The Let's Play Archive

Dragon Ball Z (NES)

by mkwong98

Part 4: Episode 4 - Meeting your instructor

Last time, we beat Raditz with both our characters alive, now lets see what happens if one of them is dead.

The scene with Raditz remains more or less the same, with the dead character missing on the screen. The main difference occurs in the scene with Kami:


Run, Goku! You must reach Kaio's planet soon!

Kami promptly took the deceased Goku to the other world...

The rest plays out the same.

Next, if Piccolo is dead:


Goku, forgive me. The power of the Saiyans is too great! I intend to send you to train under the great Kaio!

To meet Kaio, however, your life must have expired! Unfortunately, Piccolo wasn't allowed passage, and it's impossible for me to go there.

Thus, Goku assumed Piccolo and Kami's place, and traveled to the other world with Kami...

So Kami doesn't even give Goku a choice. What a jerk!

Back to the story... It's filler time!







Yes, master Garlic!

I hear and obey!

Right away, master Garlic!

Garlic's 3 lackeys flew around the world, each in search of a mystical Dragonball.







I've gathered you all here to train you to fight the Saiyans when they arrive in 1 year. First, we must gather the Dragonballs and use them to wish Goku back!

We have 3 balls already. However, there are others who seek the Dragonballs, too! Garlic and his men want to rule Earth! We cannot let them call upon Shenron!

According to the radar, the balls are located to the north, east, and west of this tower. I want you to divide up into teams of 2 and search for a ball each.




We pick the default arrangement:


It's up to you!

The Z Warriors' search for the Dragonballs had begun! But will they be able to find all the Dragonballs and revive Goku in time?!






We are back to gameplay!


First, let's see the story update:




On this map, Goku can only move forward along the path.



There are item mini games, but not useful on this map. Goku needs reach the end as soon as possible. How fast does Goku finish his training will determine how early he will join us on the last map.



There are 3 houses on the way and each will give us an item.









Flight cards are very useful on this map:



We use all of the Flight cards to shorten our way and skip training mini games.

Goku is forced to play the training mini game whenever he reaches one of them. The penalty is heavy when we fail, so we skip them whenever possible:

I missed this screen shot the first time, so I cheated my way here quickly. You can see that from my cards.



The background is switched to the Snakeway and instead of being crushed by the boulder, Goku will fall off if we fail.

The last training mini game is beyond the last Flight card point, so we have to play this mini game at least once. And with save state, we can use Oolong card to get some good cards before hand. After that, we are ready to meet Kaio!















What are you doing?

Huh? You..you're..?

Hehehe, I'm Kai Oh, Oh K? Kaio, ok? Heh, good one!

It's him! I-I've come to train with you!

... Were you even listening to my joke just now? No sense of humor!

Nevermind! Hmm, Saiyans, you say? A truly formidable race! Sure, I'll train you!..But first let's have a nice hot cup of tea...

Finally, Goku has completed his trek through the other world, and has reached Kaio's planet. Goku's training for the impending battle will certainly be no easy task...







But, I... I can't!

Stop your sniveling, and let's go!






We have a new character! Let's have look at his stat.









It's clear that Piccolo will do most of the fighting while babysitting Gohan. Currently Gohan has nothing special to offer.


Before we go anywhere, let's check out the story:


Huh? Another bug with the translation patch. It is easy to over look, because the story changes as soon as we visit that house at the top right of the screen.






We have three new enemies for the next few maps and lose the Saiyan enemies.




Cinnamon - This enemy has 270BP and 85HP. His high HP make him difficult to defeat in one round.


Herb - He has 300BP and 35HP. He uses special attacks frequently but his low HP makes him an easy target.


Jasmine - He has 290BP and 65HP.


We follow the path and reach an island with several training spots. Gohan spend some time here to catch up and depart again when he has over 700BP.





We move north and visit a house:



Then we follow a U shaped path to another island.

I didn't cheat to get these cards!




Yep, he has a dragon ball.


These are our characters:





Different characters have level up at different rates. Gohan is at level 7 but has lower BP than Piccolo.


Time to fight the boss!


Sansho has 1300BP and 600HP. He fights us with Herb and Jasmine.

Since Piccolo has higher BP than his, this fight is very easy.

Besides the generic Energy Wave, he also has another special attack:


And after a short fight, we finally beat him:





A 50% increase in HP! Gohan is turning into a tank.






Three more to go!

See you in the next episode of Dragon Ball Z LP!