Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

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Saturnine
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Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by Saturnine » Mon Mar 14, 2022 9:13 am

Super Saiya Densetsu was probably my first DB game, I played it on a SNES emulator and gotta say - I still haven't been as involved in a DB game as then, even with all those new cool games like Xenoverse 2 and Kakarot. It's for a few reasons:

- Old-school somewhat puzzle-based exploration gameplay - the game required that you do some thinking and exploration and didn't hold your hand, which was true for most games of the era - figuring out where to go and what to do was very rewarding. There was also a lot of secret stuff that was possible to miss on a gameplay, such as the Porunga card, the ability for Gohan to go Ozaru against Vegeta and so on. Brilliant stuff.

- Bespoke but classic-sounding music - damn is the soundtrack for this game brilliant. So good in fact that I'm actually disappointed that this music wasn't on the show. It would have been amazing!

- Powerlevel-based - that game provided THE single best feeling of growth and relevance of powerlevels that I've experienced thus far. They got most of the powerlevels right too - at least early on. The later into the game, the more deviations were made, but for the time (1992) it was probably one of the most accurate powerlevel lists available in many places. But my point is - the differences between individual power levels of your guys and the bosses were extremely pronounced - it was more than possible to be in over your head in a fight and even get a character one-shotted by the enemy if you're careless. Still, it was possible to inflict minimal damage as long as the enemy's powerlevel didn't exceed the attacker's by more than several times, but even then was it occasionally possible to get like a single point of damage with a Z card. What was also amazing is that you could level up Saiyan characters using healing cards if their hp was 5 or less (Zenkai exploitation), but if you did the same thing using Dende's healing ability, you'd get the benefits, but not the level-up. Not sure if this was an intended mechanic, but it let your Saiyan characters, especially Vegeta and Gohan, vastly exceed their previously intended limitations as long as they weren't their final level, at which point this stopped working. But with the hidden, grindy level 48 it was possible to get everyone to over 900k power (Chaozu to only like 740k, but he's him), making them useful as late as the 2nd form Freeza fight. Amazing, no modern game would let you do that - or it would without any sense of you having to work for it. Anyway, many people today think powerlevels are bullshit, but this game alone makes them absolutely awesome. The one gripe I have is how the Ginyu Force powerlevels were inflated to over 60k each (Guldo 13500 if I recall), but that only served to make gameplay harder, so it gets a pass. Likewise, the Super Saiyan tier characters' powers were very low compared to canon, but that's probably also excusable since it allowed the side characters to remain relevant. Last but not least - Goku's high-level powerlevels were heavily lowballed compared to canon so that his Kaioken ability gets a chance to shine (he was like 240k in base at level 47 with around 10x that using Kaioken x20). With an empowering card such as Guru it was therefore entirely possible to beat 4th form Freeza without Goku ever needing to go Super Saiyan, since the powerlevels were so close. But other than these minor gripes the powerlevel system was done really well in this game, balancing in-universe correctness and gameplay considerations reasonably well.

- Limited but meaningful ability to alter outcomes - You had influence over who would die in the Vegeta fight, how well story-based boss fights would go depending on your preparation (that was curtailed for the Raditz and Vegeta fights, but for good reason), and even who you'd fight your fights with. It was entirely possible to have the whole gang survive and go to Namek just to revive Piccolo (the only necessary story-based death). Also, like I mentioned above, you didn't need SSj to beat 4th form Freeza.

- Awesome gravity training sections - it was really cool to train on King Kai's planet and on the ship en route to Namek.

- Monumental boss fights - You needed patience, thinking, strategy and luck for some boss fights, particularly ones where your team was underleveled, mirroring the manga and series. Using healing cards, powerlevel boosting cards and sometimes special ones was necessary to overcome some bosses, and even then it could take about an hour to beat a fight. And that's with save states! Imagine having to redo a fight where you couldn't do that - and what's even more interesting is that some fights could vary on different playthroughs - for instance Vegeta didn't always go Ozaru. Anyway, overcoming bosses felt much more like an achievement than it did in most modern games.

- Awesome energy attacks - There is a plethora of ki attacks available in this game, with pretty much the entire repertoire of abilities available to every Z-fighter (up to that point in the series) and the enemies as well. The animations are pretty awesome too, using retraced shots from the manga/anime, or apparently even theatrical movies sometimes (like Yamcha's Sokidan). Some of those animations were flat-out iconic, and the style has been replicated in many fanmade games such as MUGEN and even memes.

