Dragon Ball is a great manga and anime, but the same can’t be said for its video games. Yes, there are some good ones, but of the near hundreds out there, the track record is pretty dismal. Why is it so hard to get a good Dragon Ball game made? Well, that’s all part of the whole money-making machine we call capitalism. It comes as no surprise to say that Dragon Ball is a globally recognized name as it’s one of the oldest manga and anime projects still getting new material. For those unaware, the first chapter of the manga was published on December 3, 1984 in Japan. That’s right, 2019 marks the 35th anniversary for the series! So again, it’s easy to see why this franchise has so many fans and why the license holders want to get this anime out there to as many mediums as possible.
One of those is video games, but not a lot of care goes into them because for the most part, they’re quick cash grabs with the mentality that people will buy them no matter what. So, while not that many actual games in the franchise are good, a lot of games were taken from the series to make good art. Now with these following entries, I’m not saying Dragon Ball created these tropes, but more so that it popularized them. In this way, you could make some weird connections to some titles copying it in one way or another. Also, even though they may have borrow from this series, but they are all great. Well, mostly. Keep in mind, though, that this is just a fun exercise.
20 Street Fighter II
My case with this one is pretty simple: Ryu’s Hadouken looks just like Goku’s Kamehameha technique. The beam is blue, powerful, and even the hand gesture is identical. Did Dragon Ball get this from something else? I have no idea.
Go ahead and prove me wrong if there’s an earlier example, but like I said in my intro, my case is that Dragon Ball, at the very least, popularized a lot of these concepts if not created them altogether. So, take that Ryu!
19 Mega Man X
I would also like to make a case that Mega Man’s charge shot is also reminiscent of Goku’s famous Kamehameha wave. Specifically, I want to call out the Mega Man X series. It’s not as simple as my idea with Ryu what with the hand gesture and all, but there is something to my thought process.
The beam is still blue, mostly, and you have to charge up your attack. Now, does Dragon Ball, or its Capcom brother, Street Fighter, inspire this? It could be a copy of a copy.
18 Chrono Trigger
Can you really call Chrono Trigger, one of the best RPGs of all time, a copycat? Sure, it uses Akira Toriyama’s art, but is that enough? Well, in some eyes, yes.
I’ve known people through my years on this planet that either don’t want to play this game because they think it’s a Dragon Ball rip-off or because they don’t like Toriyama’s art. Either way, both of those reasons are a turn off for people because it looks like Dragon Ball. Plus, there’s the whole time machine stuff.
17 Dragon Quest XI
Prior to Chrono Trigger, the first video game Akira Toriyama provided artwork for was Dragon Quest in 1986. He’s been with the games in some capacity, but not much.
I chose to dive into Dragon Quest XI because it’s the most recent entry and also has a bunch of stuff I can point out. You travel back and forth in time, collect orbs that look like Dragon Balls, and characters can also go Super Saiyan, more or less. It’s a throwback to Dragon Ball’s and Dragon Quest’s familiar story bits and tropes, but maybe too much so.
16 Asura’s Wrath
Asura’s Wrath is the best example of a video game channeling the pure energy of Dragon Ball. From the first minute, things are out of control: people are screaming, muscles are bulging, punches are smashing down walls, and so on.
It’s dripping with so much machismo that I swear the disc has a musk to it. In this way, it’s more of a copycat in the vibe format, which I’m totally thankful for. When are we getting a sequel?
15 The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights Of Britannia
The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is just an excuse to talk about the anime. The game is a fighter that conjures the look and energy of the show, but is ultimately just average. My beef is with last year’s season, wherein they introduced Balor’s Magical Eye.
With this item, Hawk could read people’s “power levels” and magic. I’m not kidding. They didn’t even try to disguise it. Introducing this new mechanic out of the blue for season two was a mistake and an actual example of a rip-off.
14 Final Fantasy VII
The Final Fantasy series could get mocked for aping Dragon Quest, so in that way, you could say it copied Dragon Ball as well. I have a better idea, though: if we bring Final Fantasy VII into the discussion, I can bring up Cloud’s Super Saiyan hair color and design.
Speaking of, Limit Breaks also resemble going Super Saiyan, and like Balor’s Magical Eye, characters can equip a Materia called Sense that can read out enemy data. Oh yeah, and they’re fighting an alien trying to destroy the world.
13 Hunter X Hunter: Kindan No Hihou
Hunter X Hunter: Kindan no Hihou is a Game Boy Color game exclusive in Japan (if you couldn’t tell from that title). It covers the Chimera Ant arc in the anime and manga, and if you haven’t seen what the king looks like, well, just look above.
He is a straight-up clone of Cell and almost embarrassingly so. It’s my least favorite arc in the series in an otherwise pretty decent epic. Also, the game is like Castlevania, which is the cool part.
