Having been a long time fan of DBZ and DBZ games, I can tell a promising project when I see one. I've played everything from DBGT: Final Bout, to Hyper Dimension, to Legend of the SSJ, to Super Butoden 1-3. And "The Legacy of Goku" looks extremely promising. Judging by descriptions and the screenshots, you can almost tell it is set to emulate the styling of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons. This is definitely not something you want to sleep on, keep your eyes open for it...

Release Date: The game is set for May 14, $29.99

Dragon Ball Z - The Legacy of Goku will take you on an incredible journey to protect the Universe from the evil Frieza once and for all! You’ll use combat strategies to help fulfill the Legacy of Goku, the greatest warrior the Universe has ever known!The kidnapping of Goku’s son Gohan threatens the safety of the Universe. The future depends on your ability to use your powers to help Goku defeat his enemies. Get ready to Power Up! Although primarily an action game, The Legacy of Goku incorporates RPG elements such as character building and complex plot development in this 1 player quest.



Here is a collection of various accounts from the major players in the videogame industry. First off is -- Pocket.IGN

The Legend of Goku may look like a Japanese-designed RPG, but it's actually being developed by the US-based studio Webfoot Technologies. The development team has created a game design that mimics that style...you know, the whole top-down perspective with big-headed characters wandering the scrolling world. This game follows the complex storyline of the anime -- at the beginning of the game, Goku's son Gohan gets kidnapped by the evil Saiyan Raditz...and it's up to our hero to find out what the heck is going on. If you follow the anime at all, you'll recognize many of the situations that will be thrown your way throughout this quest -- the designers have made sure to inject much of the humor and situations that span the many episodes of the cartoon series.

Players control Goku as he works his way through the quest, powering up his Melee and Ki combat abilities by defeating harmful enemies along the way. The game's more along the lines of Legend of Zelda in this case, as all battles are action-based...not turned-based like most Japanese RPGs. The game features more than 75 characters to interact with in this huge adventure...and the game's online "journal" keeps track of all the side-quests so you can easily recall what you've done in the game.

The game that Infogrames showed us wasn't entirely finished, as the development team is still tweaking a bit of the gameplay. The one gaping issue I've found in Legend of Goku is in the scrolling -- the "camera" won't move the screen until Goku's almost all the way to the edge...and this makes it extremely difficult to see approaching enemies. Hopefully the development team will see this issue and iron it out before publish.

-- Videogames.com

We recently had the chance to play the latest game using the popular Dragon Ball Z anime license, Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku for the Game Boy Advance. This adventure RPG re-creates many of the scenes from the first season of the Z warriors saga, beginning with Goku's rescue of his son Gohan from his half brother Raditz and continuing through other memorable moments, such as his training with King Kai, his confrontation with Vegeta and Nappa, and his eventual evolution into a Super Saiyan. Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku challenges you to take on the role of the kindly Saiyan warrior to thwart impending doom while safeguarding your friends and family, learning powerful techniques, and progressing through the storyline.

One of the things that most impressed us as we got our hands on this game was the incredibly well-done introductory sequence. Just when we thought the Game Boy Advance had been taxed to its limits, we see what closely resembles FMV on the powerful handheld. Hopping into the game, we were drawn into the series' past as we explored Kame House, the home of Master Roshi, Goku's childhood instructor, and we were able to interact with some of the important characters from the series, such as Krillin, Bulma, Chi Chi, and Gohan. The sprites representing these characters were nicely detailed, making each character easily recognizable. The various backgrounds and locales we explored were very much in the style of 16-bit RPGs from the SNES era. In addition, Goku's attacks and movements were well animated, and the many different enemies we encountered looked nearly as good. Overall, the game is aesthetically pleasing at this point, and the designers have done a good job of translating the wonderful Akira Toriyama artwork and character designs to a miniaturized form.

Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku combines the real-time combat and puzzle-solving elements of adventure games with the RPG standbys of leveling through experience accumulation and inventory management. Those familiar with past Dragon Ball Z games will find that although this game takes place at the same time in the series as the Famicom Dragon Ball Z RPG: Legend of the Super-Saiya-Jin, the execution in this title is entirely new. From what we've played of the game so far, The Legacy of Goku follows the main plot of the series fairly closely, while diverging briefly to challenge you with item collection or side quests, which are generally in the form of rescue missions. There are many opportunities to help out, such as by saving kittens, dinosaur eggs, old men, and small children, but these subquests are fairly easy to solve and rarely derail you from the fairly linear progression of the storyline. Combat along the way is relatively simple to manage--Goku fights with his fists or with ki attacks, such as the kamehameha fireball. Goku can also fly for short periods of time, although longer voyages will be made astride his cloud companion, Nimbus. Goku's health rises in small increments when enemies are defeated, and the game seems to provide a large number of restorative herbs and magical senzu beans for emergency situations.

Goku's abilities start at a relatively immature level--he initially beats up on snakes and squirrels, while possibly having trouble with the more challenging wild dogs and crabs. Eventually, his ability level will rise, as will his hit points and ki, which will allow him to take on dinosaurs and other more challenging foes. However, knowing when to avoid enemy attacks is apparently a key part in the game, since the stronger foes, such as Raditz, can completely deplete Goku's health in a single blow. Luckily, the ranged ki attacks that Goku has available are effective, and his ki energy replenishes at a constant rate. It doesn't take much time at all for Goku to expand his repertoire of attacks with the solar flare technique, and we expect that there will be a great many different skills for Goku to learn throughout the game. We did experience a number of rather serious hit-detection issues, which made some battles far more frustrating than seemed appropriate, but this will hopefully be corrected as the game approaches completion.

