A disappointing sequel that removed what really made its prequel stand out.
Usually, when a game gets a sequel, I expect more content, not less.
Guess what this game did? Well, let's start from the top. After the admittedly cool intro, players will quickly notice that there's no story mode to this game. You know, one of the main attractions of the previous game, if not THE main attraction. No kind of arcade mode, either. It's almost like this game was rushed, and there was no time to even throw one of those things together.
So, what IS in this game? Well, a rather half baked roster, all things considered. You have Goku, Gohan, Goten, Supreme Kai, Majin Buu, Dabura, Trunks, Vegeta and...Android 18. It's safe to say this game was developed while the Buu saga was on its early stages. In the prequel, Goku and Broly were great hidden characters. Here, Future Trunks is the only hidden character to get with a cheat code. Even in that department, this game is inferior to Butoden 2.
As far as game modes go, you have a versus mode where you can play against a 2nd player, the CPU or watch CPU matches. You also have a tournament mode. That's it. I get that the idea was probably "oh, well, there was a tournament in the Buu saga, so this is perfectly fine" - but no, when the prequel made so much out of its story mode, you gotta have some kind of story mode in this game.
The fighting is fine, but there's almost nothing new except for some grappling gimmick that happens when you and your opponent dash towards each other. You clash into each other and grapple with your arms for a bit, before you or your opponent get to do a throw. I haven't gotten much use out of it, honestly.
There is one good thing I'll say about the versus mode. When it's time to select a stage, the game actually gives you a little visual preview of what the stages look like. That's something the prequel didn't do. There's just a little problem - this ends up exposing that only 4 of the 9 stages are actually different. The rest are palette swaps of the cloud stage, the mountain stage, or the tournament stage. Amazingly lazy stuff right there. I'm surprised they didn't have a palette swap for Majin Buu's stage, with the lights turned off.
So, there you have it. If you're curious about this game, play it. The soundtrack is good (barring one track), the gameplay isn't bad, it's almost the same as before, but looking at the big picture, this is undeniably a step down from Super Butoden 2.
P.S. - There's a minor detail that just bugs me so much. In the previous two games, when you pressed A to throw an energy blast towards a flying opponent, the ball would go diagonally up, towards said opponent. It would go down if you were flying and your opponent was on the ground. You know, for convenience. The developers, for whatever reason, got rid of that convenience - it's like the devs went out of their way to irritate me.