Better than Legacy of Goku, worse than Legend of the Super Saiyan.
The battle system is somewhat hard to explain. It's best described as a strategy card game, but instead of one monster killing another (as in most card games), the card you pick determines the action of your character. For example, when you choose the Kamehameha card the character you're fighting with will perform a Kamehameha attack. You can't just perform Kamehameha every turn; your every card costs (or gains) you CC. Your CC charges somewhat every turn, but so does the opponents'. In other words, you have to outsmart your opponent instead of just overpowering him. This brings up the problem of difficulty. When your opponent has higher base stats than you have, fights can become incredibly difficult. The AI is absolutely no pushover in this game; you need a lot of perseverance to beat it the first time around. Second time around it becomes easier since your characters have levelled up a bit (to a maximum level of 5).
Officially this game is called an RPG, but I'd rather call it a tactical fighting game. What's the element all RPGs (no, not the rocket launchers) have in common? The option to freely move around from place to place. In this game, that is not possible. Chapters are firm, you move from chapter to chapter, from fight to fight. You have no freedom to wander around the planet. There is no planet.
Anyway, more on the battle system. The game contains 125 different cards and your deck consists of 20 cards. After each fight you are awarded a new card. So while you play through the game, your deck increases in strength. You also unlock some new characters to fight with while you progress through the game, though the bunch of them doesn't become available till your second or even third play through. Between fights there's a lot of dialogue (with scenes taken from the series to support it) that connects the chapters, and it all follows the story of the anime series.
Battles itself are 2D and take place against backgrounds that are in line with the story: earth, (exploding) Namek etcetera. The backgrounds are somewhat poorly drawn and get recycled all the time. The characters look mostly like small dots floating in empty sky. Also, all characters are exactly the same size. Frieza is equally as big (or rather, equally as small) as kid Gohan. This gives the game a little cartoony feel, which I don't think was Atari's intention. But considering the game's on GBC, the graphics are not all that bad.
So, what else? There's a multiplayer mode; nothing special. And we've got a battle mode: battle a random enemy with any character you've unlocked. Multiplayer mode unlocks once you reach chapter 11 and battle mode does not unlock until you finish the game. Major drawback: many people get stuck well before finishing the game or even before chapter 11. Why not make multiplayer mode available from the start? Does it really have to be an unlockable? Well yeah, unlockables make games more attractive and will keep people playing the game, but this is a little over the top. But I digress…
Music, ah. One word: annoying. Throughout 80% of the game you will hear one single piece of music, and it's bad. Real bad. It's some kind of synthesizer-track made up of high bleeps and peeps, it pains your ears. Music: off. The sound effects are decent, some kicks, punches and energy charging here and there. But I never hear those sounds anyway since I've got the music switched off.
So, my final advice. If you like DBZ, then you have to own this game. Yes, I know I said the graphics are bad and the music sucks, but the game still has some veil of mystical attractiveness over it. I guess it's the gameplay and the unlockables, combined with the drive to finish every game I own, that kept me going. Once I picked it up I couldn't help finishing it, even though it took me lots of retries (and frustration) to get there. Oddly enough, Legend of the Super Saiyan is one of the better DBZ games out there.
~ Originally written and posted on GameFAQs: 01/13/04.
~ Edited: 08/23/08.