Dragon Ball Z Team Training is a ROM Hack of Pokémon FireRed. Like its title suggests, this hack replaces all the Pokémon with characters from the popular Dragon Ball franchise.
This game takes place in a weird fusion between the Pokémon and Dragon Ball universe. Instead of catching Pokémon, trainers now catch "Fighters", which are a selection of heroes and villains from the Dragon Ball franchise. Along with this, all of the items, attacks and several NPCs and locations are replaced and modified to better fit the Dragon Ball universe.
The game follows the same plot structure as the original Fire Red. The player gets to choose his starting Fighter (choices being Goku, Vegeta and adult Gohan) from Dr Briefs and sets on the path to defeat the eight Gym Leaders (mainly non-combatant characters from the show, with their own team of Fighters) followed by the Dragon League, while frequently encountering and battling their rival and the evil Team Pilaf.
A trailer and information on how to download the game can be found on this video
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Dragon Ball Z Team Training provides examples of
- Adaptation Expansion: Adult Gohan is able to turn into Super Saiyan God, which never happened in the show.
- Adapted Out: Several transformations appearing in the show aren't featured in the game. Examples are Mecha Frieza, Super Perfect Cell and the various forms Buu acquired by absorbing other characters.
- Anti-Frustration Features: HM03 Surf is replaced by the Turtle Bell in this game. The Turtle Bell allows players to summon Master Roshi's Turtle and mount him to traverse bodies of water, without having to have a Fighter with Surf in the party. This is really helpful, because the only fighter able to learn Surf in this game, is the rather weak Aqua. And you don't want him taking up a slot in your party.
- Boss Rush: Like the original Pokémon League, the Dragon League in this game involves you fighting four fairly strong trainers and your rival in sequence. The main difference is that you fight against the four Kais, instead of the Elite Four.
- Can't Catch Up: Just like in the Dragon Ball series, as the game progresses, some characters are obviously starting to fall behind others in terms of stats, despite being the same level. Also like the original franchise, this mostly applies to any non-Saiyan and non-Big Bad character.
- Com Mons: Several of the weaker characters from the franchise fill this role. Examples are Saibaman, Nappa, Raditz, Tienshinhan, Krillin and Yamcha.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Downplayed compared to the original game. In this game, the majority of the Fighters are Fighting-type, Dark-type (for villains) or Normal-type, with the other Pokémon types practically being non existent.
- Joke Character: Loads of them, actually. Basically, if a character is not a Saiyan or a Big Bad, he won't be of much use as the game progresses. Just like in the original show.
- Magikarp Power:
- Lower class Saiyans, such as Nappa, Raditz and Turles are among the weakest of fighters. But expose them to a moonstone, train the resulting Oozaru to level 45, watch it evolve into a Golden Oozaru and you'll have one of the strongest physical fighters, bar any of the godlike characters found in the aftergame.
- Ironically, Frieza gets hit with this. In his first three forms, he has a very mediocre moveset and is weak to the majority of other Fighters due to his Dark/Ice Typing. Dark Types are weak against Fighting Types, while the majority of the Ki attacks are of the Fire type, which works against his Ice type. Once Frieza reaches his final form on level 30, he gains better moves and is able to mow down most of the enemies, due to his high Special Attack stat. Things get even better when he reaches level 50, which evolves him into his Golden Frieza form.
- Olympus Mons: While many characters from Dragon Ball Z can be considered godlike in terms of strength, the player also has access to characters explicitly called God. Examples are Shenron, which can be found by gathering the Dragon Balls and talking to a certain NPC and several of the divine characters introduced in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super, such as Beerus, Whis, Zamasu and Black. Some of these God characters also carry a God Stone, which you can use to turn your starter into a Super Saiyan God, thus promoting a Com Mon to an OlympusMon.
- Permanently Missable Content: Like with the Legendary Pokémon in the original game, there are several Fighters with sprites appearing on the Overworld. Most of them are Big Bads of several movies or divine characters from Dragon Ball Super. Failing to capture them and saving the game afterwards will result in this trope, as these Fighters won't ever reappear. This trope also applies to Shenron, with the main difference being that he doesn't appear on the overworld and is instead encountered by gathering the 7 Dragon Balls.
- Shown Their Work: The creator of this ROM Hack used several mechanics of the base game that reference the source material really well. A few examples are:
- Saiyans who still have their tails are able to turn into a giant ape when exposed to the moon. Thus using a Moon Stone on a Saiyan with a tail (like Kid Gohan, Radditz or Nappa) evolves them into Oozaru.
- In the show, Android 19, 20 and Super Android 17 are able to absorb Ki attacks. In this game, they have an ability that heals them when Fire moves are used on them, as the majority of Ki attacks are Fire typed.
- The movesets of each of the Fighters resemble to what the characters did in the show. An example is Semi-Perfect Cell, who learns the move Explosion, referencing how he desperately wanted to blow himself up after losing to Super Saiyan 2 Gohan.
