Proto:Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury

This page details one or more prototype versions of Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury.

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

A prototype of the game was found and bought by Princess Ryan. This build appears to be have been close to the end of development, with the movie characters Broly and Janemba (noted by the developers to be late additions) having just started being implemented into the game, and with most of the game completable without any serious issues. However, due to the game's very short and rushed production cycle, there's still a large number of notable differences between this build and the final game.

To do: Better and more thorough documentation is needed, there are many differences throughout the entire game that are not currently noted, especially towards the end of the game See if the code indicates what locations (if any) were planned for the unused tracks

Debug Menu

A debug menu is present, and can be accessed from the title screen (by selecting the Start option) with the Codebreaker code 0800528C:08043218. Some of the values are corrupted when viewing it for the first time and can crash the game when trying to access invalid IDs for music or maps. To fix this, enter the options menu and try viewing the debug menu again.

Almost every map in the game, including variations based on game progression or cutscenes, can be accessed through here. In addition, there is a full sound test, featuring a couple of unused songs (IDs 2 and 52). Be warned that you will enter every map at the base level for Goku (50) without any equipment, since there is currently no way to access the debug menu from within a save file.

• Zone 0 Area 14 leads to what looks like an unused or secondary map location. You cannot land anywhere, and certain landmarks are floating above ground.

• Zone 0 Area 99 leads to a debug room, used to test enemies and the game's combat mechanics. You can switch characters at will and spawn enemies (including Janemba, who was currently being worked on at the time of this build and cannot be fought otherwise).

• Zone 26 leads to a heavily unfinished unused set of maps, which appear to be where the game's adaptation of the movie "Super Android 13" would have been located. While all the maps link together properly, some of the exits only work one way, which can lead to the player getting stuck and needing to reset the game. It is unknown if the unused music tracks were intended for this area, as their arrangements are based on Faulconer tracks from the Majin Saga - not the Android Saga, Cell Sagas, or movies.

• Zone 3 Area 23 leads to an odd cutscene(?) map of an 8-bit Mr. Satan fighting Cell. This map exists in the final game, unused. It appears to be a placeholder for an arcade Hercule videogame - perhaps the Hercule Cafe exhibit was going to be playable at some point.
  

Sound Test

Track 2

Track goes unused in game, but is based on the Bruce Faulconer track "Turned To Stone".
It may have been intended for the cut content planned for Zone 26.

Track 34

Slightly glitched version of the airship theme, with white noise captured before each track loop.

Track 45

Prototype version of main theme. Features slightly different melody and instrumentation.

Track 52

Track goes unused in game, but is based on the Bruce Faulconer tracks "Mystery of the Z Sword" and "Turned To Stone".

The full track list for the Music Player:
00. Babidi
01. Babidi's Ship (Babidi Casts Spell)
02. Unused*
03. Buu Is Fighting
04. Capsule Corp (BF Version)
05. Musaka Circus (Cell At Carnival)
06. New Earth Music (Hercule City)
07. Dabura's Prelude
08. Goku Dies
09. New Earth Music (Goku's Home)
10. DBZ Finale
11. Buu's Theme
12. Gohan's Hidden Power
13. Gohan Powers Up
14. SSJ3 Powerup
15. Snake Way
16. Grand Kai Blues
17. Flight Training
18. Groovy Discotech
19. Heroic Trunks
20. Inside Buu (Ninja In The District)
21. Palace In The Clouds
22. Kid Buu
23. Biding Time
24. Mysterious Person
25. Grand Kai Rocks
26. The Howling
27. Pilaf's Castle
28. Eastern Forest (Gohan Angers)
29. Race To The Island (BF Version)
30. Diablo Desert (Dead Zone)
31. Home Sweet Home
32. A Little Help From A Friend
33. Pikkon's Theme
34. Stolen Airship (Prototype)*
35. Supreme Kai's Theme
36. The Saga Continues (Build Up)
37. The Saga Continues (Outro)
38. Hercule Cafe
39. Ox King Consoles
40. The Dragon Theme (BF Version)
41. Evil Buu
42. Super Buu
43. Babidi (Intro)
44. Dangerous Standoff
45. Buu's Fury Theme (Prototype)*
46. Kid Buu Destroyed
47. Vegeta's Theme
48. Vegito Is Born
49. Goku Wins
50. World Martial Arts Tournament
51. World Map (BF Version)
52. Unused (Mystery of the Z Sword)*
(track names are based on their anime equivalents)

Differences

General Differences

To do: Is there any way to identify the other characters using the placeholder portraits? All of the portraits are listed in alphabetical order, so one of them most likely belongs to Super Android 13 given its placement (after Android 18) Possibly merge scouter entries w/ main page as these have been elaborated on but not been screenshot.

This build of the game is extremely unstable at times, especially during the latter half of the game, leading to frequent crashes. This is partially due to a lack of error handling in later chapters of the game, leading to too many enemy sprites or entities being loaded at the same time.

