Hyper Dragon Ball Z is a freeware game developed from the M.U.G.E.N engine by fans of the anime dubbed "Team Z2". The gameplay focuses on the mechanics inspired by Street Fighter and Darkstalkers with other fighting games thrown into the mix (like Marvel vs. Capcom and The King of Fighters). Initially beginning as a simple brand of Dragon Ball Z characters to go against the traditional Dragon Ball Z characters introduced into M.U.G.E.N. so far, the Z2 team of Balthazar (idea conceiver) and Cybaster (primary coder) expanded to include various others, including inspiring some other smaller projects in the team's honor. It's come to the point that a game based on the Z2 characters was realized, and the roster expanded from Goku and Vegeta to many more.
A beginning build of the game itself only included Goku, Vegeta, SS Goku, Mr. Satan, and the Saibamen; an updated EVO 2014 build replaced Mr. Satan and the Saibamen (who are still in the game as non playable characters.) with Ultimate Gohan and a beta build of Final Form Frieza, along with some new music for the existing stages and new stages. The "Majin Build" brought back Mr. Satan and included an updated Final Form Frieza along with new characters (Majin Vegeta and Babidi). Piccolo was then released on Christmas 2016, and was included with the Champ Build
along with various updates (including, as the name suggests, an overhauled Mr. Satan). Super Buu was then released on August 8th 2017. Gotenks came afterwards early in 2018. Tien Shinhan was released in December of that same year. Krillin and Android 18 were released on Christmas Eve of 2019. In December of 2020, the Indigo Build was released, and with it, SSJ Vegeta (along with his Super Saiyan Blue form, which was also retroactively added to SSJ Goku, hence the name of the build), a bonus game based of Dr. Briefs and the Pilaf Gang. In December 2021, Jiren was released.
Soon to be released characters are Cell, and Goku Black. The download for the sample of the game (which includes the latest build) is here and the page to download characters is here.
Characters in the current build
Characters in italic are to be released.
- Goku (Base, Super Saiyan/Super Saiyan Blue)
- Vegeta (Base, Majin Vegeta, Super Saiyan/Super Saiyan Blue/Super Saiyan Blue Evolution)
- Vegetto (Candy)
- Gohan (Ultimate)
- Gotenks (Base/Super Saiyan/Super Saiyan 3)
- Piccolo
- Tien Shinhan
- Krillin
- Android 18
- Mr. Satan
- Jiren
- Frieza (Final Form)
- Cell (Perfect)
- Babidi
- Super Buu
- Pilaf Machine
- Goku Black (Super Saiyan Rosé)
This game provides examples of the following tropes:
- Age Lift: In Majin Vegeta's intro and victory pose, Bulma appears as young as she was in the original Dragon Ball manga.
- April Fools:
- A version of Jiren was released this day in 2018. He cannot take damage and will do nothing but meditate the entire match until his meter is completely full, at which point he grabs the opponent and throws them for a One-Hit KO. Fighting him in versus turns into an Unwinnable Joke Game.
- For 2019, Vegetto was released in honor of Balthazar's birthday. Or rather, Vegetto turned into the strongest candy in the world by Majin Buu.
- Bait-and-Switch: A Running Gag in the game is for some odd character to appear in place of your chosen fighter at the start of a match before leaving or getting kicked out. Examples include Bulma, Sonic The Hedgehog and super deformed versions of Cell and Goku Black.
- Beam Spam: Some characters with projectiles can do this to an extent, some more than others, but the king of this trope in regards to the others is Vegeta. He can tack on the most amount of non-super projectiles and expands his combo hit further with his super projectiles (the only other person who comes close is SS Goku and he achieves this through teleporting rather than raw beam spamming). The base version of his Galactic Gunfire has the players Button Mashing and rotating the control stick to deliver more hits. His RAGE Mode is even more dedicated to this trope in which he must use his Ki Blasts and (Aerial) Machine Gun Temper very often (he gains an EX variation for his Aerial MGT too) to gain stronger finishers for his Galactic Gunfire while disabling some other moves (Power Charge, Dash Elbow, Zero Counters, and Wolverine Flip). His Majin counterpart does this too but only for his Super Move, "Machine Gun Tantrum" and "Cyan"/SSJGSSJ Vegeta fires at least twice as many Ki Blasts and/or hits twice as much/hard with his projectile-based Super Moves.
