Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku

"I think I need a senzu bean... or two.... or fifty seven..."

Dragonball Z. An anime legend, this series has inspired many series, and many fanboys, to copy after it in hopes of being somewhat spiff. And the more popular something is, the more crappy the merchandise you can expect. Infogrames (What kind of name is that, anyways?) and Webfoot technologies bring you one of the most crappiest games ever conceived. And all those senzu beans.. i'll be needing to help me recover from this ''experience''.

First Impressions:
It seems that no matter how many games are made using the DBZ franchise, the formula pretty much remains the same. If it has DBZ in its title, it's going to be sub par, boring, and requires a VERY fine taste to enjoy.
Bandai has slaughtered this poor anime's name when it comes to video games. Although some of the Butodens were nice for the super famicom, they still lacked that little bit that actually made them worthwhile as a game. They could have been improved so much, but it sadly went downhill as the psx and saturn dragonball games were released. Sad.
And here I was, hoping that maybe these American companies would be able to revitalize the DBZ name. I went into it with an open mind, considering all the pros and cons beforehand.
I actually liked the graphics. I actually liked the gameplay at first. The music wasnt as cheesy as I was expecting. It seemed like it would be an alright game..
about half hour down the line, my brain nearly melted into mush.

Storyline:
Most of the scenes in the game are direct from it's anime counterpart, but the thing that really hampers the storyline, is the addition of new quests. Now, more is usually a good thing, but in this game, they're downright asinine.
Key parts of the storyline were sacrificed, or described in a sentence or less. Important battles were stupified. The characters were less lively than a cardboard cut-out. Maybe the younger crowd would enjoy this, since they wouldnt be as concerned with the story, so long as they could play as their favorite characters. This, is where it gets worse...

Gameplay:
Whew, get your puke baggies ready. And prepare to kamehame-hurl.
Seeing as how this anime has been marketed as a ''kids cartoon'' in the United States, I imagined that it would have simple, yet fun gameplay for the young'ns. But you wont see any of that here.
Instead, you have gameplay that's about as exciting as watching grass grow.... without the grass.
Firstly, allow me to describe your attacks. The A button controls your basic melee attacks, aka punch. No kicks, no combos (unless you consider a punch with your alternate hand a combo), no throws or anything remotely unique. Thats okay, there's always the special moves, right?
Well, they managed to slaughter those too, and horribly. You have a whopping THREE attacks to last you through this ''game''. A basic ''ki'' attack, which lets you toss out a fireball. The solar flare, which oddly starts up like a fireball, and shoots out a fireball which stuns enemies. Herein likes a problem.... since WHEN has a solar flare been done that way? Fans of the anime should take this as an insult. Would it have been so hard so create an animation for Goku brings his hands to his head, and having a flash appear on screen? (I imagined a flash similar to Circle of the Moon, that appears after a save.)
Then, comes the famous move, the Kamehameha. Weak as all hell, unless you decide to charge it for 30 seconds. Which is really a let down, since you're going to be constantly chased around by rabid enemies.
Oh well... the attacks suck. What about the movement? Why, its simply divine, of course!
You can only more in four directions. Who needs diagonal movement anyways? And lets not forget to mention his walk speed. Slower than Muten Roshi's turtle.
Well, to alleviate such slothy-ness, you have the ability to fly! Thankfully, the developers wanted to make this game more torture than it already was. Instead of giving you an unlimited amount of flight, or having it cost ki, they created the ingenious ''flight charge'' system. Think of it like this:
Goku is a jet plane. Goku runs on flight charges, which are better described as gas. If Goku runs out of gas, he has to get more gas to fly. Goku runs out of gas a lot.
And there you go, flight in a nutshell... but even flight in a nutshell is more forgiving than this crap. Hey Webfoot games, why dont you pluck your webbed feet from where the sun don't shine, will ya?

Graphics:
On a brighter note (about a bright as a dying candle in a pitch black room to blind people), the Graphics provide you with at least a little eye candy. The backgrounds are lively, colorful, and represent everything well. Goku's hair is animated nicely during his attacks, and aside from a little squareness, everyone looks the way they should.
The anime segments used the game, are pretty nice. The intro astounded me. I couldn't believe that they managed to fit most of the intro to DBZ into a GBA game. Shows me how much the little guy can do.
On the same note, I felt that with enemies battle animations were.... non-existant. If they got close, all you saw was Goku flash. Occasionally I swear I saw a Dinosaur bite, but that was probably my imagination.

Sound:
Another decent department. The music was rather nice, and fit each area well. Goku's voice was pretty clear, and his Kamehameha wasnt that bad. Nothing really amazing though.

Controls:
A - Stick out your arm
B - Flashy glow ball (Hold down to charge up, which'll be done a lot)
Start - Screen with words on it
L - Switch flashy balls
R - Turn into Goku the Jetplane
Power - set this to off, to experience the best thing to happen to this game.

Closing thoughts:

Yes, it sucks. Tremendously. Not even from a matter of opinion, I state this as the uncontestable truth. The battle system could be done using Rpgmaker, and i'm not talking about the DragonQuest-esque system. I mean the movement part of rpgmaker. Enemies chase you, get close, hit you, and you lose a lot of health. Fun.
Storyline was butchered, Coolness was nil, and simply turning on the game was hell on earth. I regret buying it, even tho I returned it 3 days later to get my money back. I feel dirty. And so should you, should you decide to play or buy this game.
Hey, it could have been worse, so I gave it a 2. I'm being generous. You'd be better off playing with the action figures while the show plays in the background. Ciao.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/02, Updated 05/19/02