As part of a long-running activity on Wednesdays, I play something once a week from my NES collection for 15-20 minutes in order to revisit the system and get some ideas for games I might want to invest more time into for future features. I recently re-watched the original run of Dragon Ball, so Dragon Power by Bandai seemed to call out to me this week.
Dragon Power for me was always the "weird game my cousin owned that he never wanted to play, but it was new to me so I kept wanting to try it." I remember largely being alright with the game, but as a kid the cutscenes were maximum levels of confusion for me. It honestly kind of weirded me out.

It took me a little bit to make the connection between Dragon Power and Dragon Ball, as you could occasionally catch the series on TV if you woke up early enough, similar to the 6 a.m. episodes of Sailor Moon on my local FOX affiliate. I think it gets undersold how much magazines at the time did have an awareness of what Dragon Ball was, as the series did get mentioned from time to time in U.S. gaming publications. However, the go-to connection in this country was typically, "That guy who made the characters for Dragon Warrior," without mentioning Akira Toriyama by name.
My personal favorite was always seeing the series referred to as DRAGON BALLZ.
Dragon Power is definitely the Famicom's Dragon Ball: Shen Long no Nazo after it has been stripped of its licensing elements. Goku gets to relatively keep his name from the original "Son Goku," but Bulma becomes "Nora," Yamcha is renamed "Lancer," Oolong is dubbed "Pudgy," Master Roshi is only referred to as a turtle hermit, the Dragon Balls are generalized as crystal balls, and so on. And, famously, any mention of panties that would repeatedly show up in the original Japanese run of Dragon Ball is skirted around by modifying the sprite into a triangular-cut sandwich.
At the end of the day, I never thought the game was bad, per say, I just always thought it was extremely confusing. The gameplay itself was kind of mediocre, but of course the NES had more entertaining games to play, and Dragon Power didn't offer any sort of two-player mode. I could also understand someone in the 21st Century going back to this game and being completely underwhelmed considering the stock of Dragon Ball universe games now available these days (which includes a couple based specifically on the original, pre-Z, Dragon Ball run).
I can't say I really ever thought about it until recently, but now that I am much more intimately familiar with Dragon Ball, I can cast away that confusion that had put a cloud over this game for me as a kid. Probably still the biggest hang-up on the game is the poor translation of the cutscenes, but I finally understand what the heck is going on and in a lot of cases, it's a little clearer why some of the choices were made for this game.
I usually bring up the NES version of Die Hard in a case like this. Having seen the movie as an adult, even though someone might not like some of the mechanics in the game - such as having a durability stat for John McClane's feet that must be managed by the player, to give a big example - I completely understand it is a choice the developer made to remain faithful to the movie.
Giving Dragon Power a quick play the other day, the game still remains a little weird, but now I mean that in a good way. The game starts out fairly direct with the player running around and punching out enemies, but if you take a moment to explore, there is all manner of secret areas to stumble upon for extra resources. One of the long-running tropes of the Dragon Ball series is the never-ending hunger of Goku, and in my head at least, this gets represented in the game with a health decay mechanic. However, all of these secret areas and pickups provide plenty of means to keep this health total in check.
However, the game starts to unfold in a way where exploration is mandatory - harking back to the times when Goku set out on nonstop adventures around the world. An early example is in first encountering Oolong, who is causing trouble for a village. Oolong is a shape-shifting pig, so Goku needs to explore the village and expose him until he eventually drops a key that allows the player to move to the final area of the village. Likewise, when bandits steal the Dragon Balls accumulated by Goku and Bulma, Goku needs to explore the desert to recover each of those Dragon Balls.
Even in its Dragon Power iteration, the game remains a little faithful to the source material, as players can pick up items such as Goku's Nyoibo (Power Pole in the U.S. versions) or items that fuel the use of his trademark Kamehameha projectile attack. When you can actually bridge a connection between these elements and the Dragon Ball series, playing Dragon Power seems to be a bit more enjoyable these days.
Still, controlling Goku isn't perfect. The game does switch to scenes of 1-on-1 combat similar to Yie Ar Kung Fu, but nothing is done to flesh out this combat. Goku basically still has the same moveset and abilities outside of an added jumping attack, but these scenes essentially just change the game to a rigid 2-D plane. All this effectively does is eliminate some of Goku's maneuverabilty to avoid attacks.
Also, I realize some accommodations had to be made in avoiding the licensed material, but the music in Dragon Power is extremely repetitive and just plain not great overall. Dragon Ball: Shen Long no Nazo gets to keep a rendition of "Mystical Adventure," but the title screen of Dragon Power substitutes a semi-decent theme at the least.
The graphics of the game aren't anything special either, but, again, when you can tie it to the stylings of Akira Toriyama, the presentation elements hit well enough. Being tied to manga and anime, though, a highlight is in how expressive the faces of the main characters are.
I spent 20 minutes playing Dragon Power for this week's WedNESday, and to be honest, it's on my mind now. I was able to remember enough about the game that I got through the bandit area and beat Yamcha. Having such a connection with Dragon Ball these days, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a slice of me that wants to finally see this game all the way through. I'm sure this will happen in due time ...
Until then - please accept this squatting GOOD FACE Yamcha:
