Thread 11973436

Why are there so many retro DBZ games? Was DBZ really that popular in the 90s?

DBZ was an early 2000s phenomenon in the West.

>WHY ARE
>HOW IS
>DID THEY
FUCK. OFF.

>>11973436 (OP)
DBZ might be the franchise with the largest proportion of horrible shovelware of anything that popular. Like, it's absolutely insane how bad games like Legend of Goku or Ultimate Battle 22 were, it's absolutely embarrassing how low of a quality DBZ fans will actually defend as being decent, while conversely franchises like James Bond or Star Wars pumped out so much good stuff.

Yeah actually this >>11973454
/vr/ is not your personal google search

honestly these might just be bot threads. Bots are so used to be treated like google search they must think that's normal human discourse.

>>11973436 (OP)
No, these games weren't released in the US. The first ones we got were on PS1 after Toonami airings in the late 90s-early 00s.

DBZ aired before that on syndication, but nobody cared about it, it wasn't one of the big things like X-Men etc, but it became huge after Toonami. DBZ mostly shared fans with the kind of people obsessed with WWF at the time, weird shit, always kinda felt it was what the kids today call "sussy"


>>11973454
Also this

>>11973461
>Star Wars
opinion discarded

>>11973439
that's just the US retard

>>11973465
Man, I was one of those old school US DBZ fans that watched the syndication airings. I got up at 6 AM on Saturdays to watch them. You know you're talking to a real OG when they have memories of sitting through reruns for months and the first new episode that airs is the fucking Bulma and the crab filler episode.

Anyway, I had remembered reading about DBZ games in old game magazines and they would RAVE about them. Around 1999 or so I finally got them fired up on an emulator and was borderline disgusted over how bad the games were.

>>11973524
Was DBZ released earlier in Yuropoor?

>>11973436 (OP)
Was one of the biggest franchises in human history popular in the 90s? Are you retarded?
>Dragon Ball is one of the most successful franchises in animation history.[121] The anime series is broadcast in more than 80 countries worldwide.[89] In Japan, the first sixteen anime films up until Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon (1995) sold 50 million tickets and grossed over ¥40 billion ($501 million) at the box office, in addition to selling over 500,000 home video units by 1996.[122][123] Later DVD releases of the Dragon Ball anime series have topped Japan's sales charts on several occasions
>Dragon Ball (specifically Dragon Ball Z) was a massive cultural phenomenon in Japan during the 1990s, contributing to the "Golden Age" of Weekly Shōnen Jump manga and achieving consistently high TV ratings. The franchise was the most popular show on TV at one point, surpassing even The Simpsons, and its merchandise sales were huge.
Key Aspects of its Popularity in Japan:
Manga Sales:
Dragon Ball was a major reason for the high circulation of Weekly Shōnen Jump during the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, reaching peak weekly sales of 6.53 million copies.
Anime Ratings:
Dragon Ball Z, which aired from 1989 to 1996, consistently had high ratings, with an average of 20.5% and even reaching a peak of 27.5%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_manga

>>11973454
Why did they post this?

>>11973436 (OP)
let me guess you need it MORE BOLA DE DRAGON? from the 90s, do you even canalsur?

>>11973719
>La transmisión en España es la más antigua dentro de los países hispanohablantes. En el año 1988, el barcelonés Mario Bistagne Fabregat (1925-2018), propietario del estudio de doblaje Dovi S.L. de Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona), compra a la distribuidora francesa AB Distribution (propietaria de los derechos para toda Europa) los 26 primeros episodios para distribuirlos en España. Estos episodios fueron doblados al castellano y al catalán, con la más que probable dirección del veterano actor Joan Velilla, a finales de 1988 en Barcelona.[178][179] Con este doblaje se comenzarían a emitir los primeros dieciocho capítulos a partir del 2 de marzo de 1989 en la recién estrenada televisión autonómica andaluza, Canal Sur, los jueves por la tarde en el programa contenedor "La fuga del tiempo".[180][181]

>>11973885
The DBZ games are actually GOOD! "Juegos Fantasticos" gave Super Butoden 3 a score of "Muy Bueno." Suck on that, haters!

>>11973461
Not a single TPS/FPS/Trashformer/Flight Sim Star Wars game matches to this, LucasArts' true masterpiece.
Kys.

>>11973436 (OP)
Like others said, first, DBZ was absolutely huge in Japan, on the level of Marvel or Star Wars, except it was also still going.
Second—the games also sold well; one DBZ game was in Super Famicom top 20 in Japan (along with SMW, DQ, FF and Street Fighter 2, for crying out loud), and DBZ Budokai allegedly sold 1.7mln copies in US according to NPD, again making it a top 20 PS2 game there. This is extremely good for an anime licensed game, especially in the West.
Finally, Bandai always milked their properties, and of course they had to make a hundred DBZ games. Especially since it naturally lends itself to fighting games (duh).
I think it just goes to show that when FighterZ came out, it was just completely natural; an 80s IP suddenly gets a fighter from ArcSys, and everyone goes "hell yeah".

