DragonBall: Advanced Adventure (Game Boy Advance) Retro Review: Does It Hold Up? – NichePlays

Last time on NichePlays, Niche reviewed the
Legacy of Goku for the Game Boy Advance.
Now, several months later, he’s ready to
take a step back and review Goku’s childhood
adventures in Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure.
Will he give it a good review?
Will he find a playful way to start this video?
Find out today on NichePlays!
your reign of terror is over evil King Piccolo!
Well, if it isn’t the monkey king himself,
Goku!
Here to watch me send more of your friends
to another dimension?
i’d watch what you’re saying if I were you!
I-
I- am very confused by your costume.
Huh.
What about it?
Well it’s just that we’re trying to do
a cold open for a video and… is that the
best you could do prop wise?
You’re wearing a Grateful Dead shirt.
Well yeah I- I thought it would be a fun little
thing.
Like, I’m the old King Piccolo so I’m
into old stuff like the Grateful Dead.
Oh no, I get it.
I just… it isn’t really accurate to the
source material, ya know?
Well what about you?
You’re holding a gun.
Yeah.
Called the NIMBUS.
you know what,

cards on the table, this was
the best I could do on such short notice.
I… okay, that’s valid.
*grunts* look are you gonna fight me or not?
I thought you’d never ask…
wait wha-
HAHAHA GUMBY ARMS
Sorry, there was a fly.
Released in 2004, Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure
is a 2D action game/beat em up for the Game
Boy Advance.
Developed by Dimps, the game is an adaptation
of the first chunk of the popular anime and
manga property of the same name and retells
the majority of the original run of Dragon
Ball.
In it, you take control of a young Goku as
he travels around the world in search of the
seven mystical wish-granting dragon balls,
fights evil, and takes inspiration from the
famous legend of the Monkey King in the process.
Despite being developed by Osaka, Japan based
Dimps, who are synonymous with developing
the well remembered Dragon Ball Z Budokai
games for home consoles back in the early
2000’s, the game marks their first foray
into bringing the property to portable consoles,
though it’s far from being the first Dragon
Ball game in general to ever do so.
However, Advanced Adventure is actually a
pretty unique game in the Dragon Ball Z canon.
For starters, it heavily emphasizes beat ’em
up gameplay and platforming, which have seldom
been used to represent the series.
As weird as it may sound, there’ve been
more card based Dragon Ball games over the
years than there have been actual beat ‘em
ups.
And while that’s definitely strange, given
the fact that Dragon Ball is a series built
around martial arts and flashy special attacks,
it’s not that surprising given how successful
the action-RPG genre and fighters have been
for the franchise.
At the time of its release, Dragon Ball: Advanced
Adventure received mixed to positive reviews,
with critics agreeing that it was a fun and
enjoyable experience, a breath of fresh air
after several yearly releases of games about
the series’s Z iteration, and that it was
a worthy late addition to the GameBoy Advance’s
library.
But… does it hold up?
Dragon Ball is one of my favorite media franchises
of all time, and that means that I’ll be
going into this game with fairly high expectations.
My girlfriend and I regularly watch and quote
the anime and manga, I genuinely love getting
people to check out the unlicenced live action
movies from Korea and China from back in the
day, and I practically grew up playing most
of the franchise’s games regularly with
friends.
However, despite my expectations for this
game, one of the things that has already gone
a long way in helping Advanced Adventure win
my heart over is the fact that it’s a game
that specifically chronicles my favorite part
of the Dragon Ball story, which is Goku’s
childhood adventures and also happens to be
a borderline criminally underrepresented part
of the franchise.
On top of that, it’s a Dimps developed Dragon
Ball game in particular, which is awesome
as their work on the Budokai games back in
the day shows that they clearly knew their
way around the franchise.
Plus, they also developed the excellent Sonic
Advance series for the Game Boy Advance at
around the same time, which also shows that
they have a fairly strong track record when
it comes to games for Nintendo’s portable
hardware from the era too.
Uh, aside from their weird proclivity for
adding bottomless pits everywhere, of course.
Anyway, the point still stands.
I’m really psyched to give this game a shot
and to find out how well it’s aged since
its original release as, for whatever reason,
I somehow managed to miss out on this game
growing up despite owning and still buying
Game Boy Advance games at the time.
Before we continue though, a quick question
of the day.
What was your favorite game console when you
were growing up?
Be sure to leave your answer to the question
of the day over in the comments!
I’d love to hear your answer!
And if you’re new here and are enjoying
what you see so far, feel free to subscribe
to the channel and stuff so that you can check
out all the other videos I’ll be putting
out in
the future!
And with that out of the way, on with the
video.
