Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout

This article was copied (instead of imported) from the now-deleted Crappy Games Wiki.

Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout

"We asked TOSE to make us a fighting game based on the Dragon Ball franchise, and they somehow managed to mess everything up! We added more fuel to the fire that is the Dragon Ball GT hatedom! We have soiled the good anime name! Soiled it! Soiled it! Soiled it! Soiled it!" - Bandai

Genre(s):	Fighting
Platform(s):	PlayStation
Release Date:	Original JP: August 21, 1997 NA: October 1, 1997 EU: November 6, 1997 Re-releases JP: July 20, 2000 (The Best) EU: October 4, 2002 (Reprint) NA: August 24, 2004 (Reprint)
Developer(s):	Tose
Publisher(s):	WW: Bandai NA: Atari (2004 reprint)
Series:	Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout (released in Europe and Japan as: Dragon Ball: Final Bout) is a fighting game for the Sony PlayStation based on the anime Dragon Ball GT. It was developed by Tose and released by Bandai in 1997.

Why It's The Final Doubt

To start with, the controls are absolutely horrible, with 1 to even 2 seconds of delays in them, making this game almost unplayable at best and horribly hard at worst.
- They are also very clunky, even more than in Ultimate Battle 22. This makes the unresponsive controls even more of a problem; in fact, the controls of this game are on par with the horrible controls from Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu on GBA. It's also like the controls in a Dragon Ball game being at their absolute worst because of this.
- As said before, they have delays of 2 seconds almost all the time, making the controls incredibly bad and horribly unresponsive. It's so bad that this game is one of the worst Dragon Ball fighting games ever made.
- The attacks are also extremely unresponsive and clunky, with many attacks taking 2 seconds to be used (Read WITFD#2 for more information).
The combat in this game is very terrible and possibly worse than even Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22, mostly due to the incredibly atrocious controls that make the game almost unplayable, and unlike Ultimate Battle 22, the fighting is not okay at times, thanks to how bad the controls of this game are.
- This makes this game sometimes way too hard, or just in general, one of the few games we're playing where you don't even have fun for more than 5 minutes.
- The combat is also incredibly broken and even worse than that of Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22, with some attacks that are way too weak or sometimes very overpowered to the point that you will use them over and over due to how bad the other attacks are.
Despite still being faster than Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22, the gameplay is still slow due to the horribly unresponsive controls. There is also barely any fast-paced gameplay for most parts; even Dragon Ball Z: Sagas had faster gameplay than this, despite still being a dreadful game.
- The gameplay is also somehow even worse than that of Super Butoden 3 (which wasn't terrible but weaker than the second and first Butoden games), mostly due to how unresponsive and clunky the controls and combats are.
- This also depends on the characters, as some of them are very underpowered and unnecessary to play with, and some of them are very unbalanced and extremely overpowered, especially Goku, who is very overpowered, and some of the small characters, such as Pan and Little Goku, are very underpowered, making the gameplay even worse than it already is with underpowered characters.
The graphics, while charming and better than that of Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22, are terrible and aged extremely badly, with an awful character model and awful texture; even Dragon Ball Z: Super Butoden 2 on the SNES looks better than this.
- The characters models, as said before, are very awful and have a very undetailled 3D model for them, as some characters either look like their TV show counterparts, such as Goku and Pan, or others that look like plastic, such as Little Goku and Trunk.
- The color palette is also extremely bad, as it is very washed out and downright hideous to look at, especially due to the added coloring choice with either the character model or even with the backgrounds, thanks to how badly they designed the graphics.
- The textures are also of low quality and look even worse than in games like Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strike Back and Mega Man Legends, which we're also released in 1997, had better texture quality than this game, and both were released on the PS1 too.
The beam struggle sections are very horrible and almost, if not impossible, to win, as they require a massive (and impressive) amount of mashing to win them. The problem is that it's extremely difficult and almost impossible to win them, especially if your hands have a problem.
- This would also possibly break the PS1 controller at worst, due to how much you had to mash the buttons, or at worst, it might even break your hands at times if you do a crazy amount of mashing.
Awful camera that is extremely choppy, even for a 1997 PS1 game, as it's either focusing on the sky or on one of the characters. This makes the game even worse to play and makes this game much worse than it already is.
- The camera is also worse than a lot of Dragon Ball fighting games; in fact, it might be the worst camera out of a Dragon Ball game due to how bad it is and all the flaws it has.
- This would also make your character invisible at times; even Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi, which was released in 1996, had a better camera than this game, despite still being awful and a 2D game instead of a 3D game.
Horrible animations, which are probably one of the major reasons why the controls of this game are horrible, as they are very clunky and even ruin the graphics to make them even worse, not to mention that some of them look like it was ripped off a Tekken game on the PS1.