What impressed us nearly as much as the eye-catching intro sequence was the way Legacy of Goku closely adheres to the Dragon Ball Z license. The characters from the series make abundant appearances throughout the game, and many of the more important scenes have been redone fairly accurately. The Dragon Ball Z storyline has been tied in nicely to adventure-game conventions, a prime example of which is your initial quest to collect Master Roshi's pinup-girl magazines. The artwork and dialogue seem to remain faithful to the source material throughout, which should definitely please die-hard fans of the series. Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku will be released later this year, alongside its companion game, which is based on the Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game. Check out our collection of screenshots and movies, and keep an eye out for more on these upcoming Dragon Ball Z titles.

Infogrames must surely realize that it has a Pokémon-caliber property in Dragon Ball Z. This makes it quite surprising that it has taken us this long to see the first actual fruits of it. In any event, we have a preview build of Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku for the Game Boy Advance, and we've been playing quite a bit of it. As you'd expect, the game is quite faithful to the series' mythology, and it incorporates a number of characters, settings, and conventions that will strike a chord in the hearts of devoted fans. The game itself is a Zelda-style action RPG, complete with a fairly robust character development system that allows your character to increase in both physical and spiritual power and learn all sorts of mystical attacks. Everything is drawn in a colorful style that is quite faithful to the look of the series, and for the most part, the game is pleasant to immerse yourself in.

The game begins with Goku and his son Gohan visiting Master Roshi and company at Roshi's beachfront Kame House. After some catching up, though, things get a little hairy. The evil Saiyan Raditz appears on the scene, and, in an effort to coerce Goku into wreaking havoc upon the world (Goku's birthright as a Saiyan, according to Raditz), he kidnaps Gohan. Goku's longtime enemy Piccolo subsequently materializes and offers him the opportunity to team up and defeat Raditz. Given the circumstances, Goku agrees. Goku then rushes away on his faithful cloud, Nimbus, and begins his search.

The gameplay that follows this will be familiar to anyone who has played classic action RPGs in the vein of Zelda, Crystalis, and Secret of Mana. You traverse a huge colorful world from a top-down perspective, and you interact with--and, if the situation warrants, battle--whatever you may come across. Dragon Ball Z's actual environments are quite large and very organically arranged, and there are no discernable transitions, except when the tilesets for entirely new areas are loaded. The early sequences will place you in the area surrounding Goku's home, which, when all is considered, is quite expansive. Though you won't get much in the way of guidance, your job is to explore these environments in search of Raditz and Gohan. Though you'll eventually stumble upon the right path, the lack of any real clues or an auto-map feature makes it needlessly difficult to get on track. Hopefully, something of the sort will be implemented into the final game, as it would make the transitions between sequences that much more smooth and eliminate the rudderless feeling you'll surely get otherwise. As you explore environments, at any rate, you'll often meet characters on the field who provide you with opportunities to perform minor fetch quests, all of which are logged for you in the game's interface for easy reference. Completing these small quests will grant often grant you a small reward, as well as the personal satisfaction that comes from helping someone in need.

To help you pass the time as you explore these largish environments, you'll come across a wide variety of creatures. At first, you'll be fighting some fairly unimpressive foes, such as crabs, dogs, and lizards. As you progress through the game, though, you'll take on other, more formidable foes--larger beasts, and even hostile bipedal entities. You'll be fighting quite frequently, and issuing attacks is as simple as hitting one of the GBA's face buttons--one will cause you to punch enemies, the other will allow you to execute one of Goku's special attacks, the default being his classic kamehameha fireball. You can flip through special attacks with the select button, and using each one depletes your ki. Your ki will gradually regenerate, though, so you'll basically have license to bombard enemies at your leisure. At any rate, holding down on the button will allow you to charge your fireball, which makes it cause more damage, though it doesn't alter it aesthetically in any way. These sorts of projectiles, at this point, seem to be your most effective attacks, as the game's hit-detection system seems a bit off. As it stands, it's pretty hard to line up for an effective hand-to-hand attack with an enemy. Perhaps this is due to the fact that you're basically attacking with your hands, but nevertheless, it's often more more difficult than it should be to determine whether or not you're actually hitting an enemy. The only indication that you've done so successfully is seeing the defeated enemy actually slump to the ground, unconscious. Hopefully, these elements will be tweaked before release. Goku can also fly, though not for extended periods of time. Hitting the R button will allow you to zoom into the air for a few seconds, which allows you to access tall ledges. Though you can't stay in the air for too long, areas in which you'll have to do lots of flying will have wing icons scattered throughout them, which recharge your flight powers for another run. Some ledges will be lined with jagged spikes, though, so you have to be careful to only zoom on to smooth ones.

Aesthetically, the game does look quite nice, especially as far as the characters are concerned. They're all immediately recognizable, despite being drawn as 16-bit-style superdeformed sprites. They also animate quite endearingly. The actual environments look decent for the most part, though some tilesets seem to have been more lovingly drawn than others. The "town" environments you'll come across look remarkable, with nice full-looking buildings and pleasant environmental features. The "field" environments are a bit less consistent, though. Some of their elements--such as trees and larger rock structures--are very nicely detailed, while others are notably less so. One thing that is very cool, though, are the environmental creatures you'll see throughout the environments--tiny snakes will crawl around the forests, and squirrels will hop about the town areas. The effect is quite cool, and it really makes the environments feel alive and busy.

Overall, Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku looks like it will definitely please fans of the series. It remains quite faithful to the series' well-established mythology, and it manages to creatively incorporate many of its unique elements. We sincerely hope that the gameplay kinks it currently contains aren't indicative of what the final game will be like. We'll have more for you as soon as we receive an update.

By: SSJ4Gojita (Special Thanks to Videogames.com of Ziff-Davis, IGN of Snowball, and imagine media, and also Infogrames.)