The majority of the Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure
plays out as a hybrid between 2D beat ’em
up levels with elements of a platformer thrown
in, along with one on one fighting sections
added for good measure.
The combination of these styles creates a
relatively well constructed game that feels
authentic to Dragon Ball, stands out as being
a bit more thoughtful in it’s design when
compared to a market of extremely samey fighters
based off the series, and also makes for a
fairly interesting game in and of itself.
Though I personally wouldn’t have minded
playing something like Dragon Ball: Checkers
& Hecklers a wee bit better.
Anyway, the beat em up levels play similar
to flatter games in the genre such as Final
Fight and, in them, Goku is tasked with finding
his way through a stage, walloping on any
of the poor souls that get in his way, and
reaching either a goal or boss battle in order
to get a Dragon Ball and move onto the next
level.
Even though these levels rely on a tried and
true formula to get things done, there’s
actually quite a bit more to them than meets
the eye.
For starters, Goku has a wide range of attacks
at his disposal, ranging from the typical
wham and bam variety of punches and kicks,
and also use his trusty power pole which can
be worked into combos and be used for flashy
special techniques.
And, as if that weren’t enough, you can
also unleash the series’ iconic Kamehameha
wave and other ki based and regular attacks
that you unlock on your journey.
This all culminates in Advanced Adventure
having extremely satisfying combat.
Despite the fact that the GBA doesn’t have
rumble or anything, the versatility available
to the player in their attacks and the great
sprite animation used to convey those attacks
gives everything a sort of heft that is an
utter delight to watch and can borderline
be felt by the player.
There’s a certain oomph to hitting enemies
here that’s genuinely pretty addictive and
had me eager to come back to the game to record
more footage of it.
While I wouldn’t say that the action gives
me an unquenchable thirst for combat or anything,
these beat em up stages are a lot of fun and
do a great job of capturing the excitement
found in an episode of Dragon Ball.
It is worth mentioning though that these stages
can sometimes be a bit too easy.
In fact, even though these stages are mostly
pretty well constructed, Dragon Ball Advanced
Adventure has some fairly serious difficulty
issues due to how straight up overpowered
Goku is as a character.
And even though that does make sense, I mean
it’s literally Goku’s thing in the manga
and anime to absolutely decimate most of the
normal people in his path, it leads to the
game’s difficulty often feeling as though
its on a plateau of sorts.
The only real challenge that comes from these
levels, outside of a few boss battles that
can take a second or two to get your bearings
in, is the fact that some of these levels
also like to throw bottomless pits your way.
Did I mention this game was made by Dimps?
Yeaaaaah, I mean I know it’s a bit of a
meme to make fun of how much DIMPS enjoys
their bottomless pits based off of the Sonic
Advance series and all, but Advanced Adventure
also happens to fall victim to them and, honestly,
they were probably the worst part of the game
for me.
And it’s not like they were honestly that
bad of an issue here or anything.
In fact, I’d even go as far as to admit
that most of the times I died from one were
almost wholly my fault due to getting careless
and way too into running around the stage
and fighting enemies.
But, they are a little strange to find in
a game like this, especially since so much
of Advanced Adventures’ design is rooted in
beat em ups.
Much like in any other beat ’em up, getting
hit by enemies results in a bit of knockback
and, when combined with level designs that
are more becoming of a game with enemies that
can’t literally throw you off of a ledge,
things can quickly get a little frustrating
because of it.
Again, it’s not game breaking or anything,
but it is a strange bit of game design on
the part of Dimps that certainly stands out
in a not quite good way.
Back to the positive though, mowing down cannon
fodder is a lot of fun, the bosses are also
pretty fun to take down (even if they’re
a bit too easy to cheese), and the levels
are mostly well designed and easy to navigate.
While linear at its core, Advanced Adventure
does like to occasionally throw some alternate
paths your way in order to encourage exploration
and can either lead to you finding extra health
or an item of some kind, or bring you to a
red door that opens up after you’ve beaten
the game.
There’s a pretty good amount of variety
to these levels to, with them taking you across
the world of Dragon Ball and encompassing
standard platform style stages, flight based
ones that have you fighting enemies from atop
the flying nimbus, and even the occasional
minigame stages that has Goku trying to complete
some kind of training exercise, such as trying
to catch Korin or destroy these rocks that
Master Roshi throws your way.
I actually especially like those stages because
one of them reminds me of the training montage
from Turkish Star Wars.
Ya know Turkish Star Wars, right?
Well, if you don’t, I highly recommend looking
it up sometime because it’s a hoot.
Alongside these beat em up stages are some
one v one fighting levels that are much more
along the lines of what I’d expect from
Dimps.
In them, you’re thrown into one of the many
iconic fights from the original series for
some good ol’ fist de cuffs and are expected
to wombo, schlombo and combo your way to victory.
