The Dragon Ball franchise has been around for years and the folks at Namco Bandai keep finding entertaining ways to extend that franchise.  The most recent addition is Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo exclusively for the Nintendo Wii.  Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo is a side-scroller fighting game with some basic platforming gameplay thrown in for good measure (Side-scroller platformer action means the action is viewed from a side-view camera angle, and the onscreen characters generally move from the left side of the screen to the right and involves  jumping to and from suspended platforms as well as jumping over objects).  The storyline revolved around Dragon Ball’s main character Goku, but this time around it’s the young Kid Goku.  The entire story and gameplay is based on Goku’s quest to aquire seven Dragon Balls, a set of mythical orbs that, when all seven are brought together, have the ability to grant a wish.  In order to gather the balls, you’ll need to advance through several levels and worlds by fighting and defeating enemies.

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo reproduces the humor of the early Dragon Ball series, while adding a blend of action and adventure to the mix. Gameplay is essentially a one-player deal as you battle your way through levels and collect items.  There is also a World Tournament mode in which you can play as any of the unlocked characters from the game against the computer or another person.  In addition to the gameplay modes, there is also a shop where you can spend your hard earned cash to buy simple items like character graphics, background music, event scenes, voices, and power ups you can use in the game.

Here’s a video trailer for Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo that pretty accurately demonstrates the quality of both of the cut scene animation (which is awesome) and the gameplay:

What We Liked

Good story. We liked the basic storyline and the gameplay really works well to advance the simple plot of gathering Dragon Balls.  Plus, if you’re a long time fan of the Dragon Ball series, this kind of goes back in time and lets you hang out with Kid Goku.

I know that Kid! The graphics in Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo faithfully reproduce the original drawings of legendary Dragon Ball artist Akira Toriyam.  They’re fun and cartoony and actually very well done, especially for a Wii game.  If you’re kids are already Dragon Ball fans, they’ll definitely recognize and appreciate the high quality with which the characters are reproduced.

I’m hearing voices! Although not every scene has voice over support (most do), the spots where voices are used are excellent.  And, in a very cool nod to the series’ origins, the audio track can be heard in either English or Japanese.

Ease of game play. Game play is fairly simple and straightforward.  If you’re a hardcore gamer, this one isn’t for you.  But, if you’re looking for a fun, easy to play game for the 10-12 year old crowd, this one is probably a good bet.  There are a variety of moves Goku can do and most of them require pretty simple controls.

Multi-player support. Although the bulk of the game is centered around single player gameplay, there is a World Tournament mode which allows you to fight against the computer or a friend.  This enhances the lasting appeal of the game, because once you play the single game all the way through, there’s not much else to do besides fight friends.  While having this multi-player ability is good, it’s still a pretty basic experience.

What We Didn’t Like

I’m done, now what? While the gameplay itself is fast and furious, it pretty much isn’t going to last beyond 6-8 hours for an average player.  Once you’re done with the game, you’re done.  You can go back and replay completed stages, but we didn’t notice anything different in the stages after you’ve completed them.

I’ve been here before. Although the action is fast and fun while it lasts, it does get a bit stale at times.  The scenery changes and so do the enemies, but the repetitive nature of the fighting (and the fight scene sound effects) wear a little thin after an hour or so of playing.

Hanging on the couch. It’s odd that although Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo was released exclusively for the Wii, it doesn’t really offer much in the way of motion control support.  Nearly all of the gameplay can be accomplished with the Wii remote buttons and keys.  We’re guessing it was designed that way to make support for all controller types possible, but it seems kind of short sighted.  This could have been a very cool motion control game.

Good for the Kiddos?

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo is rated E10+ for Everyone over 10 with cartoon violence, mild language, and a tobacco reference.  The ESRB issued the rating with the three qualifiers because

“…players use energy blasts, sticks and staffs, and hand-to-hand combat (i.e., punching and kicking) to defeat an assortment of enemies (e.g., mercenary humans, enemy wolves, robots, and aliens). The fighting sequences employ several cartoony effects that mitigate the level of violence: tweety-bird sound effects, dizzy stars, and words like “WHACK!” and “BANG!” flashing on screen. A tournament mode involves more intense fighting as players battle one-on-one to drain each other’s life meter. During the course of the game, players can find reward items in treasure chests, one of which is a cigar. The expletive “hell” can occasionally by heard in the dialogue”.

Straight up, this game is all about fighting and defeating enemies.  If you don’t want to expose your kids to violence, even in a cartoon fashion, then this game is definitely not for you.  If you’re a big fan or the Dragon Ball franchise, this is probably the simplest, least violent way to introduce younger gamers to the world of Dragon Ball.  Aside from the warning issued by the ESRB, which we agree with, there is no other foul language, graphic violence or suggestive themes to be found in the game.

As for education value, there isn’t much.  But, if you’d like to expose or introduce your kids to the Japanese language, you can turn on the alternate audio track and hear all of the dialog spoken in Japanese instead of English.  That’s kind of cool.  Also, there are scenes that require quite a bit of reading, but beyond that, like we said, this game is all about fighting your way through the various levels.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo 3.5 out of 5 Golden Eggs.  We really wanted to like this game more because the Dragon Ball franchise has been so much fun in the past.  And, in some ways, this game really delivered and held true to the franchise roots, especially in terms of the storyline and the great graphics.  However, the limited and somewhat repetitive gameplay and the semi-good mutli-player support drove our score down quite a bit.  Also, being a Wii exclusive game, we really wish there were more of a focus on embracing the Wii platform and building in better motion control support.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement

FiveHens.com received a free review copy of Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo from Namco Bandai in order to provide you with this review. Although the product was provided to us free of charge, that in no way affected this review in either a positive or negative way. For more information about the new FTC blogger disclosure rules, please visit here for the full text of the code.