Exploring Best Dragon Ball And Pokemon oldies

Game Boy Advance was a legenday console. For one, it offered an almost limitless functionality or a handheld console, finally proving that it can be taken seriously even by hardcore gamers. Most importantly, it gave beginning to the legendary game series that have an excellent replay value even now.

With ported versions, you don’t need to have a rich physical collection – or a console, for that matter

We reviewed two anime-based game series – Dragon Ball and Pokemon, and selected our favorite GameBoy Advance ROMS on RomsMania. If your favorite title didn’t make it to the list, just remember that we couldn’t put them all in the list – and so many games deserve the sweet spot.

Best DragonBall GBA ROMs

The bestselling manga/anime has seen an amazing continuation in gaming, and GBA really made the plot shine. Smart action elements, an an adaptation of original fighting styles, and colorful graphics – these aspects are typical for all GBA’s Dragon Ball releases. Still, some capture the beauty of the franchise more than others.

We made a list of our top picks of Dragon Ball games, basing on their functionality, originality, and the quality of ported PC ROMs. This way, you don’t have to acquire a console to play the game.

Pick #1 – Dragon Ball: Origins

Players fight alongside the manga characters as new characters or control the original cast. Missions revolve around fighting enemies, uncovering treasures, solving puzzles, and collecting power-ups. Just like in the original shounen, the game is focused on making characters stronger – and it takes players alongside this journey to growth.

A pretty neat design, isn’t it?

Skill Points work as the game’s currency, allowing players to get to the new levels and receive powerful upgrades. As the name shows, the game takes a look into the history of the universe, adding some unique details. If you are a fan of original worldbuilding, you’ll enjoy these creative additions.

We love the addition of Bulma – unlike most fighting games where you have to look out for yourself, here there is someone in need of protection. Sure enough, you can arm her with weapons, but she will still get hurt if you pick the wrong road. This makes the game especially complicated since you have to be considered of another character’s damage.

Pick #2 – Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku

A popular RPG series with three releases that got a lot of fans into the franchise in the first place. The game is focused on polishing Goku’s fighting skills, as he’s exploring the map while encountering various enemies. All attacks are powered by energy, and it gets drained if used too frequently.

Fighting techniques hugely depend on natural settings

The game features both temporary and permanent upgrade. You can boost Goku for a particular fight or invest in steady progress. The best strategy is to combine both approaches, gradually getting new abilities.

Later releases feature fresh consumable items, saving a lot of time. This food can be found during quests, so the more you play, the more opportunities for energy replenishment will be encountered.

In sequels, Buu’s Fury and Legacy of Goku II, we loved the addition of a device with stats. There a player can look up the capacities of opponents and their descriptions as well as control the progress during the game. These small additions make the experience much fuller and are a sweet treat to die-hard fans.

Pick #3 – Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu

This game uses a third-person view from behind the character’s back, allowing to see the bigger picture. Combined with the cartoonish interface, the entire experience feels a lot like watching anime. This release is loved for its unique upgrades, improvements of the fighting scenes’ designs, and different stats.

Each character has a particular Blast 2 skills that unlock additional techniques and super-damaging attacks. With Blast Stock, a self-recharging gauge, players can use Blast 1 skills – high-potential combat moves that inflict the most significant damage.

While upgrades were cool and all, the storyline is undoubtedly the best aspect of the series. The story mode allows users to participate in tourneys, go to independent missions, or participate in the events from original manga/anime. The game incorporates episodes of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and even some movies.

Our favorite part of the storylines were the what-if scenarios, where players can find unlikely fighting encounters, or take over a villain. One of the storylines has teamed up Raditz and Zarbon and even gives some compelling reasons why that might happen.

Pick #4 – Dragon Ball Z Devolution

The game follows the storyline of the movie tightly under the same name and is based on the original manga/anime. In case you haven’t seen it, the main storyline points are the following ones:

• Goku received a mystical Dragonball from his father on his 18th birthday. Just like in the original, he finds out that there are only 6 of such balls all over the world. The owner of the ball will be granted one perfect wish.
• Just like in the original, the dark force triggers an inevitable tragedy (you’ll get the details later), and Goku has to deal with it.
• Goku assembles the team of companions and goes to a quest to collect seven Dragon Balls. As you can imagine, this will not be easy, and the player has to support the character through these hardships.

The quest is not a typical RPG adventure, but rather a combat game with slight elements of exploration. Still, we loved the way the developers handled the combination of fighting and traveling, keeping it close to the spirit of the original creation.

Pick #5 – Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors

The destabilization of the scenery is quite epic

Games are based on duels between two Dragon Ball characters. Players can pair up different characters, choosing the one that they’d like to embody. Fighting consists of combinations of weak and strong attacks. To succeed in the game, you have to find a balance between energy-consuming moves and less damaging but more tactical actions.

