DragonBall DS 2: Charge! Red Ribbon Army! Official Thread

[Xane]

Does anyone know who has or had the license for Dragon Power? Was it Nintendo?

It was licensed by Nintendo of America.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

No 23rd Tenkaichi Tournament? If it doesn't include that arc in the game, I'd be disappointed. In my opinion, it would be better if they include it. I mean we would have 3 games of same title that have 3 tournaments in the end, right? The patterns would have tied up pretty nicely, don't you think?

[Thanos]

Man... every time I hear "ROMANTIKU AGERU YO" I feel all nostalgic and sentimental. What is it about that song?

This game looks fun. It looks to be of higher quality than the first game.

[Kingdom Heartless]

Was the Western release of the first game dub only? I haven't gotten around to picking it up yet.

[Tweaker]

If anyone is interested, I've ripped the art resources from the flash website; I'd be willing to post them upon request.

[Hero 004]

I'm glad to hear about this, mostly to see the improvements from the last game. The first one is really good, but there is definitely room for tweaking and diversifying as far as game play is concerned. Of course, I'm still stuck in the Ox King fight .

[Kaboom]

No 23rd Tenkaichi Tournament? If it doesn't include that arc in the game, I'd be disappointed. In my opinion, it would be better if they include it. I mean we would have 3 games of same title that have 3 tournaments in the end, right? The patterns would have tied up pretty nicely, don't you think?

Uh, did you mean the 22nd Budokai?

Perhaps it would be better for that to wait, and be the start of a hypothetical third game in the series. After all, the 22nd transitions right into the King Piccolo arc, and then the 23rd Budokai is sort of the climax to THAT story.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

No 23rd Tenkaichi Tournament? If it doesn't include that arc in the game, I'd be disappointed. In my opinion, it would be better if they include it. I mean we would have 3 games of same title that have 3 tournaments in the end, right? The patterns would have tied up pretty nicely, don't you think?

Uh, did you mean the 22nd Budokai?

Perhaps it would be better for that to wait, and be the start of a hypothetical third game in the series. After all, the 22nd transitions right into the King Piccolo arc, and then the 23rd Budokai is sort of the climax to THAT story.

Yeah, I meant 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai.

Well, either way works for me, but I'd rather for the 2nd game to end with 22nd Tenakichi. The game that has only RRA arc seems to be too short, ya know? There is always fillers to fill the game.

[Kaboom]

The Red Ribbon Army arc is pretty dang long, though. Especially if they include filler-stuff from the anime. You wouldn't think you could extend the Pilaf-through-21st arcs very much either, but the first game managed to pad it out a lot.

[The S]

I hated playing Dragon Power so much.

One interesting thing to note about Dragon Power though is that it does not contain the entire game. In the Japanese version, once you beat it, you can make a wish to take you to the moon where you raid the moon base of the boss rabbit. For some reason you fight multiple versions of Kuririn up there too. It's pretty much impossible to beat this, even if you're playing perfectly, so instead you need to make the wish of starting over with complete full health and then take on the moon base upon your second turn of beating this portion of the game (since you will theoretically have more health this time around to begin this portion of the journey). It is insane and I hate myself for knowing this.

Uh... that's all still in there....

[ShinRogafuken]

The 2nd trailer just came out! There's a lot new stylus gestures such as Swinging, Bending the Power Pole to jump gaps, etc.! Also Arale, Android 8, Krillin, Yamcha & Bulma are confirmed as support or playable characters, and you get to climb up Korin Tower! Oh, and Fortuneteller Baba Saga is going to be in this game too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E3nojmf4rU

[Innagadadavida]

Oh wow! Multiplayer!!! I'm all over this game. I was a little disappointed by the first one, but this game looks like it may be good enough to warrant a purchase.

[Super Sayian Prime]

Famitsu score is out:

29/40

7, 7, 8, 7

Guess Bandai forgot the check? But still a pretty solid score.

[Dogasu]

The demo's now available on the "Minna no Nintendo Channel." You can download it to your DS now, provided you have a Japanese Wii.

I played through the demo a few times. Here's what I have to report.

The game starts off with one of several title screens that seem to appear randomly each time you start playing. The ones I've seen are one with just the Dragon Balls floating around, one with Goku riding on Kinto'un, and one with Red Ribbon members working on Seargent Metallic, who's laid out on an operating table.

The demo starts with two Red Ribbon soldiers standing outside. One of them is inflating balloons with a bicycle pump and then releasing them into the air. The other soldier scolds him for goofing off, but the first soldier defends himself by saying that he's actually working on creating bombs that merely look like balloons.

Suddenly, the Nyoibou falls from the sky and lands in front of the two soldiers. They look down at the mysterious item, wondering what it is. They seem to be impressed with the quality of its construction...

Meanwhile, inside what appears to be a warehouse, we see Goku running. After complaining about being hit by a bomb mid-air - I guess we're supposed to assume he was riding on Kinto'un? - he begins to wonder where he is. Suddenly, Bulma's, Kame Sen'nin's, and Kuririn's voices can be heard. The two start telling Goku how to move around.

