DragonBall Kai: Saiya-jin Raishû (Attack of the Saiyans)

[LaRésistance]

Here is another short gameplay video : http://www.jv247.com/games/1962-VIDEO15 ... ay-03.html

[Herms]

The long gameplay video explains that super moves like the Masenko and Makankosappo work like classic Limits Breaks: chararcters have anger meters that fill as they attack, and when the meter fills up the character enters "Sparking" mode, which is when they can perform their best attacks. And then their are combo attacks too. This game is looking pretty neat.

[The S]

There had best be some hardcore sprite ripping when this game comes out. The graphics make me hard.

[Herms]

So I've just picked up the game. I haven't gotten too far into it yet, but here's what I've found out so far.

The game starts with the same opening narration in the first chapter of DB (deep in the mountains, thousands of km from the city, etc etc), then talks about Goku defeating Piccolo Daimao, meeting Kami, having Shenlong be revived, and restoring all those killed by Daimao to life.

Then the scene swtiches to Kame House. Kuririn, Tenshinhan, and Yamcha are sleeping, and Lunch comes to wake them up. At fist she politely wakes Kuririn up, but then she sneezes and turns into blond Lunch, he shouts at everyone to get the hell downstairs. There, Kame-sennin tells you all that he is giving you one final test. He sends you to retrieve a crystal ball from a cave in an island to the south, the same island that he trained Goku and Kuririn on long ago. You go outside Kame House, and Sea Turtle explains about save points. They're in the shape of the CC logo (just like in the Legacy of Goku series). When you step on them, a Capsule house appears and you rest there. Sea Turtle also says that Kame-sennin apparently placed the crystal ball in the cave to the south because he figured that if he kept it around the house, he'd just break it like he did the Bashosen.

If you walk to the south tip of the Kame House island, you will be taken to the world map. The world map for the game is very faithfully modeled after the DB world map from Daizenshuu 4, although Yunzabit is looking rather tropical. You simply tap on the "Training Island" to go there. You go straight into the cave, so no getting a look at any familiar sites from Goku and Kuririn's training, at least not yet. The enemies in here include Giant Snakes and Former RR Sergeants (blue wolf-men in RR getup who smoke pipes and shot you with guns). And...that's pretty much where I am.

I've found some neat things from the instruction manual though. Here's a summary of the character bios for the playable characters, which list their strengths and some of their special techniques.

Son Goku: a balanced fighter
Meteo Combination: his combo attack
Kamehameha: pretty much what you’d expect
Zanzoken: uses afterimage to evade enemy attack for 1 turn

Klilyn (I love that spelling): specializes in ki attacks. His “speed” stat raises easily.
Kamehameha
Kienzan
Scattering Energy Wave (the Saibaiman-killing attack): attacks multiple enemies

Son Gohan: a weak character at first, but can be trained into the strongest warrior
Masenko
Rage: when his anger meter fills up, his attack power will increase
Hire Dragon: he calls for Hire Dragon to come and heal a party member

Piccolo: uses lots of ki attacks. His “technique” stat raises easily.
Violent Light Bullet (Gekiretsu-Kodan): a powerful energy blast fired from his hand
Cho-Bakuretsu-Maha (Super Exploding Demon Wave): attacks multiple enemies
Self-Regeneration: restores his health

Tenshinhan: has many unique techniques. His “technique” stat rises easily.
Kikoho: powerful, but lowers his health
Taiyo-Ken: inflicts “darkness” on all enemies
Mafuba: Lowers his health in order to seal enemies within an electric jar

Yamcha: his “speed" stat rises easily
Roga-FuFu-Ken: his signature combo attack
Sokidan: a ki bullet he manipulates to hit multiple enemies

There are also Non-Playable Characters who will join your party at certain times throughout the game.

Here are the stats in the game:

HP
Ki: used up for special techniques
Power: determines power of normal attacks
Defense
Recovery: determines how much HP you recover after every turn
Technique: increases attack hit rate and determines power of special techniques and ultimate techniques
Speed: 10
Luck: 6

There are 8 status afflictions in the game: Sleep, paralysis, poison, darkness, confusion, stun, freeze, and…carrot-ization!

