I finally figured out how to get through my colossal Dragon Ball game backlog on this site: attach a game review with each movie / TV special review! Amazingly given how many films and specials the combined series has this was only JUST enough. That being said, let’s get the two Dragon Ball games I own out the way before sadly starting the Z games while still reviewing original Dragon Ball films, that’s just how much more popular the Z brand is, and we do that with Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure (which I could’ve sworn was called “Advance Adventure”, but I guess I was misremembering…) I remember just being happy to see a game based on the original series at the time but as it turned out it was far deeper and more addictive than I had anticipated. Let’s see if it still holds up!
Background:
Goku … whacks a robot with his staff. Not really anything funny to say about this opening screenshot…
Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure was first released in Japan on November 18th 2004, with a PAL release on June 17th 2005. Due to the original series’ lack of popularity in the US it wasn’t actually due a release in the country but a small dedicated corner of their audience pushed for it and got it one a year later on June 6th 2006. Probably goes without saying but the game is exclusive to the Game Boy Advance and due to being a licensed game hasn’t reappeared on any digital storefront.
Gameplay:
Goku kills two birds with one stone by killing a bunch of Red Ribbon Army goons and uncovering a collectable!
The core gameplay of Advanced Adventure is a platforming beat ‘em up, with Goku having a fun and impactful-feeling melee combo string and a chargeable Kamehameha attack to take out some generic animals or Red Ribbon Army soldiers with, sometimes just placed in levels normally, other times your progress is halted until you beat a certain number of enemies who drop in. In order to stave off the boredom that can come from this kind of game (though I personally love it) it also has two other modes of play; specifically a flying auto-scroller on Kinto’un / Nimbus and most importantly a basic 1-on-1 fighting engine for tournament bouts and major showdowns. In the latter you have different combinations and more special moves you can pull off, so it’s nothing to write home about, but as an extra mode to give a more important feel to the big moments it works well. As you play through the levels you can find hidden items by exploring a bit, these include items that can increase your health or Ki as well as just collectables for the sake of completing a list.
Probably my favourite thing about the game though is that once you complete the game with Goku you unlock Extra Mode, where you can not only access areas you weren’t previously able to get to but also play levels as any character, and when I say “any character” I mean pretty much ANY character. You can unlock them by finding their portraits in levels (with one or two exceptions I’ll get to in a bit) and off you go. These range from key characters like Yamcha, Tenshinhan, General Blue or some of Piccolo’s off-spring, all the way down to regular map enemies like wolves, a generic Red Ribbon Army soldier or a random flying camera. I had so much fun trying levels with really stupidly obscure characters that it was one of those things where I was sad when I had nothing left to unlock.
There are a few other modes as well. One-on-One mode is literally the same as the Story Mode levels but you can pick any fighter you’ve defeated in the main game, so basically it turns it into a regular fighting game, it even has a multiplayer Versus mode if you have two GBAs handy. There are also the two mini-games you encounter during the Story that are given their own sections, “Catch Korin” (where you have to… catch Korin) and Rock Crush (where you… yeah, that) with getting a high score in the latter being the only way to unlock Jackie Chun, Master Roshi’s alter ego. Throw in a Boss Rush mode and a Survival Mode (getting a high score in Survival is the only way to unlock Demon King Piccolo) and you have far more to do in the game than you’d think. Certainly far more than I ever imagined at the time, anyway…
Graphics and Sound:
Giving the Major Metallitron pallet swap a new haircut.
The graphics are good 16-bit sprites for the core game and very detailed, bigger sprites for the 1-on-1 mode. Overall very bright and colourful, I like it.
Sound is likewise good, fun sound effects, voice clips during combat and a perfectly fine if not generic soundtrack.
Story:
I think you might be off on that assessment, Roshi…
The story covers from the very start of the series up to the defeat of Demon King Piccolo, in other words everything before Goku got aged up (and therefore everything I’ve already covered on the site so far!) though given this is an action heavy game a lot was cut out, like both times Goku turned into an Oozaru, or having Goku only fight Akkuman and his Grandpa during the Fortuneteller Baba story arc. I think the biggest things that stood out to me though is removing Chi Chi and Android 8 from the story altogether, and having Goku win the two World Tournaments covered here rather than lose. I guess the latter is because “nobody likes to lose”, but I mean winning the match in-game and then getting a cutscene telling you what actually happened has worked for most game adaptations in the past…
Thoughts Then:
There’s even air battles in the one-on-one mode!
I was looking forward to Advanced Adventure as I’d only just finished watching the original Dragon Ball series the year before so I was excited to see the part of the story that never normally gets any love, what I didn’t expect though was that the game would be so good! Tight controls with a real feeling of impact, lots of modes, gameplay variety and plenty of stuff to unlock. For a good while it was all my GBA was doing, and as I said previously I was genuinely sad when I realised there wasn’t really anything left to do on it.
Thoughts Now:
Goku takes on Ninja Murasaki in a fight comparatively free of gags compared to the manga / anime…
I’m happy to report that the game still holds up. Admittedly for this review I quickly powered through most of the story mode but each of the gameplay styles were still fun, especially the main action platform one. Okay, playing it now without the excitement of the time I can see some levels are quite dull to look at, and it does get repetitive in long stretches (after all, it’s a handheld game so that really wasn’t the intention) but it’s honestly still a good time, and although I didn’t have the time to recomplete the whole thing, let alone get to the playing as weird obscure henchmen part, I’ll happily come back to the game down the line to finish it off for a second time, not because of this blog but just because it’s still a genuinely fun time.
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