Dragon Ball Z Legacy of Goku Review
Back then when I was but a young lad... I was exposed to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. My sister is a huge fan of the manga's and show and has old VHS tapes and DVD sets. And I'm pretty sure someone is gonna go: "What's this... VHS you speak?" You have the internet, look it up.
Anyways, Dragon Ball was inspired by another story called Tales of the Monkey King, Journey to the West. But Dragon Ball took a step further. "What if all time periods were mashed together? And we have super power beings and aliens?" Thus, Dragon Ball was born. I watched a couple episodes of Dragon Ball when I was young, and it drew me in. Then I watched Dragon Ball Z and holy shit, it gets dark quickly!
We don't talk about Dragon Ball GT. Never happened. As for Dragon Ball Super? Ehhh... not for me. I like the character designs though. Those are cool. My sister showed me one episode once and... I'm not impressed. It just didn't draw me in like Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z. But of course, with such success, we need MERCHANDISE!
There has been a shit-ton of games for the series, mostly all fighters. But we needed something new, something fresh. Something that hasn't been done by Dragon Ball history... Aha! An RPG! And thus, Webfoot Technologies made the first entry and that is Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku. And it's... fucking trash.
Thankfully, the sequels are better, thank God. But... wow. This was bad. How bad? Well, let's rock the Dragon... uh...
-Take 2-
Let's ride the Dragon... fuck, that sounds worse!
-Take 3-
You know what, let's just go.
STORY
We start off the game at the Saiyan Saga where Goku goes to Kame House and shows Gohan off to Bulma, Krillin and Master Roshi. And here we have our big epic quest of the game... Finding Master Roshi's porn magazines! ... No, really. So after doing that, Raditz just... pops up. Oh hai Raditz, nice of you to spontaneously appear with no special warp effect.

Anyways, he explains that he's Goku's brother and that he and Goku are actually warrior aliens called Saiyans and he kidnaps Gohan if Goku, revealed to be Kakarot, doesn't agree to join him and kill everyone on Earth to sell to the Intergalactic Black Market. Of course, Goku says no and Gohan just poofs out of existence. Enter Piccolo who faced Raditz off screen and has no choice but to team up with his enemy Goku to beat him.
And then we cut to... er... Goku's house? Huh? Why are we here? I don't recall that happening in the Manga and Anime. "Alright, let's team up and take down Raditz-oop. Hold on Piccolo, gotta get some food first from Chi Chi." "Wait, what?"
Huh, must have missed that in the show. So, yeah. You journey through the mountains fighting wild wolves and aiding people and creatures along the way. What the fuck does this have to do with anything going on? And why are these enemies such a pain in the dick?! So after much merryment and fun (he lies), Goku finds Piccolo just... wandering around. And you go talk to Raditz.
Yes, you talk to him to start the boss fight. It's not activated in a cutscene. So after punching and running away from Raditz many times with Piccolo not helping me, thanks dick! Finally, he's down and Goku pulls him in a full nelson and Piccolo fires his Special Beam Cannon, killing the both of them. We enter Otherworld and have to go on Snake Way to find a martial arts master that trained King Yemma long ago named King Kai.
As for what's going on back on Earth? We have no idea. In the Manga and Anime, we find out the victory is very short lived. Turns out, Raditz was just a grunt and the real threats arrive in the form of Vegeta and Nappa, and they have one year before they arrive, kill everyone and search for the Dragon Balls for immortality.
But of course, the game doesn't mention this and I'll explain further in the Gameplay section, don't worry. Of course, just like in the source material, Goku get's lazy and hitches a ride on the cleaning vehicle for easy transport and falls asleep. The vehicle hits a bump and literally falls into Hell. Or back then was called HFIL (Home For Infinite Losers).
From here, you have to collect some wandering souls that need to be transported and fight bad... ones... I also don't remember this from the Anime and Manga. What the fuck game? Goku faces off against the two ogres named Goz and Mez and tricks them to find out where the nearest exit is. And he makes it back and goes into Lady Snake's Manor and... stuff happens.