• The title screen is almost completely different, showing Vegito alongside a cut-off Goku and Vegeta. Kid Buu's image was also changed for the final.

Proto	Final

• Most of the equipment sprites have not been implemented yet, with the majority of them using the same placeholder icons.

• Several characters whose portraits were not finished at the time of this build use an old famous image of a laughing cat as a placeholder. More of these existed in earlier builds of the game, but only two characters use them now (Super Saiyan 3 Goku and Elder Moori), along with 6 other unused characters (currently unidentified).
  

Elder Moori	SSJ 3 Goku

Cut Wireless Adapter Multiplayer Mode

In the prototype's start menu there are 3 multiplayer options:

• Link Cable
• Wireless Master
• Wireless Slave

Support for the GBA Wireless Adapter was cut in the final build and there is only one option named Multiplayer which utilizes the GBA Link Cable.

Proto	Final

Gameplay Differences

To do: Chapter specific gameplay differences, there is a lot of stuff that was changed between this build and final Scouter entries for Mud Men - either from scouter or game code and HOW to access this.

• The player's stats outside of HP and EP do not increase naturally when leveling up, and there is no way to allocate stat points in this build of the game (in fact, they don't seem to even exist yet), leaving stat boosts from equipment the only way to get any stronger. To compensate for this, or perhaps for the sake of testing, many enemies in the game are significantly weaker than their final counterparts. Most bosses throughout the game can be defeated in mere seconds as a result of this.
  • Thresholds for upgrading energy attacks are already implemented, but as experience is dedicated to each ability in a different version of the status menu.

Proto	Final

• • Beam attacks (i.e. Kamehameha, Final Flash) have no sound effect and will damage enemies off screen, which is not the case in the final version.
  • Multi-hit attacks (i.e. Energy Punch, Big Bang Attack) have incorrect sound effects and a faster hit rate than in the final version.
  • No energy attacks go through a visible/sprite change when they level up in the prototype.
  • When enemies are defeated, any energy/beam attack in use will be automatically stopped.

• The pause menu displays all playable characters by default, including Gotenks, Gogeta, and Vegito, who can be found by scrolling to the right in the pause menu. In addition, two otherwise completely unused playable character entries for Piccolo and Android 18 can be found amongst the other characters.

• The scouter does not work in most areas in the game, being completely non-functional and unable to scan enemies, as well as not displaying area maps for areas such as Inside Buu. When enemies are scanned, the data screen is taken from the database in Capsule Corp instead of the Scouter itself.
  • Interestingly, the database cannot be accessed from the Capsule Corp control room.

• Characters are not properly made unplayable when they should be, leading to scenarios where you can have the wrong character access a cutscene they're not supposed to be in (example: you can still play after Vegeta after he blows himself up against Buu).

• Food items heal less health than they do in the final game, along with being much more uncommon, while enemies drop Dinosaur Milk from the very beginning, making EP recovery very easy. To compensate for the lack of HP recovery items, Yajirobe sells Senzu Beans for 60 zenny each at Korin's Tower.
  • Zenny will continuously bounce when dropped, unlike in the final game where the coins settle.
  • Equipment dropped by enemies will be immediately picked up, while food items will go flying from defeated enemies.

• The equipment menu uses placeholder sprites for each equipment type, which are reused for every equipment drop of that type.
  

Body: Saiyan Armor, Hands: Saiyan Gloves, Feet: Super Boots, Accessories: Amethyst Amulet (with a blue gem)

• Gotenks is almost completely non-functional in this build, just being a sprite swap of whichever character was used to fuse him as part of the story. When selected (or fused to form), Gotenks will remain playable for roughly 30 seconds - this is enough time to trigger his idle animation when not moving - and after that time he will switch to whichever character was last being used. Gotenks himself has no skills implemented at this point, and the fusion timer never appears. In addition, when playing as Gotenks at the start of the fusion chapter, the game will crash on the world map, skip straight to the fight with Majin Buu, and may even turn Gotenks into Goku before the fight is finished. If he attempts to defuse during the fight with Kid Buu, it will permanently lock the player out of ever playing as Goten or Trunks again if the game is saved while they are fused.

• Many sidequest related story flags do not get marked properly. While the game is able to be completed from start to finish and the ending is fully implemented at this point, as a side effect of story flags not being set correctly, it is impossible to actually enter an endgame state, making it impossible to complete sidequests such as collecting all of the Hercule or Z-Fighter exhibits.

• At least two enemies are present which were cut from the final. The "Mud Man" enemy and its variants (brown and grey) appear to be based on a scrapped scenario based on the movie "Bio-Broly".

While they wouldn't survive to the final game, their scouter entries and enemy names still exist! While the enemies themselves are mostly complete, featuring full animations, multiplying to spawn more of themselves, and having ability to shoot mud balls, their hitbox is either corrupted or unfinished, being much smaller than their sprite and making it extremely difficult to actually attack them.