Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure

Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure is a Game Boy Advance action platformer developed by Dimps and published by Banpresto, released in Japan on November 18, 2004. The game offers five distinct modes of play, giving it unusual depth for a handheld title of its scope. Story Mode follows Goku from his first meeting with Bulma through the final confrontation with King Piccolo, covering most of the original Dragon Ball narrative with three types of stages: standard platform levels, Flying Nimbus aerial combat sequences, and One-on-One duels that strip away the Power Pole and switch to a more traditional fighting game format.

One-on-One Mode provides free-battle combat between any two characters the player has unlocked. Characters are added to the roster by defeating their One-on-One counterparts in Story Mode and collecting their personal item. Jackie Chun, Mercenary Tao, Grandpa Gohan, Tien Shinhan, King Piccolo, and Cyborg Tao all become available through this method. Completing both Goku and Krillin's Story Mode runs unlocks a Survival Mode, placing the player in a tournament bracket with all unlocked characters available. Versus Mode allows two players to compete head to head using most of the options from One-on-One Mode.

Extra Mode opens after completing Goku's Story Mode and revisits every stage without cutscenes. Previously locked red doors become accessible, revealing additional items and mini-games scattered across all 54 collectible hiding spots. A separate character list of 29 fighters can be unlocked in Extra Mode by finding character portraits hidden throughout the stages, making a full completion run a substantial commitment of exploration and combat.

Advanced Adventure's Story Mode is notable for being one of the few Dragon Ball games to present a full playthrough of the original Dragon Ball series rather than focusing on the Z era. The story follows Goku through his encounter with Bulma and the hunt for the Dragon Balls, through his training with Master Roshi, across the Red Ribbon Army conflicts, and up to the battles leading to King Piccolo. The Piccolo Junior storyline from the end of the series is the only major arc not included.

The game features 30 playable characters when all modes are combined, an unusually generous roster for a Game Boy Advance title. Beyond Goku, Krillin is the only character playable in Story Mode, though he does not receive the full cutscene and narrative experience. The remaining unlockable characters, from Yamcha and Master Roshi to Boss characters like General Blue and Mercenary Tao, are reserved for One-on-One and Extra Mode use. The game earned an ESRB rating of Everyone 10+ for mild violence and language, reflecting Dimps' care to make it broadly accessible.

Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure is widely regarded as one of the best Dragon Ball games on the Game Boy Advance and one of the strongest Dragon Ball handheld titles of its generation. Dimps, coming off their work on the Budokai series and the Dragon Ball Z arcade games, brought genuine fighting game expertise to the handheld format, resulting in combat that feels responsive and satisfying at a system level well beyond typical licensed tie-ins.

The game's focus on the original Dragon Ball rather than the Z era also gave it a distinctive identity within the broader catalog of Dragon Ball games, appealing to fans of Toriyama's earliest work. Its combination of platforming, aerial combat, and fighting modes within a single GBA cartridge remains impressive, and it is consistently cited as a benchmark for what Dragon Ball handheld games could achieve when developed with genuine craft.