Virtuamehameha #6 - Dragon Ball Super: The No Star Dragon Ball

 Let's get one thing straight off the bat, this is where my journey ended with Dragon Ball as a whole. After starting with Dragon Ball Z on its first run through America back in 92, it has been a very long and arduous journey through years of changed studios, long waits for the series after cancellation, and rises to heights that will never be seen again. Dragon Ball had its hayday all the way through the late 90's to the mid 2000's. It had one of the highest numbers of websites on the internet and has become something of a staple of both Japanese and American culture. There is nary a soul that has not at least heard about this series or at least knows its primary character, Son Goku. 

After the extremely long hiatus after GT ended, Dragon Ball Super was a welcome continuation of the series as if GT did not exist. At first, with the release of Battle of the God's it really seemed like they were off on the right foot. There were some animation glitches, but it was still a charming movie. Then, however, the cracks began to show early, because it turned out that there was an even worse version of this movie, and it was coming out in the actual series. They would do so yet again with the new and "improved" Freeza Saga. 

This series decided it not only needed to borrow nearly everything from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, but it needed to redo or revamp every single one of its previous arcs. The Black Goku Saga was just a "continuation" of the Future Trunks story, which should have ended with Z. If it's not stealing from the previous series, it is doing a tournament. Every single time they come up with new and improved idiotic characters like Hit or Female Broly knockoff. They kept saying that Akira Toriyama, God rest him, signed off on all of these ideas, but the thought of bringing Broly back in any capacity didn't seem like something he'd do. Anytime he was asked anything about Broly, he outright stated that he did not create him, nor owns up to the character in any way. 

The series had gotten to the point where a new form had to be reached in order to defeat the big bad guy and Goku was as strong or as weak as the plot needed him to be. Dragon Ball Super had become all about spectacle with good moments and cool fight scenes. Sometimes, they would show character growth with Vegeta or Goku but it would quickly be washed away with yet another obnoxious new character. Powerlevels and statuses got so abstract and meant nothing, so the powerscale went out the window. Any idea that there could be a number to any of them is now officially absurd. Soon, it all became about how many levels of Super Saiyan could be reached and the idea that it was hard or at all straining to turn your hair bright yellow was laughable. A brand new saiyan character who had barely even begun to fight could just turn Super Saiyan without problems.

Then comes the first female Super Saiyan, which was, again, reached without consequence. This was a very large deal for the community, as the idea of a female SSJ turning up in the series was long awaited. Now that it's come to fruition, it happened... Yeah, it just happened, party popper. Dragon Ball fans' dreams came true over and over again as we saw fanservice come at no cost to the series as a whole. We would get answers and retcons out the wazoo as if it was discounted and sold in bulk. It got to the point where there was almost at least three or four callbacks to the original series per episode. From Captain Ginyu having a brief and meaningless cameo, to Yamcha performing his death pose on a baseball field, this series had no shame.

The worst part about all of it, was the filler episodes. I love Dr. Slump as much as the next guy who knows that it exists, but Arales's return to the series was dipped into one of these. Yes, this may be where she belongs in the series, but the return was as lackluster as the rest of the content that was being put into Dragon Ball Super. There are some good gags here and there, but it's ultimately forgettable. Everything was being done for the purpose of hype and climbing the ladder in power with more and more new forms coming in seemingly every arc. Their hair turned from red to blue with Black Goku going pink, finishing the entire spectrum of Power Ranger colors for all of the memers. 

Harkening back to the filler, it got so bad that there was an entire episode dedicated to King Kai finally asking Goku to wish him back with the Dragon Balls. This is a concept so old, it could drink, but they're just now bringing it up after King Kai has been dead since the Cell Games. The entire episode is Goku having all seven dragon balls and trying to make the wish, but then getting interrupted because other people want things. This was the episode that made me officially stop taking this series seriously. Goku is about to do something selfless and something he probably should have done ages ago, but Master Roshi needs to get off. You know, because he's a dirty old man who likes ladies. Get the joke? Me neither. They brush this off with Bulma calling someone and having everything immediately delivered because money. The episode ends with Goku having taken too long and the dragon disappearing because haha funny. Dragon Ball has never reached this type of low and now it is the bar that keeps lowering. 

It's become trendy to keep latching new continuations onto the series. Even the concept of revamping Gohan back into a fighter or turning Broly into a new anti-hero has become mundane and tapped out. The only good thing to come out of this whole thing is the cool merch and occasional awesome game, but the anime has become another cash-grab that takes the soul from the series. Toriyama-san deserves a lot better. It should have ended like he wanted back in the Cell Saga. The Buu Saga was bad enough and it only spiraled downward. It is a bit of a shame but at least we have the original series and that will not be going away anytime soon.   

