 S... That's trunk! A couple of months ago I took a look at some Super Nintendo games that are tough to categorize because their gameplay spans a couple of different genres. And one of those games was titled Ultimate Fighter. It's an ambitious game that tries to blend traditional side-scrolling beat-em-up gameplay with boss fights that were presented like how they'd play in a one-on-one fighting game. It's a great idea, but the game itself is pretty lackluster. Thankfully, Dragon Ball took up a similar idea on the Gameboy Advance and delivered a really solid game in 2004 as Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure developed by Dimps, who also worked on the Sonic Advance series. You play as Goku, you run to the right, and you kick the crap out of anything that moves, and right away you'll notice your moveset is enormous. B is your regular attack, but B while pressing up also deflects projectiles and bounces bombs back at enemies. You can also roll the D-pad left or right in the middle of a combination attack and do some cool stuff, like toss an enemy on the end of your staff. That's always fun. A jumps and A plus a direction on the D-pad will perform a wall jump, and you double tap left or right on the D-pad to run. There's also air attacks that differ based on what direction you hit the D-pad and where you are in mid-air, sort of like in a game like Turtles in Time. The L button performs a special attack, usually involving Goku's staff, and these attacks are tethered to the keymeters you see in the lower left. When you've built up two of these, you can pull and press R, and the more keymeters you accumulate, just from beating up enemies, the more powerful your attack will be. It's pretty dang fun to use, considering four keybars means you can do a full-on Kamehameha wave. The way to earn extra keybars is by finding these doors that are hidden throughout various stages. Some are easy to find, and some not so much. Once you've obtained a few, the easiest way to build up your keymeter is through combos, and those are as simple as it gets in this game, just execute as many consecutive successful hits as you can. There's no crazy killer instik style stuff going on here, although the game does allow for juggling, which is always fun, and that brings me to the fighting mode. Eventually, when you finish each long level, the game narrows its focus to a simple one-on-one fight versus whoever, and you'll fight all sorts of characters, everybody from Yamcha to Krillin to Giren, Nam, Jackie Chan, you get the idea. These fights are a lot of fun, because they're really fast-paced, and you can launch your opponent into the air and hit all sorts of cool moves and combos while keeping in mind that your enemy can still counter. It's just super satisfying to be able to launch someone into the air like this and then spike them back into the ground. I think the excellent sound design has a lot to do with that. There's other game modes here, too, like these flying Nimbus stages, where it's the same sort of beat-em-up action, only there's no platforming. You're just beating the crap out of anything on the screen. All these game modes are tethered together on a world map screen, so you can revisit certain areas, which is nice, because there's tons of items you can collect as well. There's the key upgrades, like I said earlier, but there's also upgrades to your health, your staff, and all sorts of other stuff that pertains to the story. Speaking of which, the story mode here is just a streamlined version of the show, starting with Goku meeting Bulma up until the battle against Piccolo. There's 15 long levels and a ton of boss fights, but I will say, if you're playing this one for the story, you may be a bit disappointed because it's really rushed through. Still, the game rewards you for completing the story mode because it unlocks Krillin as a playable character. You also unlock what the game refers to as extra mode, where you can go back and play individual stages and try and collect every item and unlock every red door, which further unlocks a few mini-games you can play. Sounds kinda lame on the surface, but when you find the portrait of another character behind one of those red doors, that unlocks them as a playable character for that stage, so fans of the show should dig that. There's eventually 28 characters to unlock, and they're also available in the game's one-on-one fighting mode as well. For as much Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure has going for it, there are some pretty noticeable flaws here, the most obvious being the pacing of the regular beat'em up stages. These tend to just drag on and on, and while the combat system is fun, there are times where the game will actually stop your progress and make you beat up the same 5 or 6 enemies before moving on, plus enemies respawn like crazy. I'm talking like Ninja Gaiden NES type respawning, it just gets old after a while. So yeah, Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure makes a heck of a first impression. First, you'll notice how great the game looks, then you'll notice the fun combat, platforming and sound design, and then you'll notice how repetitive it is and the annoying enemy respawn rate. But don't let that sway you, this game still has a lot going for it, and it's one of those rare licensed games that's worth checking out even if you don't care for the Dragon Ball series. And fans will definitely enjoy this one, even if all you're interested in is the one-on-one fighting mode. You can play that on its own right from the main menu. The game only got a release for the Game Boy Advance, and it isn't available anywhere else at the moment, and the cartridge is a bit pricey at around $40, so this is another one you gotta play anyway you can. And I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.