The idea here is to take the gameplay of Sagas with minimal modification (kill the glitches and tweak some things, but little else), and use that as the starting point for a game that incorporates the characters, story, etc of the series as opposed to ... umm... how ever you'd describe Sagas (not that it didn't have some pretty nice decisions in there; Future Gohan and Soba, anyone?).
I want to focus on the continuous story stuff; that is, I'd kind of like to come up with a way to remake the game as a decent introduction to the series, with a focus on the 22nd tournament to Freeza chunk. (Naturally, the Sagas gameplay isn't perfect for some parts of the series; however, my goal here is to come up with a way of covering the series inside the gameplay of Sagas, while still making a product that isn't a tedious piece of junk).
I could go on, but for now I'll just post the vaguely organized part of my notes that covers most of DB prior to the 23rd tournament. (Note that I'll use dub names, since Sagas was a U.S. "exclusive" ).
- Ki-charging and flight should be treated as skills, as opposed to default abilities (this could be omitted if we omit things prior to the 21st tournament, but considering all the thought I've put into that stretch, and how much it shows us of the world, I'd advise against it, unless we decide to put more into the filler material after the tournament, since it revisits some of the important things).
- Generic Ki attacks are rare early on, but long-range attacks are viable; if this can be accomplished without overly bending the system, give Nyoui-bo to Goku and a gun to Bulma. (The generic blast system in Sagas is a bit lame, but admitedly we didn't have a lot of rapid-fire attacks until the Freeza fight).
- I suggest including the shapeshifters (use something like the SSJ system), and letting them turn into the other playable characters, and maybe a few other random things. (Not necessary, but if it's doable, I say go for it. On that note, did anyone notice that pretty much every major character has a sidekick up until Trunks appears?).
- Saga01 - "Welcome to Dragonworld" :
- 01 - "Mystical Adventure".
Characters: Kid Goku (tail), Bulma.
Objective: Get the Seaturtle to the ocean safely; possess five dragonballs (either start out with three, or find them at Mount Paoz and Skull Valley respectively; one is received upon returning the turtle to the sea, and the other during the Oolong fight); defeat Oolong. - 02 - "Journey to Fire Mountain".
Characters: Goku (tail), Oolong.
Objectives: Defeat Yamcha and the Ox-King. (You'll have to get past Yamcha to reach the mountain, so I'm not so sure that mentioning him is necessary...). - --? (I don't want to overlook ChiChi, or the reappearance of Roshi, but at the same time I get the feeling that putting in a stage for that is a bit excessive, especially since we can't combine it with the BossRabbit fight. The cutscenes in Sagas get kind of annoying; if that couldn't be improved here, we'd be missing out on something potentially valuable, so yeah... a little help, guys?
)). - 03 - "Emperor Pilaf".
Characters: - You got me, here. This bit features teamwork between Goku, Yamcha, and Puar; Goku is clearly making the cut, but who's the second player? I lean toward Yamcha just to remind everyone that he's there, but did he do anything before Pilaf's palace?
Objectives: Track down and survive against Shuu and Mai's mechs. (Boss Rabbit and his gang serve as the bulk of the resistance in this somewhat underwhelming stage.). - --? : I'm not sure if Puar and Oolong interfering in Pilaf's wish would make a good stage. While the non-Goku characters getting attention is one of the reasons I started this, Puar and Oolong do extremely little of consequence after this, so I'd like to keep the focus on Goku, Yamcha and maybe Bulma as much as possible. (An idea, though it'd require more reworking of the system: the two stages I've thought of omitting (Goku and ChiChi find Roshi and Oolong and Puar stop Pilaf) could be "bonus" stages of sorts, so the people interested can have them, but those who don't care for this era don't have to spend too much time on deviations from the action-oriented feel of the gameplay? Actually, I think I'll start doing this for all the stages that might hurt pacing that I still want to include... so consider this Saga01:bonus02.
. ). - 04 - "Escape the Liberater".
Characters: Yamcha and Puar.