- Boring, but Practical: The Lv. 3 finisher for Mr. Satan's Present For You Super Move Missile Accomplished is humorously this when compared to the Lv. 3 finishers used by other characters, as he ends up knocking out his opponent with a bat and tying them to a missile, which then flies into the sky and explodes.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- When charging his ki, Gotenks yells "Yeah, Hyper Dragon Ball Z!"
- One of Vegeta's victory animations has him briefly looking at the screen, and then proceeding to fire a ki blast at the screen (a la James Bond)
- If Buu wins with little to no damage, he will laugh maniacally, and then fly really close towards the camera, saying "You look like you could be tasty!"
- Brick Joke: One of Goku's intros has him being lovey-dovey with Chi-Chi, then throwing her in the air. One of his victory animations is subsequently catching her, and picking up where they left off.
- Bullying a Dragon: Zigzagged with Bulma. She occasionally shows up in Majin Vegeta's intros piloting a mech, either boasting about herself or outright talking the opponent down, though the "dragon" part of this trope only comes from when she's doing this to someone who clearly outclasses her in said mech. Majin Vegeta literally kicks her out of the fight when he shows up, but she will come back and lay it into him after he's won.
- The Cameo:
- Sonic the Hedgehog appears in a pre-fight intro for Vegeta. Zipping away as Vegeta enters into the battlefield. He also shows up if Goku wins in Super Sayian form, in his Super Form and challenges Goku to a race.
- Luffy shows up in another of Vegeta's intros. Sleeping on the ground and awakening just in time as Vegeta enters the scene and quickly getting out of the way before Vegeta stomps him, using his Gum-Gum power to stretch and grab his straw hat before the match starts.
- Way too many to count in some of Goku's win animation, along with Sonic, we got to name a few Arale, The Powerpuff Girls, Superman, Viewtiful Joe, Doraemon, Scott Pilgrim and much much more.
- Same for Piccolo's intros which usually have him dealing with a bad guy from another another series and blowing them up before going to fight the match proper. Though some notable one like Ragyo, Sans and the Red Ranger manage to warp away before he can.
- Composite Character: Gotenks, while Gotenks otherwise, apes Yamcha's Wolf Fang Fist.
- Dance Battler: Gotenks' moveset involves the Russian Cossack, and a pirouette
- Everyone Has a Special Move: Of course, this is a given, but they really make each character stand out, even the super forms of Goku and Vegeta. Gohan is especially this considering that even before he got a sprite revamp, he played almost entirely different from Goku despite being a mere hair swap of him at the time.
- Extremity Extremist: Gohan is a male Kick Chick in spades. His UNLEASHED Mode even banks on his Omnikicks and both variations of the Hurricane Kick (giving them substantial power boosts while they fill up the UNLEASHED gauge in return).
- Face Palm: Some of Jiren's victory poses involve one of the other Pride Troopers interrupting his Badass Armfold pose, which provokes this reaction from him.
- Fighting Clown:
- Mr. Satan is a Joke Character with comical, unusual techniques. If he survives long enough, though, he can actually dish out serious damage with his super moves.
- Gotenks has complex techniques and two transformations available as part of his moveset, but he has several comical moves and never shuts up. Repeatedly trash talking his opponent alongside his ghost helpers is part of the way to unlock his ultimate attack.
- Fighting Spirit: Gotenks summons Super Ghosts with his Ghost Bros. move.
- Final Boss:
- Cyan Goku or Cyan Vegeta are randomly selected as this once you've beaten everyone else before them (they're the two in their Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan forms). They're twice as fast on the ground than the originals, hit twice as hard or twice as much than usual, take half damage from all sources compared to everyone not named Mr. Satan, and possess an even higher super gauge that apparently fills up much faster than everyone else's. "Cyan" Goku uses SS Goku's moveset (due to SS Goku and Goku having different palette coding and sprites) and he can arbitrarily spam and abuse his "Zanzoken" and Pursuit Attacks unlike the original. "Cyan" Vegeta uses the stance and movement of Vegeta but combines the special movesets of Vegeta and Majin Vegeta and possibly the regular one (due to the two characters having the exact same palette coding and sprites, although human players controlling him are stuck with Vegeta's moveset), and as mentioned above all of his Ki-based attacks have been doubled in number and or hits. They also unleash a Hurricane of Puns related to the color blue upon beating you.
