The prologue of this story shows the events of the past, where the hero Goku saved the world from monstrous Cell. Several years had passed by and peace was finally restored to the Earth – or was it?

The actual story doesn’t begin until the player has played around with a few of the available characters and progressing throughout the game, learning the basics of the controls and each character’s special abilities. The beginning may take up a while, but it gives the player knowledge about the DBZ world and its people if the player had never watched the anime or played the previous games.

The story is okay, it’s pretty much a rushed version of the anime. It shows some important scenes as it should, but it doesn’t show anything from the anime that isn’t related to the gameplay or storyline.

Not relating to the anime, it’s your average ‘save the world from the monster’ type of game. There’s not much twists or turns in the game, so it remains uninteresting story-wise. A few scenes here and there are pretty good, but like I said; it’s rushed.

[Breakdown]
-Tutorial type quests before story.
-Rushed version of the anime.
-Almost unremarkable storyline.
__________


Depth - 7

There’s a good amount of depth in this game. For starters, the player could train their available characters to the highest level possible. They could max out their stats to make them stronger and stronger. Since this also has some RPG elements, they can find stat enhancing equips from enemies.

Fighting isn’t the only thing that’s provided. The player can go fishing and turn them in for some cool prizes. The game’s idea of fishing is letting your character jump in the ocean and catching them with their bare hands. Fortunately, the game automatically does the fishing for you.

There are also many collecting to do here. A scouter is provided to collect information about the characters you meet. It can record details such as the character’s stats, appearance, and some information from the anime itself.

Another encyclopedic collecting you could do is gather museum exhibits for both the Z museum and the Hercule café. The Z museum shows important artifacts that were frequently shown or used in the Dragon Ball Z series. The Hercule café shows some exhibits about (supposedly) world champion Hercule.

Although there may seem like there are a lot of things to do, the truth is that the game is too short to make the depth score go any higher. All of this can be completed in less than 24 hours.

[Breakdown]
-Encyclopedic collecting.
-Fishing for prizes.
-Leveling characters.
__________


Difficulty - 3

This game is way too easy to beat. In fact, I completed the storyline in less than 12 hours according to the game's playtime. Of course, there’s more to the game than just the story. However, this section will review the game’s difficulty only.

The enemies of this game are easy to beat. With the stat system, the player could create overpowered characters that can kill monsters with just one punch. Also, the game will allow the player to pause the game and heal their character with the food items they carry around. I would like to mention that these enemies drop food items quite often.

There are some puzzles in the game, but all of them are too elementary. The bosses provide a bit of a challenge, but not by much. The trick to beating the bosses don’t take any more than just thinking why something is placed in the battle field, and figuring out how to use or get around that something in order to beat the boss.

A lot of searching and grinding is involved, but they aren’t too tedious. The maps of the game aren’t necessarily big enough to be considered ‘taking forever’ to search, and the player will receive an upgraded map that shows locations that haven’t been explored yet throughout the game. The monsters usually give a huge amount of experience points, depending on the location.

In short, this game is so easy that it takes longer to read a walkthrough than it does to beat the storyline. Heck, a walkthrough is only useful if you’re trying to find a certain item or if you’re looking for a certain place in the world map.

[Breakdown]
-Too easy.
-Puzzles aren’t challenging.
-Characters can be overpowered.
-Searching and grinding takes up most of the game.
-Bosses provide little challenge, with basic tactics needed to beat them.
-A walkthrough will be useless most of the time.
__________


Overall - 8.5

So overall, the graphics are as good as the music: they are very well done and made the game enjoyable. It is a very fun game; unfortunately, not a lot of hours are put into it. The story is pretty much a rushed version of the anime; it shows a few scenes that are important, but not enough to convey everything that the anime has. There’s still a lot of things that can be done after you beat the final boss; like collecting information about characters or exhibits. The game itself is not all that difficult; it’s possible to complete it in less than a day.

Some minor flaws here and there, but I believe it deserves this score for the above reasoning. 

[Summary]
-Very short, but enjoyable game.
-Game can be completed without much difficulty.

Interesting review, I think I will try this game.

Very nice review. I was reading reviews and this is the best one that I have seen on this game. I too use to own this game and well it might just be my favorite Dragon Ball Z game. I know there are others that have better graphics and more playable characters but hey, I am a classic man. Well as in Retro games being my favorite games. Also I loved the highlight of this review. It makes everything understandable and clear. You also mentioned about you don't need to put a lot of hours into it. Well I beat this game in 10 hours which is true because that isn't a lot of hours. I appreciate this review because it reminded me of how fun this game is. Time to start gaming right now and I'll catch ya later .

P.S. I loved the title of the review. It made every bit of sense because Bibidi is Buu's creator and adding here comes my review made it all the better because it rhymed and because it's actually a review.