Objectives: Get out of Pilaf's palace, and return Goku to normal. (Either we make this stage mostly just Yamcha and Puar Vs Oozaru Goku, or we include some of the extra stuff (I think Anime Filler?), such as Yamcha fighting through Shuu's... umm... friends... I kind of like expanding on this (so long as the Oozaru fight isn't overly tedious), as it would both avoid downplaying Pilaf too much (never mind that Pilaf is Dragonball's trademark gag character), but also gives Yamcha something to not suck at.).).
- 01 - "Mystical Adventure".
- Saga02 - "Twenty-first World Martial arts Tournament" : (I'd not mind creative names for this bit, but working them in is a little challenging. I'd like to emphasize two things--Goku's reasons for training here, and that this saga acts as a break so the dragonballs can return. Naturally, we can't forget the character development inside this saga; the previously mentioned points are things I'd rather mention in the intro to this saga.).
- 01 - "The Turtle Hermit's Fee"
Characters: Kid Goku (no tail) and Kid Krillin.
Objectives: Find a woman, and get her to come back to Kamehouse. (Basically just find Launch, and... umm... get back? Oh, use your imagination.. Nothing says her blond form couldn't be a "boss" of sorts, but I don't think we could convince a publisher to go for that (since we won't really be able to talk about deep moral crud here. ); Roshi's assignment was "return with a hot girl", not "kidnap a girl against her will"... Right?). - Bonus01 - I have nothing specific in mind, but I'd not mind adding a little more to this part to flesh out Goku and Krillin's relationship, the backstory of some people (Roshi's previous students, Krillin's monestary experiences, Etc), but coming up with a decent way that doesn't break the style of the game is difficult (and typically, people that would go for a bonus would probably apreciate tidbits we could include there, though some might fit in cutscenes earlier... I don't want to put too much in cutscenes, as with sagas you kinda want to skip them despite their quality.). (Another thing: this isn't a glitch so much as a pain in the patience, but I can't stand the long, challenging stages that make you start over at the very beginning if you're defeated by the boss. Checkpoints, for the love of sanity, checkpoints!).
- 02 - "Preliminaries"
Characters: Kid Goku (no tail), Kid Krillin (Or Yamcha, but the preliminaries here flesh out Krillin some; in-game dialogue wouldn't hurt. Actually, we could change this to Krillin and Yamcha, but since Goku makes it to the finals, it might be best to focus on Goku through this part to keep the story coherent (and not make it seem that Yamcha and Krillin lost hard... Hmm.)).
Objectives: Defeat all opponents (In a certain time? Without leaving the ring?) to qualify for the tournament. - Bonus02 : - Yamcha and Kuririn Vs. Jackie Chun, maybe a few other bits of fanservice/character rememberance(SP?). (I don't see Namu fitting in here (Ranfuan?), but I'd not complain if he did somehow. ^^. There's Giran's bar thing, as well, but...).
- 03 - "Tournament Finals"
Character : Kid Goku (tail) (timed swapping for CoOp).
Objectives: Defeat all opponents without being eliminated (either by running out of health or landing out of bounds). (Defeat Giran, Namu, and Jackie Chun.). - Bonus 03 - I don't want to ignore Oozaru Goku and some of the classic stuff in the Jackie Chun fight. Also, having Jackie Chun fight through the other heroes (Yamcha, Krillin, Goku, Oozaru Goku) wouldn't hurt. Perhaps a tournament from Roshi's perspective would be a nice bonus?
- -- I like the Namu filler, dangit.
but it won't fit here in any reasonable way; it'd have to fit here, as it doesn't fit (timing-wise or story-wise) in the next saga. (It'd not be too hard to design--Goku and Namu wander around, fight some monsters from the early stages, some Giran pallet-swaps, and the goal is to destroy the dam holding the water from Namu's village. The roaming lake business ... do with that what you will.). While this stage is something I kinda like... it serves no practical purpose (other than getting more milage out of our Giran and Namu characters), and this saga already has less missions than bonus stages, so it probably won't survive.