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero (PS5) - The Final Battle Again!

 If there was ever an immortal concept in anime, it is Dragon Ball. Even when this series went on hiatus, a small band of fans called Team Fourstar brought about Dragon Ball Z Abridged. No matter what part of history it is, Dragon Ball has existed since it started and then Dragon Ball Super came about and things got... complicated. Either way you look at it, Dragon Ball has had a long history and the story has been told to exhausting extents. Even before this game, other games have completely followed the story in one way or another. Dragon Ball FighterZ came up with a cool story of its own, which was refreshing, especially with such a good game included with it. Then there was Xenoverse and I played that since the very beginning. I'm pretty sure I still have my Goku statue from Xenoverse 2. The story was different, but ultimately the same. What was great about that was you got to play your own character customized to your liking. They fought along with the main characters of the series and gained their own abilities. 

Here is a bit more return to form, even though you're playing through the same story, it does have other perks. The combat is a little simple, but not at all boring. It's fast paced and can gain real traction when you're fighting while fully powered up. In the episode mode, you play as multiple characters. Each one of them have fights that were the largest in the series. With Vegeta, you fought enemies like Kuwi, Zarbon, Freeza, but then move onto his large battles in the Android Saga, #19, #18, Imperfect Cell and even Perfect Cell. Each one of them is familiar and well known as his largest battles in the Z Saga. Part of me hates that there isn't more Dragon Ball from the beginning, it is very nice to play some of the older characters. Then there are the newer characters, like Goku Black. He is available very early in the game and this just seems like a waste of a space that could be given to better Dragon Ball characters. His story is boring and a horrific retread of the Future Trunks Saga, which is one of the best ones in Dragon Ball as a whole. I'm sorry, but no, I'm not going to rush to play Dragon Ball Super parts of this game. 

The characters, however, are amazingly vivid and vast throughout the series that you can play as. It is very easy to grind the story for a little bit, collect experience and unlock characters without paying a dime. It's a fake currency that you gain through gameplay. After just a few hours, you can make some very choice purchases for multiple characters, including extra skins! I didn't even check if there was a way to pay real money for this, because it has been rendered wholly useless with this very generous system. Within just the first three hours of gameplay, I was able to purchase most of the characters that I wanted to play. You can customize your own version of the character through skins and extra abilities purchased for Zenni at the shop. So, you can get your favorite character, buff them up, and fight in team battles against real people or computers. 

There is a good deal of stuff to keep you busy for a long time, while also being very beneficial for other modes of the game, constantly adding content. It is refreshing to see such a system and actually did keep me entertained for the whole game. I haven't beaten every storyline quite yet and I've been at it for around 25 hours. Most of that is because it is just a lot of fun to play custom battles and form your own playstyle. It's a game that really makes you want to play it while having the graphics to back it all up. My favorite color is red, and my custom Goku can be Super Saiyan God mode, who has the saiyan red hair. Vegeta is the same way, which is also very exciting to see, because he had skipped it through the first run of Dragon Ball Super. 

From main badguys from the series to main badguys of the movie, this game has you covered, even with the extra ally characters like Tapion or Pikehan. Being able to play as a giant yellow Janemba form is also quite a strange part. Hildegarn is a blast to fight against. Being able to take down giant forms as if they were normal enemies with a lot of reach and power moves is a very satisfying experience. They seem a little easy sometimes, but then there can come a difficulty spike when an enemy constantly performs super moves. So, the impulse is to do the same against them, constantly doing Gogeta's final move he used to kill Janemba or even Vegeta's Final Flash. 

The power up system is simple, thankfully. Sometimes, like in Bodokai 3, you need to press down two buttons and for some reason, that was a bit more cumbersome. You get normal power ups and then ultimate forms take on a secondary power up that unlocks your most powerful move. The ultimate moves are a lot of fun to trip over, especially when it actually works. Goku even unleashes the Spirit Bomb on Freeza randomly in the middle of the fight to finish it off. That was strange, but still quite nostalgic that they actually decided to stick to canon before he turned super saiyan for the first time.

If you're a Dragon Ball fan, this is your game and it is beautiful. Having so many options of play and unlockables is a gratifying experience and it really looks like the put in the leg work both graphically and mechanically. The way that it sticks to the original series and then goes off deeper into the fandom is a lot of fun to relive, especially when it's with your favorite characters. Gohan seems like quite the underused character later on through the series when he grows up, but it is really cool to play with his Super Saiyaman skin! Just seeing him and Videl is another landmark of a highpoint in an otherwise disappointing saga in Dragon Ball. Sorry, I just can't bring myself to like the Buu Saga. Virtua Saiyan Bomb!

