There is no way Dragon Power could have been good. It's a collection of awful components that amounts to more awfulness than the (negative) sum of its repulsive parts. Bandai (strike one, amirite) created a Dragon Ball game in 1986 (i.e. before third parties were really making decent games), and then, for whatever reason, decided to bring it to the American market. The problem, of course, was that in the mid-'80s, nobody in the U.S. had any idea what the hell Dragon Ball was. We had yet to even enter the "$20 for two episodes on a VHS tape" phase of anime fandom, much less the "Dragon Ball on cable" phase. So Bandai did what must have seemed like the logical thing: they What was left was a licensed anime game with no license -- and, therefore, no reason to exist.
I'm going to discuss the "story" as I understood it in 1986 (insofar as it was possible to understand): Goku and Nora went searching for Crystalballs, I think because they felt like it. Nora immediately got kidnapped by ... something, and Goku had to fight bear-headed guys to get her back. They got help from a turtle and his friend, a hungry old homeless guy who just wanted a sandwich. Then they met Pudgy, who was hiding under an animate statue (and is also represented in-game as a head with two arms attached). That's ... as far as I ever got -- not that the game would have become any more coherent had I continued.
Nora: "OKAY, OKAY. LET'S GO ON A TRIP."
Goku: "HOW DO WE SEARCH?"
Nora: "USE THIS! DRAGON RADAR. NOW, LET'S GO."
I love how the idea of "going on a trip" immediately lets Goku know that the pair will be searching for something, which he never has to specify, and for which Nora already has the equipment -- a Dragon Radar, which kind of looks like a purple steak. Nora is then, of course, immediately kidnapped. She periodically pops up in the middle of gameplay to remind you that she's been captured. This pretty much sets the tone for the game.
Bandai's effort to de-Japanify the game backfired spectacularly. Dragon Power makes absolutely no sense in its current form. At least had it been a Dragon Ball game it would have had a chance of a story, even if it was a story from some unknown Japanese comic. As it is, the dialogue, locations, objectives, and even items (there's some kind of wobbling half-melon thing that, it turns out, is actually a turtle shell, and gives you one Wind Wave attack) are totally inscrutable most of the time.
The gameplay doesn't stand up in either version, of course. It's good to know that in this way Japan got almost as bad a game as we did. It's a 3/4 view action game with a lot of nonsensical secret passages -- from the Deadly Towers school of "how the hell did I end up here" design. It also shares with that game the "moving up means both moving north AND rising vertically" thing that makes jumping enemies basically impossible to avoid.
Much like most of the terrible games covered on VO, I admit a certain fondness for Dragon Power. I don't think it's nostalgia, but rather appreciation of the pure randomness of it. Something so haphazardly translated would never make it out the door these days. Trying to construct some kind of storyline out of the half-melons, legless pigmen, and sandwiches here is a lot more entertaining than just a Dragon Ball game.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-27-2008 @ 8:28PM
Joshua said...
Ahhh, this game brings back memories...from six or so years ago. Back in my DBZ heyday, before Infogrames/Atari had released any DBZ games in North America, there were only two available -- Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout, and this...thing. I never had a PlayStation, but I've always had an NES, so the choice was clear (And DBGT:FB was insanely expensive, anyway). So on to eBay I went...
For a little over $5 for a boxed copy (no manual, but at least it had the styrofoam insert!), I had a copy of Dragon Power on the way. And you know what? Because of the history of the game, both as the first Dragon Ball game and as whatever Bandai turned it into in North America, along with its sheer badness, I really enjoyed it in a weird kind of way, so thanks for bringing back those memories. :)
But alas, I sold back the game on eBay a year or so ago, when I thought I fried my NES. At least some other lucky (unfortunate?) kid might get a chance to play it now...
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3-27-2008 @ 8:49PM
Mountain lion link said...
I still have my copy at my parent's house someplace if someone wanted to purchase it. I think it still works as well. However I have not tested that theory since my NES died back around 94.
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3-28-2008 @ 12:56AM
wukong said...
Uh...Wow. I'm pretty speechless here.
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3-28-2008 @ 6:33AM
Pat said...
Yeah, the second game that Joshua mentioned was cool.
I remember playing that in 4th grade at my friend's house and our being confused as to why cell looked different in the game than he did on cartoon network. (the cell saga had literally just begun to have been aired)
We sure have come a long way sense then, haven't we?
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3-28-2008 @ 9:29AM
Mr Khan said...
Just makes you realize how long it took Dragonball to make it to America, which ironically was even longer than DBZ took
The original Dragon Ball itself felt like somewhat of a disjointed series, though, except into the Piccolo saga, so it isn't all that far out
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3-28-2008 @ 9:33AM
adolson said...
I remember finishing this game, and then it starts all over. Heh.
I also remember something very very strange about it... I was playing the game, and my uncle was messing around with a Power Glove, which was plugged into controller port 2. He was ripping it apart, and he touched some solder points on the board with a screwdriver and all of a sudden, the game just changed screens and I was fighting a big huge boss that does NOT appear in the course of the main game. It wouldn't die, despite me trying for probably two hours. I've looked through the Internet for a clue and nobody seems to know what I saw that day. Anyhow, my memory was that it was a big blob-like monster with some platforms on each side of the screen, and I think it was shooting things out at me. It just would not die, and we could not get back to the boss after resetting the game. But my memory is a little sketchy, as this was 12-14 years ago, I think.
Last year, I emailed my uncle and asked him if he remembered anything about it. Here is his reply - his memory of it is different than mine, slightly, but the main details are the same (big monster found by touching solder points on the Power Glove controller). Here is his full reply:
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Do I remember what happened on the day we released the Dragon Power Monster by mistake!
I can recall that day all too clearly...
Oh the horror, the horror.
