3.5/5 ★ – KHFanXIII's review of Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury.

Well here we are, the final game in the Legacy of Goku trilogy! This is a series of games I have wanted to play for the longest time. Dragon Ball RPGs always appealed to me as the whole prospect of leveling up seems perfect for a series so fixated on power levels. I've enjoyed the first two in the series, the second one in particular being a standout game. So does this game stick the landing and conclude the trilogy in a satisfying manner? Well, yes, but with the caveats. I should just get out of the way that I do think that this is a worse game than Legacy of Goku 2. It's not bad, but when stacked up against the LoG 2, it's clear which one is better. Why you might ask? Well, to explain I'll delve into one of the most fundamental changes they made in this game. Last game introduced enemy knockback or stagger if you prefer. Whenever you would land a hit on an enemy, they would be stunned for a second and knocked back from the force of your attack. This would create a loop of you bouncing them back until they hit a wall in which case you would have to change directions and start knocking them back the other way. Well, this game retains the knockback effect, however it gets rid of the bounce that happens once you've knocked an enemy against a wall, meaning once you've got an enemy against a wall, you can smash that melee button like no tomorrow. This pretty much reduces the amount of skill needed to 0. Now don't get me wrong, the last game was definitely easy, but this one is WAY easier simply due to that one change in enemy behavior. The only retaliation an enemy can do is blocking (a new feature for this game which I will delve a bit into later), or throwing a punch themselves, both of which aren't enough to counteract the wall punch strategy. Now if that wasn't enough to drastically reduce the difficulty, let me tell you how they changed the transformation system. In the last game, transformations were tied to your Ki gauge, constantly draining it at a semi-quick rate meaning transformations were really only useful for a certain amount of time. Once the transformation meter is full (which charges over time), you can transform. This was one of the best strategies of last game, find a place where you're able to transform, do so, and use the staggering effect of your powered up melee moves to defeat the enemy. Now, this was a bit tricky to pull off as the transformation sequence took time, and if you were interrupted during it, you'd have to wait until your transformation gauge filled back up (relative to when you were interrupted). Well now transformations have been buffed a ton. Firstly, your transformations are no longer tied to your Ki gauge. Meaning whether you have full Ki or no Ki, you can still transform. The transformation gauge from last game has carried over (although it may charge quicker, I'm unsure). All you have to do it wait for it to be full to transform. What happens when you transform is a brand new, yellow Ki meter fills up over where your Ki gauge is and THAT is what drains over time instead. Not only that, but when interrupted during a transformation, you no longer have to wait for your transformation meter to fill back up; you can immediately transform again (also, I'm unsure but transformation sequences may be shorter). Having this super easy access to transformations basically whenever, in combination with the new enemy behavior in regards to knockback make this the easiest game in the series by far, it's not even a contest. I mentioned it earlier, but one of the other new techniques introduced in this game is blocking; there are two variants of this move. First you have the regular block, which is activated by pressing R. This acts as any standard block in any game. It will let you significantly reduce the amount of damage you take if an enemy attacks you while you're blocking. The second variant of the block is the energy block. This is activated by pressing B while holding down R. This allows you to completely negate any damage done to you, but it drains Ki. Both of these moves are nearly useless due to how overpowered you already are (these moves just further making you so), and I'm not a guy who blocks in a lot of games, so I just never used it. Another new addition in this game is equipment. Throughout the game, you will gain various pieces of equipment by either buying them at stores or by getting them from enemy drops. There are 4 types of equipment: Body Armor, Gauntlets, Shoes, and Accessories. There isn't really much difference between the different types of equipment, but sometimes certain pieces of equipment will have special effects (such as a wet suit allowing you to more easily fish). One type of equipment is the weighted training gear. This gear will weigh your character down, reducing their movement speed, but will increase the amount of experience you gain. There are several pieces of this weighted gear, with heavier pieces giving you a greater experience multiplier. This type of equipment system is neat, and in a more balanced game I would praise the inclusion of it, but as I stated before, you're already overpowered enough and giving you easy level-ups + other effects from other pieces just makes it worse. Something else that was changed (that makes the game worse) is that it takes away the little markers for visitable areas on the minimap. Now, it will still show you where to go for story progression, but everywhere else on the map is blank. This is a little annoying because you end up flying around trying to find a particular area that you don't remember the location of. This has a side-effect of making you memorize the map, which is kinda neat I guess, but I'm unsure of why they made this change that really just frustrates the player. Another change to how this game functions in comparison to last game is leveling. Last game, when you leveled up, your stats were automatically increased a set amount, and you could further increase your stats individually by using the stat capsules you find throughout the world. In this game, the stat capsules no longer exist, and when you level up you get points which you can put into your stats yourself. I really don't have a preference for either system, but the lack of the stat capsules does make the world in this game feel a lot more empty as there aren't really any worthwhile rewards for exploring. Now, there only real other changes I can think of are the addition of Super Saiyan 3 and Fusions. I'll explain the former since it's not that different from regular transformations. All that is different is that you must be already a Super Saiyan in order to transform into SSJ3. It is very powerful tho. The other new type of transformation is Fusion. As it is heavily featured in the Majin Buu arc of the show, Fusion is a gameplay mechanic in this game. Once you learn it, you can activate it at any time (as either Fusable character). To do the Fusion, you have to input a button combination. They show you this combination once and you have to repeat it. If you mess up, you get to see Fusion fails like Fat or Skinny Goten, which is pretty funny. The Fusion state, like in the show, has a time limit. Basically, a 5-minute timer appears in the bottom left of the screen, and once it ends, you un-fuse with your partner. It's a pretty neat mechanic, and there are two unique Fusions in the game you can have access to (well *technically* three, but the other one is only for the story). I think it's pretty well handled and the way they handle it feels pretty accurate to the show. It's just really cool having this accurate representation of Fusion in this game, and I am super pleased with its implementation. The only real problem with this game (aside from the difficulty) is the side-content honestly. It feels a lot skimpier in this aspect in comparison to the last game, and I'm not sure why. There are still two sets of collectibles, so it's puzzling. Maybe it's due to the collectibles in the last game were visible in the open world, whereas the collectibles in this game aren't. In the last game, you found plenty of the collectibles just exploring the main path of the story, and there were tons of optional level gates that had more (in addition to stat capsules), so in this game, the lack of these visible collectibles and no stat capsules lead to no real incentive to explore the world. Unlike the previous games which covered a couple of sagas each, this one only covers the Buu Saga, although since the Buu saga is pretty long, the game doesn't suffer too much for it. I'm unsure of my exact hours on this game, but I feel like it was comparable to the last game, if not shorter. I felt like the game was shorter, but I played it over several weeks, a little at a time, so I'm not super sure. Overall, while this game is good, it just can't quite live up to the pretty stellar former entry, so it leaves the conclusion of this trilogy feeling like it falls a little flat.