The History of The 152 Dragon Ball Video Games That You Probably Forgot About

0:01 well hey what's poppin what are you guys doing in my house that's totally my house well since you guys aren't here I didn't want to talk about Dragonball for about 15 to 20 minutes so uh let's get to it when it comes to anime that most people have heard of it's hard to find the series better known and better loved and Dragonball Goku and Friends and Yamcha have influenced dozens of classic shows and comics inspired professional athletes and are responsible for that one mold as me more Goku's power is over 8999 first appearing in 1984 as a serialized manga written and drawn by the legendary Akira Toriyama for weekly shonen jump Dragon Ball began as the story of a monkey tailed boy on a quest to collect seven mythical wish-granting orange boss

0:48 over the past three decades the series has grown to be one of the top grossing media franchises of all time Dragon Ball gave way to Dragon Ball Z Dragon Ball GT Dragon Ball super and more including the recent epic dragon balls to the wall theatrical film Dragon Ball super Rolly where a local man is just too angry to die and just like ghosts in the shell Dragon Ball has never been made into a live-action movie well Dragonball is certainly best known as a manga and anime it's also one of the top-selling and highest-grossing video game franchises still active today today there have been over 50 million

1:33 Dragonball video games sold a massive amount that beats out classical gaming franchises such as Street Fighter Megaman and Kirby people don't want to just watch Goku we want to see him in fact counting arcade home console handheld and mobile releases there have been roughly 100 dragon ball games produced since 1986 and here is the list dragon ball fell off No yep yeah kiss you Dragon Ball tight ketsu son Goku [Music] Dragon Ball Z the legend Dragon Ball GT final bout Dragon Ball Z collectible CD picture covers a dragon ball z burst limit dragon ball origins dr. slump

2:20 oto-chan Dragon Ball Z infinite world jump forth super Dragon Ball Heroes world mission Dragon Ball Z Kakarot whoa yep goddamn I need a sent to me well plenty of North American and European video game fans likely grew up with series like the legacy of goku for the Game Boy Advance or dragon ball z budokai on the playstation 2 there are dozens of Dragonball video games that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan it's these games that I'm here to talk about today the retro Dragon Ball games you may have missed the good the bad and the ugly of Japanese exclusives as well

3:06 as a localized title that went horribly wrong so this is the early retro history of Dragonball video games less than two years after the debut of the Dragon Ball manga in February of 1986 the Weekly Shonen Jump series premiered as an animated television show produced by the famed animation studio TOEIC in August of that same year with its popularity on the rise the very first Dragon Ball video games were released in the form of two dinky standalone LCD handhelds named Dragonball pill off no gaku Shu and Dragon Ball Kai ketsu son Goku each game and watch esque handheld featured multiple different game modes revolving around the Dragon Ball storyline at the time the creator of these handhelds epic was also responsible for developing and

3:53 publishing the very first home console dragon ball game for their Japanese exclusive super cassette vision system dubbed Dragon Ball Dragon dai-hee kill or Dragonball Dragons great exploration the game featured an interesting top-down shoot-'em-up gameplay the aphid title put players in the shoes of the heroic Goku as he rode his iconic yellow cloud the flying Nimbus through wave after wave of oncoming baddies it was only by using his trusty power pole and small energy blasts that Goku could take down incoming enemies and reach his final destination to this day Dragon died he kyo and its two handheld predecessors stand as the only games in Dragonball history to have zero involvement from beloved Japanese toy manufacturer and game developer Bandai known today as

4:38 Namco Bandai unfortunately for epoch the Dragonball brand wouldn't be exclusive to the Super cassette division for long a team at tous ATO se software had also been hard at work on their own Dragonball title for Nintendo's hit home console the family computer or Famicon published by the a firm ended bandai it with hit store shelves just two months after dragon died he kyo in November of 1986 man dies game Dragonball Shenlong no nazo or Dragonball shenlong's middle was a bit more in line with the plot of the hit manga and anime at leasts at its start the game's 14 levels gave players the chance to adventure across multiple different settings including a mountain desert and even outer space as they

5:25 defeated roving enemies collected items and pummeled their way past an onslaught of reoccurring bosses though the levels were linear they featured a sense of exploration somewhat similar to the original Legend of Zelda which had been released for the Famicom disk drive add-on just nine months prior while North American audiences did get their hands on The Legend of Zelda in 1986 they still had not been introduced to the masterpiece that was Dragonball this posed a major problem for Bandai who wanted to release Shenlong no nazo on North America's new Nintendo Entertainment System they had a choice to make leave the game as it was and hope American players accepted it or localized the hell out of it and I bet you can guess which option they went with by the spring of 1988 Shenlong

6:12 Munoz who had been transformed into dragon power Vande eyes entrusted the localization of this game to their Bandai America branch and the team had certainly taken some liberties with the story and characters and gameplay Bandai America has decided to lean into the source material for Dragon Ball itself tweaking the gameplay tomorrow present journey to the west' a classic Chinese epic tale that's often known in other parts of the world is simply monkey this alternate title makes more sense when you see what they did to work Goku who went from a boy with a monkey tail to a monkey who kind of looks like a boy this character design change was even more bewildering when you take a closer look at the box art of the game apparently this overly tan gentleman and the white guy is supposed to be Goku who

