Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku
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 This is basically how not to make a Dragon Ball Z RPG game.
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Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku is an action/adventure RPG based on Dragon Ball Z. The game was developed by Webfoot Technologies, the first American company to make a Dragon Ball Z video game for the Game Boy Advance.
Gameplay
The game is an action-adventure title with RPG elements. The player controls Goku and experiences various portions of the Saiyan and Namekian sagas. Combat is the main focus of the game. The player can hit the A button to use physical strikes, while the B button allows the player to unleash a variety of energy based attacks. Energy attacks drain an energy meter that recharges when it is not in use. Energy attacks can be cycled through with the L button, and more energy attacks are learned as the player progresses through the game. By defeating enemies, the player receives experience points, which allow the player character to level up and grow stronger.
Plot
The game follow the beginning of the Dragon Ball Z series with the Saiyan arc and end on the Frieza arc, the later arcs of the series would later be covered in the sequels of this game.
Bad Qualities That Had No Energy
- The title is somewhat misleading, as you may think that this game had an original story as it's had The Legacy of Goku in the title, but instead it's just adapting the Dragon Ball Z anime to the end of the Frieza arc.
- The main problem of this game is the combat, which is absolutely awful, as the punches that you can give are way too short of distance, and the kamehameha doesn't help that much due to the awful hit detection (see WIHNE #5).
- This is especially a problem with the boss fights, as due to how awful the combat in this game is, you will have trouble beating the bosses as they are much stronger than you due to this, and as a result, they have fake difficulty.
- Also, just like Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo (another awful game that is even worse than this game), the awful combat makes the game hard for absolutely no reason and has fake difficulty, kind of like the NES game as said before.
- The Kamehameha is the absolute worst part of the combat as it is horribly weak compared to it's sequel and especially compared to the anime, and the enemies, even at the very beginning of the game, take a huge amount of Kamehameha just to be killed. This is especially a problem with the dogs and the enemies that are faster than you.
- Not to mention that due to how bad it is, it's making you underpowered, and the enemies are very hard to kill due to that, which would force you to do a ton of grinding. Speaking of that,.
- You will need to do a ton of grinding just for the game to be easier due to how awful the combat in this game is. It'll also take hours to level up due to how much time it takes to kill a lot of enemies.
- Even the kamehameha will not help you that much to do this faster, as it is horridly weak in this game compared to the anime, although thankfully you get an upgrade for it later in the game.
- Not to mention that the grinding in this game is so bad that it might be even longer to do than just beat the game, thanks to how awful the combat is that doesn't help you for grinding, and also how awful the grinding of this game is.
- Grinding in this game is also very difficult due to how bad the combat is, as some of the enemies take a ridiculous amount of hits before dying, such as some of the dogs in the beginning of the game.
- The hit detection is extremely bad in this game, and it's pretty much the reason why this game is this bad and the combat is this abysmal, as sometimes even if you can see that you clearly touched the enemy that you hit, it won't even be hit due to how bad it is. Even Dragon Ball GT: Transformation (which is a decent game unlike this one) doesn't have as much of a problem with hit detection like in this game, despite the fact that the hit detection in this game wasn't really the best and the fact that it came in 2005, not to mention that the game was also made by the same developers of this game.
- This is also the reason why some of the weakest enemies in this game, such as the dogs or squirrels, can kill you really easily, and it's getting worse with the fact that you are extremely slow in this game to the point that it doesn't even feel like you're playing as Goku, but with a character that got Goku sprite placed on it at the last second, the awful hit detection also makes the game doesn't even feel like Dragon Ball Z and the same for the speed that Goku walks at, speaking of that...
- The gameplay is extremely slow, boring, and doesn't feel like a Dragon Ball Z game at all, as Goku walks in a horribly sluggish way in this game. This also makes the game ridiculously difficult for absolutely no reason, as most of the enemies or even the bosses walk faster than you, at least in Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo. You walk slowly but a bit faster, and the enemies walk at almost the same speed as you do, but this game is so unbalanced that it doesn't even know how to balance the speed of both your character and the enemies; fortunately, this problem was fixed in the game sequel.
- For an action-RPG game, this game is extremely short, as it's take 2 or even 1h30m to beat this game, which is way too short for a RPG game. Fortunately, the sequels would be much longer than this game.
- The difficulty is horribly unbalanced, as most, if not all, of the enemies are stronger than you and can kill you extremely easily, especially at the beginning of the game, making the beginning of this game absolutely abysmal, not fun, and horribly hard, not to mention that it's mostly fake difficulties to the point that it's making the even worse Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo look like an easy game that you beat the game in the first time that you will play the game, and no, this is not a joke.
- It's getting even worse than it already is with the awful boss fights that are extremely hard due to that for most of them, such as Vegeta. This is mostly due to how terrible the hit detection of this game is, especially with the punches that are hard to give to a boss or an ennemy without being hit, thank to how bad the hit-detection is, the difficulty would get even worse with the end of the game.
- There are no continues with this game, which means that if you die, you have to restart an entire level or mission again at the beginning. This would also force you to save your game constantly, but that doesn't help much as you will still restart the entire mission again at the beginning instead of where you left off in the game.
- The controls, while not the worst in a Dragon Ball game, are pretty poor as they are very stiff and clunky due to the fact that you can't even move in eight directions in an RPG game! Although, fortunately, the sequels fixed this problem and made the controls more tight in comparison.
