Dragon Ball Z The Legacy of Goku II Review
Setptember 12, 2024
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s there was a huge demand for a game based on Dragon Ball Z in North America. The series had taken it's time getting to western shores and as a result we missed out on all of the NES and SNES titles, only seeing a limited print run of Dragon Ball GT Final Bout which had become a rare collectors item by the time DBZ really hit it's stride on Cartoon Network. While new games would eventually see development in Dragon Ball's home country of Japan, the demand for a new game led the NA publisher infogrames to pump out some titles. This brought us the sub-standard one two punch of Dragon Ball Z Collectable Card Game a forgettable conversion of the card game and Dragon Ball Z The Legacy of Goku, a complete disaster of a game. Slow movement, wonky hit boxes and enemies that will decimate you in 3 or 4 hits in a game that skipped huge chunks of the Saiyan and Freeza sagas. However the game sold well enough to garner a sequel, one that would fix nearly every issue and create a memorable experience that would be remembered among fans.
Legacy of Goku II shows off it's improvements from the get-go, the original game had a extremely bit crushed video of the opening theme with different music but II gives us impressively clear animations from the show to a rendition of Bruce Falconer's theme. In fact a lot of the music from the game is taken straight from the Falconer Production's American soundtrack and the original tracks do a good job matching the style of music. Unfortunately the only sound effects taken from the show are the Super Saiyan aura sound, likely do to the memory constraints of the GBA.
The game takes place during the Androids arc of the series, giving you control of Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, Trunks and Goku. It does a much better job of following the story than the previous game, making sure to hit all the major beats albeit taking some liberties. In between tracking down Androids or Cell you'll be saving a village from Triceratops, going on an exceedingly long fetch quest in West City and trying to get those damn dinosaur eggs down the mountain without getting hit once (easily the most frustrating moment in the game). It's kind of funny seeing these all powerful character struggle with tasks and enemies they should easily be able to topple but it's a compromise you have to make for the game experience.
You have a melee attack and several energy based attacks to choose from depending on the character. Combat is greatly improved from the previous game, the hit box is much more generous but if you just mash attack you're gonna end up dying a lot. Combat is all about spacing yourself, getting your hits in and keeping the enemies from beating on you. Aside from the basic ki blast, I never actually found much use for the energy attacks and once transformations are unlocked I don't even bother with them as the melee buff is much more useful.
Webfoot's rendition of the Dragon World has these small bits of charm to them, they drew entire rooms littered with little details that you only ever need to go into once. The map design is just fine, it gets the job done and you have some stat boosters and golden capsules to look out for.
Legacy of Goku II is a massive improvement over the original game but you can tell the developers were under a deadline in certain areas. Some of the game is padded out with necessary leveling, a lot of the character portraits look off and the final confrontation between Future Trunks and the Androids is shown in a cut scene due to not having a map for the ruined future. The developer's passion shines through making the game a fun and memorable action RPG that doesn't overstay it's welcome.