The only moves in this game are punching, kicking, poor-range attacks, and random flurries. Meteor Smash combos and other attacks are hard, if not impossible, to pull off.
Some of the characters, such as Goku, are incredibly broken and overpowered, as he, along with some other characters, had infinite combos or you could even spam an attack just to beat your opponents much easier. While some characters were unbalanced in Ultimate Battle 22, it wasn't as broken and unbalanced as this game, although it's probably not a bad thing due to how bad this game is.
- Not to mention that some of your opponents will sometimes do infinite combos and kill you extremely easily, which makes this game more frustrating than it already is, and it proves that this game is not only clunky but extremely broken with the combos.
- Also, the small characters, such as Pan and Little Goku, are hard to hit due to their being smaller, which can make them very unbalanced.
Kid Buu is called Boo in the U.S. version as if he were a ghost from Mario, even though the adult Buu is called Buu. This is extremely confusing and just unnecessary to rename him.
Poor voice acting. For example, in the NTSC-U version, "Saiyan" is mispronounced as "Say-Anne." Since the English voices do not appear in the PAL version, this isn't an issue there.
- To make matters worse, none of the actors from the English dub of the Dragon Ball series reprised their roles, like they would usually do for most Dragon Ball games.
- "Say-Anne" used to be the American pronunciation before the Funimation dub turned it into "Say-en." The European and non-American English dubs always pronounced it similarly to the Japanese version.
- Some of the lines before a fight are also laughably bad, or the characters have voices that don't fit them; for example, Goku's voice sounds like either Jon or Garfield from the Garfield series, especially when he says, "You're not as strong as you said," where he sounds like Jon from Garfield, although these lines are funny.
There are some glitches, notably the one where your opponents can kill you with just one punch, which proves how much this game is broken and unbalanced and also might be a hint that this game wasn't even finished before being released.
While the soundtrack is pretty good, some of the music is incredibly generic, such as when you choose a character, although the soundtrack generally is even better than the one in Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22.
Extremely unbalanced difficulty: sometimes the opponents are very easy to take down, such as Little Goku and Trunk, but some are horribly hard to take down, such as Buu or Piccolo.
Unlike Ultimate Battle 22, the mode where you fight the characters doesn't even pass all of the characters on the roster, as there's only 11 (12 if you count Great Ape Baby) opponents who will fight before Great Ape Baby.
The flying mechanics are very awful and poorly executed, as you will have a hard time fighting your opponents, and the controls are very horrible and even worse than when you are on foot. This makes this mechanic very useless.
It's possible to stun lock the enemy with projectiles sometimes, making the game incredibly easy and just showing how broken this game is, as said before.
The U.S. version was only called Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout to build hype for Dragon Ball GT, which was making its debut on US television at the time (eight years after its original run in Japan). Only four of the characters (not counting alternate versions like Super Saiyan 4 Goku and the unplayable boss Great Ape Baby) are actually from Dragon Ball GT.
There's an awful mechanic that allows your opponent to execute up to ten Meteor Smash combos without much time given to escape them; this makes the game sometimes way too hard or unbalanced, not to mention that you can't escape it.
The hidden characters are all alternate versions of Goku and Trunks, to the point that, in the roster, there are six versions of Goku along with three versions of Trunks. As there are only 17 playable characters, this means that more than half of the entire roster is comprised of Goku and Trunks clones!
- This makes the roster very bad, and the lack of characters from the previous games, such as Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22 makes this absolutely unacceptable, as the previous game on the PS1 had actually 27 characters and not just clones; this game, however, had fewer characters, and the final boss, Great Ape Baby, isn't even playable in this game!
The AI will sometimes go past your character when attacking and attack without you even being close to the opponent; this makes the hit detection very horrible (see WITFD#22).
The hit detection is absolutely awful, horrible, and has completely ruined the game again, as sometimes you will get hit despite clearly havingn't made contact with your opponent.
Cheap CPU. However, at some points, it feels like the AI also has problems controlling the game, which even shows how broken and maybe unfinished this game is.
Dreadful final boss fight against Great Ape Baby, as he has extreme range, speed, and incredibly damaging attacks, which means that you can barely attack him. His Revenge Death Ball takes 1/3 of your health. The fight is so poorly made that you can pass between his legs while trying to attack, and he takes like 10% of the normal damage from everything that aren't Supers. However, he can be stunlocked, but due to the low damage he takes, the fight can take a long time.
There is no ending; just like Ultimate Battle 22, after you beat Great Ape Baby, it's directly to the credits.
The 2004 reprint's release feels outdated, because it was released for the original PlayStation in 2004, when the PS2 was already prevalent & the PS1 was starting to stop getting new games. If the reprint were to be released for the PS2, then it would make sense.

