Dragon Ball Funnies

Who doesn't love a good laugh?  Here are some Dragon Ball themed funnies we have found around the vast corners of the Internet.  Enjoy!

Noob Reviews: Dragon Ball Z Kai

After discovering Netflix DaNoob is back with another review and this time they are attempting to be a little more helpful:

Dragon Ball Z Kai is a remaster of Dragon Ball Z, with re-recorded dialogue, new/original music, a bit more tweaking and editing and gloriously long original episode titles. It’s also missing a lot of filler compared to the original with only around 100 English dubbed episodes and another 60 only in Japanese.

Coming into this completely fresh, without any prior knowledge of the franchise (other than a few memes) is an experience. Super powered beings blasting holes in mountains, powerful aliens invading, resurrections, transformations, even more powerful aliens and holes being blasted in planets... and that's just for starters.

I thought I understood what was going on, with all the snake roads and bizarre comedy/battle training, then the series blasts into outer space and the stakes are constantly raised, every new character is somehow unimaginably stronger (or even “off the charts” powerful - who makes these charts?) and as soon as you think you've figured out who is the strongest someone else’s power skyrockets… Half the show is people’s power skyrocketing, the other half is waiting for the hero to show up and even when he does he’s likely to spend 5 minutes explaining how quickly he needs to act before actually doing it...

Where was I? Oh yeah, I eventually got the hang of the OTT OP-ness (hehe) and quirky characters and then all of a sudden there’s an elite alien dance troupe to contend with? A group so powerful they are more concerned with theatrics than battle and they are nothing compared to what is to come!?

The show is all about the spectacle, Japanese humour and awesome battles but it manages to cram in some genuinely interesting characters. There’s a few break downs in logic, awesomely illustrated by an explanation as to why a character's uniform grew when he transformed into a giant ape, only to be followed by his complaint that there were no more in his size... It doesn’t take away any of the enjoyment though.

DBZ Kai is very well made. I’d happily frame some screenshots and hang them on my wall, particularly of some of the energy attacks and characters powering up. The musical score is high quality and memorable and surpasses a lot of blockbuster movies, every now and again sliding into Saturday morning cartoon theme and power chords. There’s a whole host of charmingly retro sound effects, my favourite being the one that sounds like a pac-man ghost. I’ve seen anime before (I’m not that much of a noob) but to see some of the animation, framing and cinematography from a show originally developed around 20 years ago is impressive, particularly compared to the things I was watching back then. It’s all awesome. A good chunk of the series also has a stand out villain who deserves to be as iconic as someone like Darth Vader but they have more chance to shine as a character, despite styling themselves after Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

I can’t say how much of the awesome is due to the remaster enhancements but if you want to try out DBZ, it’s a great starting point or if you want to relive your old favourite series without worrying about several hundred episodes then this might be the way to go.

Niche Plays: Mobile Medley

Hey, it's Mulukh back again for this week and despite a crazy backlog on actual console I seem to have spent my time on free-to-play mobile games this week. I only usually have time to focus on one mobile game at a time, this week I have 3 to tell you about...

Avengers Academy

Check out the brand new and minty fresh Niche: Treat Your Geek Issue 12 for my full review, but suffice to say I am STILL playing this game. Currently there's a Spider-man themed event going on. It adds a little bit of new gameplay and missions to complete plus plenty more opportunities to empty your wallet with in-game purchases. If you want to get involved there is enough time for you to level up to qualify for the event and attempt to unlock Spider-man and premium character, Spider-Ham. There's also the chance to unlock Black Cat and Mary Jane. Later you'll have a shot at Doc Oc and if you do well with the event and you'll earn Green Goblin, however "doing well" tends to require spending some real life money.

Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle

Turns out this game has been out for a year and I never knew. This one year anniversary plus a total of 7.777 million downloads means there's a tonne of celebratory freebies right now, there's never been a better time to join in. The screenshots on the app store make it look like some kind of rhythm game but the core gameplay is actually a twist on colour matching games, you pick from the first row of power orbs and any adjacent orbs of the same colour will also "pop". The more orbs you gather the more your characters power up, dealing more damage, power up enough and unleash a devastating  special attack. The gameplay does get more tactical and challenging as each class has strengths and weaknesses, choosing the right team member to guard against an impending target is crucial to your survival.

The game does a great job of capturing the spirit of the anime, battles play out in a frenetic exciting fashion, special attacks are suitably epic and iconic, they even power up even further once the Dokkan gauge is full. All the patient powering up feels really appropriate to the universe. Upgrading and levelling your cards ties in nicely with the constant training and evolving power levels of the show. All of this plus familiar characters and locations and being able to collect capsules and the ever rewarding dragon balls.

Somehow most of the characters I started with felt really powerful, pick up some super rare characters (maybe a Super Saiyan God?) and they feel just as overpowered as you'd hope. If you're worried about this making the game too easy, have no fear, 3 levels of difficulty are here.
Story missions follow an original plot but borrow elements from the anime, the writing isn't an amazing adaptation but it does a fair job of summarising plot points. There's a host of daily, weekly and special events to keep you going.

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius

Brand new this week I haven't been able to sink a lot of time on this one, but I wanted to share what I have found so far. This game seems to build on Final Fantasy Record Keeper. Exvius has taken the concept of recruiting heroes from other games in the franchise, but returned to FF's roots with RPG gameplay and a full story mode (featuring elemental crystals being destroyed).

The graphics and sound are another step up, inspired by the 16bit graphics of yore but much more refined, the opening cutscene was not something I expected from a mobile game and some graphical elements look to be high quality HD.

At first the turn based battle mechanism seemed super simple, but actually appears to be an ingenious solution to fitting RPG battle menus onto a mobile device. At first it is as simple as clicking on a character's tag to attack, but then you learn that swiping in different directions brings you to magic and other skills. It'll be a while before I can get a full review together but I thought I'd give a heads up in case you have an interest in playing a new classic Final Fantasy on mobile, go give it a go!