Dragon Ball Z 2: The Death of Vegeta
Release type: Freeware
Release date: June, 1995
Levels: 24
Author: PPP Team
Website: Bilou Homebrew's Blog
Related games: Dragon Ball Z
Of all of the surviving PPP Team games, this is probably the strangest. Pascal, a friend of the founding members, was a huge anime nerd and also a beginning user of RSD’s tools. With his dubious illustration skills he roughed out a couple of games based on Akira Toriyama’s famous manga and TV series. When he showed the Team his second game, they took the game into their fold and adapted it to their developing house style.
As Pypein has it, they were at the time unseasoned to anime in general, never mind Akira Toriyama’s particular illustration style, so they ran the game through a Badman filter. The result looks and feels very much like a stock PPP Team game – and very much unlike Dragon Ball. Thus, Pascal thanked them and took the game back. He undid most of their work and decided to remix his original sprites with new backgrounds scanned in and colored from the manga. This was an arduous process, to which Game-Maker was less than ideally suited, and so Pascal soon abandoned the project.
Thus there are two versions of the game; a cartoony European-flavored one, and a much rougher-looking remix that ends after one or two levels.
As for the game itself, apparently it’s an adaptation of a specific story arc from the manga. The sprites are appealing enough, and the backgrounds are atmospheric. The controls are a little strange, with a stilted repeating jumping animation, a dash move that’s about the same speed as walking, and special attacks that don’t always work as they are meant to. The game is largely silent, aside from the rare anime voice sample or occasional borrowed music file.
DBZ2 is far from PPP Team’s best work, but it has some interesting properties. One assumes the game was a learning experience for everyone involved.
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Contents
Story[edit]
After saving the planet of Majin Boo, you head home. But as it turned out, the villain was not dead. He destroyed everyone, even Dende. Now the dragon balls are gone. You decide to leave in the past to save the present.
In this game there are 5 secret passages and many characters. Have fun finding them!
Instructions[edit]
To play with the numeric keypad:
_________________ | | | | | 7 | 8 | 9 | |_____|_____|_____| | | | | | 4 | 5 | 6 | |_____|_____|_____| | | | | | 1 | 2 | 3 | |_____|_____|_____|
To play with the joystick press:
- F8: joystick
- F9: Calibration
The game can be played with a sound card.
Character actions[edit]
Energy ball:
- Space (or button 1 on the joystick)
Recharge energy:
- Enter (or button 2)
Dash:
- . (for right)
- 0 (for left)
- For joystick, press forward + button 2. (You must have expended all your energy charges.)
Special Attacks[edit]
Vegeta, Gotenks, young Goku, adult Goku, Gogeta, young Gohan, adult Gohan, Super Kaioh, or great sayanman:
- B (front)
- V (rear)
or (Gogeta only):
- K
- J
or (Gogeta only):
- T
- R
Credits[edit]
Scenario
- Akira Toriyama
Graphics
- Pascal
Music
Sound
- Pascal
Design
- Pascal
Testing
- Pascal
Finished on 22/03/95
Previously released by Pascal:
- Dragon Ball Z 1 (JANUARY 95)
Next games by Pascal
- It depends on my mood
Background[edit]
"Iirc, we initially received a "prototype" DBZ from a friend (Pascal) who had completed level design, but used fairly crude graphics. You could almost reconstruct that game by merging the background graphics of DBZ2 and the character from DBZ2 remix. We did not understand by then what were his plans for the final graphics, and we hadn't seen much of DBZ mangas either.
"In order to improve the quality of the game, we "Badmanified" the hero and vilains, which was definitely a bad idea."
Remix[edit]
"later on, Pascal himself acquired a Logitech hand-scanner and he wanted to make the game closer to what he'd like to have by digitizing backgrounds from "comics" : this is DBZ2 remix.
"The job of colouring those digitized things (his scanner was only B/W) was exhausting and we couldn't really make it look right. Plus, importing large backgrounds into BBL sets was a real pain. I don't think there has been more than 2 levels reshaped."
Availability[edit]
Prior to this archive's online presence, this game was only available in small-scale distribution amongst the close associates of PPP Team.
Archive History[edit]
Along with several other PPP Team titles, this game was added to the archive on September 29, 2010. It was located on an FTP archive maintained by Pierre Martin, after contact with his brother Sylvain Martin, through his blog and social media -- who in turn was located through a link on cly5m's Game-Maker page.
Links[edit]
Interviews / Articles[edit]
- Displays of Affection (DIYGamer)
Misc. Links[edit]
Downloads[edit]
- Dragon Ball Z 2: The Death of Vegeta (680.6 kB)
- Dragon Ball Z 2 REMIX (425.9 kB)