- Sense of finality and a slightly changed ending - the game came out in 1992, so the Freeza arc had just finished in the manga and the anime. Not knowing what would come after, the game took some liberties towards the end, one of which was a really awesome secret final boss fight. Absolutely shocking the first time it happened!

Overall I have to say that I'm honestly surprised that no one has made significantly game-altering romhacks of this game, given how fricking awesome it was. It would have been awesome to see a continuation of this game for the Cell and Buu arcs at the very least, with unlocked further leveling, some alterations and extensions to the transformation system etc. Given how graphically simple the game is, producing extra assets for new characters actually shouldn't be much work whatsoever. I think I'd honestly be ready to pay money for someone to do it!

What are your best memories with this game? Would you also like there to be a playable extension?

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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by coola » Mon Mar 14, 2022 10:19 am

I remember i was stuck in that cave that lead to Guru for a few months, before i found right button :) I also accidently used Vegeta item on one of random fights, and was stuck with level up for Kiwi and Dodoria. It was also first/only time in any game, where Vegeta could just refuse attacking enemy, even after he joined your party.
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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by Jord » Mon Mar 14, 2022 10:56 am

It's a fun game but I do wish the graphics were somewhat better. It looks like a cross between NES and SNES-levels of graphics.
Heck, the sprite for SSJ Goku is just a palette swap. They really cheaped out on that.

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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by Saturnine » Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:45 am

Jord wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 10:56 am It's a fun game but I do wish the graphics were somewhat better. It looks like a cross between NES and SNES-levels of graphics.
Heck, the sprite for SSJ Goku is just a palette swap. They really cheaped out on that.
True, although the color palette is way too vivid to be NES-level.

And that's all the more reason for someone to make an unofficial expansion hack! Goku's hair could be fixed for example.

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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by Jord » Tue Mar 15, 2022 3:12 am

Saturnine wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:45 am
Jord wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 10:56 am It's a fun game but I do wish the graphics were somewhat better. It looks like a cross between NES and SNES-levels of graphics.
Heck, the sprite for SSJ Goku is just a palette swap. They really cheaped out on that.
True, although the color palette is way too vivid to be NES-level.

And that's all the more reason for someone to make an unofficial expansion hack! Goku's hair could be fixed for example.
I agree. I like the gameplay. Heck, I have the actual cartridge. The gameplay is fun and I wish they would have made more RPG's with this card system. (Yes, they made another card-based RPG in DS but that one is incredibly boring)
My 2 biggest pet peeves with this game are both the graphics and the frequency of random encounters.

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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by coola » Tue Mar 15, 2022 1:32 pm

Also, similarly to old Sierra adventure games, you could accidently trigger point of no return (1. Attack Raditz without Gohan item 2. Meet 2 Namekians before saving Dende/other Namekian kid, triggering fight with them etc...)
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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by ThunderPX » Tue Mar 15, 2022 5:23 pm

I've always had a soft spot for this game. I liked the card battle system and the exploration elements. It's really cool that you can go off the "proper" path by keeping characters alive or going out of your way to do weird things. It gets kind of tedious at times because of the encounter rate and slowness of battles, and the repetitive music, though.

I think a ROM hack would be really cool, but it might be even cooler to do a fan remake from the ground up, so that you wouldn't be limited by the original engine. Of course, either thing is much easier said than done.
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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by Saturnine » Thu Mar 17, 2022 11:26 am

ThunderPX wrote: Tue Mar 15, 2022 5:23 pm I think a ROM hack would be really cool, but it might be even cooler to do a fan remake from the ground up, so that you wouldn't be limited by the original engine. Of course, either thing is much easier said than done.
Yeaaah. I suppose some real leadership and monetary incentives would be necessary, probably.

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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by Saturnine » Mon Mar 21, 2022 3:03 pm

I was able to get Vegeta to 1 915 799 at level 47 by Dende healing him twice at level 46, no earlier heals. Before leveling up, at level 46 he was at 1,568,635 after the second heal, so guess that's what the next jump after his normal level 47 PL of ~1,200,000 is. Really cool to see that you can go beyond that, though you don't get any further HP or KI boosts. I've done the same thing for Gohan twice and his PL is already 1,743,800 at level 47, even though normally he's only over 200k at this level. He gets the whole lvl 48 boost after a single heal, and then another one just as sizeable on top of that. When he levels up to 48 he should be at around 2,850,000 if I recall correctly. So I wonder - is there a way to do exceed the max powerlevel more than twice? I'm definitely going to try, just to see how high I can get Gohan and Vegeta.