- The Champion version replaces Cyan Goku and Cyan Vegeta with Golden Freeza. Unlike Cyan Goku or Cyan Vegeta, he cannot be controlled by the player if the selection screen is altered to include him, so he is always controlled by the CPU.
- Irony: Ultimate Gohan is the most aerial-centric character in this game, and yet he doesn't have an aerial version of either of his normal "Hurricane Kicks" unlike the original users of the moves. Gohan does have the "Super Hurricane Kick" that can be done in the air but it can only be done in the air unlike the original Shinku Tatsumaki Senpukyaku which could only be done on the ground.
- Joke Character:
- There have been two versions of Mr. Satan, who is portrayed as a comical and gimmicky character.
- The official site includes a Farmer character that, once installed, can only be controlled by the CPU. He gets knocked out in one hit, but comes back with a more threatening tank for the second round.
- Ki Manipulation: This would not be Dragon Ball Z if the characters didn't have this.
- Kamehame Hadoken: The Son family all possess this move as expected but each of them have their own differences in execution and style.
- Goku has access to the Level 1 variant (this game's equivalent of the traditional Shinku Hadoken simply named "Kamehameha") and the Level 2 variant (a chargeable variation of the Marvel vs. Capcom and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom appearances of the Shinku Hadoken named "Chou Kamehameha"). "Kamehameha" can be fired from the ground or the air, the grounded version can be angled at a diagonal trajectory upwards, the aerial version can only be fired at a downwards diagonal trajectory, and it deals five hits total. "Chou Kamehameha" naturally hits harder while retaining its grounded angling properties, can only be used on the ground, travels faster, and can be charged up from 20 hits base to 40 hits maximum (while also being flat-out unblockable at full charge and instantly firing). If playing with a partner, instead of using his other "Kaioken" finishers, he uses a supped up version of "Chou Kamehameha" that hits harder than before throughout all stages, dealing more damage than the other standard variants of "Chou Kamehameha".
- SS Goku is the same as Goku but with small yet important differences. His "Kamehameha" hits twice as much than Goku's and he can use his infamous "Zanzoken" during the superpause to teleport to any location he desires (see Teleport Spam below to see where he can position himself), making this variant of the move the most useful and opening up more mindgames than before. His "Chou Kamehameha" is little different other than being able to fire it from the air, something Goku cannot do (and the readme states that he will soon have a "Zanzoken" variation of this move as well). His "Hyper Rush's" Level 2 finisher is the "Ultimate Kamehameha", hitting harder than previous incarnations sans the other Kamehameha user below him.
- Ultimate Gohan only has access to "Chou Kamehameha" but is otherwise functionally identical to SS Goku minus the future "Zanzoken" cancelling. His "Gekiretsu Ranbu's" last finisher is the "Team Kamehameha" in which Goten joins in to fire his own "Chou Kamehameha"; the two beams spiral around each other and combine, dealing massive damage to the opponent that other variations can't match.
- Kamehame Hadoken: The Son family all possess this move as expected but each of them have their own differences in execution and style.
- Lethal Joke Character: Mr. Satan, despite being a Fighting Clown, can actually dish out serious damage with his super moves. When paired up with Goku, Mr. Satan sits the fight out forcing Goku to do all the fighting himself, but he infinitely charges up Goku's Spirit Bomb for him from the start of the fight to the end.
- Long Song, Short Scene: The victory theme. It's a nice track that really conveys the triumph over an opponent. As a result, it's brief but effective... and yet, it's just a bit too long for the actual victory screen it's used for. Because this game runs on the MUGEN engine, it gets cut off way before the theme ends as it transitions into the next match.