>>11973436 (OP)
Yes.

>>11973719
France had it airing pretty much almost the same time as Japan, hence why so many DBZ games got localized. Then a lot of European countries licensed it from the french. Especially in eastern europe, where it was already common to license and localise french cartoons, on account of some cartoons making it across the iron curtain. Stuff like "Once Upon a Time..." was made by left-wing socialists in France, so they were popular politically speaking in the soviet bloc, getting localised in plenty of countries; this created a working relation that led to more cartoons getting licensed from France.

It's only really America where it didn't get popular until something like 1998 when Cartoon Network started showing it.

>>11973934
That design has been SO traced from multiple sources lol

Fuck off bot.

>>11973436 (OP)
It was a big thing in the early 2000s after Pokemania died down.

>>11973997
>>11974013
Who cares, you're not typing Japanese or France

>>11973436 (OP)
Move over, Mario...

Dragon Ball was Bandai’s golden goose when it came to vidya.

>>11973436 (OP)
In Japan from 1986 to 1995 it was one of, if not the biggest brand for them, so a slew of video games across all the consoles was no surprise

While DBZ didn't really hit America till the late 90s, it was the early 2000s with Tonami that it really hit mainstream and than western game importers and developers got on board

its still amusing genesis only got a pity game because of its popularity in france
and pc engine got a single dbz game close to the end of its lifespan

>>11973934
Super Star wars return of the Jedi

>>11974545
hurr durr
hurr durr?
hurr durrrrrrrrrrr

>>11974545
>The Spanish dubbing industry is the oldest in the Spanish-speaking world. In 1988, Barcelona-born Mario Bistagne Fabregat (1925–2018), owner of the Dovi S.L. dubbing studio in Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona), bought the first 26 episodes from the French distributor AB Distribution (owner of the rights for all of Europe) to distribute them in Spain. These episodes were dubbed into Spanish and Catalan, most likely directed by veteran actor Joan Velilla, at the end of 1988 in Barcelona.[178][179] With this dubbing, the first eighteen episodes began airing on March 2, 1989, on the newly launched Andalusian regional television channel, Canal Sur, on Thursday afternoons on the program "La fuga del tiempo"

>>11973436 (OP)
It was insanely popular in Japan and central/South America in the 90s. Also to a lesser extent in parts of Europe. The DB series came to North America super late and it didn’t start to take off until around 1998/1999 thanks to Toonami. By the time the series was concluded in burgerland, it had already been over in Japan for almost a decade.

There is a non-zero chance I bear some major responsibility for both this game gaining any repute whatsoever in America and being considered overrated by some today. I caught it for sale used at a Gamestop (it might've been the same trip where I got God Hand) and spammed the shit out of webms of it like, ten years ago, enough that I randomly ego-searched back then and saw somebody made an archive of them on a plaintext site. My CMV has an overall modest but not insignificant number of over 40k views with it leading to a community leader approaching me and saying I might have helped a lot of people understand its basic combo theory and helped them get into the game, which I found extremely flattering, and makes it one of the best things I probably did with my time in fighting games, despite being addicted to hard drugs at the time, and the video itself being a subnautical mess where I ran OBS with PCSX2 on an i3 laptop, which in turn made it run as if the system was experiencing a migraine so severe that the whirring of the fan might as well have been a man groaning in pain. To this day I have no idea how it garnered as many views as it did.

The guy still hits me up from time to time, and I think he wants me to be a part of the community, but I think I'm a textbook scrub, I just drift from game to game exploring what's probably only just beneath entry-level shit until it stops working and then I quit or look for another game. I've had stints with all sorts of games but very few that I stuck with long enough to feel like I have any voice worth contributing to the community, standouts being games like SF Alpha 3 and Samsho 2.

Please bear with my blogpost, I wanted an excuse to bring up this game in particular because I like it, and I'm kinda drunk.

>>11973436 (OP)
Did they bury Akira Toriyama with all his money or was it parceled out to his estate?

>>11974545
>Who cares, you're not typing Japanese or France

No, but I was playing french DBZ games on my Mega Drive before America first aired DBZ.

>>11973465
the first stateside release of a DBZ game was actually shortly before DBZ started airing. it was GT Final Bout, and it sold like garbage because the show wasn't airing yet so nobody knew what it was. All the VAs are different.

>>11974013
all of the anglosphere were late to the party on the series. the UK/Canadian dub was made alongside the US Funimation one, using the old actors who had been replaced when Funimation started dubbing the series around the time of Captain Ginyu. Australia got the Funimation dub.