Virtuamehameha #5 - GT was a Charming Mistake

Dragon Ball Z ended on a very divisive note. Depending on who you asked, Buu was the biggest pile of slop or it was the most action packed blaze of awesomeness. It's widely known that the Buu Saga was the arc that Toriyama did not want to make. He was perfectly fine with ending the entire series after the Cell Games. He was obviously ready to move onto other projects and make other stories. The studio was not so ready to let go of such a popular series. With how it became more and more marketable across the globe, they were ready to carry this series to however far. 

And however far is where they took it. Even when Toriyama bowed out after the Buu Saga, they inacted Plan B: Dragon Ball GT. Once Toriyama left Dragon Ball, the animation studio Toei took the entire series into a direction that no one could have imagined... seriously, there was so little imagination at work that Dragon Ball GT is a chore to get through from start to finish. 

They seriously thought that turning Goku into a child and sending him off onto a clone story of Dragon Ball was a fantastic idea. You know what? It WAS a fantastic idea, because you could literally do anything with that premise. The problem was that the execution was comparable to a 14 year old's fanfiction and that is not an exaggeration. With such an awesome premise, this could have been a slam dunk. What it turned out to be, was a slog! 

These writers pulled out every single cliche and every single random thing they could possibly put on the screen. The Black Star Dragon Ball Saga was a fever dream in the worst way. Every single bad guy that comes out of nowhere is soon cast aside for a bigger, badder guy that looks completely different and/or possesses the most random power ever thought up in crayon. There is so much filler and so many instances where Pan is absolutely annoying and almost every moment she is on the screen, life is made that much worse. The Black Star Dragon Ball's plotline has such a directionless, confusing mess and it just introduces new characters that do next to nothing before dropping out of the story forever! It tries the large creature badguy with the weird whisker monster who they thought caused earthquakes. It turned out he could just sense the quakes with no control over them. He's trouble for maybe five minutes and then another second, they're off to another planet. 

It is understood why they made this decision. As stated before, the Black Star Dragon Ball Saga wanted to emulate the original Dragon Ball series. They wanted to bring the series back to its roots and see how it went, but they did not have the heart and the pacing that Akira Toriyama did. His stories had better set up with better defined characters, even if they were only on screen every once in a while. Boss Rabbit and the giant monsters that appeared in the original series did not out stay their welcome, but they were still comedic and their defeat wasn't really taken so seriously. The difference here is that they are also not annoying and make you roll your eyes at how they dance or get creepy with Pan while she was turned into a doll. Seriously, that was just a moment this series did not need. 

Trunks and Goku are fun, and sometimes Pan can be slightly charming at times. Sometimes they have decent scenes with a bit of comedic banter between them. Most of the time? They go through contrived, boring plotlines with derivative villains. Dr. Miyu is a copy of Dr. Gero from the Android series, then he joins forces with Dr. Gero in order to create the Hellfire #17 Android who fuses with the real #17 to create Super #17. 

These cookie-cutter story bits with Goku, Pan and Trunks offers us nothing but random battles that can barely be considered for the top 100 in the series. Sometimes, the battles do some very interesting things, especially when Goku turns Super Saiyan 4. Some love SSJ4, some will live and die by this form remaining canon. I am not one of those fans, I absolutely despise this form's look. It looks nothing like any of the other super saiyan transformations and I prefer the Super Saiyan God and even Super Saiyan Blue over the fourth super saiyan. Still, it was one of the better things to come out of this series and causes an interesting comparison between all of the other saiyan forms. 

Super #17 and even the Baby Saga bring some interesting battles to the series. The problem with these battles is the story around them is paper thin. These huge villains or scientists who create huge villains just come out of nowhere and boom, we're in a new battle. It's interesting to see how Gohan, Goten and Vegeta would fare against one another in some high powered fights. Not all of the battles are good, or even slightly decent, though. There's still random battles with either weak opponents or stupid robot creations with broken powers and the fights come and go in the blink of an eye. By contrast, some of these boss battles last for entire episodes, like Baby. Sometimes, you just get tired of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers plot. After a while, the battles grew very stale. 

With the #17 saga, there is an interesting stint where old villains come back to life and Goku goes into the afterlife to fight both Cell and Freeza. The problem is that Goku has grown ridiculously powerful and is able to kill them without trouble. They're in Hell, though, and they can't die anymore than they already are. These battles, along with Vegeta vs Nappa, are underwhelming. They are only interesting on the surface, but really don't delve into them in any interesting way. Super 17 is just another case of the big badguy is strong, we can't defeat him and so the final battle needs to take forever. 