Here are some places you visit during the game: the pre-21st TB training island, Uranai Baba's palace, Bora and Upa's place at the base of Karin Tower, West City, an RR fortress, and Oorin Temple (!).

I'll write more once I'm further into the game.

[The S]

Wait, the game's already out?

And Tenshinhan has Mafuba?

Damn, I need a DS.

[omegacwa]

It's out in japan, and that's where Herms lives, and he can read/speak Japanese, so he bought it. Damn lucky bastard.

[JulieYBM]

I wonder now...might the review be our second post-move podcast?

When this hits the US, I might actually buy it!

[Pain]

I wonder now...might the review be our second post-move podcast?

When this hits the US, I might actually buy it!

Who says that it'll be released here?

[Strongbad456]

I'm just wondering, how hard would it be to get through the game without knowing kanji? I know katakana and hiragana but not kanji. I'd like to get this game and I'm very used to playing import games. Although the games I usually import are adventure games or fighting games rather than RPGs.

[Pain]

I'm just wondering, how hard would it be to get through the game without knowing kanji? I know katakana and hiragana but not kanji. I'd like to get this game and I'm very used to playing import games. Although the games I usually import are adventure games or fighting games rather than RPGs.

It'd be like putting Stevie Wonder in a giant maze.

[RemiLeopold]

I wonder now...might the review be our second post-move podcast?

When this hits the US, I might actually buy it!

Who says that it'll be released here?

Iunno bro, It's a DB game, it most likely will, even if it's postponed to hell and back like Advanced Adventure.

[Herms]

I'm just wondering, how hard would it be to get through the game without knowing kanji? I know katakana and hiragana but not kanji. I'd like to get this game and I'm very used to playing import games. Although the games I usually import are adventure games or fighting games rather than RPGs.

I think you could figure out the battle system reasonably well, and most of the areas are just walking from point A to point B (with sideroads leading to items), but the hard part would be knowing where to go next once you're down with an area. Like if someone says "go to Uranai Baba's palace", if you don't know what they said, then you're kind of stuck. And there's a lot of original stories in this game, so even if you know the series, you can't always rely on that to know where to go next. But I am thinking of making a GameFAQ guide for this game, for people who want to import it, and/or on the off chance that it doesn't get an American release.

[Captain Awesome]

Considering Atari haven't said a word about an US release, I'm actually considering importing this with my next shipment of Kanzenban.

It looks so awesome.

[Strongbad456]

I'm just wondering, how hard would it be to get through the game without knowing kanji? I know katakana and hiragana but not kanji. I'd like to get this game and I'm very used to playing import games. Although the games I usually import are adventure games or fighting games rather than RPGs.

I think you could figure out the battle system reasonably well, and most of the areas are just walking from point A to point B (with sideroads leading to items), but the hard part would be knowing where to go next once you're down with an area. Like if someone says "go to Uranai Baba's palace", if you don't know what they said, then you're kind of stuck. And there's a lot of original stories in this game, so even if you know the series, you can't always rely on that to know where to go next. But I am thinking of making a GameFAQ guide for this game, for people who want to import it, and/or on the off chance that it doesn't get an American release.

I see. Thanks Herms. I think I'll wait until you or somebody does a guide.

[Herms]

So I think I'm roughly half-way through the game now. I lo~ove this game so far. The graphics are great, the battle system plays well, and there's tons of little details and nods thrown in. It's quite nice. Here's a summary of things so far:

For the first chapter, you play as Kuririn, Yamcha, and Tenshinhan. As his final bit of training for you all, Kame-sennin has you go fetch a crystal ball from out of a cave on the island where Goku and Kuririn trained for the 21st Tenkaichi Budoukai. When you reach the crystal, Jacky Chun will grab it from you and fight you to see if you are worthy of it (When Jacky shows up Tenshinhan has a little "now what the heck..." moment, but he keeps his silence). So Jacky Chun is your first boss. It's kind of silly for him to be able to put up a good fight against all three of you, but who cares, it's Jacky Chun. He uses the Sui-ken/Drunken Fist, the Zanzou-ken/Afterimage Attack, and the Maximum Power Kamehameha, complete with him taking off his shirt and bulking up. Fun stuff. Once you take the crystal back to Kame-sennin (who is shown changing out of his Chun costume), he explains that it was something he got from his sister Uranai Baba. You use the crystal ball throughout the game as basically a journal. It has an enemy list, a list of your current and past objectives, and the S Combo memos you've found (I'll explain that later).