- 01 - "The Turtle Hermit's Fee"
- Saga03 - "The Red Ribbon Army" :
- 01 - "Attack on Mount Frypan". (Consistency alert: I used "Fire Mountain" earlier, but Mount Frypan sounds better here; I'll argue that "Fire mountain" is a description in the first saga, as opposed to the mountain's name (which might be mentioned in a cutscene or something).).
Characters: Kid Goku (tail) and Kid ChiChi. (Note, though, that Kid ChiChi's inclusion here is based on filler--if we don't have ChiChi in the game, no need to include her for this. However, it'd be nice to include her, since she's a bit more important to the story than Namu. (Another thought: add another bonus to the first saga to play things from Yamcha's perspective? Just an idea...)).
Objectives: Force the Red Ribbon Army off of the mountain (Perhaps this involves protecting the Ox-king, but is otherwise just a "defeat the baddies" thing); find a Dragonball, and prevent Colonel Silver from taking it. (Silver isn't a particularly intimidating boss, but if Kento'un has been any use so far, he has the power to remove it for this fight, at least. Yeah... that's about the most impressive thing Silver does (other than try and put Ox-king in a net and blow up Pilaf's fortress in filler...).). - 02 - "Muscle Tower"
Characters: Kid Goku (tail).
Objectives: Make your way up the tower, clear it of enemies in the process. (Other than maybe a couple brief parts--the Murasaki Quentuplets, and maybe Goku's first entrance into the tower--this is effectively another tournament stage, featuring Metallic and Murasaki as the enemies. I'd not mind including a Jingle Village stage of sorts, but... how? (Any way to expand on Sno's involvement without being pointless would be well apreciated)). - 03 - "The Cunning White"
Characters: Goku (tail), #8.
Objectives: Free the village Chief from General White. (This requires getting through the rest of the tower, maze, Buyon, and white himself included (random soldiers possible, if you really want to). In addition, it's a good idea to avoid hurting the hostage during the fight with White; that's really all he has to use against you, as only his super-gun can harm you (and hey, Goku's tail is his weakness, right?)). - Bonus01 - Dr. Frappe. Flap. Or Dr. Fill... Yeah, the inconsistency filler character. I'd rather ignore this, but since it does involve multiple characters I'd like to see reused (#8, Murasaki, and Sno), we can throw it in (and try to clean up continuity, while we're at it). Goku would have his coat and stuff on here, by the way. (This episode wasn't particularly actiony, and I don't like the implication that Murasaki dies at the end... but cute child pees on ninja while awesome android hero burries his troubled past is a win for me. Hence, it's a bonus. Also, I'm not keeping track of bonus numbering well, since most are hypothetical (even in a hypothetical context. :O ))).
- 04 - "Deep and Blue"
Characters: Kid Goku (tail), Kid Krillin.
Objectives: Find the dragonball, escape the collapsing caves. (I'm not sure about the last part; I could see a Sagas cutscene detailing the escape after fighting Blue, but I think the escape deserves a little less winking through, as it characterizes Bulma("Screw Goku, let's get out of here!"), Krillin("We're not running out on our friend, are we?") and Goku("Protect the mouse; I'll risk getting crushed under tons of rocks and water to get that dragonball that turns out to be the wrong one!") rather well. Also, Bulma's involvement here... is it worth adapting somehow? I don't want to break this stage up into sections; Blue's era is drawn out enough as it is. Consider super moves, though--Goku uses a kamehameha against the squid... octapus... whatever, and that's about it. What should the likely upgrades be at this point?). - Bonus02 - Roshi and Launch defending Kamehouse from the RRA. (The first "Launch" I think was an accident. This one was consistency... I think I'll use "Lunch" from now on, 'k?). The main reason I consider this useful is that it keeps Roshi and Lunch from being easily forgotten too quickly, but it disrupts the other stuff.
