"A disgrace to the Dragon Ball name."

This game goes through the Saiyajin saga and the Furiiza saga of Dragon Ball Z. Not very well, may I add. I, for one, believe that a lot more work could have been put in it.

Graphics: 4/10
Ugh... who did these sprites? They look awful, both in battle and out of it. I could probably find better looking sprites in the 7th Saga. The only thing saving this game's Graphics score from a pithy 2 is the cutscenes that occur when a character executes a major ki attack in a battle. These cutscenes are kind of decent and bear resemblance to the anime, so that's a plus.

Audio: 6/10
The music was actually kind of cool and fun to listen to, particularly the overworld music. However, it gets repetitive - fast. After only a few minutes of playing I was already sick of hearing that stupid noise that indicates the initiation of a random battle, and the subsequent battle music. The cave music sucked as well - since about 30% of the game is spent in caves, why not make its music better? Ugh. As for the sounds, they were OK, sounding pretty much like the show. Well, except the sounds of the exploding traps. They sound more like a faucet being rapidly turned on and off than explosions.

Gameplay: 2/10
This game pretty much represents the lowest common denominator in RPGs. For the most part, all you do is walk around to certain places and fight 200+ groups of enemies on your way. At times, you can get into 2 battles every 3 steps. The already high encounter rate is increased by flying quickly. I guess that's the cost of going fast. Probably the worst part is having to find places and things. For example, there's this one part where you have to journey alllll this way just to flip some dumb switches in a cave, and then go allll the way back to see if you did it right, and if not, go alllllll the way back over to flip the switches again.

Control: 7/10
No real control problems here. The game's pretty easy to control, just press buttons and stuff. The main complaint I have is the simplistic action system; you have to press A to do anything out of battle. They could have at least made a general 'action' button like in Dragon Quest or Shining Force.

Fun Factor: 1/10
Amusing for a few minutes, then it gets really annoying (mainly because of the high encounter rate and backtracking). I'd rather play Minesweeper.

Challenge: 8/10
This game has an interesting feature to make itself harder. There's a ''level cap'' established; after you pass a certain experience level, no more enemies appear. No more experience, no more level ups. Bam! So, you have to go and fight a boss at pithy levels. Sucks, doesn't it? What sucks more is that the ''level cap'' isn't used where it's actually needed (read: Namekkusei). Remember when I talked about the high encounter rate? Yep, that's what I meant. The worst part is having to fight Furiiza and SSJ Vegita (if he survived). Even at the maximum levels, Piccolo (if fused with Nail and Dende) and Goku are the only characters who can even come close to holding a candle to the final form of Furiiza. If you don't know how to turn Goku into a Super Saiya-jin, you better prepare for a long and hard fight. Even if you do know, you're still going to be in for a long and hard fight, just to a lesser degree. Now SSJ Vegita is a nightmare. SSJ Goku has trouble against him, and the other characters just get slaughtered in a couple hits by his power. Even if you boost SSJ Goku's BP with a card, he still won't be quite as strong as SSJ Vegita. Actually, in a way, it's just like the show; Super Saiya-jins overshadow EVERYBODY. Huhuhuh. Might as well leave Tenshinhan, Yamucha, Chaotzu, and Kuririn dead, huh? In fact, you might as well just send Gohan home while you fight the last few battles, because he's not going to do anything besides get pounded bad.

Replay Value: 0/10
I wouldn't play this game through again for $50. OK, maybe $100. But only if you give me the cash up front.

Buy or Rent: Neither
This game isn't worth the cartridge it's in, or the KB the ROM takes up.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/02, Updated 02/21/02