The character designs were also terrible, both in new and old characters. Yes, Vegeta's mustache was a mistake. Goten turned out to be a little generic as more of an alternate Gohan design. Pan has a good design. They even gave her some interesting wardrobe choices with the bandana and khakis. Gohan wears a bland business suit that looks like he is more like a college professor. The character design of the Golden Oozaru was an interesting contrast, though it's not really clear how looking at the Earth and "blutz" waves makes them transform, there's really not much else to call endearing with these characters. 

Once we reach the Evil Eternal Dragons, this series just falls off the deepend. Yes, there are some cool battles but no, that doesn't save this arc as a whole. The series doesn't seem to know what it wants to do in terms of theme and tone. Some of the Dark Eternal Dragons were just flat out horrific to watch. Their battles were not fun to watch and honestly the earlier ones were blatant wastes of time. The ice and fire dragons were decent battles and honestly rank as some of the better episodes in GT as a whole. 

Once the story reaches Ii Shenlong or Omega Shenlong, it gets a bit more entertaining to see when he becomes fully powered and able to beat Goku and Vegeta. Now, the real problem with this fight is that Gogeta is not on screen for nearly long enough. It doesn't even register on the top Dragon Ball storylines, but for GT, it's top of the tier. The battle, much like the other boss battles, takes entirely too long. Then, just to push the time limit even further, Goku had to put together a galactic Spirit Bomb. 

There are good things about GT, of course, some of them were already listed. The best thing it brought about was the GT Special starring Goku Jr. It's a good, heartfelt tale that actually has that familiar Dragon Ball spirit. Beyond that, the best thing about this entire series was the ending. That might sound like I'm joking but they actually put together a very tear jerking ending where Goku fuses with Shenlong and is whisked away into legend. It wasn't a perfect ending, but it was a good ending for Dragon Ball as a whole, even it weren't attached to this very messy series. 

There are those who will swear by GT and more power to you. If you like this series, that's your little red wagon. On the whole, though, it is just not fun to watch and it didn't know where it was going most of the time. The tons of filler and wasted episodes on terrible subplots was just too much. There are some good battles here and there, but even they out stay their welcome with how overly long some of them are. If you wanted to be a Dragon Ball completionist, you're more than welcome to give it a try. Just be ready for some very boring storylines and annoying characters filling most of the runtime. Dragon Ball and Z were enough, we should have stopped when the sensei said to do so. Thankfully, he's gone on to have his rest. Virtua Sleep. 

Virtuamehameha #4 - Dragon Ball - Neptune Origins

 If you look back at the history of Dragon Ball, you'll see it goes all the way back to the 80's. Our sensei, Akira Toriyama taught us a lot of things. He created characters, villains, and an entire world to go along with unforgettable stories of fighters and friendship. Even in America, Dragon Ball has had a very interesting history. It began with the original series when Funimation and Saban got the rights to Dragon Ball's broadcast in the states. Funimation did not originally use their voice acting studio, instead they outsourced to Ocean in Canada. This started with the first movie and 10 or so episodes of Dragon Ball, but that proved to not become so popular at the time. 

Instead, they started again with Dragon Ball Z on small television stations in America, and I just so happened to catch this entire series in its first run. The first image I ever saw was when Gohan headbutted Raditz with overwhelming power for a five year old. This started with a terrible schedule every Sunday at around 7 am. Still, the first season when the Saiyans came to Earth was one of the greatest in the entire series. When we first meet Vegeta, we had no idea he would be one of the most prominent Z Warriors, as well as a fan favorite. With Brian Drummond as his voice actor, he came up with one of the largest memes on the internet. "It's Over 9000" became another fan favorite after DBZ hit Toonami with his original English VA. 

Overall what we consider the "Rock the Dragon" collection of episodes is up to each individual fan. Here at Planet Virtua, we consider these episodes superior in the ways of voice acting. However, it was far too censored to be considered objectively better in every way. If Saban is known for anything, it's the editing and censoring it did to the original Ocean Dub episodes. Hell was now known as HFIL (Home for the Infinite Losers) and being killed was changed to being "Sent to the Next Dimension"! Blood was covered up with effects paint, some of it being very obvious, and there was to be absolutely no nudity, cigarettes or alcohol of any kind. 

