Its hard to believe that one of the most underrated DBZ video games from the 90’s came out 30 years ago on Super Nintendo. Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension was developed by Tose and published by Bandai and was released in 1996. Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension was a game that was considered to be a significant improvement over the Butoden series from the DBZ: Butoden series from ’93-’95. The gameplay in DBZ: Hyper Dimension was more fast-paced and the CPU was more challenging than the average 16-bit fighting game. Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension had ten playable characters along with five different stages. The characters in Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension consisted of Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, PIccolo, Perfect Cell, Frieza, Majin Buu, Kid Buu, Gotenks and Vegito. The mechanics in Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension felt more creative yet sophisticated than DBZ games that preceded it. In Hyper Dimension the Health Bar and Ki were combined into a numerical bar something that was creative but never used again in another DBZ game.

In terms of gameplay that came close to resembling the actual DBZ anime Hyper Dimension rivaled the likes of Dragon Ball Z 2: Super Battle from 1995. Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension was one of those games that pushed the SNES to its 16-bit technical limits. Also, Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension was more story driven than most DBZ titles from the 90’s covering key events between the Frieza and Buu sagas. There are many who believe that Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension would have looked and performed better on the original PlayStation console back in 1996. Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension being released during a time period where the SNES was declining in popularity is something that hurt the overall sales of the game itself. It should also be noted that Hyper Dimension came out before Dragon Ball Z really started to get popular in America on Cartoon Network’s Toonami between ’98-’99.

Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension had almost everything you could ask for in a fighting game from gameplay mechanics to decent music and storytelling. While having a limited roster is something that may have hurt DBZ: Hyper Dimension the game itself ended up being far better than anyone expected. Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension was a better game than DBZ: Ultimate Battle 22 from ’96 which was awful. Hyper Dimension was also a better game that Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout which appeared on the PS1 in 1997. In fact, there are many people who would argue that Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension was quite possibly the greatest DBZ game from the 90s. Unfortunately, Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension is a game that many causals never played but it was one of the few good DBZ titles that came out before the 00’s decade. Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension is a game that deserves more credit and recognition than it gets because it represented the peak of 2D fighting games within the DBZ series during the 90s.