Review
Dragon Ball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu (DSN)
Dragonball Z, like everybody knows, is about amazingly-haired karate masters who fly through space and shoot lasers at each other, sometimes destroying planets in the process. Obviously, it was a no-brainer to translate this action-packed franchise to the adrenaline-fueled world of strategy card battles. And so here we are.
In Dragonball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu, Bandai and Atari attempt to bring their over-the-top take on the Dragonball Z universe to the typically cerebral world of card fighters. In their goal to breathe life and energy into what is essentially a numbers-based experience, they succeeded surprisingly well. For comparison's sake, I recently had the displeasure of playing The Marvel Trading Card Game on DS, and... damn. It was almost as if nobody cared to make it more visually dynamic or even visually appealing than computer solitaire. Here's my review-within-a-review of The Marvel Trading Card Game: just don't.
Comparatively, Harukanaru Densetsu is like a hurricane blowing through a Chinese New Year fireworks display (although I suppose this analogy would call for a typhoon). Instead of a simple adjustment to Health Point numbers, attacks actually show the characters blasting each other from one of the DS' twin screens to the other. Sure, they use still drawings, but they're drawn so well they could have jumped right out of the series. For good measure, there's plenty of that speedy color blur going on in the background that those anime kids love. You know the kind I'm talking about.
Where as other card games typically are digital translations of actual card games that you'd play in a basement somewhere with "booster packs" that you bought at a book store, Harukanaru Densetsu is an original idea.
In battles, players are assigned five random cards with a number for its Attack power and one for its Defense power, both ranging from 1-8. Without knowing what the opponent has in their hand, each player draws a card, and whichever has the higher Attack number trumps the other and performs whatever action type the card is out of the eight different types. Attack cards deal out damage according to the card's power level, while the opposing card's defensive power level determines how much of the damage he can block. Other card types will boost the attack or defense levels on all your cards, allow you to use an item from your inventory, run from battle, or call in friends to attack (which works exactly the same as a regular attack). There is also a Reverse card that switches the Attack levels of the two cards drawn, making the winner the loser of the match, and a wild card that can mimic any other type at the player's choosing. Nothing too crazy, but it makes for a simple introduction to the whole idea of card battles, and for the most part it works.
Of course, other than selecting the right card, the only strategy comes in using the ability to link together cards of the same power level, thus doubling (or tripling, etc.) the power of your hand. For those bad at maths, having four cards of 5 attack power means 20 points of potential damage. Booyah. Now, this is also largely based on luck, because there's almost never a time when you have the opportunity to link cards that you should decline to do so.
That's about the extent of the rules, and as you might imagine it makes for a much more straightforward card fighter than Magic fans might be expecting. Really, the game has much more in common with Poker or Blackjack than strategy card games. The cards that wind up in your hand are random, and while the drawings on the cards are specific to your character, it is not a personal deck that you can access or edit in any way. You just get what you're dealt and work with it.
Another limitation is that, because a card's power level determines both who wins the round and the amount of damage dealt, there's no strategy in deciding between low-risk, low-damage attacks and high-risk, high-damage attacks. The riskier cards are also the weakest, so there's not a lot you can do if you receive a long string of cards that rank low in both Attack and Defense. The Reverse card presents somewhat of a radical element, as someone tossing around 40 points worth of damage risks those being returned to them. But with random decks and no betting/bluffing system, there's absolutely no way to predict when a Reverse card will be played, or even root their use in some deeper strategy. The only clue is that someone playing a Reverse card will probably play a single card rather than matching it up (since they'd want the card's Attack power as low as possible), but that happens a lot anyway, just because there are plenty of times when none of the cards match up. You just have to roll with it and hope things work out in your favor. It works out so that the difficulty is never really challenging, since challenge implies an obstacle that requires more effort to be able to pass. In Harukanaru Densetsu, you are either winning or losing, and there's really not much in the sense of "trying harder" or figuring out how to better trump the opponent.
There's also kind of a board game styled overworld for each stage of the game that allows players to move around according to their cards' power levels (one step per level). You can try to avoid battles or seek them out by going after other characters on the board, and it seems like a pretty cool idea until you reach levels that have you perform stupid tasks like grabbing items across the level and trying to make it back in under a certain amount of turns. It's like running fetch quests on a Mario Party, moving a few steps at a time with random battles in between each movement. Imagine how fun that doesn't sound. Often this is employed to format each "chapter" to mirror events in the show.
It becomes clear that the game is trying to serve two masters in trying to be fun and also trying to chronicle the Dragonball Z saga, and even a die-hard fan will find that it rarely succeeds in both areas at once. The game's progression relies on playing through the storylines of four characters from the series, and often an upcoming battle will be delayed because you have to go through a boring training level with another character before you can play it.
There's a multiplayer mode that allows you to either play head-to-head in card battles or in a series of four players on the overworld board, but the raw game is the same whether you play against a person or a computer. It's nice to have, but it's not the kind of experience you'd square out a few hours on Saturday to play with your buddies.
