Besides the normal fighting and platforming, some levels have Goku riding on the Flying Nimbus while others have a simple but effective Fighting Game format. There's plenty of Unlockable Content as well, including pretty much every single enemy in the game as Secret Characters.
One year later, Dimps made a One Piece game for the GBA which serves as a Spiritual Successor to this one.
Tropes:
- 1-Up: Shaped like Goku and/or Krillin's head.
- Adapted Out: Despite the fact that this game covers nearly all of the original Dragon Ball story, it ignores the final 23rd Martial Arts Tournament arc, likely due to the fact that Goku physically grew into a teenager when the tournament began and that would require a change in sprites. Consequently, this means King Piccolo doesn’t create Piccolo Jr. when he is killed.
- Attack Deflector: In addition to being able to destroy or deflect bullets, Goku and Krillin can also deflect missiles and other explosives back at the enemy by hitting them with their midair upward kick. Only Goku can use his Up+B to deflect bullets, while only Krillin can use his grounded Up B to also deflect missiles.
- Auto-Pilot Tutorial: When the One-On-One is introduced during the story, the game overtakes the player character to demonstrate the new moves key to defeat the boss.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- Some of the extra mode characters can be described as this, such as Yamcha who can only move by making repeated short dashes. Drum counts as this too considering he can warp, but only about one foot, and that can screw you over when near bottomless pits.
- Akuman's Devilmite Beam is an instant kill on any enemy except Goku, but takes awfully long to charge and the ki gauge is completely lost if the move is interrupted.
- Balloon Belly: In One-On-One mode, Krillin can inflate himself to glide for an instant.
- The Battle Didn't Count: Combined with Heads I Win, Tails You Lose and Hopeless Boss Fight in two cases. When Goku fights Tao Pai Pai and King Piccolo for the first time, he's severely weakened and is supposed to lose. If you win, you lose control as the enemy stands up and knocks out a massively cutscene-incompetent Goku. At least you won't get a "You Lose" message. Against Jackie Chun and Tien, however, you're required to win, even though Goku lost those fights in the original story.
- Black Screen of Death: When Goku punches General White into the horizon, the scene fades out at the time of impact.
- Bonus Feature Failure: That most of the enemy cast is playable is a good, novel idea. But most of their movesets are very limited and not much fun to play.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: True to the original story, Buyon is invincible until you break the wall of his room to let the cold wind freeze him.
- Boss Rush: Bosses on Parade Mode is an unlockable gauntlet against every boss in the game, excluding the One-On-One fighters. The final enemy is a gray palette swap of Goku.
- Bottomless Pits: Watch you step so you don't fall into those, though it is possible to recover from some pits by wall-jumping between walls.
- Bowdlerize: Like the Funimation dub but unlike the European version, the American version changes Oolong's wish for "some girl's panties!" to "the world's most comfortable pair of underwear!"
- Break Meter: In One-On-One Mode, the fighters' Rush Gauge are depleted if they're unable to block or parry attacks. While it isn't empty, the characters have Super Armor and don't take damage, but once it is, the attacker is able to peform a full combo on the defenseless opponent.
- Charged Attack: Doable with Ki attacks by holding R. Power depends on how much the special gauge is filled and performing those attacks has no cost to it (In One-On-One Mode it does). While charging, characters become slower, but they can still attack normally to chain the Ki attack.
- Collection Sidequest: Many items are hidden around the levels, although most of them have no real purpose.
- Collision Damage: Subverted in a very fair way, running or walking into enemies does not hurt you. Stage hazards also damage enemies, which can make for some amusing Disaster Dominoes in certain levels.
- Combos: You better learn how to chain your attacks for when you fight the harder bosses. On the enemy side, many of their attacks have this effect, as Goku only gains invincibility frames when knocked down.
- Compressed Adaptation: Not as much as the One Piece game made after it, but not every scene from the manga is covered. Android 8 doesn't appear in the Muscle Tower level, for example.
- Coup de Grâce Cutscene: Goku's last attack on King Piccolo is depicted on a cutscene.
- Covers Always Lie: The North American box art has adult Goku in the background, despite not appearing in the game.
- Degraded Boss:
- Right after you beat Major Metallitron at Muscle Tower and then on several different occasions, you can find more of him as a normal enemy although thankfully without his Last Ditch Move Rocket Punch.
- Tambourine returns as a normal enemy, although now without the wings.
- Double Jump: Krillin and a few other characters can double jump, while Goku actually can't.
- Double Unlock: You can see the secret characters' cards in Extra Mode but you can't unlock them if you don't have all the Dragon Balls. In the Japanese version, you needed to input a button-press code in the title screen to be able to use them as well.
- Dual Boss: Pilaf Machine and Shu Machine on Pilaf's Castle. The five Murasaki Brothers on Muscle Tower.
- Extended Gameplay: Extra mode allows you to replay the levels and enter the red doors that were locked before, so you can find the rest of the collectibles. Also, extra characters are playable in it.
- Every 10,000 Points: you get the first extra life at 20,000 points, then at 50,000, then 100,000, and every 100,000 afterwards.
- Fighting Game: One-On-One Mode plays like a standard fighting game with simple mechanics.
- Flash Step: Doable in One-On-One Mode by pressing L after getting knocked down.
- Guide Dang It!:
- To figure out some of Goku's more advanced skills the player has to try out button combinations on their own or Read the Freaking Manual, as only the One-On-One mode has a tutorial.
