An awesome Dragon Ball game that should be considered by every Mega Drive owner.
My Score: 7.4
Buyū Retsuden is an entertaining fighting game for the Mega Drive, and should take a place in every Mega Drive collection, although it's really not Bandai's best with the series.
Gameplay - 7.8
Gameplay is a little choppy. Press the A button to Punch, the B button to Kick, and the C button to ascend into the air or get back to the ground for closer combat (you get more button options if you have the 6-button arcade pad). Except, to execute a simple Ki Blast, you have to go back, go forward, then punch. This may have been to compete with popular fighting games out at the time (Street Fighter II was gaining popularity rapidly), but either way, I don't think it should have been done. I'm not a big fan of the fighting mechanics, to put it simply. It's pretty challenging to execute the more complicated moves. Don't get me wrong, the fighting mechanics in Street Fighter II were amazing, except, maybe Bandai should leave it to fighting games that aren't all about projectile attacks for that.
Graphics - 9.5
The graphics are outstanding, and visibly take it to the Mega Drive's limits. DBZ fans will take note of and appreciate the detail put into the characters and scenes. All fighters' outfits are designed exactly how they would be in one of today's video games-the color, the small details, every small feature of the character is taken note of. But it's not only the characters and designs that look so damn amazing. How the moves are executed, what the moves look like, et cetera. It's hard to tell the game was made on such an outdated 16-bit video game system.
Dialogue and Story – 5.0
One thing that you can always expect from a DBZ game is the same story-if it's your first DBZ game and the first time you've ever experienced the story of DBZ media, you would be but a little surprised of the twists and turns and, gasp, your final opponent (although the game actually tells you who your last "target" will be during character select). I was quite impressed with the story when I came across my first DBZ game, but you'll soon learn after continued purchases and synopsis readings, all of the games move along the same story line and the same idea. The story isn't laid out very well in this particular game, though. The only thing separating battles is lame dialogue from either your character or your opponent or, most likely, both. For example, Recoome would say something like "Ha ha, I will beat you." I don't know if they really talk like that in the manga/anime because I don't know crap about DBZ other than the games, but I've definitely seen better in Dragon Ball games.
So, there you go. Other than all that annoying kanji which I don't know how to read at all, a nice fighting game for the Mega Drive, and also the only Dragon Ball Z game that existed for the Mega Drive. Enthusiasts, I wouldn't recommend buying a Mega Drive just for this game, but if you already have a Mega Drive, I think you should 94% consider it.