- Not to mention that it's contributed to the awful difficulty spike of this game, as you can't move in eight directions and the enemies are faster than you, making the enemies horribly hard to escape due to that and also the sluggish speed of the game.
- The game skips a lot of episodes from Dragon Ball Z, and that also makes some plot holes in this game. If you want to cover an entire anime series in a game faithfully, what's the point of skipping most of the Dragon Ball Z episodes? This would also prove that this game might be rushed in comparison to its sequels.
- This is also pretty much the reason of why this game is so short, as there is way too much episodes of Dragon Ball Z that is cut out this game and the levels and missions end in an abrupt way, you know that they screwed up when the game only last 2 hours for a RPG game.
- While they are good, the graphics might be subpar at times, such as the compressed images of the anime or the absolutely pixelated cutscenes of this game, although the latter is very impressive; see RQ #4.
- The boss fights are downright awful and are extremely long at times or very hard due to how sluggish Goku moves in this game, as they either took too much time before they were beaten, such as Radditz, or some of them were supposed to be epic battles but were way too easy, such as Frieza.
- This would make you know that most of the battles that are supposed to be epic are not even epic and intense in this game, and it's also true that the boss fights in this game are an absolute disgrace to the battles in the anime and even the manga itself.
- There are not any invincibility frames in this game, which means that you can die very quickly due to this.
- You can fly, but the problem is that it doesn't last too much and lasts only 2 seconds at the beginning of the game. Sure, it'll improve when you progress in the game, but still, it won't last too long.
- Despite being based on the Dragon Ball Z anime, the story is still awful since it contains many plot holes and a lot of episodes we're cut out of the story of this game, thanks to how rushed this game seems to be.
Good Qualities
- The sequels, which are Legacy of Goku 2 and Buu Fury are a massive improvement over this game as they have better combat, better controls, a longer story, more balanced difficulty, and the graphics are even better. This is especially true with The Legacy of Goku 2.
- They would also get along with this game, which gained a cult following over the years, especially Buu Fury, in which these games are considered to be some of the best Dragon Ball Z games ever made.
- The graphics, despite being subpar at times, are good, and the sprites of the characters are cute, although it feels out of place for a serious series like Dragon Ball Z to have cute sprites for the characters.
- The soundtrack is really good and has many catchy songs that are nostalgic if you listened to them back then, and this might also make you keep playing the game after hearing them. The soundtrack would be even better in the sequels of the game.
- For example, the Around the World theme in this game is really good to listen to, as it is somewhat relaxing and is also very catchy. That is also one of the best tracks of the game, and you might even want to dance when listening to this music.
- While they are horribly pixelated, the animated cutscenes are very impressive for a Game Boy Advance game released as soon as 2002 and are very faithful to the series.
- Despite some major plot holes due to some of the episodes not being covered in this game, the game is still pretty faithful to the series, especially for a Game Boy Advance game.
- To be fair, this game had the potential to be decent, but the potential was wasted due to how awful the combat and other awful mechanics of the game are.
- The box art is amazing and stylish, as usual with the Dragon Ball Z franchise.
Reception
Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku received mixed to negative reviews by critics, fans and eveb players alike, who praised the soundtrack and the graphics but critizised the story that have a lot of plot holes even by Dragon Ball standards, the awful combat that is the most panned aspects of the game,the extremely short lenght of the game and even the boss fights, the game had a score of 53/100.[1]
Today, the game mostly had along with it's two sequels got a cult following over the year with many peoples who either mock the game or defending it, it's would also got a fan made remake recently and some peoples even want a Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku 4 to happen, while it's was actually in developpement for the 3DS, Legacy of Goku 4 was cancelled.[2]
In fact, the game was so badly received that when the sequels we're released, they we're not as commercially successful as this game did, despite the second game being a success in sales. This game would sell 1.4 Million copies worldwide which make this game a commercial success.
Trivia
- If the player flies into a ki blast, the player will be invincible. No enemies will attack; however, they will still follow Goku. This is deactivated when the player flies again.
- This is the only game in the Legacy of Goku series to not feature any movie characters as boss characters. Cooler is an optional boss in The Legacy of Goku II, and Broly and Janemba are boss characters in Buu's Fury (Gogeta could also be used as a playable character through fusion).
- This is the only game in the Legacy of Goku series that has actual cheat codes such as an invincibility code. The code of invincibility can be used by pressing up, down, left, right, B, A.
- Despite the game taking place during the Saiyan Saga and Namek Saga, Yamcha's sprite depicts him with his short hair from the Androids Saga. Yamcha's talking portrait correctly features his long hair from the Saiyan Saga. Also, Chi Chi's sprite and portrait feature her appearance from the Buu Saga.
- The game features an original soundtrack by Ariel Gross. The next two games in the Legacy of Goku series would instead use music by Funimation dub composer Bruce Faulconer, which makes it the only game in The Legacy of Goku series to not feature Bruce Faulconer's background music.
- This is also the only game in The Legacy of Goku series where Gohan or Vegeta are not playable characters.
- Guldo is the only member of the Ginyu Force who did not appear in this game.
- This is the first game to not be released in Japan after Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout.
- The soundbite used for Goku's fully charged Kamehameha is taken from the Funimation dub of Dragon Ball Z episode "Embodiment of Fire" when Goku blasts Frieza with the Kaio-ken Kamehameha.
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