The Legacy of Goku Part 1: Hidden Potential

[Jayonnaise6105]

*This article is a copy of one I posted on RGT. I am planning to do reviews on the rest of the trilogy, and will try to get them done before GH closes.

A Brief History​

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The Legacy of Goku is a trilogy of action RPGs for the GameBoy Advance, based on the Dragon Ball Z license and developed by American developer Webfoot Technologies, while they were published by Infogrames before, during and after their rebranding as Atari Inc.

In particular, they were developed by an American dev team under a licensing agreement with Funimation, who were handling what would become the most popular and well known version of Dragon Ball Z's English dub. So, similar to the Ubisoft-developed Naruto games on the Xbox 360, the LoG trilogy is what seems like a rare example of a Japanese licensed Anime property getting games developed by non-Japanese dev teams. This seems rare, because most Anime licensed games these days tend to be developed, or otherwise published, by Japanese company Bandai Namco.
This does also mean that, for better or worse, the story of these games is designed to more accurately follow the Funimation dub of DBZ, and not the original Japanese Anime or Manga versions.

The Gameplay​

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The first Legacy of Goku game was released in May of 2002 in the US, and in October 2002 for European regions. It is a bit odd in hindsight that there doesn't seem to be a Japanese release, given that Dragon Ball is one of the most popular franchises in Japanese history.

I grew up with this game. I remember loving it and... I mean, it kinda does & doesn't hold up? It's very rough around the edges, and is pretty short. It's especially punishing if you try to engage in the kind of awkward melee combat. Enemies, even at high player levels, hit pretty hard and this could explain why you can save the game at any time in the pause menu. Most enemies can also only hit you at close range. You, and all the enemies in the game, can only move in 4 directions: up, down, left & right. You do get the ability to fly for limited periods of time, but this is more designed to solve puzzles and side quests, with its only practical use in combat being to give yourself breathing room from a boss or tough enemy. So, the best strategy is usually spamming your ki blast attacks from a distance and running away while your ki blast meter regenerates. In more typical RPG fashion, you also level up be defeating enemies and finishing side quests.​

The Story​

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I mentioned earlier that these games more accurately follow the Funimation dub, but the team didn't quite get the memo for the first game. This game covers the Saiyan Saga, right up until the end of the Frieza Saga. Most of the key story events are included: the battle against Raditz, training with King Kai, fighting Nappa & Vegeta and travelling to Namek to fight Frieza.

There are, however, some odd differences or changes made from the source material. A lot of the basic enemies you fight throughout the game are wildlife of some form: Wolves, crabs & various dinosaurs. Goku doesn't start with the Kamehameha Wave that he learned from Master Roshi in the original Dragon Ball series. He instead learns it from King Kai partway through the story in place of the Spirit Bomb, which isn't in the game at all. There is no Kaio-Ken transformation, either. It does also make sense that you only transform into a Super Saiyan as part of the final fight with Frieza, but it would've been cool to give the player more agency over said transformation.

*Goku achieving Super Saiyan as part of a cutscene in the final battle.

A lot of the side quests are completely made up by the developers, and not from the Anime or Manga at all. The thing being that a lot of these side quests don't really fit Dragon Ball Z and take away from the more serious tone of the story.

*Quests like picking flowers and finding a child's toy boat while you're meant to be finding Raditz, who had, moments ago, kidnapped your only son.​

Positive Changes​

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The flipside of this coin is that some of the changes are actually kind of cool. With Goku being the only playable character, instead of having him showing up to fight Final Form Frieza, you instead fight through all of his forms as a sort of boss rush. Same with the Ginyu Force fight. Having an ancient Namekian temple as a puzzle dungeon is a really cool idea, although they made it a bit of a pain to navigate without an online guide or map.

*A pretty cool statue from The Namekian dungeon near the end of the game.

One other really cool detail is that fully charging the Kamehameha Wave triggers a voice line from Sean Schemmel, Goku's iconic Funimation dub voice actor. It sounds a bit rough, and is recycled from the Anime, but it does help set itself apart from the sequels in a positive way, as the sequels have no voiced lines at all.

Closing Thoughts​

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I say this game does and doesn't hold up. The combat could use some re-tooling. The game is pretty short, clocking in at around 4 hours, depending on level grinding and how well you personally deal with the puzzles. It's meant to cover the first hundred or so episodes of DBZ, but a lot of the story is changed, glossed over or omitted entirely. I do think that it has a good base to work from though. As rough as it is, there is still fun to be had here. The sprite work is really good in my opinion, with everyone looking more or less how they should in a 32-bit style.

*Goku, standing in for the developers and answering if this will be a really good DBZ RPG.

There is plenty here that can be expanded upon or trimmed down, to polish the experience. This game still sold well enough though, and that is where the Legacy of Goku II comes in.​

 

[MasterEn]

this was my first gba game. played it quite a few times. it selling well was the main reason and drive for the sequels being so well polished, if i remember correctly.

 

[Jayonnaise6105]

this was my first gba game. played it quite a few times. it selling well was the main reason and drive for the sequels being so well polished, if i remember correctly.

Oh yeah, the sequels are a lot better. I played through the whole trilogy recently, and I'd say it's worth going back and playing the 2nd & 3rd games. I had them all for my GBA as a kid, but I don't remember what my first GBA game actually was

 

[MasterEn]

Oh yeah, the sequels are a lot better. I played through the whole trilogy recently, and I'd say it's worth going back and playing the 2nd & 3rd games. I had them all for my GBA as a kid, but I don't remember what my first GBA game actually was

i tried playing the second game but i got stuck at some point and stopped playing. i only had a few games for the gba, which is probably why i remember my first one.
i saw team four star play through the games, and i definitely saw the improvements between each game.