- Me's a Crowd: One of Piccolo's supers can clone himself up to two times, depleting his HP by a fair margin. The clones each have a rather imperfect AI but are rather helpful. One must be sure to recall them to regain whatever HP was sacrificed in making them before they take too much damage and before he bites it before they do if he's being targeted.
- Mighty Glacier: Piccolo is the biggest and slowest contender in Hyper Dragon Ball Z, but he's still just as capable as the other fighters; trading speed for power and mobility for high range, he simply does high amounts of damage, often times not really needing an EX move to shave off half of an enemy's health thanks to combo-setups and increased hitstun inflicted on his opponent.
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Nintendo Hard: The AI in the game so far is said to be aggressive even on the easiest difficulty. In fact, as with most M.U.G.E.N games, the difficulty setting is meaningless, due to each character having its AI coded individually. - Now That's Using Your Teeth!: Super Buu can destroy an oncoming ki blast by simply biting it with his crouching medium punch, taking no damage.
- Punny Name: Cyan Goku and Cyan Vegeta are based off the respective characters' Super Saiyan Blue forms (with cyan being a shade of blue), and a more phonetically correct (based off Japanese pronunciation) pronunciation of Saiyan sounds like cyan.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Gotenks incorporates ballet among his attacks.
- Reference Overdosed: Especially in the intros and outros.
- Rubber Man: As per the norm, Super Buu is capable of stretching his entire body to whichever lengths he wants to attack his opponent from any given distance, including his tongue.
- Sadist: Final Form Frieza and Majin Vegeta, natch. Bonus points go to Frieza's emotion system called SADISM which fills up with literally any attack as opposed to having to perform specific actions like the others. Both of them are different in regards to this trope.
- Secret Character: The Indigo Build includes the Pilaf Gang as opponents in Arcade Mode, but they're playable if you just look around a bit on the character select screen.Hint
- Series Continuity Error: In Majin Vegeta's intro and victory pose, Bulma is in her younger appearance from the original Dragon Ball manga, as oppose to her modern and older apperance.
- Shout-Out:
- Babidi's "Let the hate flow through you!" quote, as if he wasn't enough of a Darth Sidious Expy himself.
- There are a ton of references to Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Gotenks' idle animation has him looking towards the screen, and impatiently tapping his foot.
- One of Buu's victory animations have him curling into a ball and zooming out of frame, complete with the sound of collecting rings in the distance, all the while, the invincibility theme can be heard.
- Sonic himself can be seen in one of Base!Vegeta's pre-battle intros where he tries to stomp him under his foot... only to narrowly miss the little blue speedster as he zooms off the screen.
- If Super Saiyan Goku wins a fight, there's a small chance that Super Sonic will show up and challenge the golden haired Saiyan to a race, with Goku taking to the air and giving chase.
- The heads of some of Frieza's minions who get murdered in his openings are the heads of other video game characters, including Wario, Purple Tentacle, and Earthworm Jim.
- Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration:
- SSJ Goku's unique install and level 3 uses up his energy instead of building it like all the others. This means his special changes to reflect how little energy he has rather then how much he has built up. At level 1 he simply pours it all into one powerful punch. At level 2 he uses the spirit bomb to make up for his low energy and turns Super Saiyan when the opponent resists. At level 3 he uses the bomb again but can't stop it when the opponent resists, but the deflected spirit bomb unlocks Ultra Instinct. Ultra Instinct being out of the player's control also makes sense, as it's function of movement without thought isn't congruent with the player deciding what to do.
- Pilaf, Babidi and Vegetto don't have installs for story reasons. Pilaf uses a Mini-Mecha that he scraped together, Babidi uses magic and his minions to fight for him while Vegetto was just turned into a Jawbreaker. None of them has either had time to put together a way to increase their power and movestyle or just cared to do so.
- Jiren's moveset showcases his belief in raw power and that by the standards of the series he is far and away the most powerful. Many attacks have super armor, his normals act like harder attacks from other characters (his lights are mediums, mediums are heavies and heavies are basically specials themselves) and you can be overwhelmed by attack after attack from him.