Once again, these episodes are amazing, but they are also a very funny meme in many different ways. The censoring is comical in so many ways and have been parodied by old school DBZ fans for years. Once Cartoon Network added Dragon Ball Z to its Toonami run, the series exploded! It very quickly took over the internet with literal millions of websites. The Dragon Ball fan community was such a wide sensation that once it started to hit the USA in the ways of VHS and merchandise, needless to say it was sold out very quickly. Kids came home from school to watch it in its first three seasons before it started to rerun. 

The reruns seemed to go on forever, but soon it was clear that they were working diligently to bring us the conclusion to the Freeza Saga, along with Cell Games and Buu. However, the biggest change to the series, along with the nixing of much censoring, was that now there was a whole new voice actor cast list. Chris Sabat was selected to take over the voice of Vegeta... along with half of the character cast. Needless to say, it took a while for these voice actors to come into their characters and it took even longer for Ocean Dub fans to get used to the new English cast. 

To say that it was a much longer story would be an understatement, but it was such a fun ride. There were theories on how the series would end, but by the time we got much of Dragon Ball Z in the states, but in Japan, Dragon Ball GT had already ended in 1997. GT was a huge disappointment, but we'll get to that in another article. Still, from the beginning of Dragon Ball all the way to the end of the Cell Saga, there was a great masterclass in how to make an action series. Even with the excess in yelling, even with the recap episodes, and filler episodes, this whole enormous section was worth revisiting over and over again. 

Goku has become an icon of Japan and anime fans everywhere, and for good reason. His journey to become the greatest still has not ended because fans just keep wanting more Dragon Ball. Should it probably have ended by now? Yeah, the series has become a shadow of its former self. It was a lot better when it as a martial arts comedy adventure. With the passing of the Sensei himself, it's a comfort to know that his masterpiece was immortalized in the hearts of millions. Just remember to give it a watch and bring a Dino Cap of water.

Virtuamehameha #3 - When Should Dragon Ball have Ended?

Dragon Ball has been going on since the manga was released in 1984, and it has garnered a fanbase that is still alive today. Whether it is alive and well or not is up to interpretation. The thing is, Dragon Ball ruled the internet for a brief period in the later 90's and early 2000's. Despite a luke warm reception at first, where Dragon Ball was cancelled in the United States, Dragon Ball Z was much better received. Once it came onto Cartoon Network's new Toonami time slot, it exploded into a mainstream phenomenon. Dragon Ball Z merchantdise became a staple to so many children and so many of them needed to run home from school to make sure their VCR recorded the episode at the proper time. 

Since its hayday, and once the Dragon Ball community found itself all over the information super highway, something happened to the fans. There came a period of Dragon Ball Z where a lot of fans began to splinter into smaller groups. Once the dust actually settled and the hype died down, there came a clear segregation of fans and what they considered true Dragon Ball lore. This was not helped at all by the revival of the series as Dragon Ball Super. Many considered it far better than GT, some considered it worse. Some people even considered it Z, even when it was so clearly derivative of it. 

Dragon Ball was, sadly, not made with a complete creative freedom of its creator, the late great Akira Toriyama. Many fans did not see it as it was happening, but soon we began to notice the cracks in the preverbial mirror. When it was initially created, Akira Toriyama was not going to go nearly as far with the series. After the Cell Games, he was planning to end the series, but once the studio caught wind of this, they told him no, the show must go on. 

Enter Buu. Many will cite Cell as the greatest villain and highest peak of the series, and Buu is often seen as a very low point. There are many, many reasons for this. For one thing, the Buu Saga is entirely too long, Buu is entirely too powerful and the storyline for the entire Saga sees the death of major characters, the Earth itself, and Buu himself is just flat as a character. This was only the beginning, though, as Dragon Ball GT was flat out of decanonized by fans.

After GT ended, the series went radio silent, so of course, after nearly 20 years of nothing but a couple specials, the fans were more than ready! Of course it was going to be better than GT, how could it possibly be any worse? Was it worse? Yes and no. The real problem with Dragon Ball Super was that it borrowed so heavily from Dragon Ball/Z that it may as well have been wearing its skin. Not only did it keep stealing scenes and ideas, but it kept making more and more transformations for Goku to reach so he could defeat enemies. It kept reaching milestones like the first female Super Saiyan, Vegeta reaching forms he never had before and on and on. There was even an episode that teased bringing Kaiosama back to life, which never happened that I'm aware. 

Meta jokes, bringing in characters from Dr. Slump, it really seemed like nothing was off the table for Super. It descended into the same problems of late Dragon Ball Z and GT, too many ideas while feeling the need to bring back old ideas. Much like Hollywood, it really seems like the studio has no intentions of letting this cash cow die. It has grown to ridiculous levels and what was once Dragon Ball lore has become confused and lopsided. 

