Dragonball Z Supersonic Warriors

Dragonball Z: Supersonic Warriors gives you control of one of the many Z warriors or the series’ villains (from Vegeta to Buu) and lets you duke it out with another fighter on a wide open area. Unlike traditional fighting games where you can walk, dash, and jump, this game lets you float and dash in any direction. Mobility may be limited at first due to the floatyness of the controls, but you’ll be able to fight much better once you learn how to use the ki dash in order to speed up your moves.

When it comes to fighting, you have a light and heavy attack. The R button charges your ki, and pressing any of the attack buttons while charging will let you do either a heavy or light ki blast, depending on which attack button you pressed. Pressing both attack buttons while holding the R button will let you do a super, the type and direction of which will depend on where you are relative to the opponent.


There are no transformations in the game (the hardware probably isn’t powerful enough for such a mechanic,) though it lets you select both the untransformed and transformed version of a character during tag matches, which basically amounts to the same thing. There are also beam duels, which is a must for any Dragonball Z game.

In terms of audio, it’s your usual Dragonball Z fare, which is to say that it can get annoying after some time. It’s not the fault of the game – the digitized audio is good enough. It’s just that some of the characters have distinctly high pitched voices that don’t lend themselves well to repeated listenings.

Visually, Dragonball Z is as good as it’s going to get on the GBA. The colors are crisp, the sprites are decently sized (the game zooms based on how far apart the combatants are,) and the stages do a good job of representing various locales from the series. There’s even a nifty cutscene that plays when you do a super with full ki charge. The only complaint I have is that the super ki attacks all look the same, some have different colors but they’re all the same shape and look. The only exception is Piccolo’s trademark spiral beam cannon.

Other than the minor complaint about the variety of (or lack thereof) super ki attacks, Dragon Ball Z Supersonic Warriors is your best bet if you want a true Dragonball Z experience on the Gameboy Advance.