- ?? - Penguin Village. I want to keep this saga short; we could count Blue out with the previous stage with no trouble. At the same time, I don't want to relegate the crossover to a bonus stage. (I'll number things as though this is completely cut, but since Arale made it into BT3 state-side, I see no point in cutting it entirely. Thoughts?).).
- 05 - "The World's Greatest Assassin".
Characters: Kid Goku (tail). (I don't want this to be a mere solo fight, however the entirety of the Karin mini-mini-arc focuses on Goku. Upa and Bora participate, of course, but of the "awesome side characters that must not be forgotten" in this saga, they do the least action-wise.).
Objectives: Protect Upa and the Four-star ball. (First Captain Yellow's unit is your resistance, followed by TaoPaipai. I have no idea how to organize this, though...). - 06 - "Karin's Tower".
Characters: Kid Goku (tail).
Objectives: Retrieve the Sacred Water. (This might be best as a bonus stage, but it's important enough that I don't want to treat it as such... that, and putting something between the two TaoPaipai fights seems nice. I'm not sure where to throw the "Goku Vs people that came to retrieve the dragonball from his body" thing. So yeah, this part can be rearranged as necessary; it's getting kind of tedious at this point, but this is where we start having ramifications for the rest of the story, so care needs to be taken.). - 07 - "Dangerous Victory".
Characters: Kid Goku(tail)
Objectives: Defeat Mercinary Tao. (This seems like a bit much for three stages, considering how I snipped Blue...) - 08 - "A Wish to Make".
Characters: Kid Goku(tail), ? (This is the "seige the RRA HQ" stage, for which a solo fight is inappropriate. However, the rest of the heroes only show up after Goku's won. How do we rectify this? We have characters for all of the characters that show up, but I'd like to keep with the sagas tradition of forcing you to only use the characters they like mo--no, wait, just pick from among Roshi, Bulma, Yamcha, Krillin, Lunch, Puar and Oolong. Yeah. That's easier. Especially considering that most of these characters have no other opportunity to see action.).
Objectives: Retrieve the dragonballs, destroy Black's Battle Jacket. (while trashing the RRA HQ and beating up gunmen along the way! Oh, and I guess we can fight Black hand-to-hand, if we want, but that's only if we're being really mean about ki usage... and at this point, I think the players might be sick of ki restrictions; this is also when they start to peal back in the series, so ... yeah.). - 09 - "The Last Dragonball"
Characters: Kid Goku (tail), Yamcha? (Everyone else is around, but Yamcha and Goku fight most. They can't fight together, though? Hmm.).
Objective: Defeat Baba's fighters to learn the location of hte last Dragonball. (I don't know if I want to actually have you go get it from Pilaf, unless as a bonus stage... this saga is running long, and I'm ready to get back into adventure mode... and there's a whole tournament to get through before that! Grandpa Gohan is the boss, of course... and uses Kamehameha. Yamcha probably shouldn't yet, but I'm not sure I care enough to force us away from looser Ki standards.). - -- : Get Pilaf's dragonball. I don't know that this deserves a stage, and the numbering on the bonuses for this saga is confusing with the Penguin Village / Karin Tower mess.
- 01 - "Attack on Mount Frypan". (Consistency alert: I used "Fire Mountain" earlier, but Mount Frypan sounds better here; I'll argue that "Fire mountain" is a description in the first saga, as opposed to the mountain's name (which might be mentioned in a cutscene or something).).
- Saga04 - "Twenty-second World Martial Arts Tournament" :
- -- : Some not-too-shabby filler here, such as Shura and the introduction to T'en and Chaozu (Inoshikacho and all that), but fitting it in as bonuses won't work unless at the end of the last Saga... and I want to cut back on the RRA to emphasize everything from here onward. So the filler might not make it... I guess it's not such a big loss?
- 01 - "Preliminary paril".