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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by coola » Mon Mar 21, 2022 4:20 pm

Saturnine wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 3:03 pm I was able to get Vegeta to 1 915 799 at level 47 by Dende healing him twice at level 46, no earlier heals. Before leveling up, at level 46 he was at 1,568,635 after the second heal, so guess that's what the next jump after his normal level 47 PL of ~1,200,000 is. Really cool to see that you can go beyond that, though you don't get any further HP or KI boosts. I've done the same thing for Gohan twice and his PL is already 1,743,800 at level 47, even though normally he's only over 200k at this level. He gets the whole lvl 48 boost after a single heal, and then another one just as sizeable on top of that. When he levels up to 48 he should be at around 2,850,000 if I recall correctly. So I wonder - is there a way to do exceed the max powerlevel more than twice? I'm definitely going to try, just to see how high I can get Gohan and Vegeta.
I remember last level had ridiculous amount of grinding, with is why it was good idea to level up before meeting with Guru for first time, when he unlock your characters potential, with in game means 2 levels up, you could save plenty of time from grinding :)
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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by Saturnine » Mon Mar 21, 2022 4:50 pm

coola wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 4:20 pm I remember last level had ridiculous amount of grinding, with is why it was good idea to level up before meeting with Guru for first time, when he unlock your characters potential, with in game means 2 levels up, you could save plenty of time from grinding :)
It's not so bad on an emulator where you can speed the game up big time. I even ground Piccolo up to level 47, which is completely equivalent to him fusing with Nail, but it takes even more grinding than level 48 for Chiaotzu - Piccolo needs way over 600k exp, while Gohan gets 48 at 385,350.

Anyway, looks like the Dende healing exploit can be repeated as many times as you're able to pull it off. This is my Gohan at level 48 now. A,mazing.
Image

He's three "levels" beyond his standard PL of 985k (which it jumps to from Gohan's previous 227,300). Then it jumps to 1,7M, then to 2,5M and then to 3,2M. It seems like the increment for level ups is static and equal to the increment the last level jump would have given you. For Vegeta it's 347,164 every heal - a hefty jump by all means. 1,224,995 -> 1,572,159 -> 1,919,323. The math checks out.

But for Gohan it's give or take 758,250 per heal, making him potentially much better than Vegeta. So it goes like 227,300 (level 47) -> 985550 (standard level 48 power) -> 1,743,800 (1st Dende heal) -> 2,502,050 (2nd Dende heal) -> 3,260,300 (3rd Dende heal) and so on. After the fourth (if I was able to pull it off), his PL would have gone up to a nice, clean 4,018,550. I think there is no limit to the number of times you can pull this off, the only caveat is that using Dende's healing will give you the same power boost getting to the next level would have given, meaning that this can't be exploited when your character's level is maxed. Gohan is easier to do because Vegeta tends to either send other fighters in his place or take several turns attacking, finishing off the brown and yellow Ginyu clones (who are the best at chipping away at the health of your OP characters), and you want to run away from the fight after whittling down your Saiyan's HP, so that you don't gain experience from it. It's not such a big problem with Gohan, who's got a lot to go before he gets to 48, but Vegeta maxes out real quick, so experience needs to be earned really sparingly if you want to do him more than twice. He's probably already not very manageable after 2 boosts, though. Of course doing this trick at earlier levels will still matter in the end, but the boosts accumulated will be lower, and the next level's boost will remain the same so as to prevent runaway power growth (say, you use this exploit at level 15, Gohan gets the boost he'd have gotten from going from 15 to 16, but he'll get the exact same increase when ACTUALLY reaching level 16). Still, I suppose it's worthwhile with Vegeta starting at around level 43 if you can pull it off, since his boosts for each next level are respectively: 90k, 101k, 143k and 210k. Definitely nothing to scoff at, and if accumulated with care, it can probably get your Vegeta well over 2,5M too, possibly even over 3M. For Gohan, on the other hand, the effect is clearly the best at level 47, no contest (he only gets 50k going from 46 to 47).

I think I"ll see if the damaging rolling stone in the cave in the first section of Namek can be exploited to do the Dende trick too. That'd be nice for sure.

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Re: Super Saiya Densetsu appreciation thread

Post by coola » Thu Aug 03, 2023 10:55 am

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7967/ Haven't tried it yet, but this hack allows you to replace Chiaotsu with Raditz
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