Preliminary: Well, based on the preliminary viewings of a playthrough, it looked very heavy in the card battle system, and not much adventuring. But looking at the StrategyWiki and reading up about the gameplay, it seems there will be a good amount of adventure. I don't have intense nostalgia or love for Dragon Ball, so there wont be that extra element. We shall give this a proper go.

It's odd how everything is in little windows in an already tight enough game space. It's like little slits to look through. But, it somehow kinda reminded me of the early Pokemon RPGs, so maybe it will prove worthy. With FF2 coming up in chronology though, which is one of my favorites, mediocre RPGs seem iffy.

Day 1

So I was intentionally just going back and forth on the map to train. Although I am impressed I kinda like the combat system, I gotta admit the card factor adds many extra confirmation steps and bogs it down a bit. Same with using cards for movement on the map. My biggest beef with the combat system rn is I feel like RNG just constantly is having it an even match, but as I get stronger (grinding to Level 3 rn), I am kinda noticing a change not to mention I've learned to use weaker cards for map movement, saving the stronger ones for battles. Tho the Look is underwhelming (some of the battle sequences are kinda funny), the Sound is pretty good . See below for the Look of the map

Welp that beginning was odd. The navigation of the Turtle House made no sense at all, but I slowly figured out what to do. It was very much so a text adventure format at first but then now I'm on a world map and doing the card battles. The humor has been pretty good, the Sound both great and meh in parts, and the combat system was surprisingly decent (so far). I'm on my first grind session, not sure how I heal? But I will do my research and give it a proper playthrough, despite the iffy navigation of the Adventure segments.

The plotline is pretty cheesy so far. Gasp, Piccolo left a scrap of his emblem so now we know that's who kidnapped Bulma :-p But I'm getting into the groove. As long as the slow text adventure style navigation and card system map movement and battles don't bog down the funky music and adventure/RPG hook that I usually get. Again, the humor is fun, and the Strike wall and whatnot is reminding me of Konami Goonies II. Anyway, to show you what I mean about the text adventure-esque segments, see here

Pretty lame that the only random encounter I had on the map was Ukulele and he's who I run into in the sewers >.< Oh, and to clarify how the game works, there are the text adventure esque segments where you click on commands. There are the map segments where how far you move is based on the number of dots in the Dragon Ball at the top of the card you pick. You pick a direction on that map and go. Then, you have a screen where you draw a turned-over card and it either results in a battle, a Lady who trains or swaps out your cards, or a dragon that heals you. That's at least the random "encounters" I've had so far. Every battle, tho, was with Ukulele heh. Over and over.

For the record, I do not mean the humor like these parts. I have students who always focus on this side of Dragon Ball. The humor I found funny were some of the situations and interactions and characters' personalities. I'm never a fan of forced-feeling "naughty" humor. Omg... and just guess who I'm fighting again... after every random encounter again being the same person, this third boss is the Ukulele as a boss for the 3rd time lol

Finally a new enemy! The Pilaf Machine? (This one was a lot harder, but I barely survived. In the end, it's all pure RNG/luck, which is a bit lame.) I am really hooked to this ngl, but I wish I had connections to the enemies (I do know Piccolo at least) and I am nervous it might end up being really long compared to its slow combat and movement systems. We shall see! I'm enjoying it a lot so far tho, despite its many faults, and am surprised I am quite hooked to the card system. I'm ending tonight after leaving the cold village. I'm a bit worried since it sounds like I have another long grind (to level 8 is the recommendation, I did a little research and found out level 14 is the max level so at least it wont be too many more grinds lol), but I was enjoying the card battles so hopefully that sticks despite how it slows down the grinds. I bet it will be great in chunks! Nice little surprise here.

Day 2

Welp, this is quite the long grind to level 8. I wish you could see the Level/HP of your enemy before picking how many cards you will use. Uff navigating Pilaf's Castle was hell, too many repeated-looking screens. It's funny how the game just explicitly tells you where to go next while feigning open world. "Goku decided to go to the fortune teller" "Goku decided to go to Turtle House." I don't mind tho - makes my life easier :-p For this play session I was less hooked with the combat system (probly because of the level 8 grind), and more so with the Adventure parts as long as I was just following a guide (trying to navigate Pilaf Castle on my own was a definite mistake lol) I still find the "slit" vision goofy but I kinda like this screenshot below

Finally a variety of random encounters on my way to the Holy Land of Karin. Even tho it's the same variety of songs for the most part, they're good bopping jams. And excuse me what I come upon a pile of poop?

