Game: Dragonball Z 2: Evil Freeza
7:52 AM | 
Posted by
sura
Here's an interesting concept.. a NES game that holds your attention for more then 10 minutes at a time. There are certainly quite a few titles for NES that don't do this. But this is one of those rare few that do. It has depth and character. And it's addicting. So addicting I spent a few days glued to it until I beat it the first time I played it. But the irony is it, it's actually a pretty simple little game, yet I can't pick a genre that truly defines it.
This game covers the Namek\Freeza sagas of Dragonball Z. Which is great, for me, since that is my favorite time period of the Dragonball Z series. When it starts you begin with a "party" of Gohan, Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, and Chiatsu. They have health points, "BP" which is used for special moves, and the cool thing about this game is that instead of levels, your characters gain power level from winning each fight.. So if you gained 100 Power level from defeating a group of Freeza's men, each of your characters gains 100 permanent power level. You start with an average of about 1500 per character, and true to the series, it skyrockets into the hundreds of thousands near the end of the game, especially on the stronger characters. Power level determines your health, BP, and your overall power.
The game starts in the namekian space ship on a linear grid and you take "turns". Each turn consists of picking a card, which allows you to move as many spaces as the number on the card. After each move, a screen comes up where you can choose from a number of face down cards. These can do a number of things.. The most common engages you in a fight with Freeza's men. There are a few that do GOOD things for you. Sometimes you will get cards that heal you or give you a random item. Pretty different system if you're used to random battles in games like Final Fantasy. I liked it.
Speaking of cards, that's how the battle system operates. You have a handful of cards, and you assign one to each character. The number on the left of the card indicates your attack power for the turn you use it, the righthand number indicates your defensive power. The enemies get cards too. Now there are also certain TYPES of cards. There is a normal attack card, a special attack card (which allows you to choose any of your character's special attacks.. a Destructo Disc will cost you 50 bp for example, while a simple beam will only cost you 10) all the character's signature moves are there, it's pretty neat. One card even lets you attack all the enemies in series. The battles are quite difficult, especially in the beginning. I got my ass beaten the first few times I played it, which is good or bad depending on whether you like games to be challenging. Every turn (both in battles and on the game "board") you get the opportunity to "use" Bulma. You should never go a turn without this! This heals just one of your characters a small amount. You've got to manage this and use it on your weakest or most important characters.
Since the game is Japanese, it's a little hard to understand.. fortunately most of the choices you make don't really effect the outcome of the game, although the battles can be confusing at first. There's a pretty good english translation out on the internet, it doesn't translate all the story, but it does give you a pretty good idea of what's going on in the battles.
For the most part the sound and music are pleasant. The battle theme is pretty catchy and the sounds are pretty good for the NES. There's nothing annoying (a great feat for a NES game), no complaints there.
Overall the game is pretty fun right to the conclusion. It gets really hard sometimes, really really hard. But that's part of the fun. It got really hard for the heroes of Dragonball Z at times, so that translates to the game. While it might not be the most incredible video game ever created, it does a good job of giving you a fun, authentic feeling Dragonball Z experience, and that's what it was meant to do!
This game covers the Namek\Freeza sagas of Dragonball Z. Which is great, for me, since that is my favorite time period of the Dragonball Z series. When it starts you begin with a "party" of Gohan, Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, and Chiatsu. They have health points, "BP" which is used for special moves, and the cool thing about this game is that instead of levels, your characters gain power level from winning each fight.. So if you gained 100 Power level from defeating a group of Freeza's men, each of your characters gains 100 permanent power level. You start with an average of about 1500 per character, and true to the series, it skyrockets into the hundreds of thousands near the end of the game, especially on the stronger characters. Power level determines your health, BP, and your overall power.
The game starts in the namekian space ship on a linear grid and you take "turns". Each turn consists of picking a card, which allows you to move as many spaces as the number on the card. After each move, a screen comes up where you can choose from a number of face down cards. These can do a number of things.. The most common engages you in a fight with Freeza's men. There are a few that do GOOD things for you. Sometimes you will get cards that heal you or give you a random item. Pretty different system if you're used to random battles in games like Final Fantasy. I liked it.
Speaking of cards, that's how the battle system operates. You have a handful of cards, and you assign one to each character. The number on the left of the card indicates your attack power for the turn you use it, the righthand number indicates your defensive power. The enemies get cards too. Now there are also certain TYPES of cards. There is a normal attack card, a special attack card (which allows you to choose any of your character's special attacks.. a Destructo Disc will cost you 50 bp for example, while a simple beam will only cost you 10) all the character's signature moves are there, it's pretty neat. One card even lets you attack all the enemies in series. The battles are quite difficult, especially in the beginning. I got my ass beaten the first few times I played it, which is good or bad depending on whether you like games to be challenging. Every turn (both in battles and on the game "board") you get the opportunity to "use" Bulma. You should never go a turn without this! This heals just one of your characters a small amount. You've got to manage this and use it on your weakest or most important characters.
Since the game is Japanese, it's a little hard to understand.. fortunately most of the choices you make don't really effect the outcome of the game, although the battles can be confusing at first. There's a pretty good english translation out on the internet, it doesn't translate all the story, but it does give you a pretty good idea of what's going on in the battles.
For the most part the sound and music are pleasant. The battle theme is pretty catchy and the sounds are pretty good for the NES. There's nothing annoying (a great feat for a NES game), no complaints there.
Overall the game is pretty fun right to the conclusion. It gets really hard sometimes, really really hard. But that's part of the fun. It got really hard for the heroes of Dragonball Z at times, so that translates to the game. While it might not be the most incredible video game ever created, it does a good job of giving you a fun, authentic feeling Dragonball Z experience, and that's what it was meant to do!
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