You know, what's Gohan and the others doing? Well, fuck them. They're not important in the game, this is Goku Time! So Goku trains under King Kai and learns the Spirit Bomb-er, the Kamehameha? Uhm. Didn't Goku already have this move? Welp, no time for that, he's brought back to life by the Dragon Balls and we journey through West City-WHY ARE WE HERE?!
From a gameplay standpoint, I can understand if you wanna stretch the game and make some dungeons. But for a story standpoint, it makes no bloody sense! I digress, we talk to Gohan and Krillin and find out off screen that Piccolo, Chiatzu, Tien and Yamcha were killed by Nappa. Of course we have this explained instead of SHOWN.
Same strategy applies, Nappa dies, Vegeta runs away like the bitch he is and suddenly we're on Planet Namek. ... WHAT. Okay, so we're starting the Frieza Saga, mhh, hm.
So after exploring the planet and see many dead Namekians, lovely. Goku kills the Ginyu Force... which is wrong. Guldo was killed by Vegeta, Krillin and Gohan. Recoome was killed by Goku, Burter was killed by Vegeta, well, technically Goku, but Vegeta finished the job. And Goku killing Ginyu... while he's still normal and their bodies haven't been switched.
So after that's done, it's time for the final boss, Frieza. Yes, already. This game is very short if you cut out all the padding. Anyways, you punch and run away from him a couple of times, he transforms and you rinse and repeat. Krillin walks up to Frieza, just begging to be killed and he does.
Goku get's very mad and goes Super Saiyan, which should be awesome but... nope. Pretty much nothing's changed stat wise. You beat Frieza and the planet goes boom. The end. What the flying fuck was that? That was the most piss poor storytelling I've ever seen! Ugh... let's move on.
GAMEPLAY
The game plays in an overhead view sort of like The Legend of Zelda. You can only move in four directions which sucks. Goku doesn't have his Kamehameha or his Solar Flare right off the bat. Nope, you have to earn those. Levelling up is such a chore. The only way to get more experience early on is to do sidequests and errands for people along the way.
They reward you with items and some experience relating to the mission. But everything fucking kills you in a few hits! What kind of shit is this?! I thought Goku was supposed to be the strongest fight on the planet? The enemy AI is fucking dumb as rocks, if you go away in a certain distance, they act like you never existed until you hit them to get going again. This even works on bosses.
You also have a flight meter but only lasts a few seconds before your back on the ground. It's only used to move faster and get over to areas you couldn't on foot. And so much stuff is cut out or not shown, like what happened to the others against Vegeta and Nappa? Why are we going to Namek? Who are the Ginyu Force and Frieza in this game? We have no idea!
Storytelling is not this game's strong suit.
MUSIC
The music's actually decent. Not the best, but good. The quality could be better though.
SOUNDS
Voice clips from Goku which is impressive... but sound so bit crushed and staticy sometimes.
FUN FACTOR
Eh... not really fun. Grinding is a pain in the ass and healing items are few and far between. I can't see anyone going back to this unless making fun of it.
... Fuck.
FINAL THOUGHTS AND SCORE
This was the first entry for a Dragon Ball RPG on the GBA and, well... Webfoot had to start somewhere. Like I said, the sequels are HUGE improvements. I highly recommend Legacy of Goku 2 and Buu's Fury. Mhwah, perfect. ... Did a bit of Jontron there. Whoops.
Anyways, my final score is...
1/10
Hmmm... that's too generous.
0.5/10
Much better. Music's decent in some places but holy fuck, this sucked so bad! Skip this one, you're not missing a damn thing. Go play the sequels instead. They are more faithful to the source material.
REWRITE
ACTUALLY SHOW SOME SCENES WITH THE OTHER CHARACTERS GOD DAMN IT! That's all I ask.
Welp, that's all for today... tonight? Whatever. Bye.