This just keeps getting odder and odder. You pick up the poop, the bad guy turned people into carrots, and suddenly now there are aliens and a UFO. Dang I thought I was gonna finish it tonight but now that I got the Dragon Balls I now have to get the Treasures. Getting a bit long feeling now but I'm naturally (without any grinding after Level 8) at Level 11 now so that's cool.

I'm now riding a Plate in a cave lol. The oddness continues. It has some very absurd adventure game puzzles but it also sorta makes you solve them by making it so linear/not many options. Like, you can only Use certain items, even when you have many items it'll only show 2 or so to Use, and often one kills you or does nothing, and the other one is the right one to use. Fortunately, it's quite forgiving in the adventure parts with finding food after a boss battle that fully heals you. Ahhh it's about movie time irl and I just have to go to Piccolo's Mansion and (presumably) end the game! Will I finish it tonight?

Well, darn the journey around the entire map to Piccolo's Mansion was taking too long. Looks like I will finish it tomorrow. Again, navigation and sluggishness is one of the main issues in the game.

Day 3

I think it was tacky it made us go all around the map for endgame but whatevs. I suppose you could say it was forced training. It was kinda cool having the time-based escape from Piccolo's Mansion during an adventure part (mind you, it's time-based, not turn-based, in that situation). Adventure games sure love death! lol.

Wow I thought I was done with grinds, the guide I'm reading suggests training to the maximum of Level 14. Here goes nothing... Hopefully it's not too long. Welp, I ended up deciding not to do it lol. With a savestate right before Piccolo, surely I will be fine right? Here goes nothing :-p I hope I don't regret it. Plus, I'm already close to the 1200 Exp needed after these couple of bosses, and have been lucky so haven't taken any damage yet as I go through the final castle, so I should be good. The first-person dungeon crawling of the Dark Castle kinda reminds me of Phantasy Star dungeon crawling, interesting to see how much I do enjoy and have nostalgia for that, again something I never clicked with before (first-person dungeon crawling). I think having already played PS helped me be more comfortable with it and not be as frustrated with it in this game, I was navigating easily :-p

Welp, time for the final battle. I have full health, didn't get to Level 14, and have no Technique cards on me sadly. Those Techniques can really do a lot of damage. Argh, he keeps dodging my attacks. But at last, when I was down to 32 health, I got a Reversed Kamehameha for 182 damage! Pretty neat ending and credits, tho a bit underwhelming

Look: 7.5/10 Pretty neat to see the text adventure vibe mix in with a card battle system and card uh map movement system? Odd, but worked well. Some of the card numbers and dragon ball counts were hard to read, but mostly an impressive combination of styles of Looks.

Sound: 7.5/10 Got repetitive, but some surprisingly great jams like the end of battle jam.

Play: 8/10 A bit tedious and sluggish, but with that being said, technically quite fast-paced with selections and menus and the card system. This has to be one of the best card-based video games I've played, and yet it seems to be one of the first as far as I know? The slow world map movement and frustrating navigation were tacky, but they are quite fitting for an adventure and RPG game anyway. Like, the slow map movement was a way of forcing you to train and for a chance to heal and/or switch out your cards and so on, functions of an RPG. And the frustrating navigation and sudden deaths are classic text adventure tropes easily remedied by savestates at the start of each area haha.

Feel: 8/10 I don't have much nostalgia for Dragon Ball, but for those who do, I bet that helps a lot. Overall, it just pulls off an interesting mix of gameplays, first-person dungeon crawling which a new somewhat liked genre for me, and humor.

Attachment: 7.5/10 Not sure that I will return to this, but it drew me in. And as an early example of a card-based system, this could boost up over time if that becomes a more liked genre of to me.

Overall: 7.7/10

Completion: Main Story