And you know what?
These sections are actually pretty good!
They use a modified version of your move set
from the beat ’em up stages that feels relatively
similar to it, but is optimized for these
sorts of encounters.
You can block, parry, and launch opponents
up into the sky and you can even use Goku’s
tail as a helicopter propellor, just like
in the anime.
Given the fact that this isn’t Dimps’
first rodeo when it comes to Dragon Ball themed
fighters, I guess this isn’t that surprising
though.
Their work on the Budokai games is beloved
and, while those earlier Budokais felt a bit
generic and rough around the edges when compared
to some of their later attempts, the team
clearly knew what aspects of the franchise
to emphasize when creating a fighting game.
And, for the most part, I think that they
did a great job of translating that to these
levels, while also remaining cognizant of
the Game Boy Advance’s hardware limitations
and the fact that this wasn’t the central
gameplay style for the title to begin with.
The fighting sections have a genuine snappiness
to them that makes them extremely satisfying
to play through.
While the beat em sections accomplish the
same result by throwing heaps of disposable
opponents your way, these levels force you
to slow down and really feel the weight of
your punches.
I especially appreciate the fact that your
moveset is fairly diverse in these fights
due to how much mileage the game manages to
squeeze out of the Game Boy Advances limited
button layout.
Because, yeah, look at this thing.
It has… one, two, three, four, buttons.
But, much to Dimps’ credit though, the fighting
mechanics all feel relatively intuitive and
rely more on a sense of inertia and kineticism
than perfectly executed button combos.
(Which I’m bad at).
It’s all really easy to pick up and, even
better, matches the controls and general logic
found in the beat ‘em up stages.
There’s also just something really, really
cool about getting to play through some of
the iconic battles from the earlier parts
of the Dragon Ball story.
It’s an extremely underrepresented part
of the franchise that honestly deserves more
opportunities to shine and, as this game shows,
is perfect for representation within a video
game.
While these fights could’ve just been normal
boss battles at the end of a stage or something,
developing an auxiliary gameplay style for
them was a really nice touch.
This is especially true due to the fact that,
as far as 2D fighters on the Gameboy Advance
go, Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure is actually
the deepest game in the bunch.
Not that that’s really that much of an accomplishment
though.
The Game Boy Advance’s other Dragon Ball
fighters were relegated to the likes of the
genuinely wonderful Dragon Ball Z SuperSonic
Warriors and Dragon Ball Z Taiketsu which
is… well, I’ll probably get to that someday.
Honestly, that deepest game in the bunch comment
probably applies to this game in general too.
While it isn’t an action RPG that tries
to meticulously retell a specific portion
of the Dragon Ball story like the Legacy of
Goku games did, it does a fairly good job
of recapping most of the original Dragon Ball’s
lore through short cutscenes between each
level, though it does leave the last chunk
of the story out for… uh… reasons?
Even though the game excludes the Piccolo
Jr portion of the story, it still feels fairly
comprehensive in its storytelling.
Sure things are simplified and streamlined
for *dramatic purposes*, but this is still
a dang solid recap of the story.
Plus, the game even manages to throw in a
decent amount of bonus content for people
looking for a bit of extra mileage with the
game or some fan service.
Beating the games main campaign may not take
two or so hours, but it allows you to play
through the entire game again as Goku’s
best friend, Krillin.
And to make things even better, Krillin isn’t
just a simple sprite swap for Goku; he is
a completely new character with his own moves
and combos.
And while Dimps honestly could’ve stopped
there if they had wanted to, it doesn’t
stop there.
You can continue to unlock new characters
to play through specific levels by finding
and collecting Dragon Balls
Not that I got to do that while I was recording
footage for this video..
I’ll get to it eventually though, I promise.
You can also play a one-on-one fighting game
mode, enjoy the training minigames from the
campaign at your own leisure and participate
in some one-on-one multiplayer if that tickles
your fancy too.
What I’m getting at is that there is a lot
of content here and that, due to the game
mixing beat ’em up and fighting gameplay,
it manages to feel fresh and engaging for
a long time.
Oh yeah, and the game also looks pretty good
too.
Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure has a bright
and vibrant color palette that’s easy to
decipher, aesthetically pleasing, and does
a good job of recreating Dragon Ball’s classic
look and feel.
Between each of the levels, we’re given
these short cutscenes that fill us in on what’s
happening in the story and I can’t, for
the life of me, overstate how much I appreciate
the artwork for these sections.
As opposed to something like Dragon Ball Z:
The Legacy of Goku, the game actually has
original art made specifically for the game.
It may sound like a small detail, but this
really goes a long way in making the game
feel like a quality product that was made
out of a love for the franchise.