- The Sociopath: Majin Vegeta's take on this trope, being the sociopath between him and Frieza. Unlike Frieza who may slowly degenerate into insanity, Majin Vegata is already balls off the wall crazy who can clear his mind of Babidi's influence.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist:
- Frieza's take on this trope, being the psychopath between him and Majin Vegeta. Shock Dingo's performance nails Frieza's personality perfectly. The below quotes are just some of his spoken lines.
"Black blood churns out of old wounds. This nightmare of yours has yet only begun..."
"Ever heard millions of screams slowly silenced by a burning atmosphere? Do you want to?"
"It's not like I'm a monster; I'll let you live long enough to see everyone you love die..."
"Can you survive in deep space? You just might have to learn to..."
"Take me to your leader. Hm...I reconsider that sentence; I instead will raze the planet until he presents himself."- Babidi is no slouch in this department either.
- Smug Super:
- Super Saiyan Goku, if saying "You can't beat me" in his taunt was not obvious enough, and that's just his taunt too.
- Frieza is just as prideful as he was in canon, and his quotes and walk animation shows how highly he thinks of himself.
- Vegeta already qualifies for this trope, but his Majin form inflates his pride further.
- Super Mode: The Power Mode mechanic, which enables new moves and strengthens the fighter.
- The Indigo Build takes this further when one selects SSJ Goku or Vegeta; their Power Mode turns them into their Super Saiyan Blue versions. Taken even further as Vegeta can activate Power Mode a second time to go into Super Saiyan Blue Evolution.
- Taking You with Me: Majin Vegeta's Suicide finisher for his Saiyan Pride Beatdown will do this to an opponent if their health is low enough. It still counts as Majin Vegeta's win.
- Taunt Button: The Start button functions as one for each character (Goku thinking about food, for example).
- Teleport Spam: SS Goku has the Afterimage Technique (going by it's original Japanese name "Zanzoken" for HDBZ) built into his playstyle, and as with every other character barring Goku his emotion system (JUSTICE Mode) incorporates it into his ultimate attack, also enabling him to perform five teleports in a single combo as opposed to three while giving him the homing teleport Pursuit Attacks. With "Zanzoken" he can transpose himself in six different either into the air, on the ground, away, toward, or directly behind his opponent if they're close enough; the pursuit attacks place him either in front or behind his opponent with a wall rebounding Smash Punch, in front of his opponent with a launching Flash Kick, or above his opponent with a bounce juggling Bicycle Kick. He can do all of those from either a non attacking position or cancel into them from everything except for his non-Kamehameha supers (except for the Pursuit Attack cancelling from a super). Frieza also has access to the "Counterport" which places him behind the opponent should they strike him (and their movement is delayed giving him a chance to attack). Outside of that move he also teleports after launching someone or whenever he dashes backward when SADISM Mode is active (and behind his opponent if close enough to his opponent). Babidi also has the Wizard's Forward/Backward Teleport, and Super Buu is looking to have a visible transposing move that he can go straight into if he's landing with a jumping heavy punch.
- Trap Master:
- Babidi can play this game very effectively along with being a good zoner overall, as all of his moves are disjointed bar his grabs, and his Rock Throw command move even has tracking properties before it falls.
- Piccolo showcases a small amount of aptitude in this, flinging energy bullets into the air that he can detonate at will or until someone runs into them.
- Troll: Frieza has slight shades of this in both of his walk animations, those being the "girly" forward walk and the "come hither" back walk, clearly showing that he's not taking things seriously and mostly wanting to rile you up.
- Unstoppable Rage: Vegeta. His emotion system is literally called RAGE Mode and focuses on Beam Spamming. Majin Vegeta is this in his base form, but he somehow subdues it in his SANITY mode, clearing his mind of Babidi's influence and putting more focus into the fight.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Certain moves will kill the opponent on the last round if the move depletes their health. Of the characters present in the roster, there's Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Mr. Satan, Piccolo, and Gotenks. They know each other and, aside from Mr. Satan, any one of them can brutally kill each other.
- The Worf Effect: Jiren's intro's include him tossing aside the last poor soul that fought him. This can range from the Tank, Eva-01, Godzilla and even Goku himself.
