OK, first impressions. After opening box I realized that my copy came with an extra side quest I had to play through before entering the main game. Apparently I had to search the vast land of "Chibi's House" for the 12 ancient GBA parts and the mystic gamebit screwdriver. Once they were gathered and assembled I had to bring them to the holy "bright enough light source". Then it was onto the main quest. I'm still in shock that I managed to find the "L button" in the wastelands of Chibi's bedroom. :)
As for the main game, graphics are a mixed bag. Sprites based on actual characters look great. You won't see a better looking super deformed Goku or Roshi any time soon. Sprites based on crap made up just for this game (snakes, wolves, etc.) are awful. BG's range from great to blah, and none of them (so far) feature any parallax. All of it also suffers from a bad case of "wallpaper", but the detail is there, so BG's end up being average overall. The game kicks off with FMV of the show's intro. OK. That's spiffy. Between levels you see stills from the show. OK. That's spiffy. Apparently the DBZ license didn't include music because none of the music we all know and love is present. That includes the original Japanese music, the American dub music, or the Canadian dub music. The new music is awful. Goku's scream of "dammage pain" is especially awful. Who the hell is this chowda' head they digitized anyway? Certainly doesn't sound like Goku. The one (and only) good sound in the game is the enemy death sound. It sounds exactly like flesh and bones being crushed by some sort of industrial hydraulic press. Mabey it would be more suited for Resident evil as it is a little out of place here, but it is cool none the less. It's the only death sound in the whole game (so far).
Let me warn everybody that this game appears to be made for fans only. If you don't know the story line already, this game will leave you scratching your head wondering who these weirdos are and why they are acting and reacting the way they are. Fortunatly for me, I know all and everything DB related already, but still.... The game's creators don't look like they know much about the source material. Roshi has his porno mags. That's good, but Hell is still censored to HFIL. ??? I guess the developers didn't know that HFIL was a censor of hell in the first place and figured that was the place's actual name. Furthermore, you start out the game fighting squirels. Not super squirels or mutant squirels or space squirels. Squirels. I'm not even kidding. That made me scratch my head a bit. Even kookier, Goku gets the ever loving stuffing beaten out of him by these squirels, snakes, and crabs. Ummmm..... Goku could blow up the moon with a wave of his hand by the time he's a grown man. I don't think he needs to worry about woodland critters. Kookie indeed. Goku wouldn't even fight woodland critters. He's a tree hugger. Oh well.
Controll is awful. 4 direction walking (and slow walking at that). Collision detection from HFIL makes for frustrating navigation around corners and objects. There is no fury in any of the battles as Goku is limited to a punch and 3 types of ki blasts. No super speed. No hits that knock people 500 ft into the air. No arms and legs flailing in a blur. Just a punch that makes the Double Dragons look superhuman. Combat is real time like the Zelda series. Press a button to punch and a button to shoot. Attacks from both Goku and enemies either randomly hit or are blocked. Most of the time they are blocked. Punches also have to be lined up to the pixel to even contact the enemy sprite in the first place. Frustrating. Finally, you are limited to 10 foot flights, so don't expect to be zipping all over the map. Webfoot certainly didn't put on a programming clinic here. Scrolling is even glitchy with hitches and skips that appear to be minor "load time". On a cart????
As for the game's layout, think Granadia meets a scavenger hunt. It is totally linear with the game broken into "scenes" just like Granadia. You start out at one end of the scene and make your way to the other end, just like Granadia. While you are in each scene, there are scavenger hunt quests you can choose to complete for experiance points. Some must be done to move on, others seem to be filler.
So, it's a cash run. Still, some mysterious force is keeping me playing. I'm feeling half entertained and half like I'm at work, but something is keeping me playing. Fans will find enjoyment in there. Others should stay away to aviod a confusing plot, bad controll, and several pointless scavenger hunts. What this mysterious source of "fun" is, I'm still not quite sure. I'll be back with more as I get further.