A huge example of the lore becoming muddled and convoluted is the Black Goku Saga bouncing back and forth between the Trunks future and the present. In the name of making a horribly contrived arc in this new show, they destroyed everything that they fixed in the Cell Saga. Everything that Future Trunks did was undone and the future continued to be garbage. 

With continued repeated arcs, like tournaments, new gods descending on Earth to destroy it for more and more contrived reasons, someone should really start to look at the forest for the trees to see how far we've fallen off the rails. Son Goku was once a child prodigy fighter who travelled across the world to search for the Dragon Balls and do good in the world along the way. It was comedic, it delved into themes like friends, family, loyalty and learning to be part of new worlds. It became more popular with the fighting, but it never lost its comedic element, though it was not seen as often in Dragon Ball Z. 

Now, it doesn't seem like the show knows anything about where it's going and if it does, it doesn't seem to know how to execute these ideas. Bringing back Freeza, making Freeza an ally, bringing back Captain Ginyu only to kill him off almost immediately after, nothing really seems to be off the table anymore and that sort of chaos is not very good for a show while the real brains is no longer at the helm. Toriyama had very little to do with Dragon Ball Super, other than a consultant. 

The answer to this question is fairly clear. Dragon Ball Z stopped being fun and imaginative when Akira Toriyama started to lose his gusto for the series. He was very happy with how popular it became, but he was still a mangaka with other ideas. When he was forced to make the Buu Saga, he did his best, but it was clear that he was lacking focus or any good ideas for things to do. 

Now with the passing of the master himself, Dragon Ball should be laid to rest as well. It's obvious that whoever they have holding the reigns or the people at the writing table just can't come up with anything real or concrete. The show is nowhere near as popular as it was during its hayday and that has to do with many things, but the quality has to be one of them. Dragon Ball Super may be better than GT, but only just so. Toriyama didn't have all of the best ideas, but he obviously had better things planned for his characters than dragging them through endless amounts of mud and making them get higher power levels with new forms. They're not going to end it officially anytime soon, but I really hope they at least give it another long rest at some point.

Now, ending this on a high note, I will say that Dragon Ball Daima looks pretty good. It at least looks like a fresher start than Dragon Ball Super and Dragon Ball GT combined. I'll more than likely give it a look at some point and present my findings in the future. Until then, keep classic Dragon Ball alive and keep drinking water.   

Dragon Ball GT Final Bout (PS1) - I'm a Goku! - Virtuamehameha #2

When the early fans of Dragon Ball look back, many will look back at when Toriyama Akira wrote his greatest scenes: Goku meeting Krillin, the Dragon Ball Tournaments, Vegeta vs Goku, Trunks killing Freeza, maybe even the awesome scenes with the Ginyu Force. One thing many of them do not tend to recall is Dragon Ball GT. For those who do not know, GT is Grand Tour, the series that Toei wanted Toriyama to do, but he was done. Akira Toriyama pulled out of the series, but Toei still maintained the anime rights, so they went ahead with the project. 

It is famously known that Akira did not like what they did to his series. So many characters were cast aside and powered down for seemingly no reason. Character designs were made far worse where Vegeta's hairstyle changed and he grew a mustache, Gohan was made especially skinny and wore glasses, and the artstyle itself grew more and more distant from earlier designs. They also turned Goku back into a kid in an obvious attempt to recapture the magic of Dragon Ball in its hayday. However, they didn't pay attention to the important things, like story progression or tone. Many found the themes of the episodes hollow and many of the stories were obviously synthetically elongated to fill an episode duration while seemingly nothing was accomplished. 

While GT boasts some impressive fights between characters and a genuinely touching ending, fans couldn't really build up a lot of enthusiasm about it. That seems to be where the developers' headspace was when they created Dragon Ball GT Final Bout. This game has so many corners cut, so many glitches and misgivings on characters and other elements that many have wholly forgotten about its existence entirely. For being such a forgettable title, it has the distinction of being the first Dragon Ball game to be fully rendered in 3D and it is the final Dragon Ball game to be created for the PS1.

It's also not even technically a DBGT game, as it doesn't have any story elements from Dragon Ball GT other than shallow character references. Beyond this, the game has no story, what little dialogue it has is cringeworthy and shallow, and what little features it does have, it does very badly. 

The closest thing you get to a story mode is a build up mode. This is an interesting concept that would be carried onto other fighting games like Smash Brothers WiiU and Ultimate, where you can train fighters and build them up through levels. The problem with this is the fighting itself. The controls, the mechanics and just about everything about this game is rather terrible. Even if the graphics are blocky and charmingly 1997 graphics, it doesn't stop this title from being very worn and aged like fine rotted goat cheese. 

