is a Game Boy Advance

Game Boy Advance

The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...

 video game based on the Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995; later the 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Dragon Ball was inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the...

 manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 and anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series. The game contains 30 playable character

Player character

A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...

s (counting all modes in the game altogether), which is unusually large for a game of this caliber. It contains five modes of play, the story of the game starts at the very the beginning of the series when Goku first met Bulma, and goes all the way up to the final battle against King Piccolo. This game received an ESRB rating of Everyone 10+ because of some of the violence and language.

Story Mode

Goku as he goes on the adventure of his lifetime. Most of the Dragon Ball story arcs are here; the only one noticeably missing is the "Piccolo Junior

Piccolo (Dragon Ball)

is a fictional character from the Dragon Ball manga, authored by Akira Toriyama. Piccolo was first introduced as the reincarnation of the evil Piccolo Daimao in chapter #167 first published in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine on April 4, 1988, making him a demon and archrival of the primary...

" storyline from the end of the series.There are many items to collect in the game, most of which are hidden. Items can include those that increase the player's health and/or ki, to the Dragon Balls, to objects such as Master Roshi's sunglasses and Mercenary Tao's cyborg headgear. You are only able to play as Goku at first. By clearing Goku's Story Mode once, you are also able to play Story Mode with Krillin. However with Krillin, you will not get any cutscenes and story, just the levels. You cannot play Story Mode with any other character.

There are 3 main different levels:

• Platform- Goku/Krillin goes around an area and beats the usual enemies.
• Nimbus- Goku/Krillin fights the enemy in the air on the Nimbus Cloud.
• One-On-One- Where one character fights another character individually, like in the tournaments.

One-On-One Mode

A one-on-one fight between the player and the opponent, much like several of the boss battles in the game. This is a free battle mode where you can decide which area you and your opponent will fight at and how long the fight will be. You start off with Goku and Krillin, but whenever you defeat a one-on-one character in Story Mode, you gain a personal item of theirs which unlocks them. You can also play as Jackie Chun, Mercenary Tao, Grandpa Gohan, Tien Shinhan, King Piccolo and Cyborg Tao once you unlock them.

Apart from single battles, a Survival Mode can be unlocked by completing both Goku and Krillin's Story Mode. In this mode you are placed in a tournament, and can select any of the characters that have been unlocked.

Versus Mode

The multiplayer mode of the game, where 2 players can compete against each other with most of the options available in One-on-One Mode.

Extra Mode

After you have completed Goku's Story Mode, you unlock Extra Mode. In Extra Mode, you revisit all the levels in Story Mode (without the cutscenes) and you replay them. You have all of the levels available to you at the start, rather than having to go through them in order. There are two primary objectives to complete:

• Number One: All of the red doors seen throughout the levels can now be opened, and a greater amount of items are placed in the stages. Minigames can be unlocked by finding all 54 items.
• Number Two: The Extra Mode Character List shows 28 characters that the player can use in Extra Mode, aside from Goku and Krillin. Each of them has a corresponding portrait hidden in one of the levels, that must be found to unlock the character for use. Both the third and fourth mini game must also be accessed before every single character can be unlocked. After that, it is highly recommended you play through Extra Mode as each character and learn all their moves.

Reception

The game received mixed reviews, some positive some negative. Critics say that all the modes made it a much better game than if there was just 1 or 2 modes. The One-On-One mode was criticized for being too straightforward, but was also praised for the whole concept in the first place. The minigames were described as cute, but all in all, it was the number of locations from the show, number of playable characters, and number of items from the show that really surprised people. The Story Mode was a little bit criticized for telling the actual story, but the gameplay (and the new Extra Mode) was praised a lot in its place.

External links

• Official site
• Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure at GameSpot