Game #1298: Dragon Ball Z - The Legacy of Goku

 Not all legacies are worth keeping.

 I was browsing through GameFaqs forums and I came across some people saying that Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku hasn't aged well but was good for its time. I want a hit of whatever they are smoking, 'cause let me tell you, I played this game the day it released, and even though I was younger, and even though I like Quest 64, I could tell that it was garbage.

 The Legacy of Goku is an isometical Adventure-dash-RPG in which you play as Goku throughout Z's first two Sagas, the Saiyan Saga and the Namek Saga. While many people think that Goku is Dragon Ball protagonist, they are wrong, as Gohan became the main character pretty much after Raditz, and proof of this is that, since this game is set on Goku's point of view, and only his since in this first game only Goku was playable, is very short. And they even added filler into the adventure, like Goku falling from the snake road, which never happened in the manga, and Goku... helping the Namekians and going into their temple...? Yeah, they had to add filler. And it gets ridiculous, because Nappa and Vegeta get pretty much no introduction since Goku arrives to kick their butts, and we never see what happens when Goku isn't there. Same goes for the Ginyu Force and Frieza, you just arrive there as Goku. And, y'know, in a way, it's interesting seeing just how much information you'd miss out if the series was seen exclusively through Goku's eyes, but it also makes for a horrible adaptation of the story that could only work if you are familiar with the source material.

 At the start of the game, Goku can only walk, very slowly, shoot ki blasts and punch with the world's shortest punch. You can also fly for 9 seconds, and can only restore these 'fly points' by finding feather icons. And so, at first, you'll be training to fight Raditz by fighting, um... snakes and squirrels. No, really. Eventually, if you are feeling ballsy, you might try your luck with wolves or Dinosaurs, but be careful, as Goku gets creamed in seconds. This means that combat becomes a tedious game of kiting your enemies with projectiles. No, really, Namek becomes ridiculously hard if you mean to clean house with your punches, instead, you have to move around and Kamehameha your enemies to death. It's boring. And bosses, oh boy, the bosses, the hitboxes are all outta whack. That said, the strategy for dealing with bosses is charging a Solar flare for about half your energy bar, then punch them until they wake up, rinse and repeat. That's it.

 And even though it's a hour long game that feels like a 3 hours slog, and even though the combat is horrible... that's not to mention how vague sometimes the game is. Before you can face off against Raditz you are supposed to finish every sidequest in the city. Your only hint? An old man, that you may miss, tells you "come back to me once the forest has calmed down" or something like that. What the hell? But sure, y'know, I'm a completionist, so that wasn't an issue... until Namek. A guy tells you to find 3 tree saplings. I did. But he'd claim that there were more to find, what he actually meant, was that I had to interact with the holes around him to plant them. And the hitbox is super spotty, so it's easy to think that they are just decoration since nothing happens. You have to be standing on just the right spot. Ridiculous.

 But, whatever, neither of those compare to the Green Artifact. The game's third, and final, zone is Namek. Before entering the temple, unless you want to go through the maze again, you are told about three artifacts. Hopefully you decide to explore the surrounding area, since there you'll find two of them. But the NPC said three, so what gives? Out of ideas, I enter the maze, maybe it's there.  In each room you get various transporters, and if you take the wrong teleporter you'll be sent back to the area's entrance. So, somehow, you make it to the end... only to discover that you are still missing one.... well, tough luck, back to the start. You are supposed to realize that the hands are pointing towards walls that you can go through, and behind one of these is the green artifact. Lame.

 You know, there's actually a happy ending to this story. As terrible as The Legacy of Goku was, somehow, Infogrames gave WebFoot another chance. A chance they didn't deserve, but one they took and ran with it. While I never played Legacy of Goku 2, not more than a few minutes anyways, it garnered a very positive reception, and I did play Legacy of Goku 3/Buu's Fury to completion, and that one is, believe it or not, great, and it plays very similarly to this one, albeit much better in every single way.

 2.0