Redeeming Qualities

The opening is amazing and probably the only awesome thing in this game, as it's giving you the hype for the game, which is not a good game. The theme song of it, especially in the Japanese version, is also amazing.
The soundtrack is really good, as expected from a Dragon Ball game, although some of the music is generic.
Despite the voice acting being poor, some of the lines of the characters are funny, such as when Goku says, "You're not as strong as you said," possibly due to how bad the lines and the voice acting are.
Awesome box art for all regions.

Reception

Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout received extremely negative reviews by critics, fans and even players alike, with many criticizing the controls, the graphics, the unbalanced difficulty and the dreadful roster of the game where there is more Goku and Trunk clones than other characters.

The game is also considered to be one of, if not the worst Dragon Ball game ever made and maybe even one of the worst fighting game of the entire PS1 library.

Trivia

The U.S Release is the first Dragon Ball game to feature English voice acting, but because the game was released before Funimation owned the rights create English dubs for Dragon Ball, the voice actors are completely different.
The American release of this game was the first time a Dragon Ball game used the name "Dragon Ball GT" in its title.
The giant robot Pan faces in the opening looks like the invaders' mobile suit, Ribugigo, introduced in the Dr. Slump chapter "The Biggest Bye'cha of All".
A puppy resembling Bee can be seen in the opening.
This is the first game to feature adult Goku in his GT clothes. This game also marks the first-time adult GT Goku appears as a Super Saiyan (which was never shown in the anime series itself). This game is also the first time GT Frieza appears in his Full Power form.
Vegito retains his original name from the Japanese versions of the series, "Vegetto".
In the American release of the game, it has English quotes when the player chose any characters in the select screen and from the next stage. However, in-game, their battle grunts were kept in Japanese.
In YouTube, a user posted the English quotes of this game being fan dubbed by their voice actors in the original English dub from Funimation dub instead of their original English voice actors in the actual game.

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Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout

Contents

Why It's The Final Doubt

Redeeming Qualities

Reception

Trivia

Videos

Comments

Navigation menu

Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout

Why It's The Final Doubt

Redeeming Qualities

Reception

Trivia

Videos

Comments

Navigation menu

Search