The popular Dragon Ball anime series sees its return to the Nintendo Wii with Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo. The famous Goku is on a quest to recover his Grandfather’s Dragon Ball keepsake. While the task might seem like a challenge for some, for others, this battle might be a bit too easy and repetitive to offer any sort of long-term enjoyment.
Gameplay
Revenge of King Piccolo’s story has Goku trekking through various locations in his quest to find his Grandfather’s missing Dragon Ball. Unbeknownst to him, the Red Ribbon Army has been also searching the world in the hopes of collecting all seven Dragon Balls and using the orbs for their World domination plans. As such, you will control Goku and battle various foes as you hunt for the orbs.
The side-scrolling action takes place on a 2.5D plane with 3D backgrounds. In typical ‘Final Fight’ fashion, you will trek through an area and get ambushed by various enemies. Combat here is extremely simple with almost no real challenge. You attack using the A button on the Wii-Remote, jump with the B, while using the C button on the Nunchuk to dodge or when standing still, as a shield.
For the most part, your generic enemies are extremely easy and don’t take too much effort to take down. As you progress through the story, different enemies will appear but these are still not too much of a challenge for Goku. Battles can be made even easier when you use Goku’s special ability ‘Kamehameha’ which shoots a blast of energy, causing significant damage to any nearby foes.
The only real challenge comes in the long boss battles that end every stage. This is the only point in the game where there will be any sort of real strategy needed to advance. Unfortunately though, once you figure out what trick is needed to defeat the foe, the battle turns into you simply using your shield when the foe attacks then returning fire with your ‘Kamehameha’ attack that you’ve stored from the earlier part of the stage.
Because of this ease, its pretty easy to trek through the story in a very short amount of time. It seems because of this that the game is not geared towards long-time fans of the anime; rather, it is more a way of attracting younger gamers who are unfamiliar with the series.
The other part of Revenge of King Piccolo is the game’s Tournament mode; the fighting part of the game. Here you can battle against a friend or the computer with various Dragon Ball characters. This mode would be more enjoyable had the combat been a bit more varied. When facing the computer, the same measures as with the story mode occur. You will simply block while the computer attacks then counter with a series of attacks. There is no real long term enjoyment in this regard. At least when playing with friends you will have some added challenge, but it will only last for so long.
Graphics and Sound
The transition on to the Wii has been done really well. The 3D backgrounds are nicely done, although most areas do become repetitive as you trek through the various sub-stages. While there is some variety in the enemies you encounter they also suffer from pallet-swapping instead of new models to show their differences.
The game features some interesting cut-scenes featuring both full-animation clips and basic portrait moments. These run well and are identical to the anime. Most cut-scenes feature full dialogue and as a nice tough, there is the ability to play the game with the Japanese voice-overs. Those who prefer to play the game with the original dialogue will be pleased but the English Voice actors are still decent for those who would prefer to listen rather than read.
The game’s sound effects and music are decent and manage to help add to the atmosphere. There isn’t anything remarkable here but thankfully each stage has its own bit of flavour with no noticeable repetition.
Value
While the game’s story length is not very long, there is some incentive for those who like to unlock bonus content to go back for more. There are special collectibles littered throughout each level to find and you also collect coins to unlock extra features. The two player Tournament mode might not offer a lot of depth, but those who like the story will certainly enjoy going back in an attempt to find everything available.
Conclusion
For the millions of people that have already fallen in love with the Dragon Ball series, this might not be the perfect game to fill their fix. On the other hand, if you want to introduce a pre-teen to the series, this does the job admirably. It might not be too much of a challenge for most gamers, but it still will give them an idea on why the anime has been so popular for all these years.
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