Worthy of the name "Dragon Ball"
User Rating: 7.5 | Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure GBA
Long before the power of the mighty Super Saiyans, before the threats of the monstrous Cell and Majin Buu, there was a youth who's strength knew no bounds. This child weilded a magical staff that could extend on command, traveled on a cloud, and was highly gifted in the martial arts. The youth's name was Goku and he would go on to become the most powerful warrior on the planet Earth. Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure, unlike most games with the Dragon Ball name, uses the source material from the serie's origins, which makes for a solid 2D action/platforming game on the GBA. You won't be playing as an adult Goku in this game. There is no Vegeta. Goku doesn't even know he's a alien of the Saiyan race and it isn't even brought up here. Instead, you play as a 12 year old, monkey-tailed boy who has many adventures collecting the Dragon Balls and saving the world. DBAA starts the story from the beginnig of the Dragon Ball series and ends at the defeat of Demon King Piccolo. The tales that occurred in the original Dragon Ball anime/manga are perfect for the style of gameplay that is presented in DBAA. There are are four types of levels in the game. You've got the action/platforming stages. In these levels Goku uses melee attacks and his Power Pole to dispose of enemies. Goku can unleash special attacks that consume his level gauge at the bottom of the screen. However, the only things that take energy away from the level gauge is Goku's Whirling Power Pole and his Wild Dance of Afterimages techniques. The Whirling Power Pole attack is great when surrounded by enemies (which happens pretty often) but the Wild Dance of Afterimages is better suited for a single enemy. Goku is free to use as many Kamehamehas as he likes except in one-on-one fighting (more on that in a bit). This tends to make taking down some enemies a bit too easy, though. Then again, the Kamehameha doesn't start out being the planet-destroyer most fans recognize it as. In fact, just as it was when Goku first learned this move, it starts out as a rather weak fireball only suited for close range combat. Collect super warrior's water to add extra blocks to the level guage and the Kamehameha becomes a deadly weapon. Auto-scrolling levels play a lot like the action/platforming segments except Goku is riding his flying Nimbus cloud. You can perform all of the attacks Goku would do as if he were on the ground and you can jump off the Nimbus without fear of dying. The Nimbus will always catch you. One-on-one fighting is mainly used when you enter the World Tournament parts of the game and the ocassional boss fight. Here you'll compete against Jackie Chun, Tien, and King Piccolo to name a few. The fighting portions of the game really aren't as engaging as the action/platforming/auto-scroll levels because more often than not, beating your opponent all boils down to mashing the buttons. It isn't terribly dull as it does have a bit of the Dragon Ball feel to it (knocking your opponent in the air and then slamming him down to the ground), but it really isn't all that exciting either. There's even a separate mode for one-on-one bouts and you can use different characters like King Piccolo and Mercenary Tao, but it really isn't going to hold your attention for long.
Finally, there's the mini-game segments. One involves rock crushing and the other has you catching Korin a set number of times. Like one-on-one fighting the mini-games aren't all that captivating but they do give the game some variety even if they are only a small diversion.
DBAA is a came you can probably beat within a few hours, but there is some replay value. You can collect all the Dragon Balls and artifacts to unlock hidden modes. Beating the game once unlocks the option to play as Krillin. The difference between Goku and his best friend are not merely sprite-based. Krillin plays a great deal different from his money-tailed buddy with double jumps, and the Solar Flare technique. It would have been nice if Krillin were given his own story, but we should just be thankful that he's playable in the adventure portion of the game. Despite the fact that DBAA has been out in Japan for more than two years now, the game's audio-visual package still holds up quite well. Goku's punch, kick and Kamehameha sprite animations look spectacular. Mountains in the background are the exact same ones used in the anime series. Sure, the music may not be anything particularly memorable, but it isn't bad by any means and has a lighthearted feel to it, replicating that of the anime.
Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure is a game that has an old-school feel to it. The action/platform and auto-scroll levels are the game's strengths. Boss fights pretty much involve exploiting the bad guy's patterns, but that doesn't make the game any less fun. You don't even have to be a fan of the source material to enjoy it either. If you like 2D action/platforming games, make this one a part of your collection. This one is indeed worthy of the name "Dragon Ball".
