3/5 ★ – KHFanXIII's review of Dragon Ball Z: Super Gokuden: Totsugeki-Hen.

Dragon Ball Z: Super Gokuden: Totsugeki-Hen (what a mouthful), is a slight misnomer as this really only covers the original Dragon Ball portion of the story prior to Z. This game stretches from the beginning of the story up to the point where Goku defeats Demon King Piccolo. Where to start? Firstly, there aren't very many games covering the original series, and this is one of the few to do it all in one game. I will say that this game is a very faithful, accurate recreation of the story, almost to a fault. The story of this game is presented through dialogue boxes and still character portraits, and honestly, that is the vast majority of the game. Most of your time will be spent just reading dialogue and it can be a bit grating sometimes. I will say they do some neat things with the character portraits that I personally haven't seen in other games, so during the times they decide to spice it up, it is amusing. There are a few times in the game where you will be offered a dialogue option. Most of these have no outcome on the story whatsoever, and it doesn't really matter what you choose, as the story still progresses the same way. There is a subset of these, however, which are somewhat different. There will be times when you are presented with a choice of which direction to go while in the game, and these do affect the game in the sense that you can go the wrong way, however, you will need to proceed to the correct path in order to progress. The major problem with these is that they will sometimes throw you into a "maze." I'm hesitant to use that term as it's not quite like a maze nowadays. The mazes in this game really reminded me of very early PC games that would ask you which direction you would like to proceed (in this game usually one of the cardinal directions: North, South, East, or West). Due to this system, and there being no real defining visuals (with some of them just kind of showing a generic overworld section with no moving character sprite or anything), it can make it quite hard to get a grasp on where you are. It might be worth it to actually draw out some sort of map yourself in order to help wrap your head around some of these. Some of these I had no problem with, whether that be to luck or not, I have no clue. However, 2-3 of them gave me some major problems, especially the one you encounter while searching for the rock while training with Krillin. I had so much trouble with that one. There are also a few segments in the game where it will take a different sort of view. A couple of these are for walking around a small area and using the Dragon Radar to find a Dragon Ball around you. The Dragon Radar system, while simple, was neat and did make me feel like I was actually using it how it was presented in the show. However, the controls for the section weren't the greatest. It's presented in a side-on view and the controls are weird. It almost feels like Tank controls. Not quite sure how to describe it. Only 2-3 of these pop up in the game though, and they are very short, so not that big of an issue. The other alternative view that I got a kick out of was when Goku is climbing Korin's Tower. It moves the camera to behind Goku's back and you repeatedly tap 'A' and slowly climb the tower. Once again, super simple, but I thought it was very neat and a cool way to incorporate that aspect of the show into the game. Now that we've got all of that out of the way, let's talk combat. The way combat works in this game is that you and your opponent slowly move toward each other (outside of a few small exceptions). When one of you gets close enough to the other, that person will flash and then be able to perform an attack. To make it simple, you can't attack until you're close enough to start flashing. Attacks in this game come in three varieties: Punches, Kicks, and Special Techniques. Punches and Kicks are fairly self-explanatory, while your Special Techniques are attacks that fall outside of those two categories. They are usually more powerful, stronger attacks that cost more points from your Power meter. Another thing you can do is defend. Defending in this game works a lot like attacking except this time, you have to wait until your opponent flashes, and use a defensive move. The timing on this is pretty strict and not all defensive moves work for all attacks. Your Power meter is basically your Ki gauge if I were to use terminology from later in the series. It's a separate number displayed next to your health gauge. You can charge your power meter up at any time by holding down the shoulder buttons. The drawback to this is you do not move and can't attack or defend while charging. As you progress through the game you will unlock different Punches, Kicks, Special Techniques, and Defensive moves. The base Punch, Kick, and Defense moves do not cost any Power, but the ones you unlock most likely will. Luckily throughout the game your Health, Strength, and Power meter will automatically increase after completing certain fights (there is no EXP in this game and there's no way to grind; you'll just automatically receive stat upgrades after beating certain story fights.) Different types of attacks can be equipped in the pause menu. The A button is used for Special Attacks, B for Kicks, Y for Punches, and X for Defense. More than one attack can be executed (and equipped) by a particular button by pressing it simultaneously with a certain direction A+Up, A+Left, etc. The buttons MUST be pressed at the same time tho and, as I mentioned above, the timing can be strict. I personally found the timing of defense attacks to be particularly so. After I got the Ki Blast, I used that in conjunction with the Kamehameha wave to blaze through most of the game, only really having trouble with a few of the bosses (Tien and Piccolo for instance), with the Ki Blast stunning the enemy almost always and using that window of opportunity to charge of the Kamehameha wave (as it has a charge up time, but it's really powerful). The gameplay I found to be alright. Part of me wishes they went more full-on RPG and not this super linear railroad-style approach, but I didn't hate the game. My completion time clocked in at a total of 10 hours and 47 minutes, and it can definitely be done quicker than that (I spent a lot of time stuck in mazes), especially if you're skipping through the dialogue. It's pretty breezy tbh. All in all, I think this game is fine. Would I recommend Dragon Ball fans seek it out and play it? No, not unless you're extremely curious. You're really not missing out on much here. I'm assuming later games based on the original Dragon Ball improved in a lot of areas this game lacked in, so you're probably better off playing them. For what it is though, it is a neat little romp through the original adventure and I'll always appreciate it for that.