As you may already know, this game gives you a choice between using the touch screen to control Goku and using the D-Pad and buttons. Here are the two control schemes:

Controls (Touch Screen)
Tapping an enemy / crate will make Goku attack it.
Tapping an enemy / crate repeatedly will make him do a combo move.
Sliding the stylus after doing a combo move will let Goku do a Finishing Move.
Touch, Slide, Touch will let Goku do an aerial attack.
Tapping anywhere around Goku two times will let him dodge / dash.
Tapping anywhere around the enemy while they're attacking will make Goku circle around him.
Sliding the stylus from Goku outward will make him do a Thrust move.
Sliding the stylus from an area away from Goku will let him do a sliding kick and fit into small spaces.
Quickly tap Goku's body two times to start charging up for the Kamehama Ha. Small hiragana characters - か　め　は　め - will appear over Goku's head. Tap each character to gather enough power, and then tap in the direction you want Goku to fire to complete the attack. The Kamehame Ha has its own health bar that can be replenished by collecting little stars.
Hold down the stylus on Goku to charge up power, and then tap in the direction you want to attack to do a mini Kamehame Ha. You can use this version as many times as you like.

Controls (D-Pad, Buttons)
Pressing the Y button will make Goku attack.
Tapping the Y button repeatedly will make him do a combo move.
Pressing the X button after doing a combo will let Goku do a Finishing Move.
Y, X, Y will let Goku do an aerial attack.
Pressing the B button will let him dodge / dash.
Pressing the D-Pad while the enemy's attacking will make Goku circle around him.
Pressing the X button will make Goku do a Thrust move.
Pressing the A button will let Goku do a sliding kick and fit into small spaces.
Quickly tap the R button two times to start charging up for the Kamehama Ha. Small hiragana characters - か　め　は　め - will appear over Goku's head. Tap the Y button four times (one for each letter) to gather enough power, and then tap the D-Pad in the direction you want Goku to fire to complete the attack. The Kamehame Ha has its own health bar that can be replenished by collecting little stars.
Hold down the R button to charge up power, and then tap the Y button to do a mini Kamehame Ha. You can use this version as many times as you like.

I'm sure there are some Nyoibou attacks you can do as well that aren't covered in the demo version.

Personally, I switched back and forth between control methods; moving around with the D-Pad felt clunky and unresponsive, but trying to do the attacks with by sliding the stylus and tapping various places and all that other stuff didn't work well, either. I can play the whole demo with just the buttons or with just the touch screen, but both control schemes have their issues.

The game has the same top-down view as the first. The graphics, which are mostly all rendered in 3D, look really really good for a DS game. The models look really really nice, and the animation is pretty smooth. The display stretches across the two screens, so you can look up at the top screen to get a sort of preview of what's ahead. The demo's two puzzles take advantage of the second screen by having a switch on the top screen that you need to activate from the bottom screen by using a Kamehame Ha blast.

Oddly enough, the red balloon bombs created by the Red Ribbon soldiers at the beginning of the demo are sprite-based; everything else is modeled in 3D.

On the audio side, we get to hear Goku's and the boss character's voices, but the rest of the characters (the Red Ribbon grunts) are silent. The music is catchy and appropriately video game-esque, if that makes any sense.

The demo has Goku moving through the warehouse, fighting various Red Ribbon grunts and breaking boxes along the way. There are the two puzzles I mentioned earlier, but other than that, it's a straight beat-em-up. After fighting your way through a warehouse and an outside area, you encounter the soldiers who were playing around with the red balloon bombs earlier. After beating them, you continue fighting your way through the army member after army member until you reach Sergeant Metallic.

The sergeant serves as the demo's boss battle. He has the Nyoibou but, of course, he won't give it to you without a fight. Sergeant Metallic can punch you, use a laser that circles around a room, and fire large missiles that sort of follow you around the room. His attacks are pretty easy to avoid, so the only real challenge in the battle is the fact that he has so much health.

After the battle, we see a movie of Goku firing his Kamehama Ha at Metallic, decapitating him just like in the manga. Goku kind of looks at the soldier with a "Did I do that?" face before picking up his Nyoibou and running off. The screen fades to black as he runs off into the distance.

The demo ends with a text box telling us about the full version coming out soon and how you'll be able to play as Kuririn, Bulma, Yamcha, and others. It also says that you can enjoy other characters' sub-episodes, whatever that means. It also looks like there will be a "Survival Tower" where you fight each of the game's bosses, one after the other. Oddly enough, it doesn't give a release date or advertise the fact that the original Famicom game will be included as an extra.


Like I said, I've only played the demo for the first DS game, so I can't comment too much on how much better / worse this game appears to be to its predecessor. I wasn't super impressed, though, but with a little bit of tweaking here and there, we could have a solid action title.

[Sshadow5001]

http://kotaku.com/5467531/this-dragon-b ... chy-classy

[sangofe]

Here's a "Dragonball Origins 2" commercial I believe hasn't been posted yet?

http://www.gamekult.com/video/9977205/

[Super Sayian Prime]

While I won't give you my 100% on this, first day numbers may have been leaked, and they aren't good.

11k for a 17% sell through of units shipped to retail

Yikes.

[Sunlight & City Night]

Sorry if this has been brought up somewhere already but Namco Bandai have just announced it's coming to the west this summer.

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6250974.html

[Innagadadavida]

Very cool. I'm so looking forward to this one. It looks to be a lot better than the first.

[Brad Redfield]

Neat. I'll have to pick up the first game when I get the chance this weekend.

So are we getting the Japanese voices, then? Unless they didn't take the time to put English voices in the trailer.

I didn't see any mention of the Famicom game either.