The next three chapters each focus on the adventures of Kuririn, Yamcha, and Tenshinhan as they train for the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai. Kuririn returns to Oorin Temple (which is in East City), Yamcha finds out that Toninjinka has taken over his formal hideout and turned all his bandit friends into carrots, and Tenshinhan fights a demon who Mutaito had previously sealed away with a prototype of the Mafuuba (learning the Shishin no Ken in the process).

Then it gets into the 23rd TB itself, which is actually pretty short. Goku shows up and you get to control him for the first time. It skips all the way to the final fight between him and Ma Junior (though with a nice montage of scenes from the tournament along the way). You can level Goku up by fighting people in the preliminaries hall (he starts at lv.4, so you really need to if you want to beat Ma Junior).

After the 23rd TB, it has a chapter devoted to the Mt. Fry-Pan filler in the anime. The order of events if a little different though. After Gyuumao's castle catches fire, you and Chi Chi go to Uranai Baba's, who tells you to go to the Mountain of Five Elements. So you meet Annin first, and fight her as a boss. She attacks you with her sword/spead thingy and her antennea, but not her giant form. She only uses that in the cut scene later. Grandpa Gohan doesn't appear, alas. Once you beat Annin, she explains about needing the Fire-Eating Bird's egg shell and that special honey from Mt. Frappe to fix the furnace, so you go to those places next, encountering Pilaf and co. at both of them. At Mt. Frappe you fight Mai in her robot (called the "Mai Machine), and at Kiwi Volcano you fight Shu in his robot (the Shu Machine). Once you get back to Annin, you go inside the Furnace of Eight Divinations and fight two fire spirits (pallet-swaps of the demon Tenshinhan fought earlier), and then fix the furnace.

Then finally it gets to the Z/Kai portion of the game. You start playing as Piccolo, and have an unwinnable fight with Raditz that ends automatically after a few turns. You can stop by Uranai Baba's place and frighten her if you talk to her. You go to Kame House to advance the story. Lots of cutscenes (which you can skip through later), and you and Goku head for where Raditz's ship is (which is called the "Spinnach Wasteland" here) and fight him. You essentially have to do enough damage on him to trigger Piccolo to tell Goku about the Makankosappo. The Makankosappo is an Ultimate Technique, which you must be in Sparking! Mode to fire (you reach that mode by having your anger gauge fill up, which it does bit by bit whenever you attack; it's just like limit breaks from Final Fantasy). Once that's done you can select the Makankosappo, but it still takes 1-2 turns for Piccolo to charge it up and fire it, so Goku has to fight Raditz alone in the meantime (just like in the series). The fight automatically ends when Piccolo fires the Makankosappo.

The next chapter is a short one dealing with Gohan and Piccolo. You take control of Gohan for the first time, and can level him up a bit in the wasteland (called "Bleak Wasteland"), but mostly it's just cutscenes. It ends with the Oozaru Gohan events (from the manga, not the filler ones).

Chapter 8 is pretty long. You start as Kuririn, and Bulma has you go to West City to pick up a circuit so she can complete her remodeling of Raditz's scouter. Incidentally, Bulma's mother looks nothing like herself; she has long green hair for some reason. But her personality is the same. When you talk to her she'll say "oh, what a handsome man"...even if you talk to her as Gohan. Anyway, once the scouter is working, you set off to find Tenshinhan and Yamcha, and get them to Kami's place to train.

You have to find Tenshinhan first. He's at Jingle Village, but he's in the middle of something and can't come with you yet. It seems that Sno's daughter has caught a mysterious fever (Tenshinhan doesn't know who Sno is of course, but the villagers refer to her by name). There's a special flower in the nearby frozen prairie that is said to be able to cure fevers. Tenshinhan was wanting to go get it himself, but Lunch (who had tracked him down) went to get it herself, wanting to be useful to Tenshinhan. But now she hasn't come back for like a day or so, so Tenshinhan is worried. You team up with him to track down Lunch and the flower. Chaozu is with Tenshinhan for all of this, but you can't play as him and he doesn't participate in fights.