Just like in other Dragon Ball games, there are limitations to the power and number of used abilities. Each character has three Certain Kills – energy-consuming abilities that inflict a lot of damage. A player has to decide how to distribute these kills and adapt fighting style to character’s location, whether it’s above in the sky, on the bottom of the ocean, or the ground.

The game has five playing modes:

• Story Mode – the player can choose episodes among 16 stories ta are based on the original material. The opponent is an AI that represents an opposing character. The events are similar to anime/manga, but not identical – so get ready for some surprises.
• Challenge Mode – the player, needs to assemble the tema of maximum for characters and form a team of friends to find against AI. This is the toughest mode – to break the opponent’s defense, all three players have to utilize the maximal capacities of their characters.
• Z Battle Mode – a player has to fight eight enemies simultaneously to receive power-ups and rewards.
• Free Battle Mode – the most creative one that provides you with access to all opponents in any sequence.
• Link Vs. Mode – AI-powered randomly generated battles.

Our Favorite Pokemon Picks

Another classical GBA franchise is, of course, Pokemon. All Pokemon titles were excellent in their own right, and they still have a dedicated fan community. Picking top releases was a hard task, yet not impossible (although pretty damn close). Anyway, here are our five favorites of Pokemon for GBA.

Pick #1 – Pokemon Generation II

The first generation of Pokemon was what made us fall in love with the franchise in the first place, but it wasn’t until the second release that the series showed its full potential. For one thing, that’s where we’ve seen day and night cycle for the very first time. This was also when the dal types were introduced, and characters started opening up from an entirely new side.

Good old times and a lot of sleepless nights

The idea to invest into the pokemon’s devotions to their trainers was one of the most successful decisions ever made by developers. Now players have to make the Pokemons happy – collecting them wouldn’t cut it anymore.

Pick #2 – Pokemon Generation III

That’s where lays the original of a grand challenge of capturing an original 151 Pokemon. Even today, collecting some of the rarest pokemon of the game is a tough nut to crack. Considering the addition of running and dual types, the search for pokemon became much more elaborate. The fights have also grown more complex – talk about Team Rocket or sparrings with Blue.

Pick #3 –  Pokemon: Pinball

Now, this game is an extra-nostalgic mix of two retro-games: Pokemon, on the one hand, and pinball on the others. The plot is simple: you have two tables, red and blue, with different pokemon and locations.

Classic pinball with some retro-pokemons nearby

The locations are defined randomly on the slot-machine. Pressing an A key leads to the selection of the starting location – this how this game begins. The progress then depends on which table you choose.

For scoring highly during pinball games, users get rewarded with basic pokemon and evolution modes. Users can activate the limited window of opportunity to transform a captured pokemon into a different species.

The game takes the best aspects out of the classic Pokemon franchise and combines them with the standard pinball rules. It’s a creative spin on two well-known games, and we have to admit, it works almost perfectly (although the game gets slightly dull if you are ban in pinball).

Pick #4 – Pokemon FireRed

Let’s take a moment to appreciate detalization

The games take place at Kanto, one of the central fictional locations of Pokemon. Here players are tasked to explore human towns, find out more about the new species, and get information on the hunt. Some areas are blocked and can be accessed only what a particular pokemon. By the end of the game, players go to Sevii Island – this area is absent in Blue and Red series.

We love the simple plot of the game – it’s easy to grasp but also involves some deep sub-themes. The protagonist of the title is a child from Pallet Town, who decided to embark on a journey. As he parts, Professor Oak comes in the game and commands the kid to stop. This famous Pokemon researcher explains the rules of the game – now he will accompany you throughout the game.

The game has amazing storytelling and detailed worldbuilding. The amount of information on the world’s structure, the diversity of pokemon’s species, and the variety of tasks are just astonishing.

Pick #5 – Pokemon Emerald

If you didn’t have a chance to meet wild Pokemon and walk-in caves when the game was released, you can play Pokemon Emerald online. The classical aspect of any Pokemon games are all present here: you explore towns on the map, meet people, catch pokemon, and challenge other trainers to fight.

Now that’s how a challenge looks like

It’s not the premise of functionality that makes the game worth the place on the list, but rather its intuitivity and simplicity. The game is fast, and the controls are easy to grasp. Also, the distribution of Pokemon abilities and rules of their usage add a lot of fun to the process, making the fight almost an intellectual exercise.

Conclusions

Making this list was surely a tough work – there are too many excellent titles that are worth to be mentioned. Still, don’t forget that we are talking about personal preferences, and even if some title isn’t mentioned, but unfortunately, the top has to end.

The best thing is, you can play these titles online or get the ported ROM, so you don’t have actually to get the console to access the game. So, now is a great time to revisit beloved classics, and maybe, even call up your friends and start a tournament.