Whereas the aforementioned artwork from the
Legacy of Goku was just ripped straight from
the anime, it also had to be heavily compressed
to fit on the GBA’s 240×160 screen.
But, by actually going in and creating new
art, Akira Toryama’s iconic artstyle for
the series was able to be tweaked slightly
to better fit the hardware.
What does this mean?
Well, it means that dithering and stuff was
used to simulate or imply some of the details
that were obscured by the hardware for starters,
but it also means that some of the games character
designs and environments were also simplified
somewhat for convenience sake.
A really obvious example of this could be
seen in the cutscene where we’re introduced
to Master Roshi and his island.
The game gets around needing to show his house
and waste some of the game’s color palette
on rendering it by…
well, just not showing it in the cutscene!
Speaking of tweaks to character designs though,
there is one gripe that I have with this game’s
visuals and it’s the fact that several of
the characters, namely Goku and Krillin, have
actually been redesigned to appear leaner
and less chubby than they did back in the
manga and anime.
I know it isn’t the biggest deal, but it’s
kinda a bummer to see some of my favorite
fictional characters done dirty like this.
Their new designs aren’t bad, per say, but
they do lack a lot of the charm that their
original incarnations had.
Rationally, it’s honestly just a minor gripe
for me.
But personally, I can’t believe they’ve
desiccated my childhood like this and won’t
stand for it.
It’s as bad as what the Pokemon company
has done to Pikachu, as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, the game’s also got some great animation
going for it, has a decent amount of variety
when it comes to its enemies, and remains
relatively clean and easy to navigate from
a visual perspective.
If I had to be picky though, I would’ve
loved to see the games backgrounds work in
more layering and stuff as, in its current
state, it often feels a bit flat.
Overall, I wouldn’t say that Advanced Adventure
pushes the GBA all that hard in terms of its
graphics, but it honestly doesn’t have to.
The game’s music is also, for the most part,
relatively fine.
I personally thought that it was a bit too
generic for my own tastes, but it’s still
fairly enjoyable on it’s own merits.
One thing that I can’t really overlook about
it though is the fact that its title theme
is… uh…
Really familiar sounding.
Like, listen to this…
Did you hear it?
Doesn’t the opening to it sound really similar
to the actual theme to Dragon Ball?
And what’s strange about this is the fact
that the Japanese version of the game just
straight up uses that theme instead of what
we got overseas.
While this probably came down to a simple
rights dispute somewhere down the line, it’s
a huge wasted opportunity that western audiences
couldn’t get an adaptation of one of the
best songs from the entire franchise.
And while it may’ve made a bit more sense
to swap out something like DBZ’s iconic
theme Cha-La Head-Cha La from some of the
era’s other Dragon Ball games for their
western release since it wasn’t the theme
song that Americans got back in the day, localized
versions of Makafushigi Adventure were used
for the original series around the world.
But honestly, aside from that, the game’s
music is just… fine.
I honestly don’t have anything else that
I can really say about it.
If I had to describe the games music in any
way, it’s that it probably comes close to
sounding like what the music would sound like
had there been a redub of the original anime
done in the mid to late 2000’s.
I say this in the sense that it works as a
piece of music designed to supplement Dragon
Ball’s imagery, but that it also sounds
pretty modern and of the era at the same time.
Essentially, it’s less [rock the dragon
plays] and more [dragon soul plays]
At any rate, it’s functional, it works,
and, oh yeah, the Red Ribbon Army’s theme
is actually really good and pretty tonally
in line with the series’ own awesome Red Ribbon
theme.
So does Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure hold
up?
Well, yes, and I’m genuinely shocked that
I somehow missed out on this game back when
it came out.
At the time it came out, Dragon Ball: Advanced
Adventure had to have been one of the freshest
Dragon Ball games on the market.
It’s decision to cover Goku’s childhood
adventures, the choice to make it a beat em
up with 2D fighter elements over an out and
out fighting game or action RPG, and the fact
that a company like Dimps was put in charge
of it led to it being an incredibly fun and
unique experience for fans of the franchise.
It also just made sense for the franchise
in hindsight as, back in the early 2000’s
there were often multiple Dragon Ball games
coming out per year in the USA.
Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure is a really
fun game and does a great job of allowing
you to recreate many of the best moments from
the original Dragon Ball.
While it’s a bit on the short side, I personally
had a great time with this game and genuinely
see myself coming back to it in the near future
in order to try to unlock more characters
and 100% it.
And honestly, that’s probably the best compliment
that I can pay it because I almost never bother
to fully complete a game, regardless of how
much I enjoyed it.
Anyway, that brings us to the end of this
video.
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So yeah… bye!