Then you go find Yamcha, who is basically just piddling around in his hideout (he says there's no point in him training for the next tournament, since the gap in power between him and Goku is too great). You head for the Karin Holy Land, where Bora is running a whole small village now. You talk to Bora and Upa (Upa, grown up, doesn't recognize Kuririn at first, and warns you to leave). You go up to the top of Karin Tower, and Karin says that he has an errand for you (argh!). He needs special water to grow senzu with. It's in a cave in the Karin Holy Land, in a place called Sennin Spring. You go through the cave (which is very cool-looking) and find the spring, but there are guardians there who don't believe you when you say Karin sent you, so you fight. Karin apologizes for forgetting to mention them.

Then you play as Gohan again. You fight the T-Rex as a boss, then talk to Piccolo, who joins you party. Piccolo says that he'll start training you if you and he are able to take down a violent dragon who hangs out around this big flower in the wilderness. You do, and he does (you fight the dragon as a team, actually, so I'm not sure why that would convince him to train you, but whatever).

The story kind of backtracks then to go to Goku meeting Enma Daio and setting out on the Serpent Road, which is where I'm at now.

[Innagadadavida]

Holy balls this game sounds fun. I thought it was just another boring recap of the Saiyan saga, but geez. This is like Dragon Ball Z: The Humans: The Game.

Its kind of weird all the attention to detail and made up stories but then Bulma's mother has long green hair. Seems random.

[Herms]

Holy balls this game sounds fun. I thought it was just another boring recap of the Saiyan saga, but geez. This is like Dragon Ball Z: The Humans: The Game.

Yeah, it feels like I've spent most of the game so far playing as the Earthlings. I wonder if this might be because the focus of the second half of the game will shift more towards Goku, Gohan, and Piccolo. At any rate, this game may be difficult going for anyone who's not too found of those characters.

But boy do they rock in this game. Kuririn's Scattering Energy Wave (the thing he kills the Saibaimen with) is a great attack; it does lots of damage to all your enemies at once. You have to level up the Kamehameha to level 3 or something before you can get it. There are several powerful 2-character combo attacks in the game, called S Combos. There's one called "Earthling Strike" where Kuririn, Yamcha, and Tenshinhan take turns pounding on an enemy. Then there's one called Wolf-Crane Strike or some such thing, with just Yamcha and Tenshinhan. Then according to the manuel there's one Yamcha and Kuririn have called "Sokienzan", presumably a combination of the Sokidan and Kienzan, but I haven't unlocked Yamcha's Sokidan yet so I haven't been able to try it out.

Let's see, what else is there? Yamcha also has an attacked called "Wolf Hurricane" that's essentially a low-power Roga-FuFu-Ken, Tenshinhan can use the Shishin no Ken (the four of him sourend the opponent and hit them with four energy blasts), Kuririn's Kienzan can hit multiple enemies if they're all lined up. Tenshinhan can apparently collect enemies with the Mafuba. I'm not quite sure what this entails yet, since so far Tenshinhan has always missed when I have him use the Mafuba. It has this whole animation with him bringing out the electric jar from a capsule, and doing the motions and whatnot, and if you miss the jar goes flying and falls over on its side. There's a lot of great animation like that.

[Innagadadavida]

What are the cutscenes like? Are they animated or is it in game with character images and text?

It does sound mondo fun though. I'm a huge fan of the Earthlings so I can't wait for this.

[Herms]

I guess "cutscene" isn't really the right word. They mostly consist of sprites standing around with dialog boxes and closeups of the character's heads, but important things will be illustrated with a recreated manga panel (or anime image, in the case of filler material). So it shows a full sceen image of Goku and Raditz getting killed, and Oozaru Gohan, and Goku and Chi Chi's wedding (I think Gyuumao's crying is actually animated in this).

[NeptuneKai]

This sounds so cool! I swear if they don't bring this game to the U.S I will go insane.