Retro Arcade: Dragon Ball Z

Remembering the old days, I actually got to play all the Dragon Ball Z arcade games ever released during the nineties. And now looking back, I kinda missed playing those games. I still know the location of the machines I actually played in SM Southmall. Thanks to MAME I get to relive those moments and get to play these classic arcade games all over again. So here is my review on those three arcade games.

Dragon Ball Z

The first Dragon Ball arcade game was released in 1993, it uses the JAMMA engine, the arcade game was based on the Freeza saga. Characters available in this arcade game is Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, Burter, Recoome, Ginyu, and Freeza. The game was manufactured by Banpresto. It was released in a robot looking cabinet that has colors similar to Son Goku's gi. The game's color palette uses Akira Toriyama's watercolor scheme so the graphics would be true to Toriyama's art.

I would describe the game as a free floating fighter. Basically, you and your opponent float around the screen using the joystick, in a way its Psychic Force in 2D. You can use an array of signature attacks in order to knock your opponent out. The environments are semi destructible, and if you win by knock out. You will get to see your character finish off the opponent. There are only three buttons for this game, Punch, Kick and a Special Attack button.

The game itself is a bit slow, and the controls lag a bit. But the graphics were pretty good at that time. Its pretty hard to get used to the game since there is no gravity, and the computer kinda pulls off the special moves faster that you could react. But the first time I actually saw the finisher, I think it was worth the effort to try at least finishing the first stage. I never made it to Freeza though. That was the only time Goku would ever go Super Saiyajin, too bad the Super Saiyajin version is not available on a versus match.

I kinda remember this game located in the basement parking area. It was near the "Avengers in Galactic Storm" arcade machine. It was in a pretty plain arcade cabinet with a really hard to move joystick. It was like the joystick was on viagra or something. Click here to check the arcade flyer of this game.

FINISH HIM!

Dragon Ball Z 2: Super Battle

The second Dragon Ball Z arcade game. This game is the sequel to the game mentioned above, and it was also released by Banpresto in the year 1994.  It also uses the same arcade engine as its predecessor. The game is based on the Cell saga and features new characters like Trunks, Mr. Satan, Cell, Android 16, 18, 20. Piccolo returns with the Saiyajin characters from the first game in their Super Saiyajin versions. Specifically Gohan is the only one in Super Saiyajin 2 as it follows the story of the Cell saga.

Master Pogi!!

The game is more fast paced compared to its predecessor.  The characters can now jump in this game since gravity is now involved. The game has a super bar which can be charged by hitting all the buttons at the same time. Its kind of like the Super Butoden series which was released in the Super Famicom. There are four buttons on this game, two punches and two kicks, pressing both attacks of the same power will result in a fiercer attack. Let's say that system is like Samurai Showdown. There is an automatic combo system in this one as well, hitting the enemy with a light punch repeatedly will initiate an automatic combo. And if two punches hit at the same time, it results to a flurry battle in which you will have to hit the attack button rapidly.

In Street Fighter terms, each character has has an EX move that uses one level in the super bar and a SUPER move that uses three levels in the super bar.

EX Move

SUPER Move

This game seems to be the inspiration for Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension for the Super Famicom. Just like in Hyper Dimension, one stage has multiple levels. You can knock your enemy to the sky and finish them there, or kick their butt back on the ground.

Wind up from the sky

WHAM!!

And there he goes!

From what I remember, I found this machine in Tom's World located at the 3rd floor in Festival Mall.

Dragon Ball Z: V.R.V.S.
Dragon Ball Z V.R.V.S was the third Dragon Ball arcade title. This title was released by Banpresto and SEGA, it uses the SEGA System 32 engine. This one was unique compared to the other two games released. Let's say this one is like Punch-Out with projectiles. Its a split screen battle between two players. This has a completely different story line and a boss character I have never heard of in my entire life. Playable characters include Goku, Trunks, Vegeta, Piccolo and Gohan.

The game is pretty straight forward. Just like Punch-Out, you see the back view of the character in 3rd person perspective. There are only three buttons in this game, left punch, right punch and jump. Holding forward is block, swinging the stick left and right will make the character dodge incoming attacks if timed correctly, holding down will charge a ball of ki, and pushing up will release the charged energy ball. Hitting either the left or right punch buttons will unleash a fury of punches at close range and will do a Renzoku Kikou Dan at long range. Pressing the jump button will make your character jump away if you're already at close range, and will make the character charge forward if you're away from your opponent.

The hissatsu attacks are kinda hard to pull off, one of the sequences is to hold one of the attack buttons and rotate the joystick, once the character is in firing position, you can release the button and continue rotating the joystick to add more ki. Same applies to the second and more powerful hissatsu attack, but this time you will be holding down two attack buttons while rotating the joystick. The life bar seen in the middle has two levels, you have to deplete the two life bars in order to win, the game has no number of rounds, If one life bar is depleted its just shows the character pushed back temporarily, but the round will continue, just like in Killer Instinct. There is no refill of life bars in between rounds so its basically one continuous bout.


The game was fast paced, and when I said fast, I mean it. The round was over before I knew it and the game was already asking me if I wanted to continue. The CPU in this game was friggin' hard. The response of the controls was good, but there was no reference on how to play the game on the machine itself, so I had to do things the hard way. Charge to experience. I kinda figured out the how to play whole game after a few rounds. I did get to the last boss in the arcade, but I never got to finish it.

Genki Dama!!

I saw this arcade machine on one of the arcades in SM Southmall near the skating rink, I think it was Tom's World as well. Spent a lot of tokens learning how to play this game. Oh yeah, this game actually had motion control on some machines. If some of you still remember the SEGA Activator, that's basically how this arcade was played in some machines Japan. It was high tech back then, but it was as unsuccessful as Nintendo's Powerglove. ("I love the Powerglove, its so bad!" -Lucas Barton in the Wizard)

That about sums it up. The next arcade game that came out was Super Dragon Ball Z which also came out on the PS2. That arcade machine never reached Philippine shores, neither did the card based fighting games. But still, getting to play these arcade games have become a part of my childhood. And I am proud to say that I have played that. These machines are very rare nowadays, and console gaming rules my life now. If one of the top consoles actually released one of these titles on their DLC lists, I would definitely purchase that.