Submission #6755: Flint829's GBA Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury in 1:57:22.57

Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury is an action RPG released in America on September 14, 2004, for the Game Boy Advance. It is the sequel to Atari's best-selling Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku II and the third and final video game in the Legacy of Goku series.

A button is for melee attacks, B is for energy blasts, L is to switch energy blasts, R is to block, B and R to energy block. Select is to view the scouter, and Start is to go to the pause menu

Bizhawk version 2.3.1

RNG changes every frame Using different inputs beforehand results can change. Sometimes waiting for more favorable outcomes is better.

Enemy item drops also change every frame. Item drops can be changed slightly by waiting for the right frame like before, which can only be done without leveling up afterwards. Or alternately, after leveling up there are 7 frames in which varying inputs change the outcome of the drop. Or using both these methods at the same time. However there's no guarantee getting the items you want while doing this. So it's just trial and error until you get the item drop you want.

Holy water is obtained by handing in red snappers to Korin. It temporarily gives 25 points to all stats when used.

Goku training in the Otherworld Killing two enemies at once when possible, only going into the menu when needed.

Picking up the Lazarus crystal to sell for equipment during chapter 3. Making use of super saiyan for faster movement whenever possible. Skipping a cut scene trigger later in the chapter which saves some time.

Fishing for red snappers after Videl's fight, manipulated two of them before the game decided to no longer give them. Was afraid attempting to get more would end up losing time, so I decided to continue on with what I had instead.

First use of item manipulation here. Getting some neccesary items you would rarely get during runs. Starting off with getting Gohan to level 85 in order to get past the door to Babidi's ship Once inside using Goku to finish the first two floors of the ship, leveling up as he goes. Using the Holy water on Yakon to speed up the fight, doing nearly double the damadge Goku normally would without it switching to Vegeta for the final floor to level him up aswell.

Pretty straightforward chapter. Leveling up Vegeta a couple times on the way to the Majin Buu fight, in order to meet equipment requirements.

Gathering the dragonballs.

Trunks is used to level up to 80 in order to open some doors later on. Making use of item manipulation to get 10 ton weights and a kazoo in the airship. Mostly playing as Goten getting him to lvl 100 while going through the chapter in order to open the last door of the chapter.

Making use of invisible paths in the pyramid top maze to save some time. Daniel_1RD found one in his tas, after looking into it further found more invisible paths that could be used. Using the most optimal path to get through it. After saving the last scientist there are 4 possible rooms you can be dropped down to in the maze. slight manipulation to drop down to the room closest to the exit. Switching between characters in order to have Goten stay as super saiyan whenever possible.

Nothing much to be said about it, just going through super saiyan 3 Goku fight then Gotenks fight afterwards.

Making use of item manipulation once again to get 20 ton weights

Manipulating critical hits in order to beat the enemies in one hit as Vegeta, one time walking instead of running in order to make it work.

Last grinding session of the run. Making use of all the weighted gear gathered in order to speed up the grind. Using item manipulation to get 100 ton weights and other strength boosting items. This is the last use of item manipulation in the run.

Inside Buu

Saving and restart to reset blood cell rng, getting a single blood cell past the door using ki blasts and using instant transmission once it's in the right position in order to get through the door. It skips having to through multiple loading zones, breaking three switches, watching a cut scene and backtracking.

Gotenks and Piccolo fights can be skipped through gaps in an invisible wall.

You can skip the last fight inside Buu by having Buu turn Goku into candy and standing near the door in the correct position while buu eats him. This puts Goku right into the loading zone, triggering the next cut scene.

The final fight with Kid Buu. Making use of that second holy water that was saved up, during Vegeta's first fight with buu since he's underleveled at this point.

just one giant cut scene

Getting more holy water to use in different boss fights or to speed up certain segments. At the last grinding segment with Gohan for example with the weighted gear, it would make him move slighly faster. However fishing for snappers wastes 7-8 seconds each dive so it might not be worth it.

Thanks to the dbz speedrun community for routing and finding all these skips.

slamo: Replaced movie file, cutting 13 blank frames off.

slamo: This is a much better optimization effort than previous attempts. It's actually over 8 minutes faster than the last submission because they chose to stop input before the credits instead of getting back to the main menu. The basic movement optimization is pretty much on point. It also appears that a lot of thought was put into distributing experience between characters so that the level gates are opened with as little grinding as possible. I appreciated the sequences of rapid-fire equipment drops thanks to some quality RNG manipulation. There aren't too many skips, but the ones you found are quite effective.

I've been struggling with what tier to put this in. The feedback is very limited, although what's there is positive. It feels like the battles should be repetitive to watch, but I found myself strangely entertained by them. The action is fast-paced and the enemies are varied. The cutscenes are also limited enough to keep my attention. It may change tiers after some ratings come in, but for now, accepting to Moons.

slamo: We had some determinism issues with the reset in chapter 10; this was fixed by adding 113 frames before the power-off. The movie file has been replaced again.

fsvgm777: Processing.