>DBZ was only popular after it aired in my shithole
Why are american so retard and fat

>>11975857
America is the only country that matters, turdie. that's why you seek out our presence.

>>11973719
In France and Spain it started airing in the early 90s, not long after the japanese premiere. In the rest of the continent it was mostly a late 90s/early 2000s phenomenon, just like in the anglosphere and latin america. Although this is specifically about Z, in places like Italy, Portugal and Germany classic DB aired first (as early as 1989 in Italy) and was successful in the first half of the decade, before Z became a massive fad, again similar to what happened in latin america.

>>11976125
>In France (...) it started airing in the early 90s

We had Dragon Ball in march 1988 and DBZ in 1990. And by that, I mean on the #1 TV channel, not just on some backwater channel nobody knew existed.

They're working on it

>Dragon Ball Kanzenban v01-34, Neko Majin v01 (Raw Scans) (Japanese) - 34 volumes
https://nyaa.si/view/1933107

>Dragon Ball - COMPLETE (001-153) - Color Corrected Dragon Box [480p][x264]
https://nyaa.si/view/1691912

>Dragon Ball Z (Not Color Corrected)
https://nyaa.si/view/1331089

>Dragon Ball Z Specials (Bardock and History of Trunks)
https://nyaa.si/view/1924144

>Dragon Ball Z Kai
https://nyaa.si/view/2006263

>Dragon Ball GT - COMPLETE (01-64) - Color Corrected Dragon Box [480p][x264]
https://nyaa.si/view/1838093

>Dragon Ball DAIMA
https://nyaa.si/view/2005548

>Seed of Might
https://xcancel.com/seedofmight

>>11976128
And it was aired on the most popular French TV program of all time. Not "most successful French TV program for kids". Most successful French TV program of all time, full stop. We're talking 55% of kids between 4 and 14 year old, up to 60-65% of the general audience during its golden age, and DBZ was their biggest animated series, drawing at least 1.5 million viewers every Wednesday from 1990 to up to late 1996 when it got axed by the government's TV authorities for excessive violence. The manga started being published back in 1993 with at least 28-35 million cumulative sales, OVAs got released along with the series on VHS, 4 of the movies had a theatrical run in 1995 and 1996, along with a shit ton of merchandise like gashapon and Cardass and all of that was during the 90s. It was also the only country where Bandai bothered localizing the Super Butoden series and it ended up being their biggest-sellers here. It was the biggest fucking anime here besides maybe Pokémon but that was more of a late 90's thing and DBZ (and GT) was still everywhere. It's not really surprising though, France has always been THE weebest country since the early 80's, not counting Japan of course.

>>11976223
They really should have localized the Famicom RPGs over here. I know we didn't have a precedent for RPGs but kids would have figured it out. Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque on NES performed well afaik

Seeing this on NES would have blown everyone's minds

>>11976223
What is the French dub like?

>>11976239
This is Petit Coeur

>>11976138
Good, I hope we'll get proper scanlations of the manga, the Viz release is unbelievably fucked at some points.

>one one the most popular series of the early 90s in japan
>durrr why so many vidya gaems?????

>>11976239
Roshi is called The Genius Turtle, Piccolo Daimao is Heartless and Piccolo Jr. is Small Heart.

>>11976223
spaniard here, can relate. DB/DBZ was the biggest TV phenomenon of its time among young people, leagues above anything that came before or after (Pokemon included). anyone born in the 80s and early 90s who isn't familiar with DB will be met with skepticism and even disapproval from their peers. a true cultural landmark. only The Simpsons compares.

>>11976264
lol the catalan dub straight up lifted those

>>11976236
>Seeing this on the NES would have blown everyone's mind
>Released in 1991
Maybe, Shenron No Nazo was released in 1990 here, 3-4 years after the Famicom version, and DB/Z was already so fucking popular that they actually bothered to translate it, which was nearly unheard of at the time. They sold 2 million NES here, so I imagine it must have sold well, but the Megadrive was extremely popular too and a March 1991 JP release would mean late 91 or early 92 and I'm being incredibly fucking optimistic because the Saint Seiya game on NES took 4 fucking years to bring over to France, and it was an action platformer, i.e. the most popular genre. I'm not so sure French console gamers were that much into RPGs, and the Super Nintendo would release here in March 92, so that wouldn't have been commercially very sound.
TL;DR: RPG game + 1-4 years to bring over the thing + Megadrive foothold + too close to the Super Nintendo's release and maybe the 1st Butoden = crapshoot, but I'm just spitballin here.

>>11976239
Standard French dub of the time, i.e. quick and cheap with a ton of name changes, added cringey humor, the VAs didn't really like what they were dubbing and thought it was dumb shit for retarded kids, but I've been raised on it and I've heard those VAs all over my childhood cartoons and anime, so it's very close to my heart. It was censored to hell and back too, and was still too violent for French authorities, not on the same level as fucking Hokuto No Ken, which is kind of legendary, will elaborate on it if you want me to.

