Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku

"The Great Hype Leads To A Great Letdown."

After years of waiting for a decent, let alone Dragon Ball Z game to hit the U.S. shores, we are given Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy Of Goku. We were first given the news by FUNimation for a series of games to be produced for various systems and many of us were happy. Though, after we learned that neither Squaresoft or Capcom, two great gaming companies were not taking up the titles and instead Infogrames, a company well known for disastrous games, had been hired, many of us were skeptical at first, but when we learned most of the staff there were ''fans'' of the show and that they'd be using input from other fans for the game, quite a few of us were amazed.

We learned that they were going to make the game in a way that both veterans and fans new to the show would enjoy the game; the veterans getting their correct names for everything in the game and the new fans getting an introduction to things not known. With a sound system and music that bragged to be done so well, if hooked up to speakers, it'd sound just like the show. Graphics for the game looked amazing, almost Zelda like and battling looked decent and fun to do. Many of us waited patiently for this game, since it was the first U.S. made DBZ game, as well as the first DBZ game we had gotten since Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout, which many copies weren't produced for us. Then arrived the day the game was out in stores and we all got our copy, popping the game in and being treated to a very impressive opening scene. Then we started up the game itself.

And we were very, very disappointed. And I will explain why.

Story: Infogrames showed that they wanted to do a trilogy of DBZ games, going from Radditz to Majin Buu. This game goes from the arrival of Radditz up to the battle with Frieza. Yet again, nothing really new at all, since this plot has been done to the death in all the previous DBZ RPGs before this one. It'd get a decent grade, since you really can't add in much more to the story, since you're basing a game off the Manga/Anime, but adding in special things to add to the gameplay would help. Which is what they did, but this gets points off. Why? Let me explain.

Infogrames felt that the story itself was already short enough and gameplay wouldn't be that long. So, what they did was they stripped away the attacks Son Goku already knew and made him ''learn'' them later on. Seriously. You start the game with just Ki Blast. You have to ''learn'' the Taiyoken and Kamehameha. And how you learn them is just ridiculous. Some old man teaches you the Taiyoken and King Kai teaches the Kamehameha? I don't see where that's accurate. As for added ''gameplay''. Well, Infogrames added in ''side quests'', which is pretty much Goku being Superman. You have to find lost children, help old people cross bridges and get some kid his toy boat. I can not make this crap up. These are literally the side quests. And they are not fun. For the toy boat, you fly 3 spaces, grab it, fly back and give the kid his boat. That's the ''side quest''. Fun, huh?

And there's literally a crap load of these to do. They're more of a chore than a fun thing. I mean, you have to ''calm a forest'' before you're ''ready to fight Radditz''. What the hell? Seriously, I don't ever remember Goku being Superman and saving kittens and hugging trees before fighting Radditz, with learning the Taiyoken from some old guy who lives in a tree.

Rate: 2/10

Controls: For a Game Boy Advance game, they're ok. I didn't really have any real problems with them, except for the fact that most of the time, when you go to attack, your attacks can either not register or just not do damage all together. (Like you can be dead on with a attack and it'll ''miss'' or you hit dead on and nothing happens. If you played this game, you know what I mean.) You can nail an enemy head on with a Kamehameha and it may not even hurt them. Movement with Goku is also very, very slow. Dodging enemies and trying to fight with strategy is totally lost in this game. You're better off just slamming the buttons and praying you beat the enemy. Over all, though, the controls are fair at best, but just the response when you do something is pretty low.

Rate: 7/10

Graphics: Very good for a DBZ game. For a while, many DBZ games have had VERY poor graphics, mainly for the Super Famicom. (Save Hyper Dimension and the Super Goku Dens.) The graphics in this game are probably the only high point to this title. Characters look like who they're supposed to, everything is detailed very well and it keeps that sort of ''cartoon'' look, which makes you feel like it's an actual DBZ game. It's like 1/2 real, 1/2 fake and it actually looks good. Though, I didn't like how the Ki Techniques were done. The Kamehameha is just a long rectangular beam?

Maybe if they made it like it looks in the show and when it hits an enemy, it explodes, causing a smoke screen to appear. That would've been more impressive than a beam that shoots out and disappears within a few feet. Then there's the character icons. They look small and demented. VERY demented. They should've used better pictures or increased the icons in size a bit. They just look really bad. I also liked how they used images from the show for cutscenes. That was pretty good. Even the opening movie was pretty good, even though it was a shorter ''Rock The Dragon'' scene. As for everything else, enemies are detailed well, sprites have some decent animations and everything fits together with no real problems.

Rate: 8/10

Sound/Music: Well, whatever Infogrames promised, this music is not award winning and definitely would not sound good on my stereo. The music doesn't even fit DBZ at all. It's too cheerful and not really setting the mood DBZ gives at times. (Though, don't get me wrong, DBZ has cheerful music, but this music sounds more fit for a Pokemon game.) Just over all terrible in my book and nothing fits. As for the sound, it's fair at best, but it gets annoying. They added in a sound clip of the FUNimation VA for Goku saying ''Kamehameha!'' everytime you do a Kamehameha. The problem with that is it's 1. Said EVERYTIME you do the attack and it gets annoying. 2. It's not timed right, so the clip drags and is said well after you've fired and delt damage to the enemy.