12 Enslaved: Odyssey To The West
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a game I’m not sure too many people remember. It came out from Ninja Theory before they really became big. Were they ever big? Well, they were mighty enough for Microsoft to buy them.
Anyway, the game mirror’s the 1592 novel, Journey to the West, which Dragon Ball is also based on. You could say it’s more influenced by Dragon Ball, though, since it also has a tech-flair to it. The main character, Monkey, even has a Power Pole like Goku. It’s really underrated, but it’s great.
11 Sonic The Hedgehog 2
This is probably the most obvious inclusion on the list. Sonic first gained the ability to transform into Super Sonic via the seven Chaos Emeralds in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which released in November 1992.
Now, Goku first reached his Super Saiyan transformation in chapter 317, “Life or Death,” of the Dragon Ball manga in March 1991. I don’t think I need to say anything else here. I think the craziest part is using seven gems, a.k.a substitutions for Dragon Balls, to transform.
10 Steven Universe: Save The Light
Steven Universe: Save the Light is a clone in two parts, but both in good ways. First of all, it’s like Super Mario RPG in that this turn-based RPG uses fun little prompts to keep battles more engaging.
It’s a great representation of the show if not a bit too, let’s say, underpowered. The game also lets characters fuse with each other like in the show and there are even dances. It’s more homage to Dragon Ball Fusions I guess, but it’s still a good example.
9 NieR: Automata
The bleak future of NieR: Automata could be said to be a copy of the dark future in Dragon Ball. In the original time period where adult Trunks comes come, Android 17 and 18 take over the world as mechanical monsters.
Humanity is basically extinct in both and NieR is even further down the path, which if Trunks didn’t change the present, his world might resemble this, too. Also, for some reason, robots in both universes are bombshells.
8 Warriors Orochi
Sun Wukong, from Warriors Orochi, is also a character based on the Monkey King from the Journey to the West epic. He’s a lot more, uh, let’s say classical in terms of design. That is to say, he’s a better representation of the chaotic entity more so than Goku, or Monkey.
Warriors Orochi is a series spun off from Dynasty Warriors, which is more bombastic than Enslaved. It doesn’t have as high a budget as this, or even Asura’s Wrath, but it is mindless fun just like how engaging with Dragon Ball can be.
7 Pokémon Diamond/Pearl
Sorry for all of the random references to a near five-hundred-year-old novel, but I promise this is the last. It’s also the biggest name on this list for mirroring said epic.
That is Infernape, who first appeared in Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl on the DS. He’s literally an ape, unlike the others. Also, he’s a fighting type Pokémon, which come on, has to be a reference to Dragon Ball and Goku.
6 Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories
Dragon Ball Z: Super Saiyan Densetsu is a card-based RPG that came out for the Super Famicom in 1992. This predates a lot of card-based RPGs, even Magic the Gathering, by a year.
In a way, you could say that all card-based RPGs can then be a derivative of this like Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. So, I won’t bring too many more like this up, but I thought it was a cool fact that I found while digging. For those interested, there is an English fan patch out there.
5 South Park: Phone Destroyer
The other card-based RPG I wanted to bring up was South Park: Phone Destroyer since it’s still pretty recent, but it’s also disappointing.
South Park: The Stick of Truth was my Game of the Year in 2014. I was hyped for the sequel and then it just sort of came and went. It was fine, but not as magical as the original, and this phone game was even worse. I don’t have a problem with card games, but this just felt like a money grab.
4 Gravity Rush
One of the most unique things about Dragon Ball is its flashy combat. It gets even crazier in the air, which some of the fighting games based off the show tried to replicate, but I think mostly failed.
The same can be said for most games with fly fighting, except for the Gravity Rush games. Yes, it can get a bit clunky to control, but I think it feels great to zoom around and bash foes in the air.
3 Persona 4 Arena
Persona 4 Arena is the game I chose to represent a lot of games that ripped off Dragon Ball. So, the tournament arc pretty much originated with the original Dragon Ball and it has become a trope in nearly all shonen-type manga and anime since.
It’s an easy way to demonstrate new powers from random strangers and it’s been done to heck and back, but I love a good tournament story line. Anyway, that’s the basis for why everyone is fighting in this game.
2 Super Mario RPG
My beef with Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is right in the name. It’s a game about rescuing seven magical stars from the clutches of a wicked force that wants to use them to make a wish.
Well, in a way, they grant wishes. Since these legendary stars fell from the heavens, people’s wishes won’t get granted from the guardians any more, so the only thing missing about this is that these stars remain in balls. I know, it’s a stretch, but hey, I’m trying.
1 Metal Gear Rising
This is another example of a game fully embracing the chaotic energy of Dragon Ball. Metal Gear Rising took awhile to come out and it went through several different phases, but the final verdict was well worth the wait thanks to Platinum Games.
Now that’s a company founded on the very idea that video games should be more over the top and zany like Dragon Ball. In this case, you could also call out the fact that cyborgs are a powerful force in the world now.
