A Labor Of Love…
This isn’t actually a game that you can pick up from Capcom or your nearest, it’s a true labor of love from hardcore fans of Dragonball Z. See the full story below…
Hyper Dragonball Z was a hit on arcades in the summer of 1999, with its timed unlocks and classical art direction, it was a hit and soon became a cult sensation. The game had several CPU only fights, including the very infamous Kid Buu, who was faced as the final boss and was able to counter just about anything you threw at him!
Actually no, that’s a lie. This game never had a release, because it doesn’t exist.What you’ve had the pleasure of witnessing is the culmination of several years of work by true Dragonball Z fans, a small group of fighting games afficionados and the moving pieces and parts were coded in freeware indie fighting game engine, Mugen.
Team Z2 was responsible for the code and animations you’ve just seen in action.
Our motivation was born from seeing the many official and unofficial games that DBZ has spawned over the last years. Usually packed with tons of characters, those games have always left us with a bad taste in our mouths.
This demo is based on games in the vein of Capcom’s Street Fighter and Darkstalkers, adapted and fine-tuned to represent Dragonball’s highly cinematic action in a way that actual combat means more than repeating the same combination of buttons over and over again.
This is how we envision a perfect Dragonball game. Gone is the sensation of every character being interchangeable and having the same style of fighting.
Instead, we have characters with beautiful animations, cinematic moves, skillful combos, interesting movesets, unique traits and the kind of fanservice that’d make any Dragonball fan smirk. We drew from all sources and we committed to our vision, which we share with you.
The graphics have that 2D charm that, in our opinion, was lost in the transition to 3D games.
The gameplay is intense, pulse-pounding and would look absolutely amazing in fighting game tournaments such as EVO. Counters, Air Combos, Dash Colissions, Super Projectiles, Beam Struggles, a large variety of fun character introductions and winposes… it’s all in there. I can see people going insane over the intense battles that are possible.
We have in no way association with the DBZ license, we are mere fans. Our purpose is to show what CAN be made with the license. The moving bits of this presentation were made over time, with the effort of many.
We have 5 of these characters and 11 stages out there that anyone can try out. We have 3 characters unreleased and in several states of progress, we expect to put them out eventually as well.
This video was made mostly to make people aware that this exists. Why?
Because we love creating and we want to show our inner fire. Consider it a proof of concept. We knew this could be done with effort and talented people, all it takes is hard work.
Balthazar – Z2 captain, character spriter, main gameplay designer, maker of this video.
Iced – Idea Enginneer Extraordinaire, Z2 manager of sorts.
Cybaster – Character Programmer.
Daeron – Stage Spriter and programmer, character sprite assistant.
WizzyWhipItWonderful – Epic CPS2 music composer.
NoZ – Creator of the Saiyan Pride stage.
Infinite – Character AI programmer.
ShockDingo – Voice Actor for Freeza, Shenron and announcer.
RicePirate – Awesome Person and Voice Actor for Vegeta.
Philly Spider-Man – Voice Actor for Gohan.
The_None – Saibaman programmer.
The feedback we’ve received on these characters from the Mugen community has been very positive in general (if you didn’t know, this was all coded in Mugen), but the mainstream audience doesn’t really know they exist yet.
One of my greatest desires is to get some sort of acknowledgement from some people at Capcom or Bandai and from highly-regarded fighting game players.
Please leave us feedback and comments, we would love to see them!
Now, it’s your time to help us. Help us get this video go viral. Like and Favourite it but most of all, SHARE it. That one kid you used to watch DBZ episodes with 10 years ago? Share it with him. Your parents, your boss? Link them up.
Any friends, family or contacts working at big game companies? Active in fightng game tournaments? Spread the word, share this video. I’m convinced we can do it!
If anything, I hope this video put a smile on your face.
Ronnie, a.k.a. Balthazar
P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TORIYAMA-SAN!
P.P.S. Get your pre-packed sample here:
http://z2.smeenet.org/HyperDBZsample.rar
Or, you can grab the characters and stages seperately here :
http://network.mugenguild.com/balthazar/
For more stuff, go here:
https://www.facebook.com/HyperDBZ
This game has no relation with bandai and Capcom, but is heavily inspired by their work. This is an homage not only to toryama but also Capcom and Bandai. Thanks Capcom, thanks Bandai and above all, Thank YOU!