With the immense popularity of Dragonball Z in the west, it’s a wonder if anyone remembers the series’ roots in the original Dragonball manga. Goku, the franchise’s spiky-haired protagonist, was less a galactic hero and more of a monkey-tailed child. Less fond of Ki energy and mammoth fireball attacks, the bo-staff wielding kid still saw his fair share of adventure, and after 20-odd years, Dragonball is finally getting its due this September on the Nintendo DS.
The 3D quarter-down-perspective adventure game looks suspiciously identical to last year’s Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, featuring touch screen combat and navigation, though it seems to more prominently feature dinosaurs baddies in the hunt for the seven wish-granting Dragonballs.
While we’ve yet to play it, it seems that Goku will fight alongside Bulma (among others, perhaps) in his stick-swinging action adventure, which has some element of hand and weapon upgrades in its collecting centric side-questing to spruce things up.
Dragonball DS isn’t slated for a Stateside release, but considering the popularity of both Dragonball Z –which should be enough incentive for folks to check out this lead-in series– and Phantom Hourglass, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Namco Bandai bring this baby to our shores next year.
If you’re down with imports, keep an eye on the online shops in September. Until then, dive in to our image gallery, courtesy of Famitsu.