In Dragonball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu, Bandai and Atari attempt to bring their over-the-top take on the Dragonball Z universe to the typically cerebral world of card fighters. In their goal to breathe life and energy into what is essentially a numbers-based experience, they succeeded surprisingly well. For comparison's sake, I recently had the displeasure of playing The Marvel Trading Card Game on DS, and... damn. It was almost as if nobody cared to make it more visually dynamic or even visually appealing than computer solitaire. Here's my review-within-a-review of The Marvel Trading Card Game: just don't.
Comparatively, Harukanaru Densetsu is like a hurricane blowing through a Chinese New Year fireworks display (although I suppose this analogy would call for a typhoon). Instead of a simple adjustment to Health Point numbers, attacks actually show the characters blasting each other from one of the DS' twin screens to the other. Sure, they use still drawings, but they're drawn so well they could have jumped right out of the series. For good measure, there's plenty of that speedy color blur going on in the background that those anime kids love. You know the kind I'm talking about.
Where as other card games typically are digital translations of actual card games that you'd play in a basement somewhere with "booster packs" that you bought at a book store, Harukanaru Densetsu is an original idea.
In battles, players are assigned five random cards with a number for its Attack power and one for its Defense power, both ranging from 1-8. Without knowing what the opponent has in their hand, each player draws a card, and whichever has the higher Attack number trumps the other and performs whatever action type the card is out of the eight different types. Attack cards deal out damage according to the card's power level, while the opposing card's defensive power level determines how much of the damage he can block. Other card types will boost the attack or defense levels on all your cards, allow you to use an item from your inventory, run from battle, or call in friends to attack (which works exactly the same as a regular attack). There is also a Reverse card that switches the Attack levels of the two cards drawn, making the winner the loser of the match, and a wild card that can mimic any other type at the player's choosing. Nothing too crazy, but it makes for a simple introduction to the whole idea of card battles, and for the most part it works.
Of course, other than selecting the right card, the only strategy comes in using the ability to link together cards of the same power level, thus doubling (or tripling, etc.) the power of your hand. For those bad at maths, having four cards of 5 attack power means 20 points of potential damage. Booyah. Now, this is also largely based on luck, because there's almost never a time when you have the opportunity to link cards that you should decline to do so.
That's about the extent of the rules, and as you might imagine it makes for a much more straightforward card fighter than Magic fans might be expecting. Really, the game has much more in common with Poker or Blackjack than strategy card games. The cards that wind up in your hand are random, and while the drawings on the cards are specific to your character, it is not a personal deck that you can access or edit in any way. You just get what you're dealt and work with it.
Another limitation is that, because a card's power level determines both who wins the round and the amount of damage dealt, there's no strategy in deciding between low-risk, low-damage attacks and high-risk, high-damage attacks. The riskier cards are also the weakest, so there's not a lot you can do if you receive a long string of cards that rank low in both Attack and Defense. The Reverse card presents somewhat of a radical element, as someone tossing around 40 points worth of damage risks those being returned to them. But with random decks and no betting/bluffing system, there's absolutely no way to predict when a Reverse card will be played, or even root their use in some deeper strategy. The only clue is that someone playing a Reverse card will probably play a single card rather than matching it up (since they'd want the card's Attack power as low as possible), but that happens a lot anyway, just because there are plenty of times when none of the cards match up. You just have to roll with it and hope things work out in your favor. It works out so that the difficulty is never really challenging, since challenge implies an obstacle that requires more effort to be able to pass. In Harukanaru Densetsu, you are either winning or losing, and there's really not much in the sense of "trying harder" or figuring out how to better trump the opponent.
There's also kind of a board game styled overworld for each stage of the game that allows players to move around according to their cards' power levels (one step per level). You can try to avoid battles or seek them out by going after other characters on the board, and it seems like a pretty cool idea until you reach levels that have you perform stupid tasks like grabbing items across the level and trying to make it back in under a certain amount of turns. It's like running fetch quests on a Mario Party, moving a few steps at a time with random battles in between each movement. Imagine how fun that doesn't sound. Often this is employed to format each "chapter" to mirror events in the show.
It becomes clear that the game is trying to serve two masters in trying to be fun and also trying to chronicle the Dragonball Z saga, and even a die-hard fan will find that it rarely succeeds in both areas at once. The game's progression relies on playing through the storylines of four characters from the series, and often an upcoming battle will be delayed because you have to go through a boring training level with another character before you can play it.
There's a multiplayer mode that allows you to either play head-to-head in card battles or in a series of four players on the overworld board, but the raw game is the same whether you play against a person or a computer. It's nice to have, but it's not the kind of experience you'd square out a few hours on Saturday to play with your buddies.
Closing Comments
A valiant effort that just doesn't quite click.
Dragonball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu is the kind of game that makes me sad as a video game enthusiast/critic. The team that developed it has definite talent, and – despite being licensed material – it attempts to push an original concept with excellent presentation. It's a really commendable effort, and tainted only by the bitter realization that the game is not fun. Card gamers will find it way too simple, Dragonball Z fans will realize it makes a poor substitute for more action-packed fare, and it's unlikely that anyone else will care at all. I can see it embraced by younger Dragonball Z fans who are new to the card genre, but likely only as a stepping stone as they pass to something with more meat to it.