7:00 normally looks like this and who looks more like this in the actual game the box is promoting Goku's design and terrible box art aside there were also a host of other changes made to make dragon power less confusing and more appropriate for younger players instead of scouring the land for the seven dragonballs players were in search of the seven crystal balls goku cyclonic kamehameha attack was unfortunately rebranded as the wind wave which sounds more like a devastating fart than a powerful attack maybe both shout out stuff while Goku did keep his name Bulma became Norah Yamcha became Lancer and who long became a G while those characters were simply renamed Master Roshi received an entire

7:46 8-bit makeover going from a bold hermit wearing sunglasses and the turtle shell to a robed martial art master with a flowing white beard this change also came with a new far less creepy attitude towards Bulma I mean Nora as anyone who's seen Dragonball can attest Master Roshi is often portrayed as a dirty old man who's constantly trying to sneak a peek or qapla feel when he comes across a beautiful lady in early chapters of the manga and episodes of the television series Master Roshi asked to see Palmer's underwear a plot point that also shows up in the original Shenlong DiNozzo to correct this somewhat uncomfortable interaction in a game intended for children and I America changed the requests to see Balmer's unmentionables into a desire for sandwiches because who

8:33 wouldn't want a nice lunch right while the gameplay of dragon power was nearly identical to that of shen long no nazo for of the 14 levels each comprised of a different round of martial arts tournaments were completely cut out from the game but hey even with its cut content and butchered story dragon power was still featured in the very first issue of the now-defunct Nintendo Power magazine in the summer of 1988 it may have simply been a half a page preview but dragon ball disguises dragon power was there from the very start surprisingly shen long no nazo was also localized for one other country a year later france the european powerhouse was the first region outside of japan to officially dub the Dragon Ball anime in 1988 and its popularity led to the

9:20 release of the NES title now Dragon Ball the secret dude dragged home two years later unlike the North American version there were virtually no changes from the Japanese original outside of converted language they even got the same box art with all the cool characters meanwhile we were stuck with kung fu David moving on Shen long no nazo was followed by two more Dragon Ball games for the Famicon in 1988 and 1989 respectively both Dragon Ball daemul fukatsu and Dragon Ball 3 goku den decided to scrap the action-adventure game play of their predecessor replacing it with an interesting card based RPG system instead of wondering about a vast overworld goku was confined to a game board which she could only move a certain number of spots at a time once

10:06 he had moved players could gather information or fight opponents to further their ventures when in battle players were dealt a random hand of attack cards which they would rearrange to form their battle plans for that route which ever player played the most powerful card landed a hit on their opponent whereas similarly powered attacks ended in a draw it was somewhat slow and repetitive it was a somewhat slow and repetitive format but at least they were little animations up top showing how the actions unfolded with each card neither dime alpha katsu nor Goku den were ever released outside of Japan although Goku dem was released in 2003 for Bandai's handheld flop the wonderswan color IP as the 80s gave way

10:53 to the 90s Dragon Balls slowly transformed into Dragon Ball Z Goku had grown from a hard-headed child to a muscle-bound child and his adventures have taken them slightly more mature tone the Famicom was still hanging on at this point despite the fact that it's more powerful 16-bit brother the super Famicon had launched in 1990 the user base for the Famicom was so enormous that Bandai I kept that dragon ball train rolling releasing Dragon Ball Z Kyushu san he assault the people of the Saiyan dragon ball z 2k Kishin Frieza a fierce God freeze up and Dragon Ball Z three recen Jinzo ningún a violent battle of artificial humans in 1990 1991 and 1992 all three games kept the card battling system implemented in the

11:38 previous famicom entries adding far more freedom to move about the session over worlds and a host of elaborate battle animations and then it happened Bandai finally finally released a Dragon Ball fighting game guess what this time you had to use actual cards to play Dragon Ball Z Gatito Tenkaichi Budokai was released at the tail end of 1992 alongside a special new Famicom peripheral the datak joint rom system this funky little battle and actually attached to the top of the famicom allowing players to scan compatible cards directly into their games get keep the Tenkaichi Budokai locked every single fighter behind their corresponding card meaning the game was completely unplayable without both the joint rom system and the various

12:25 fighters and item cards the game featured roughly 30 different fighters forcing players to scan in different versions of the same character if they wanted to play as a more powerful form the final Dragon Ball game of the Famicon era Dragon Ball Z Gaiden seijin zetsu mat-su K Kaku plan to eradicate people of the saya was released alongside in the original video animation for OVA of the same name the card game featured the same card base RPG gameplay seen many times afar and a wholly original storyline about the Z warriors taking on in the various new villain named doctor fly cheap or lychee who is hell-bent on ridding the universe of the Saiyan race 1992 saw the release of a dragon ball game for the peti Bicol which was less of a video

