Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 2

Dragon Ball Z: Super Butoden 2 is a 2D fighting game released for the Super Famicom on December 17, 1993, in Japan and in mid-1994 in France and Spain. It is the second entry in the Butoden series and features ten playable characters, including two unlockable fighters accessible via code. Combat takes place across twelve battle stages ranging from the World Martial Arts Tournament arena to forests, glaciers, and desert environments, each available in both daytime and nighttime variants for several locales.

The Story Mode is the game's defining feature, offering a branching narrative structure that changes based on whether the player wins or loses each battle. Players control Gohan, Future Trunks, Vegeta, or Piccolo, and the outcomes of their fights determine which story branch unfolds. The mode covers three primary storylines: "Fear! The Cell Games," which concludes the Cell arc; "Resurrection! Galaxy Warrior," featuring Bojack and Zangya; and "Legendary Super Saiyan?," an arc centered on Broly that unlocks under specific conditions on harder difficulty settings. The large number of branching possibilities made the Story Mode particularly popular at the time of release.

Charging Ki in Super Butoden 2 requires several seconds of sustained button input, a slower process than its predecessor or successor. The deliberate pacing of ki accumulation affects the rhythm of combat, making resource management a meaningful consideration. Players who master when to charge versus when to commit to attacks gain a substantial advantage over opponents.

Super Butoden 2's Story Mode opens with the Cell Games arc and allows it to evolve in different directions depending on the player's performance. In the primary branch, Mr. Satan confronts Cell before Gohan steps in for the decisive battle. If the player does not defeat Cell in their second confrontation, Gohan ends the fight with the Father-Son Kamehameha, mirroring the climax of the Cell Games from the anime.

Unlocking the "Resurrection! Galaxy Warrior" story requires completing the Cell Games arc. This branch introduces Bojack and Zangya as villains who arrive on Earth seeking the Dragon Balls and use evil clones of the Z Fighters to sow confusion. An alternate sub-branch called "Sudden Shock! Duel" features these villains using the Destron Gas alongside Cell Juniors as soldiers. If the Z Fighters fail to stop Bojack, Broly appears and kills him, ending the mode on a dark note. The Broly-centered "Legendary Super Saiyan?" arc is the rarest branch, requiring specific task completion at higher difficulty levels to unlock.

Super Butoden 2 is also included in the J Legend Retsuden game compilation for Nintendo 3DS, and a digital copy was made available as a pre-order bonus for Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden on the same platform. This regional bonus release remained untranslated from Japanese, limiting its accessibility for non-Japanese players. The game was known in France as Dragon Ball Z 2: la Legende Saien, reflecting the French localization common to the Butoden series in Europe.

The branching Story Mode is consistently cited as the strongest element of the game and one of the most ambitious story structures in the Butoden series. The French official translation is noted for being grammatically inconsistent and at times incomprehensible for readers unfamiliar with Dragon Ball Z, a quality that became a minor part of its reputation in European markets. Super Butoden 2 remains well-regarded among fans of 16-bit Dragon Ball Z games for its narrative ambition and varied content.