Dragon Ball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu (DS) Review

Dragonball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu is the latest game in the DBZ lineup from Atari. Hot off the tail of DBZ: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 on the Wii I was excited to get my hands on this game. Unfortunately for Atari this game ...

The Zen of Dragonball Arrangement
Dragonball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu is the latest game in the DBZ lineup from Atari. Hot off the tail of DBZ: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 on the Wii I was excited to get my hands on this game. Unfortunately for Atari this game does not hold par with their other recent offerings. The game itself is a card rpg, a long time favourite genre of my long gaming weekends, rugged up in bed with some snacks and Gameboy. However it is a basic card rpg, lacking the tactics of Baiten Kaitos, the fun of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, the definition of Yu-Gi-Oh World Tournament, or the adventure of Lost Kingdoms.

For fans of the Dragonball Z sagas, you are thrown back to the start of the Saiyan saga all those years ago where we get to train with Gohan and Piccolo. As you play on your fights with Vegetta and Frieza become exciting as you re-live our favourite long-running anime series. That alone is the reason I always come back to DBZ games, while so many of the games come out a bit poor, it’s a fantastic trip down memory lane. Back in the day games like Lion King, Aladdin & The Jungle Book were never the best, but it’s the fun you have with them that matters. Overall while I would have liked to see more of the DBZ story re-told here. I am kind of glad it finished where it did, it was satisfying to finish the series that I watched many years ago.

Tiring Combat
The game is broken up into to main phases, turn based map movement and turn based card combat. You share a pool of cards which you get to use on both your map phases or combat. While you get a deck of cards, don’t confuse this with a strategy rpg, because there is no way to customise your deck. Your cards are more akin to rolling a deck of dice. Basic stats of the card are its Power & Guard values as well as an attribute. Power is used for moving on the map or fighting in combat, while defence is for avoiding combat on the map and blocking in combat. Attributes are simply the abilities of the cards, some fight, some block, and others power up your cards too – useful types can include idem cards and the ever handy wild cards. After playing through the game you can unlock combos letting you combine cards for more powerful attacks which comes in handy in the latter stages of the game.

Many of the maps have you heading around to collect items or fighting a specific enemy as your goal. But along the way you get to fight lots of little battles for exp (and shuffling your hand of cards for the big fights). This can be fun, or just tiring; it depends on the map. I found a few frustrating maps where I trekked through a long path just to loose the final battle, over and over again. As mentioned above you get to train for exp, which gives you handy capsules to choose from to level your characters up. Though this doesn’t seem to do much level to level so don’t waste time training up when you can just try and shuffle your hand for some new cards.

Anime Heroes
All of our favourites make cameos in the game. Many through friend cards where Bullma can come along to offer you items or Tien and Master Roshi can blast away enemies with energy blasts in combat. Their look is drawn true to the anime and all are at home on the DS. While the bulk of the game is made up of simple sprites, and is far from utilising the DS to the full potential graphically, Dragonball was never originally drawn as a highly detailed anime so the Atari nor the DS can be held at fault there.

The soundtrack for the game I found the be the redeeming quality of the game. There was lots of original music to play along to which I found quite refreshing. I was expecting a stale version of the theme song the whole way through like many licensed games.

Overall
Dragonball Z Harukanaru Densetsu is an average card rpg for the Nintendo DS. While I criticise it frequently, I found it a reasonable game to play with no deal breaking flaws. It is hardly an impressive blockbuster title and feels a little pumped out, maybe more at home on a Gameboy Advance. If you are a Dragonball fan it is definitely worth a play, if you sat through 500 episodes of the show where Goku and Vegeta are yelling and wildly powering up for 3 episodes straight; for a few half hour maps with this game will be no problem.