Now, what is the twist? I love this game! You heard me correctly, as terrible and horrible as this title is, it is the spice of life that made sleepovers so great. Back in the day, this was a ghost of a title among many US Dragon Ball fans because Dragon Ball GT didn't get released in America until the early 2000's. It had wrapped up in Japan already in 1997. At that point, DBZ was still trying to get the Funimation studio going on Season 3. The Japanese Dragon Ball Z and GT series beyond the second half of the Freeza Saga was all shrouded in mystery. So, when someone came over to our house with his Playstation, he brought this little gem out. 

As terrible as it is, it's just fun to wail on each other! Sure, you can break out FighterZ and Budokai 3 any day, but back then, our titles were rather limited. There existed better fighting games, but this was in full 3D and there were our favorite characters and Pan. Yes, sorry, no one really liked Pan.

Either way, the early days of Dragon Ball were rather mixed up thanks to some misfires in the US before Toonami bought up the rights and released Season 2 while we waited for Season 3 to get dubbed. When you talked about anything as far as Dragon Ball GT, it's like you were talking about space age stuff in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. GT is not looked back upon fondly, but it is a piece of DB history that seems to go together with the nostalgia goggles quite nicely. We can only hope that the shock of this being a guilty pleasure is enough to make you forget that this is literally the first Playstation 1 game I've ever officially reviewed. Virtua Shame.

Virtua Neptune's Top Dragon Ball Z Games - Virtuamehameha!

 In light of the oncoming of Sensei Toriyama to the far reaches of the multiverse, it is the belief of this planet that it is far past time for us to take a look at one of the most iconic series in multimedia, Dragon Ball. This series has been around since just before the 90's and its impact on media has been Earth shattering! The Kamehameha is one of the most recognizable fighting moves and Son Goku was once Japan's Ambassador to the Olympics! Akira Toriyama had no idea how influencial his series became, spawning TV Shows, movies, comic books outside of DBZ, Lunchboxes, backpacks, pencil boxes, frisbees, dolls, toys, cups, diapers, yeah Dragon Ball Z had about as much impact as Disney when it was in its hayday. 

So, here we are with some games! DBZ has spawned anything from fighting games to roleplaying games and they have been quite awesome and quite dreadful, as one could imagine. So, where do we start? It's simple! We get into the greatest of the greats and we go from there! If you want a good bunch of games, being on the lookout for those stars on those balls, then you have come to the right place. Remember to give your energy to the Spirit Bomb as we show you the best of the best. 

Dragon Ball Z Bodokai 3

Among the 3D Fighters, this is the king! Budokai 3 takes everything that was great about 1, makes it better, and then fixes everything that was wrong with Budokai 2. Yes, the second one was a bit of a dud, though not a total loss. Then 3 came along and made them both irrelevent. It makes all of the moves look right, it gives the characters better voice actors and it has quite the engrossing story mode. This is the game you want to pick up and play with your friends who also have tried to concentrate energy into their hands.

Not only does the story mode stand out, but the roster features characters and many great versions of characters throughout all of Dragon Ball, Z and even GT, which was the latest iteration at the time. Anywhere from Super Saiyan 4 to Cyber Freeza, all of it is here. The problem is that you need to unlock all of it and you need to be on your game, so to speak. This game isn't exactly hard, but there are some rather frustrating elements to the AI opponents. Either way, if you are wanting a 3D fighter with all of the Z packed in, this is your baby.

Dragon Ball Z Super Saiya Densetsu

Perhaps one of the greatest games never released in the US, as far as DBZ is concerned. This is a chance for you to determine who is the most powerful on your team and how the story goes. The thing about this game is that it is amazing, but it also has a few kinks here and there. This is a roleplaying game where you start from the Raditz Saga and go on. You obviously need to play it like the series, but you don't need to play every element like that. You could keep playing Tenshinhan and make him out to be a beast of a character, super charge him and have him survive the Saiyan Battle to go to Namek afterward. 

The game is very simple, employing multicolored Saibamen and Freeza Soldiers to attack you in various sagas of Dragon Ball Z. The overall game is very, very grindy, though. If you want to stand a chance against Nappa and Vegeta, you will need to travel around and fight Saibamen of various shades. The most powerful ones will be the 6 green ones you fight in when Nappa arrives. It is up to you to make sure all of your guys get their training, but you can also grind one of them more and more. This will shave hours off the clock and if grinding is not your thing, then you should probably skip this entirely. It alleviates some of this grind with Goku, though, when he trains on King Kai's planet and in the gravity machine on the way to Namek. You have to gain power and raise the dynamics of training, but if you try too much too fast, you will die. This does balance the time scale on level progression and allows him to take on Vegeta and Freeza in their respective sagas.

