Dragonball Z: Hyper Dimension
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The greatest fighting game on Super Nintendo, even better than Street Fighter, Streets of Rage, or any other is DragonballZ Hyper Dimension.

The graphics for a SNES game are pretty impressive, the backgrounds are very nicely done and are not just a bunch of made up ones. They have familiar scenery like Kami's Lookout, HFIL, the battle where Gohan fought Cell, etc., The characters are nicely done, although the colors could be a little more vibrant they do look like the character's they're supposed to be, and the power-up animations are awesome. However, the energy blasts look rather ugly and pixelated, but atleast they have a variety of them. Even better, the greatest graphical features are also some of the better gameplay elements as well.

The depth of Hyper Dimension is not just how many modes it has or how many characters it has, because quite frankly it doesn't seem as though they put much though into the roster or the modes. The game has the following modes:

Taisen Mode (Story Mode)-
This is pretty much self-explanitory and just as trivial and pointless as the story modes of most other fighting games are. You pick somebody, fight a whole bunch of times, finally once you've beaten a certain amount it's over...but, you don't unlock anybody. They did put some effort into it though, the game for the most part follows the storyline accept for the Saiyajin saga with Raditz, Nappa, and Vegeta. Say for example you play with Goku, which you more than likely will. You start off fighting Furiza and then there is a little cut-scene with Furiza laughing in the corner as the rest of the screen has words telling the story scrolling. If you lose to him then you have to fight again, this continues all the way upto Kid Buu, the last person that the Z-fighters meet in DBZ. Also their "power level" gets bigger and bigger and so does yours as you get further and further.

V.S. Mode-
There are actually two versus modes, you can either fight against a friend or you can fight a computer controlled opponent without following the "story-line."

Training Mode-
Here you pick somebody and then pick an opponent and you just beat the crap out of them to help you learn the moves, because they don't fight back.

Options Mode-
'Nuff Said...

Not to say that for a past-generation game this isn't pretty good, but it's not exactly impressive by todays standards. Within the little bit of modes the game does have is probably the best and the most innovative gameplay elements I've EVER seen in any fighting game, even as far as something like Tekken Tag goes.

First off is the special attacks, they are done awesomely and also help capture the true intensity of the actual DragonballZ show. The best special attack in my opinion is Vegeta's, he jumps into the air and gathers some power, next he lands and grabs you. Followed by him jumping into the air with you high over his head and he slams you down to the ground, followed by a shower of energy blasts, and he finishes all that off with what looks to be his Final Flash. It's simply awesome, and too avoid cheap fights and crappy victories they made them pretty difficult to do, so that unless you're pretty good at the game you can't just jump up, grab a controller, and start beating the more experienced players. Next is the power up sequences, everybody has one, another example is Cell. He spreads his arms out and immediately bulks up, upon which time he does his special attack and punches the ground causing energy waves and lightning to strike throughout the ground until it hits you....it's brilliant. Thats by far not all, then they even made a way for you too have one of those awesome battle scenes where both fighters and blocking, dodging, and attacking at super speed. If in the heat of battle you and an opponent punch or kick at the same time and your attacks hit each other, then you'll both rush forward and starts punching, kicking, dodging, and blocking at super speed as ki and yellow flashes go everywhere.

Even better then that are the 3D effects that the game has, it makes things even more fun and shows people that SNES could have had better fighting games then it had. First off the scenery is not stationary, you can move to another location by knocking your enemy into the scene. Their is a special button and it makes you do an incredibly fast attack once pressed, but when done with a button combination you can uppercut or spin kick your opponent to the side or into the air. So if you knock them up or down you may goto HFIL, Kami's Lookout, or you may even be fighting in mid air! If you knock them to the side you could fly from a rocky area to a flat area, etc., Flying through the air could have been done better, becuase you do in the long run fly a little too slow, but it's awesome! This leads to the 3D ki sequence where when you trigger this, one person flies further away from the screen, and the other flies closer. The person closest can fire 3 types of energy attacks like your special blast (kamehameha or whatever), rapid energy beams, or another...I forgot...lol. The person furthest from the screen can dodge, block, or deflect the attack, but if they don't react fast enough then they get blasted. After this goes on for about 4 turns, then you switch places, and after that you return to fighting like normal.

Then there is the 3D dodge if you press up/down and another button then you jump or fly away or towards the screen to dodge and fly back, thus hitting your opponent in the side and sending them flying. And last, but not least is the Ki system, instead of just having a bar for Ki and a bar for energy you have a power level. Whenever you get hit your power does down, and whenever you do a significant ki-attack then your power also goes down, but you can't get killed like this. Say your power level is 800 and you get the crap beat outta you till you're down to 60, even if you fire a ki-blast you won't die because there are different levels for Ki-attacks! That's right, for example you can fire a weak kamehameha, medium kamehameha, or strong kamehameha juding by how long you hold down the button after the combination.

Overall the game is great! You get so into the fight that you don't even notice if there is or isn't BG Music so I still dunno if there is any cause I don't really pay attention. it definitely has some awesome effects, graphics, mini-games, and a pretty good storyline. All in all I give it a seven on a scale of 1-10. It's not as good as Final Fantasy, but for any rpg fan or any dbz fan it's definitely one of the best SNES has to offer, get this game!

Preview by SSJ4Gojita

Media:

• Battles

Strategy Guide/Codes

• No Codes
  Movelist/FAQ coming soon...