>>11973436 (OP)

honestly what fucking dumb question man

>>11976223
Damn France was truly based. I remember watching Man Bites Dog (a 1992 French film) and being surprised and impressed that the poor kid he killed had a ton of cool anime posters in his room.

>>11976328
>Hokuto No Ken
The series was vanilla as hell but the 1986 movie has got to be the most brutally gruesome shit ever animated, even with the censorship.

>>11976376
It’s not a French movie, it’s a Belgian movie in French.

>>11976328
The NES was still massively popular especially with pre-teens during that time. Astérix and The Smurfs got released in 93-94 and The Smurfs-NES bundle was 95.
I'm convinced the DBZ RPGs would have sold like baguette on the name alone and players would have figured out RPG mechanics no problem. I'm also convinced the Dragon Quest games would have sold well on Toriyama's name alone had they bothered to localize them and given them a chance but nobody was willing to take the risk.

> and it was an action platformer,

It's not a platformer, it's a sidescroller yes but you have to understand RPG stats and turned based battle mechanics in order to get anywhere in the game

>>11976328
>It was censored to hell and back too, and was still too violent for French authorities, not on the same level as fucking Hokuto No Ken, which is kind of legendary, will elaborate on it if you want me to.

What about Kai?

>>11976281
Accurate for France too. Also, I don't know how anime was viewed in Spain, but in France it was considered as bottom of the barrel trash corrupting the youth because of its violent and sexual content, and DBZ represented everything wrong with kids' TV. Club Dorothée (the program airing DB/Z alongside Saint Seiya, Hokuto No Ken and a shit ton of anime/Super Sentai/Metal Heroes/etc.) was regularly getting assfucked by government TV regulations, and one of its fiercest critics was actually a minister and at the time future, now ex wife of the 2012-2017 French president. And they still pulled in a million+ of viewers everyday lol. The stigma against anime and manga lasted for a long time though, maybe up until the mid-late 00's, but that was before anime/manga/nerd shit got into the mainstream.

>>11976376
France has been a weeb country since the late 70's and it really got into overdrive during the late 80's/early 90's, you'd be surprised at how much obscure ass anime was imported here and broadcasted during peak hours

>>11976379
>HNK series
>Vanilla as hell
Maybe compared to the manga and '86 movie, but you have to remember that it was targeted towards older teenagers in Japan, and France still had the mentality of animated=for kids ages 4 and up, so it created a gigantic shitstorm for TF1 (Club Dorothée) and many shenanigans ensued, will elaborate on it. Also that movie was fucking amazing

>>11976384
My bad, I haven't taken a look at NES Saint Seiya in a long time, I'm not that familiar with the NES's history in France and finding sales number is a pain in the ass.
>Would have sold like baguette
Probably true.
>"We could stamp Dragon Ball Z on a potato, and it would sell" - Jean Luc Nobleau, Business manager of merchandising company Samouraï. Fun fact, Samouraï got under fire back in the mid 90s for publishing hentai, had one of its series banned and published the first volume of Berserk back in 96 without having properly acquired the rights lol

>>11976413
Kai was already censored in its JP released, France broadcasted an even more censored, kid-friendlier version on Nickelodeon, and the unmodified JP version on Game One and J-One. In general, censoring anime wasn't really a thing after 2000-ish unless you were broadcasting it on kiddie channels and TV slots, and even then it was exceedingly rare.

>>11976423
Shit, I fucked up my greentext. I meant:
>"We could stamp Dragon Ball Z on a potato, and it would sell" - Jean Luc Nobleau, Business manager of merchandising company Samouraï.
Fun fact, Samouraï got under fire back in the mid 90s for publishing hentai, had one of its series banned and published the first volume of Berserk back in 96 without having properly acquired the rights lol

>>11973463
How does somebody benefit from generating threads like this?

>>11976285
most Euro dubs of DBZ were based on the French translation. a few countries, notably Germany, at least had people who went back and fixed some of the names, but most did not. there was even an English dub for Europe (aired in Holland and a few other countries with local subtitles) based on it called the Big Green dub, so named because Piccolo was renamed to Big Green.
youtube.com/watch?v=tum1P5jm_so&pp=ygUNYmlnIGdyZWVuIGR1Yg%3D%3D

>>11973439
yeah sure, ask spain, italy or france about it..

DB was so good because Toriyama was an actual graphic designer before he became a mangaka, so he already knew about composition, perspective and all that shit

>>11975613
All the remaining money went to the tax payers.

>>11975278
I always thought this game looked like shit, but I think I remember your .webms. Hope you're doing better now, Super DBZbro!