Characters: Kid Goku (tail), whoever else you want... (T'en is more the focus of this bit than Goku, and there are a lot of things that don't work as smoothly as the first tournament; that is, this tournament is actually a big part of the story, whereas the previous was more of a characterization break between quests. Tournaments don't fit the Sagas style well, though, so I'm rather perplexed at how to handle this. Also, Namu makes a brief reappearance in the anime to get knocked out a bit brutally by T'en, and King Chappa's history makes him worth including (he fought Goku, didn't he?). I don't actually recall much of Krillin and Yamcha's preliminaries, other than they won (did Chaozu rig the blocks here so the rivals wouldn't fight each other too early? I know he fixed the matches afterward...).).
Objectives: Be the last fighter standing, I guess. - Bonus01 - I think the above would work best as Goku's stage, or Krillin and Yamcha, or... a combination of those three. Ten and Chaozu's filler at this point isn't too worthless, though (T'en Vs Namu and Chaozu burning a guy severely), so having a bonus version with T'en and Chaozu as the player characters with Namu as the boss would be to my liking. Yes? Ok.
- 02 - Round1.
Characters: Yamcha (Um, or Tien... but beware which Super move we use.)
Objective: Fight. (Solo fight.
.). - 03 - "Battle of the Bald Migit Sidekicks" (Or, you know, something more serious works too...).
Characters: Krillin Vs Chaozu.
Objectives: Win. Take note, though--this is where Tsuru Sen'nin learns that Goku apparently killed Tao, as Goku comments on Chaozu's use of the Dodonpa. What that means for gameplay, I don't know. - Bonus02 - Tsuru-Sen'nin attacks Goku in the nighttime. This doesn't really warrant a whole stage, but it's significant enough that it needs some sort of inclusion--in particular, we see that T'en is just as eager to beat up Goku, but he'd rather do it in the ring. I'm guessing the player would be Goku here, but... Egh.
- 04 - "Goku in the tournament".
Characters: Kid Goku (tail)
Objectives: Defeat Pamput and Krillin without being eliminated. (More big story stuff: T'en fights Jackie Chun in the middle of this. Even without a T'en bonus, here, I think the Goku Vs T'en match requires separation, because significant bits of character development happen before and during this fight. (I know I sort of skipped on this with the previous tournament, and the main reason was to play up the importance of this one)). - Bonus03 - Tien Vs. Jackie Chun. This is too important to skip, but as part of the normal flow of things it messes with the direction of the story by confusing who the main character is and stuff. That is, if we included this fight as part of the normal flow of things (unless we replaced this tournament with a "Tien Vs Yamcha, Roshi and Goku" bit, we'd be flipping back and forth between the opposing sides, which seems rather confusing for a straight play-through. Story-wise, though, that's very important, so I want to include both the Turtle and Crane perspectives in some capacity).
- 05 - "Goku Vs. TienShinhan".
Characters: Kid Goku (tail). Ur... or T'en. Whatever.
Objective: Fight! (Having Goku be the player isn't so bad, even though this fight is mostly about Tien's character. It starts off as a normal fight, then Chaozu interferes, then Tsuru-Sen'nin attacks someone (well, I think he attacked Chaozu, but I'm not entirely sure how this event should be handled in-game), then Goku and T'en fight for real. While Roshi blows away Tsuru-Sen'nin when he snaps, I think that the game needs to avoid leaving this part to cutscenes alone; the problem being that I can't see that working without copmlicating what the player has to do.). - Bonus04 - If we've missed any of the multiple perspective story fulfilment, we need it here... but a bit of Krillin Vs Tamberine could fit, maybe?
- Saga05 - "Great Demon King Piccolo" :
- 01 - "Here Comes Yajirobe!"
Characters: Kid Goku (Oh, do with the variations whatever you want; the tail's not important anymore.
), Yajirobe.