Seriously though, yes. And here is everything that I can recall about the game and controller.
Powerglove, heavily modded without the glove.
I don't remember how much modifications were electronic, but I remember some.
About 75% of the mod was cosmetic.
The end result was something that looked like a D-shaped control pad.
I recall the corners having buttons put in them originally (looking sorta-like the SNES L & R buttons but 45 degrees & small)
I don't recall what I'd solder them to or from (possibly mapped from the fingers controls as they & glove were now gone.)
I can recall having some difficulties with that game & controller.
I think it was the first game since the mod, and I didn't care if I burned out the Dragon Power cartridge.
I'd opened the controller to diag., I'd thought it was one of the Green LEDs (3volt??) I'd added, draining too much power, or that speaker I'd added (it was on the bottom, the flat disc shaped ones that are in cheap low-power electronics to this day).
The multi-meter wasn't giving me fine enough readings, anyways at some point I'd made contact with two terminals off the main controller chip and the screen showed some funky stuff.
One of us slapped the rubber B/A- buttons pad across and played a level or 2 with those skewed graphics.
After awhile (both of us bored & curious what else it'll show) I ran something (sewing needle, multimeter needle, ??) across the legs of the main chip again. I can recall many screens that were graphically skewed, and others that are just gray static.
We'd seen a partial boss screen but it was frozen.
Mashing buttons and running the needle (or two..) across the chip and circuits for a bit till we saw a boss screen we'd never seen before.
A large japanese-anime boss centered in the screen. There was some blocks midway on the left and right side of the screen.
Our character "Goku?" could even move!!! And we ran when a fireball burped out of the boss, I think the fireballs would slightly follow Goku. Anyways, hopping up on a block would let you escape if you started running from center screen.
We hit the boss thousands of times, but it didn't get affected at all.
We played that "hidden level" for several hours, as we could use the pause too.
The next morning we still tried to defeat the secret boss, then deciding that we must have missed something and because the boss is invinceable, the NES was rebooted. We'd searched many levels for some secret hints, secret doors, anything, but the secret dragonball boss wasn't to be found in the game normally.
Using something like ZSNES to point to the right entry point in the carts. code/memory location, the secret boss could be found again.
Hey have a look (sorry no secret gigametaboss) but it's that game & info about the US/Japan translations. ;-)
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/423/
And don't forget another classic "Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu". :-D
http://www.classicgaming.com/rotw/masterchu.shtml
Just joking about MC&DU!
Jay
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If ANYONE has any freaking idea what I'm talking about, has a screenshot, whatever, PLEASE let me know! This boss thing has haunted me for years. Haha.
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3-28-2008 @ 11:24AM
John Rios said...
That sounds actually really facinating! Looove secret game stuff like this. Someone get on the case!
4-04-2008 @ 9:29AM
Joshua said...
I know what that feeling is like...Wondering if something like that was real or not. It can make you feel crazy. ><
If you really want to find out what that was, though, I suggest you find someone good at ROM hacking, and have them give the game a go. Maybe they'll find something...
3-28-2008 @ 10:50AM
blerg said...
that was a pretty horrible review.. dragon power was an awesome game
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3-29-2008 @ 1:28PM
Mountain lion link said...
You forget, 98% of the reviews here contain personal opinion over the subject. SOMETHING that a real professional would not included in an article.
3-29-2008 @ 4:29PM
Alisha Karabinus said...
I'm sorry, wait -- are you saying that reviews don't typically contain opinions?
3-29-2008 @ 6:41PM
Mountain lion link said...
Reply to Alisha Karabinus:
No, anything written will have some form of personal opinion contained. However the trend I've noticed is that JC and David like to place a lot more of their personal opinion's into writing game reviews then necessary. While this is something that other reviewers do as well, David and JC tend to focus more on the negative areas then good.
While I do agree that Dragon Power was a luck laster early attempt at importing Japan to America games. The article automatically makes the reader assume that this game is bad from the negative contents that JC uses to display his opinion straight from the beginning. He should have just had a basic paragraph that explained the game overall as an opener, then later commented about the various items that were wrong with the game. Since once I read the original opening I quickly stopped caring about the article. Since the game's overall view was displayed to me in JC's negative view.
I'm not an English language/grammar professor, nor do I care to become one, I like history more. Still different flows of writing separate online bloggers from actual paid journalist.
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3-30-2008 @ 3:59PM
Alisha Karabinus said...
Nowhere is it written that bloggers are attempting to be journalists -- the forms of media and presentation are completely different. Blogs are not about objectivity and straight news (but then again, neither is modern journalism, but that's a different story), but about a group of people, often enthusiasts, writing about a subject they care about... and that very fact is what sets it apart from traditional journalism. This is hardly a language or grammar issue, either (nor is it an issue of pay). I would actually be much more inclined to say that is is simply an historical trend one can trace through the popularization of internet sites like blogs.
If their approach to certain particular subjects does not appeal to you personally, well, hey! That happens! But that's a different matter altogether.
Virtually Overlooked is not really about reviewing games, either. It's a column that takes a look at a particular game each week and presents one (or several) reasons it is not yet on the Virtual Console. If it were, JC might have started with the opening paragraph you suggested. However, the entire thesis of this piece is that, in JC's opinion, Dragon Power was not exactly the best of games -- which is why the rest of the column attempts to support that. Looking for anything else is, frankly, looking for a different story. This is not that story. This is JC saying "hey, I bet Dragon Power won't be on the VC because it doesn't really stand up to several measurements of a quality game." Never does this piece attempt to do anything else. It is not a review of a classic game. And if you disagree with his assessment of the title and its fitness (or lack thereof) for the VC, then awesome! That's what the comments are for -- a dialogue about the piece, and we all chat, and all is yay.