Forum - View topicA Brief History of Dragon Ball Video Games, Part 1
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1180 |
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Great feature, it's nice to get a straight recap when there's so much out there.
Although admittedly I'm kinda bummed good ol' Hyper Dimension on Super Famicom/Nintendo only got a sentence - it's a beautiful game, I believe in part due to the SA-1 chip. Quite a send off. 
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4379 Location: New York |
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Hyper Dimension is considered the only good SNES DBZ game because it went all in on being a Street Fighter clone.
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Uter
Posts: 30 |
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The author doesn't mention Dragon Ball Z: Super Saiya Densetsu, which combined both of the famicom RPGs into a single, much improved game for the Super Famicom. It is the best Dragonball RPG I have ever played, the graphics are great, and it's also a great game in its own right. I can't recommend it highly enough if you like Z and haven't already played it.
Also Dragon Ball Z 2: Super Battle, though only briefly mentioned, is the best Z arcade game I have played and far superior to the first. The quick speed makes it amazing. Last edited by Uter on Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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belvadeer
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It's crazy how many games Dragon Ball had over the years, and it is impressive they went with RPGs before turning to the obvious choice of fighting games.
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Sakurafire_
Posts: 64 |
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Fighting games weren't even really a thing until after Street Fighter. Dragon Quest was in it's prime back then and most games were trying to emulate the popular genre of the time (hence the DBZ fighting games after SFII was released). |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 975 Location: Kansas |
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Ultimate Battle 22 was released in NA too! It was very bizarre in that it was released 8 years after it came out, and, IIRC, it's completely untranslated. The dragonball Wiki says it was just the dialogue, but I swear all the text was left in Japanese too, and I distinctly remember the case warning your about it.
It was basically just a slightly upscaled version and super slow version of Butoden 3. They also made the Supreme Kai's (and maybe Goten and Trunks) hitbox bigger, which made me mad because I used to beat all my friends with him in Butoden 3 just because he was so short, unexpectedly fast, and when he won he was like, "I...actually won??" 
I'm guessing that Bandai and Funimation (their logo is on the disc, despite the fact the game was all in Japanese...) thought there was just enough demand for a DBZ fighting game in the US that they wanted to release *something* but didn't want to put any money into it. |
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Heishi
 Posts: 1323 |
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There was one Dragonball game a friend of mine told me about that he couldn't beat because, apparently he couldn't be able to get past the first boss which was a pterodactyl.
I don't remember the name but it was supposed to take place during the beginning of Dragonball and was on the Super Famicom. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2558 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I'd put the blame more on Infogrames/Atari than anything. DBZ Budokai did gangbusters in 2002, so they tried to take advantage of DBZ Fever at the time by putting out Ultimate Battle 22 for super cheap in 2003 (I think it was literally only $10 at launch), & I'm sure that specific game was only chosen because it had notoriety (obviously, they didn't care that it was bad notoriety) & could be done on the cheap. They did it again in 2004, after Budokai 2's release, when they re-printed DB GT: Final Bout with new packaging, but it was essentially the same exact product that Bandai released years prior; it even retained the original dub work Bandai half-assed into the game. |
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Kicksville
Posts: 1180 |
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I'm glad they still went and put them out there, even if it was a bit late and they weren't the best, just so they could be obtainable to a certain audience. The late 90's Holy Trinity of Ultimate Battle 22/Final Bout/DBZ Legends were, uhhh, legendary. Oh how I remember those dial up internet days of people pining for them and others bragging about having them. Ahhh yes, scouring those ads for little anime and game shops in Animerica magazine for URLs so I could go see if they had game screenshots to ogle over (a half hour after they loaded)...
I would fantasize about how great DBZ Legends was, and how they probably made a potentially complicated 2D-in-3D multi-person aerial combat game work. Of course, there's a reason that's the one of the three they didn't bring over - what it actually boiled down to was them circumventing the need for proper navigation by having it be "keep pressing buttons to fill a gauge to do an auto super move until you win". But hey, I admire that they tried at all! |
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DLH112
Posts: 115 |
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oh man I remember in the late 90s/very early 00s going on gamestop (funcoland then)'s website and pining for DBGT Final Bout. I was a huge fan of DBZ and that was the first I'd ever heard of GT, and was surprised at just the game being listed for 149.99 too.
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belvadeer
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I know, considering JRPGs got big in the late 80s with Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Ys. It also means DQ got to have the same character designer for years as a bonus (though not everyone likes Toriyama's repetitive character designs for DQ titles). |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I just wanted to ask: What was unscrupulous about importing Japanese arcade games over? What arcades remain in the US are still doing that, and doing it openly and publicly. It's how I got to play Pokkén Tournament as an arcade game before it even got the Wii U release.
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toddc
 Posts: 164 |
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Well, a number of arcade games from that area have those "WARNING: USE OF THIS GAME OUTSIDE OF JAPAN/AMERICA/EUROPE IS A CRIME" notices that everyone ignored. Some arcades also just bootlegged games back then. Street Fighter II had so many hacks and unauthorized versions that Capcom worried about players liking the bootlegs better. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Huh, interesting. I HAVE seen those signs for imported cabinets, but very rarely. I guess the arcade operators/owners removed those signs or covered them up somehow. I ought to look at these more, because almost every arcade I've stepped into over the past 5 years has a section dedicated entirely to rhythm games imported from Japan. Even the retro-focused Arcade Expo has one, set up from its second event and onward. I haven't seen any of these Dragon Ball arcade games in any of them though, even the ones focused on games from the 80's and 90's. I definitely know about the bootlegged arcade games. A 1-Up barcade opened up a few years ago around here, and every single arcade game was bootlegged. They didn't even try to hide that: There were a few sit-down cabinets in the back where you could select a game from a long list to play. But it was my chance to play Trio the Punch. I should check to see if they have any of these Dragon Ball arcade games on those 200-pound emulators; I have the hunch they do. |
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Haktuar
Posts: 1 |
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Excellent, detailed feature on the incredibly long history of Dragon Ball video games. I was born in '94, and like the majority of American fans, had DBZ on Toonami capture my imagination as a child. I've been a fan ever since. First got into the games through Budokai and Legacy of Goku II. (one of my all time fave DBZ games to this day)
Makes me reminisce. No matter what's gone on in my life, Dragon Ball has never been far from my mind. I've only become a bigger and bigger fan as I've grown older. Currently duking it out online in FighterZ! |
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