It was pretty funny when Capcom decided to prank all American player by making the Normal difficulty of Devil May Cry 3 the equivalent of Hard from the Japanese release, but trust me, they got nothing on Bandai. Y'see, once Dragon Ball Z caught wind outside Japan it was time to bring the games, so what did they do? They localized the two horrid, terrible, awful nigh unplayable games but left the best one, the good one, behind. Good one, Bandai.
It's hard to place Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu under a genre, but let's call it a fighting game. A 3-on-3 open-arena fighting game of sorts. You get a Story Mode, that covers the entire Dragon Ball story from the Saiyan Saga to the Buu Saga in 8 brief chapters, a VS CPU and VS Player mode and an unlockable Special Battle mode, which tasks you with defeating specific teams while using specific characters. It's a nice selection of modes and characters, although Tien and Yamucha are mysteriously missing, most relevant characters are here. In this game you, and up to two other CPU allies, do battle against 3 other opponents(Who can be helmed by another player too) on big open-ended, but simple looking, arenas while moving on a 2-D plane.
So how do you play this game? Pretty simple, you hold Up on the dpad to go towards you opponent and you hold Down to retreat. It sounds weird, but trust me, it works beautifully. Circle is used to produce simple punches, but using direction(Up, Down, Left, Right) will produce different power-launchers that can be chain together(Unless your opponent counterattacks), as well as combos(Double tapping towards your opponent) or circular assaults by doing half-circle motions. The Square button produces weak ki blasts and Triangle is used to charge Ki or dash. And you need to charge Ki since everything consumes Ki, punching and shooting, and if you run out you'll be defenseless for a few valuable seconds. Lastly R1 and R2 is used to switch between your characters and L1 and L2 to switch which enemy you want to target.
Landing hits doesn't actually do damage but instead pushes the 'Power Balance' gauge towards your advantage. Fill the gauge with your color(Blue or Red) and your character will perform a super move that will actually do damage. Do this 3-4 times to defeat a single character. It sounds weird, but it's pretty fun. It also means that battles can take a while since a 'round' can last a long, long while you push-and-pull the power balance, and then you have to do this quite a few times to finally kill of an opponent for good. As for the characters, all characters are basically the same, save for their super attacks and even then the difference is negligible, a few might need 3 supers to take down an enemy and others 4, not much difference, now is it?
All things considered, the game should not be considered a 'competitive fighting game', sure, there's fighting, but 1 on 1 duels are pretty lame and lack strategy, you just try to get in the first hit and perform combos, while the victim tries to counter-attack when the power-launchers come. And when battles have more than two combatants, well, the CPU takes control of every other character, so any skill goes out the window and luck factors in. It's a fun fighting game, but it can't and shouldn't be taken seriously.
Dragon Ball Z - Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu is a game that managed to capture Dragon Ball Z's action perfectly while remaining constricted to the limitations of the Playstation 1. Not only is it a fantastic Dragon Ball Z game, it's a great game period, and one that's pretty unique in what it does, there's no other game quite like it, and what it does, it does with aplomb.
8.0 out of 10
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