13:11 game console and more of a home phone the ten abit go plugged right into your TV or VHS player and allowed users to interact with special VHS tapes via its large buttons and phone attachment in Dragon Ball Z at Samara Goku wada door Dragon Ball Z gathered together Goku's world players could answer trivia and help progress the plot of the cell saga ring ring and hello-o itself and he wants to kill you at this point Dragon Ball has already been the focus of nine console offerings in a mere six years not to mention countless LCD handhelds and whatever the hell 10 Abiko is and thus we enter the

13:57 Super Famicom error the first game to show up was a bit underwhelming an enhanced remake on the first and second Dragon Ball Z games for the famicom known as Dragon Ball Z super Saiya Densetsu super same legend next in the lineup was a big one a title that remains Japan's best-selling Dragon Ball video game of all time Dragon Ball Z super butoden this classic 2d fighter pitted 13 of the series most popular heroes and villains against each other in a variety of well-known Dragonball settings and you didn't even need any cards Wow unlike many fighting games of the time super butoden allowed players to maneuver their fighters as far away from their opponents as they wished even up

14:42 into the sky for aerial attacks this revolutionary feature was accomplished by splitting the screen with a colorful line when players reached a certain distance from one another super butoden was followed by three sequels and one spin-off - for the Super Famicom one for the Sega Mega Drive home console which you may know as the Genesis and the final entry for the ill-fated Sega Saturn each game featured a tweaked roster and vastly improved gameplay from the original in a surprising move super butoden 2 was released in North America and Europe in 2015 as a digital pre-order bonus for the Nintendo 3ds yes by pre-ordering Dragon Ball Z extreme butoden fans got their hands on the fighting game a whopping 22 years later after its original launch in Japan strangely the

15:29 game remained the Japanese while the butoden series satisfied Dragon Ball fans desire to throw down in the safety of their homes the developers at bad guy owned banpresto worked tirelessly to bring the fight to the arcades their first title simply called Dragon Ball Z was housed in the unique cabinet designed by Akira Toriyama himself the cabinet resembled a robot wearing Goku signature orange key and holding a large monitor because when you're the crater Dragon Ball you can request things like that running off the sega system32 arcade platformer the game offered players eight characters and fighting experience similar to the wildly popular Street Fighter series the Dragon Ball Z arcade game was followed by dual X equal with the added subtitle super battle expanding on the number of

16:16 playable characters including everyone's favorite mr. save the final Dragon Ball Z arcade game of the 90s was entitled vr v s as in virtual reality vs. though it didn't really feature any virtual reality the game did put players over the shoulder of their favorite Z warrior to give them fighting a more merciful kind of like punch-out but with Goku aside from a new perspective the game also pitted players against other exclusive baddies the demon Majin was dokdo those who managed the best all of the fighters were also treated this lovely tune as the credits rolled [Music] and if at this point you're thinking wow that's so many dragon ball games Tim

17:02 surely that's most of the ones that never made it out of Japan well I'm here to tell you that you're wrong from 1994 and 1996 alone there were nearly a dozen more dragon ball games released this included two RPGs for the Gameboy Dragon Ball Z Goku hits Odin and Goku Akiko then three more games to the Super Famicom Dragon Ball Z super Goku then Tatsu geeky hen Kaku say hen and Hyperdimension the first and worst Dragon Ball game for the PlayStation Dragon Ball Z ultimate battle 22 and a host of other titles for home consoles you and I probably never heard of unless you're that one guy than those at all and good for you there were the choose your own adventure style games for the Bandai plain via which is the Dragon Ball Z guidance in

17:47 sijjin zetsu met sue k Kikuchi q hem and who chew hem a Dragon Ball art design title for the Apple Pippin called anime designer Dragon Ball Z and a weird strategy based fighting game for the PC engine drag mozi EDA in news son Goku Densetsu oh and they another fighting game for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn called Dragon Ball Z the legend now what you have to understand is that at this point in the latter half of 1996 that Dragon Ball in the form of the Dragon Ball Z anime was finally introduced to a wide North American audience while the hype around Dragon Ball was slowly fading in Japan after the end of the anime and manga the craze was just beginning elsewhere the first

18:33 official Dragon Ball game to be released in North America one that hadn't been corrupted by dragon power with the 1997 fighting game Dragon Ball GT final bout only around 10,000 copies of this blocky 3d fighter were produced for them North American market as Dragon Balls popularity was still in its infancy at the time surprisingly the game was also released in the UK and other regions of Europe where Dragon Ball wouldn't be introduced until the early 2000s it was only a year later after Dragon Ball had found an audience the final bout we released both North America and Europe there you have it a little sneak peek into the retro history of Dragonball video games it's hard to believe that the pixelated

19:18 antics of the early titles like the Famicon Shenlong no nazo have now super stained into high-quality hits like Dragonball xenoverse and the recent fantastic Arc System Works Dragonball Fighters Z not to mention the best Dragonball video game of all time thank you so much guys for watching and if you're not a paid user yet check out the description down below and you can use the code to get 14 days free crunchyroll on me you can watch Dragon Ball super on it alright bye bye hey you guys want to

20:04 see me transform into a Super Saiyan check this out [Music] [Applause] see you see you next time [Music]