Dragon Ball Z: Super Gokuden: Totsugeki-Hen

Dragon Ball Z: Super Gokuden: Totsugeki-Hen is a role-playing game released on March 24, 1995, for the Super Famicom exclusively in Japan. The game uses an overhead combat perspective in which Goku starts at the lower-left of the screen and his opponent begins at the upper-right, with both characters gradually approaching the center before entering attack range. Pressing the L and R buttons simultaneously causes Goku to charge his ki and advance more quickly, providing a tactical option to close distance faster at the cost of energy. Ki is spent on signature techniques such as the Kamehameha and the Rock, Scissors N Paper attack.

Story progression is driven by decision points that function as quizzes about events from the Dragon Ball manga. Most decisions test the player's knowledge of what actually happened in the story, and selecting the canonical choice is required to proceed correctly. Some decisions offer small opportunities to alter the course of events, such as fighting Pterodactyls before finding Chi-Chi, rewarding players who choose to engage optional encounters. Combat also incorporates a Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic in which specific defensive techniques counter only certain attack types, requiring players to read enemy patterns and respond with the appropriate counter.

The game tracks over two hundred story "events" in a pause-menu checklist, many of which are permanently missable if the player makes wrong choices at specific moments. This event list covers the full arc of the original Dragon Ball story from Goku's first encounter with Bulma through his defeat of King Piccolo, encouraging thorough and attentive play to complete the entire log.

Totsugeki-Hen covers the full arc of the original Dragon Ball series from Goku's childhood adventures with Bulma through the climactic battle with King Piccolo. The title translates approximately to "Assault Chapter," reflecting the game's focus on Goku's early journey as a young martial artist fighting enemies far more dangerous than himself. The narrative spans his travels with Bulma in search of Dragon Balls, his training under Master Roshi, the World Martial Arts Tournaments, the Red Ribbon Army campaign, and the King Piccolo saga.

The many decision points across the game's two hundred-plus events mean that players experience the Dragon Ball story as an active participant rather than a passive observer. Missable events tied to specific choices add weight to each decision, as players who do not select certain options during relevant scenes will lose access to those story moments permanently in that playthrough. The sequel, Kakusei-Hen, picks up where Totsugeki-Hen ends and continues Goku's story through the Dragon Ball Z era.

Totsugeki-Hen is the first of the two Super Gokuden games and represents one of the most thorough video game adaptations of the original Dragon Ball series on the Super Famicom. Where most Dragon Ball Z games of the era focused on the Z portion of the franchise, Totsugeki-Hen committed fully to the Dragon Ball origins, giving fans of Goku's childhood story a dedicated game to experience rather than a prologue segment of a broader Z-focused title.

The game's event checklist system and quiz-based progression make it an unusual and ambitious design for a licensed RPG of its era. The breadth of the event log, the branching story possibilities, and the Rock-Paper-Scissors combat layer gave Totsugeki-Hen a mechanical depth that distinguished it from simpler tie-in games. As a precursor to Kakusei-Hen, it forms the first half of a two-game series that together cover the full sweep of Goku's story from beginning to Super Saiyan.