Objectives: Prevent Piccolo's minions from taking the One-star ball. (Ok, so the first Goku Vs Tamberine thing is missing, because it doesn't fit particularly well. I don't want to short-change this arc, though; yet, it seems this could happen easily if we make Piccolo the boss to this stage, with Tamberine and Cymbal as the sub-bosses. If we try to separate this part too much, though, it'd be extremely redundant. Maybe Goku Vs Tamberine should open this saga, as otherwise we don't get much of Tamberine (and the transition--that Tamberine killed Krillin, and Goku ran after him unprepared in rage) could be lost... Ok, so Goku and Yajirobe are 02, then. I'll still extend it to the first Goku Vs Piccolo fight, though, as splitting off the Tamberine and Cymbal fights would be tedious.). - Bonus 01 - Tamberine is seen murdering some of the Tournament participants (Namu presumably didn't put up a fight, as he was recovering from the injuries T'en inflicted in their fight. Then again, he could have pulled a Yamcha). Tamberine and Giran had a prolonged fight in the anime, and we see Bacterian, King Chappa and Pamput biting the dust... and Tamberine briefly tangles with Yamcha in filler (I like how the dub handled that scene.
). So, do we get to play any of this? I don't want to leave us playing from the villains' perspective, at least not at this point. However, that'd be the way to get the most out of this part of the story... Hmm. (Hey, we could make up more Namu stuff and have him and Yamcha team up unsuccessfully against Tamberine. ... What? ... Anyone? *glares at crickets* Do you even play video games? ). - 03 - "Piccolo's Wish". (I haven't updated the numbering above, but I'm thinking Goku's first encounter with Tamberine should be 01, while Goku and Yajirobe taking on Piccolo and his minions should be 02.)
Characters: Tien, Chaozu. (Alternately, Roshi and Chaozu, since Roshi kept T'en from fighting Piccolo here, while Roshi and Chaozu both tried and failed. We don't have many opportunities to play as Roshi, and this happens to be the man's finest hour, so I'm not sure how to deal with the default characters for this stage.).
Objectives: Collect the five unaccounted-for dragonballs (Tamberine took the four-star from Krillin, and Piccolo took the one-star from Goku personally). (Woah, Nelly: this could be epic. I mean, the stage itself seems to differ little from "The Mighty Nappa" as seen in the real Sagas. The main point here is the way the confrontation with Piccolo turns out (something which would be ignored entirely, I imagine, given the way Sagas turned out). Roshi has no intention of fighting Piccolo, since he knows he's outmatched; immediately after Roshi dies, Piccolo summons Shenron, Chaozu tries to stop him, and Piccolo kills Chaozu and the fricken dragon, all while Ten is lying paralyzed out of sight. If anyone can find a way to capture that awesomeness in a form other than a cut-scene, then it's totally worth a Sagas remake. (And I totally mean "Have a fight in the presence of Shenron". Because you know that would be awesome.).). - Bonus02 - Goku and Yajirobe going to Karin's and going for the "Ultra Divine Water". A filler adventure here works out kind of well in game form, but isn't overly important. I'd rather keep it, though, since it reminds us how much is going on at once, and gives Yajirobe more to do.
- 05 - "Seige on Chao Castle".
Characters: Kid Goku and Tien. (Some filler here is nice, too, as it brings back ChiChi, Ox-king and #8 (well, and Sno, of course! XD). I don't know if I want to have a bonus stage for that, or what, but the filler chars don't work closely enough with the main action to warrant inclusion in this stage. This does help the full-circle-ness of the world work well, and sort of gives closure (once the fight ends) for the characters from this era that are going to disappear once we get to Z. Hmm.).
Objectives: Defeat Piccolo! (By fighting through legions of baddies to get to the final battlefield, with Piccolo's youth restored, and Piano and Drum hanging around.). (The biggest problem here is that Goku and Ten fight separately ; while combining them here is great and all, it shortens one of the most intense arcs of the series thus far, and kind of takes away the ending of the battle (Goku mostly fights alone, and does the Oozaru-fist one-handed Kamehameha-propelled hole in the chest attack...). Hmm. ). - Bonus04 - Oh, there's something to put here. . Goku's training with Kami and Popo? The secondary cast going to Karin's? Stuff like that?
- 01 - "Here Comes Yajirobe!"
).
