Goku Dragon Kai - Attack of Saiyan

You play as a wide range of heroes from the popular anime series

You play as a wide range of heroes from the popular anime series, from Goku to Tien to Krillin as they move through events based largely on the Vegeta Saga, starting just before the arrival of Raditz on Earth. The hook here is the game is actually a traditional turn-based role-playing game instead of a twitchy fighter.

Just so you don't get the wrong idea, that means you won't be hammering out strings of attacks in real-time, but rather inputting menu commands for attacks, item use, and special abilities. You'll also need to bring with you an appreciation for the series, since if you aren't aware of what a Kamehameha is or why anyone should care about King Kai or Snake Road

The gameplay itself, however, is enjoyable. It's nothing revolutionary, but it's a sturdy enough system that should be appreciated by any genre fan.

The storytelling is fractured and uneven, dropping characters in the mix with little to no introduction. Having watched the Vegeta Saga years ago, I understood the context as I played and knew what was coming so it wasn't all that disorienting, but any newcomer is going to have a hard time trying to figure out who all these battle-obsessed people are and how they relate to one another. If you manage to stick with it through the rest of the game the fiction becomes clearer, but on the path of learning for the uninitiated there's a high step you'll need to climb over at the start.

Newcomers might still find things to enjoy, despite the often inane, slow-moving dialogue sequences, since the battle system works well. You get standard attacks for the cast of characters, where you attack enemies with flurries of punches and kicks that mimic the presentation of the show. You draw on Ki power to initiate special attacks like Krillin's Destructo Disk and Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon, and when the right abilities are activated more damaging and elaborate combo attacks are unleashed.