This is the Super Famicom at its finest in graphics and just overall fun mechanics. You get to do special energy moves from everyone and it is a lot of fun to see who kills the villains with what special moves, as they all are quite tense and awesome. These villains are no joke either. You need to grind to an extent to defeat them or you will be spanked royally. The level progression is rather slow, the encounters can get frustrating in frequency and the music is charming and lovely but it can also begin to grate on the ears after the 6th or 7th hour. This game is not without its flaws but it comes with high recommendations! 

Dragon Ball Xenoverse

Finally, the fans are given an official way to create their own Dragon Ball characters. It only took a few decades. Xenoverse is a great way to bash out your frustrations on whatever character you hate the most, as there are many in the rosters. While microtransactions are frowned upon, they are available and you can get some of the GT and Super characters from spending a bit more. The story is simple, you're time traveling to different and popular points in the series in order to stop people from tampering with them. Someone is trying to change time so that the villains win. You need to fight along side them and correct this. 

Very good premise in the ways of giving the fans what they want. They want their character to be in the fight and they want to contribute to the win. This is pulled off with a good amount of style and allows your character to customize their moves along with who teaches them. You can take on many teachers and keep building your character's power and fashion sense as you buy them items and clothes. 

Xenoverse is just one of those games you don't need the internet for, but it's there if you want it. There are plenty of exercises and "simulation fights" for your character to grind and win. Not all of the fights are very good, and some of them are just downright impossible since one of the Cell Jrs is a glitch in one of the maps, thus rendering it incompleteable. Whether this glitch was ever fixed, I don't know. Either way, this game is fantastic, and so is its sequel. Xenoverse 1 and 2 differ a good bit in mechanics but either one are just a personalized good time.

Dragon Ball Budokai Tenkaichi 3

While this may be confused with the Budokai series, it is a bit different. The roster on this monster is massive! You can see ridiculous amounts of characters and fighters and that is half of the entertainment value. They did a great job making it fun to unlock all of these wondrous features in this game. The fighting mechanics are quite different from your normal affair. It does the split screen a lot in order to make it easier to do ki blast moves and special techniques. 

One small problem with this title is the number of mechanics. The Rush Ki Wave and Burst Dash and everything around tend to interrupt the fighting a tiny bit more than should be needed. The stages are also quite enormous and numerous. You have so much space to fight in and that can lead to some awesome power struggles. As you keep up your ki, you fight with your fists and then back to the blasting! The mechanics are satisfying and the characters are so numerous that the replayability is built right in.

Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension

More of a relic from a different era, but still an all around fun title to play. With a roster featuring Buu, Vegetto, Cell and Majin Vegeta, you'll find at least one of your favorites. The graphics are a little outlandish, but very charming and unique. Once you look at the graphics, you immediately know which game you're looking at, even if you don't know the name. The fighting is simple and the controls are tight enough to keep the punches coming. 

This is one of those nostalgic games that has just existed seemingly since the very beginning. Even if it is a late entry in the Super Nintendo, it is one of those games that OG Dragon Ball fans relish in. It also supplied many Gifs for websites back in the day when they were edited into transparent images for layouts. It is quite the novelty and is one off many 2D DBZ fighters.

Dragon Ball Fighter Z

Among the best, in terms of modern DBZ Fighters. While the story may be a bit confused with the androids, the graphics, controls and mechanics are very, very tight! Fighting through the story mode or just flat out fighting your friends, this is the one you want to compete with. While the roster is nothing special, and it is, once again, marred by microtransations, there is a good number of characters along with their Super Saiyan Blue counterpart. 

There is a lot to love with this version, as it's very easy to find your chosen characters along with their techniques. There are a good number of favorites on display along with some beautiful special techniques. The internet interface is also a nice touch as you can choose so many characters for your icon. Mine has always been Jeice from the Ginyu Force in red armor. It can be that specific and it is a very charming mechanic. Fighter Z is one of those fighters that just blew so many others out of the water and it will be difficult to top! 

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were amazing. None of the other series will ever top them and their legacy that has influenced so many other animes and media. Keeping to the core of Dragon Ball has always been the way to go but it is good to invite everything you love about the series. If you have any suggestions for games, leave them in the comments below. Then strap yourselves in and get ready to be sent to the NEXT DIMENSION! Virtua Crusher Blast!!!