As for the sound effects you get when you fire Ki Techniques in general, they sound more like laser guns from Star Wars or something on those lines. Just doesn't fit. Also when you hit an enemy with a physical attack, it sounds like you just sucker punched a Lion in the face who hasn't eaten in a week and you're wearing steaks all over your body. It doesn't sound like a punch at all. Over all, just really bad music and the sound effects are also poor at best.

Rate: 3/10

Gameplay: The area that this game takes the most hits in. You play as Goku and ONLY Goku in this game. Great RPG, huh? I mean, Zelda was good and Terranigma was even better and they only had one guy, but when you can max Goku out at Level 25, it gets pretty bad. And it's really simple to do so. (I know the first DB/Z games for the Famicom had low levels, but at least it took a good LONG time to get them to their max.) As for the enemies you face, I've never seen more inappropriate set of enemies in any game I've ever played. Since when did Goku get stronger by beating up Squirrels, Snakes, Wolves and Crabs? To make it worse, the Wolves and Crabs can KILL YOU. Yes, the #1 fighter on Earth can be defeated by a Crab.

Seriously, what the hell? That doesn't make sense. And you ACTUALLY gain Experience from this? Wow. I mean, the Dinosaurs were a good idea and all, since they're in the DBZ world, but boy, the other ideas are just SAD. As for the actual game itself, there's so many errors in this it boggles my mind. They get Gohan's Age wrong, you meet people you're not supposed to meet, (I.E. - Yamcha and Puar during Radditz? Wasn't he playing Baseball?) the names of attacks are what they are in the dub, (We were promised CORRECT names.) you get attacks that you already should've known and not learn them from some old man, etc. I could go on and on about how bad the gameplay is and how inaccurate it is.

The game is also not even that hard. Granted it may have been produced for a smaller audience, but FUNimation KNEW the DBZ fan base was around 12-18 year olds and not 5-9 or so. Bosses can all be defeated with the same strategy, they all just stand around, staring at open space, unless you get in 5 feet of them, where they start chasing you. If you then dodge behind a rock, they lose sight of you and start staring at the grass again. They also have VERY easy attacks to dodge. They spend forever charging an attack up and it's so easy to dodge, you wonder why they even do the attack. And even your other team mates don't help you when you're in a battle. When fighting Radditz, Piccolo just STANDS there and does nothing until Goku holds Radditz down.

The game's very short mainly for another reason: Since you play as Goku, you only do what Goku did. Remember, he fought Radditz, did the training with King Kai, beat Nappa and Vegeta, then went to Namek, beat the Ginyu Force and fought Frieza. Wow, quite a game, huh? After you beat Vegeta, 10 seconds later, you're on Namek and you must go and fight the Ginyu Force. THAT'S how short this game is. If you were to rush through, you could EASILY beat this game in 40-50 minutes EASY. Replay value for this game? Ha, don't make me laugh. You'll be taking this back to the store you bought it from within the next few hours or day. Once you beat this game, you've done everything. There's nothing else to do. No extra features, no extra quests. Nothing.

Rate: 1/10

Over All: There you have it. We were promised a great game which both veterans and new fans could enjoy with all these promising attributes, yet we were lied to and over all let down. I mean, if the people who were working on this game were true fans, how come they let half of what they put into this game slide? Did they think we'd enjoy playing stupid side quests or enjoy enemies who were so stupid to fight, but at the same time could kill Goku, the man not even the Great Demon King Piccolo could beat? Well, over all, we were lied to, many of us saw this. ALOT of us hated this game, but for some reason, people actually LIKED this game and thought it was a ''great first try by Infogrames''. Bull.

If anything, they could've done better and they only proved that there will NEVER be a great, solid Dragon Ball Z game. The graphics were the only decent thing in this game, with the music and sound being poor and not fitting at all and the controls being fair at best. I get the feeling that this game was rushed ALOT and many things could've been done to save it. I mean, it's pretty sad that a RPG title can be beaten in 40-50 minutes tops. Maybe if they allowed for Gohan to have been the other main character, that would've DEFINITELY added to the game. I mean, to breeze through half the Namek Saga in a instant is pretty bad. I know Super Goku Den 2 had the player play as Goku at some parts and Gohan at the other and that was a really great game. (Even had music from the show!)

If you were to rent or buy this game, rent it. DEFINITELY rent this game. It is NOT worth the $30 they ask for and you'll only be let down. Buying this game is just a mistake, unless you got it for a birthday gift or something, where you just got screwed. Just rent it, check it out and then return it. That way, you just spent only $5 instead of $30. Or borrow it from a friend or something. Just don't spend that much money on this. Or just stay away from it completely. Buy another game that actually has quality to it.

Final Rate: 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/03, Updated 06/22/03