- Extra mode has a player select menu with only Goku and Krillin available by default. Icons of almost every enemy and boss are scattered around the mode, but initially appear to do nothing. What the game doesn't tell you is that you need to find the Dragon Balls in extra mode and beat Krillin's story mode to be able to actually use them.
- The icons for Jackie Chun and Piccolo only appear in the Rock Crushing and Small Fry Fight minigames respectively, with a random probability of dropping.
- In the Japanese version, a secret code had to be used on the title screen to actually enable the secret characters after collecting all Dragon Balls, similarly to Mega Man Battle Network 2 and the first Zatch Bell: Electric Arena.
- Heart Container: The Super Life Water items (with the Ultra Divine Water maxing it out). There are other variations for upgrading the Kamehameha and Goku's attack power (and by proxy the Power Pole's range and his Up+B's duration).
- Humongous Mecha: The boss robots used by Pilaf and the Red Ribbon Army.
- Immune to Flinching: Some attacks have this property.
- Indy Escape: Giant boulders make an appearance in Pilaf's Castle and Yajirobe's Prairie (mainly the Cave that holds the Super Kami Water).
- Invincibility Powerup: A turtle shell which makes Goku invincible and able to deal some Collision Damage to enemies.
- Kamehame Hadouken: It starts off weak and short ranged, but Goku can later charge it into it's blue screen-filling form. It's useful for damaging enemies from a safe distance, but some can run at Goku to prevent him from turtling too much.
- Launcher Move: Goku can launch grounded enemies high into the air with a kick activated by pressing Up+A+B, at which point he can jump in pursuit and pummel them before they hit the ground. Most characters in Extra Mode (but mainly Krillin) can also perform this with just an upward B command. In VS mode, using your forward B combo after depleting their Rush Gauge does this automatically.
- Last Ditch Move: After his first defeat, Major Metallitron shoots his hand at you while you're leaving the room.
- Ledge Bats: Bats and other enemy types sometimes serve this purpose.
- Limit Break: By pressing L, your character executes a strong attack that uses up some of the special gauge (only for Goku and Krillin, as everyone uses L to block). Goku can power his up by holding R to charge up their Ki first, allowing them to automatically follow up their attack with a Ki blast, the strength of which depends on its charge level before they used the Limit Break. In 1-on-1 fights, Goku, Jackie, Tien and Piccolo have a highly-damaging super move that can be performed by pressing L and R at the same time, they need a full Ki gauge and using it drains the bar completely.
- Marathon Level: Every single stage is rather long and filled with mandatory enemy encounters.
- Mercy Invincibility: You get some if you're knocked down.
- Mythology Gag: Because Krillin can't ride the Flying Nimbus due to not being pure of heart, he instead rides the Dark Nimbus (here translated as the "Black Nimbus") Korin gave Mercenary Tao in anime filler.
- Palette Swap: The color palette of enemies let's you know what kind of attacks they have. This is especially important for the red multi-legged robots, which explode for large amounts of damage when they die.
- Puzzle Boss: You can't hurt Buyon normally during his boss fight. You need to bust a hole open in the wall to let the freezing air outside blow in the room and freeze Buyon, where he is made vulnerable.
- One-Hit Kill: Akuman can kill any enemy in a single hit with his Devilmite Beam, including bosses, but it takes an entire maxed out Ki bar to perform, takes an eternity to charge and is easily interrupted.
- However, just like in the original manga, Goku as both a boss and playable character is completely immune to it.
- Shoot the Bullet: Punch the bullets to destroy them. You're even required to punch the Battle Jacket's big missile to avoid it's full screen damage range.
- Secret A.I. Moves: When fought as a boss, a few playable characters such as Goku and Krillin can dash like they do in Vs Mode. However, not much of their attacks are that much of a secret, but with several playable characters they're performed slightly different.
- Secret Character: Almost everyone you fight against in the game can be unlocked in Extra Mode. You can swap between characters anytime at the pause menu once they're available.
- Spikes of Doom: Which deal high damage — even to enemies.
- Spin to Deflect Stuff: Up+B as Goku spins the Power Pole to deflect bullets.
- Super Armor: Bosses turn unflinchable and gain high defense when you hit them too recklessly and often become invincible on top of that. Goku also has armor while firing the Kamehameha, but no extra defense. If certain enemies get you from behind at this point, expect to take over double of the damage you'd usually take from their attacks.
- Super Title 64 Advance: Interestingly enough, the English version is called "Advanced", which is a common mistake people make when talking about the GBA.
- Timed Mission: When searching for a rock in The Island of Training.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: Downplayed in the first minute of the game. The first Pterosaur you meet spawns after beating the third bandit on the level's first encounter. However, its altitude is relative to Goku's position, so you can use launching kicks on the bandit to spawn the dino so high into the sky that it becomes only barely hittable by a jumping staff strike when it uses a diving attack.
- Video Game Tutorial: There is an Auto-Pilot Tutorial when the One-On-One is introduced during the story.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Yamcha. Yes, Yamcha. If you didn't get yet that you can't just spam the attack button to defeat bosses in this game, fighting Yamcha will do the trick. His Wolf Fang Fist is fairly predictable, but deals a TON of damage if it connects. Puar will also regularly bring bombs to drop at the most inopportune times.
- Wall Jump: Done just like in the Metroid games (jump into a wall, face the opposite direction and jump).
- You Have Researched Breathing: High jumping with the Power Pole is limited to specific spots to keep it from breaking the level design. On Extra Mode, however, you can quickly find a Power Pole item that quietly removes that limitation.
