Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo is the series' first real venture into the platforming genre, and while it isn't as bad as other fighters' attempts to break into this market (that's right, I'm talking about Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero), it still has enough balancing issues to make it only appealing for those Dragon Ball fans who might still be out there.

Now, the game's video and audio is dead on. Both the cinematics and image-still-based dialogues that happen feel like they could have come from any of the other Dragon Ball Z games, specifically the Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi (wow, those are words I haven't written in a long time) series. While in the game, the characters all look like they could have come from the show as well, which is, of course, due mostly to the use of cel-shading, which has done a great job of capturing the show's style for many years now.

On the audio side of things, all of the dialogue seems to be performed by the American voice-actors, which really sells the overall feel for anyone who watches the dubbed versions of the show, but Goku's voice sounds slightly different while in a level. Actually, this made me wonder if the in-game voices (which pretty much consists only of grunts and yells) are all from the original Japanese soundtrack for the game. It's hard to tell, and while it doesn't really detract from the overall experience, there are a couple of times when it just doesn't sound quite right. Unfortunately, Revenge of King Piccolo has a major annoyance factor in this section, and that is the lack of variety in some of the character's in-game comments. Goku himself isn't a problem, but there are several characters, Tao in particular, who just don't have enough comments and feel the need to say what few statements they have very frequently. Considering the number of times it took me to get past the final fight against this particular Red Ribbon Army mercenary, it got annoying very quickly.

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo has two main gameplay modes. The main one is the single-player Adventure Mode that follows some of Goku's early adventures, namely his second quest for the Dragon Balls that take him up against the dreaded Red Ribbon Army, and then the evil King Piccolo and his minions. This Adventure Mode actually puts the young tailed-fighter in a platformer setting that will have him running through a 3D, but still side-scrolling environment. This story is broken into six stages, and each stage is broken into levels. What I found odd was that, while the game is titled after Goku's encounter with the aged and evil Namekian, a vast majority of the actual story is Goku's fight against the Red Ribbons, which while fun, felt to be a bit of a misnomer. Anyway, completing these stages not only advances the game's story, but it also earns you Zini and unlocks new characters for the other modes.

For those Dragon Ball fans out there who see little value in a game of this license that isn't a fighter, don't worry. Revenge of King Piccolo offers a World Tournament Mode where you can try out the unlocked characters in tournaments in several settings found throughout the Adventure Mode. The only real problem with this is that the game doesn't feature any kind of robust fighting system (at least when compared to other DBZ game). So while you will be working your way through a tournament of enemies, you will be doing it with the basic moves found in the platformer experience (which consists of little more than a few combos and a special move like Goku's Kamehameha Wave).

For the completest out there, the money you earn in the other two modes can be used in Baba's Shop to buy everything from 3D models of the characters, cinematics from the Adventure Mode, various music and sound clips and even upgrades (like increased health) for Goku.

Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo's Adventure Mode has an odd difficulty curve. The game starts off really easy, but it wasn't long before I noticed the difficulty had started creeping up on me. At first, I would be able to plow through a level, getting an A or B rank easily and never even coming close to dying, but at about the halfway mark, I found some of the game's enemies, most notably the boss fights, to be much harder than before. Unfortunately, because a lot of the difficulty comes in the form of the stage's boss fights, this meant I was able to essentially run through a particular stage quickly and then hit a brick wall. In the end, this not only led to a bit of frustration, but it also made the Adventure Mode feel really short in retrospect. In fact, if it wasn't for a couple of the big bosses (like Tao, for example), I could say that the game's story can be rushed through in a mere five or six hours leaving only the Wold Tournament Mode or a desire to find all of the collectibles in the Adventure Mode the only reason to go back into the game and keep playing it.

As a first attempt at a platformer, Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo does a fair job of giving you control of Goku's abilities, while keeping things simple enough to make it playable for fans of the genre. Since this story doesn't start off at the beginning of Goku's journey (when he first meets Bulma and learns that the ball his grandfather left him has magical abilities), you get the benefit of a Goku who has been through some of Master Roshi's training and has already mastered the Kamehameha Wave. His powerful signature move can be executed quite easily by tapping a direction on the D-pad. It doesn't matter which direction you press, but make sure you have the little Goku facing the way you want first (which is hard to do if you are coming off of a combo). What I did find odd about the controls, and quite frankly, I never really got the hang of it, is the fact that you jump with the (Z) button and attack with the (A). It always felt backwards to me and I couldn't figure out why that particular decision was made. The only thing I could figure was that the (A) button must respond quicker and thus make it easier to base Goku's attack combos off of it. Because of that flipping though, I found myself having to put just a bit more effort into making sure I was going to jump when I wanted to and not attack - which isn't really good for a platformer.

While not a bad game, it still has a few issues that could use some polish. Hopefully, we will see further games under this series and these issues will get ironed out a bit. When it comes down to it though, I find it hard to recommend Revenge of King Piccolo for anything more than a rental. Once you've played through the single-player experience over a day or so, you won't really need to go back into that. While the World Tournament is nice, because of the simplified fighting, it really isn't something that hardcore fighting gamers will want to mess with, at least not enough to consider buying the game.