Dragon Ball GT:Transformation was probably not met with high expectations due to the show's rather lackluster performance as compared to Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball. The difference is the game proved to be superior to the show for several reasons. For fans of the series who dreaded GT as the cornerstone of failure, they will find this game to be a healthy alternative than watching those soul-crushing moments in GT that had no place there and were just outright terrible. The game does sport a great soundtrack for fans of music that loved the original tracks from Z, though there aren't any tracks on the game that stand out as being from the show. For those who aren't fans, the game offers some fun but will in the end send you home pretty quickly. 

Graphics-6/10 The graphics are pretty decent for a Game Boy Advance game, though they aren't anything to write home about. Some of the designs for levels and the enemies were really well done, however, and though most enemies are palette swaps of previous ones, the game has a diverse cast of enemies to fight and the places fought are very unique and memorable in their own way. The bosses in particular are pretty well-designed, and the graphics that affect them are rather quite amazing. Some of the bosses have been designed quite well, and are literally just awe-inspiring when compared to the other graphics. In particular, the giant fat tiger comes to mind, as it was hilariously adorable, yet hideously monstrous at the same time. Though the game has relatively okay graphics, it cannot compare to some of the more beautifully crafted gems like Final Fantasy VI, or even some of the amazingly well done hacks on the site, which prove that the GBA was far more capable than originally believed. Despite this, there are no major graphical glitches, and the bosses that were brought from the show are quite alike to their anime counterparts, and some look just downright amazing. Even people who haven't seen the show will enjoy some of the character designs, while others, not so much. The designs for all the main characters are amazingly well done, however, and each animation that comes with their attacks looks amazing and fun. Every character comes with separate animations that cater to their particular fighting style based on their height, their stats, and with how they fought in the show, providing a fun comparison to their fighting style outside of the game. The graphics for the breakable items is also quite well-done. Machines and walls show wear and tear, and even some enemies get new animations when their health gets low or they get stunned. 

Sound-9/10 Easily a great contribution to this game is its killer soundtrack. Every world comes with its own music, and each fits to the location quite well. Some sound unsettling, some sound exotic, and still others make you wish to replay the level or just stick around to enjoy. The boss music, in particular, is quite fun. The game has many sounds to accompany the action, and though a few are rather cartoony, it comes with the territory, and none are so ridiculously over the top to make me stop playing. There are sounds for hitting all the different enemies, and they themselves have sounds that accompany their character. The only truly out of place sound is when you hit an enemy until they "go invincible" and you hear this weird punching on metal noise that means, "You can't hurt him at the moment, please try again later." That is both out of place and quite annoying. Despite this most, of the music is quite good and fun to listen to, but after hours of grinding, the music does get quite old and rather annoying.

Addictiveness-8/10 As a fan of Dragon Ball, this game is ten times more addictive than it should be. For those who aren't, the game has a huge plethora of replay ability, like most Dragon Ball related games. There are so many collectibles to be found and nine characters to play as, so there's lots of reasons to play to see how some characters fair on what levels. There are a lot more game modes than just story mode, and once unlocked become insanely addicting. The game really offers much more to those who have already beaten it once or twice. Despite this, it can get quite old quite fast, so it's a game you may come back to grind every so often. 

Story-4/10  Admittedly, the story is lackluster, and it won't grip you in any fashion. Unlike the show, it cut out some of the more annoying bits, which is a plus, but most of the time, if you question the story, you'll just be wondering why the hell you are here and what the point is to killing all these random enemies. The story covers the first two sagas of GT and while it does a great job at that, the first two sagas weren't very well-written to begin with, and the fact the game cut out some parts and "trimmed the hedges", so to speak, the story is much weaker than the previous DBZ games on the very same handheld.

Depth-6/10 The depth is alright for this game. As said before, there are high amount of things you can do after the main game is beaten, and there are so many reasons to replay. The game itself is quite short and one could speed through it quickly, but afterwards the game has so many awesome unlockables that there really is a larger depth once you get into it. However, most of these really aren't gripping, and they won't compel casual gamers to particularly try hard to earn them, since it really does involve battle grinding. After a certain point, you literally have to grind for every single unlockable, which can take hours, and because of the way the combat's designed, using the space bar to speed things up is completely detrimental to your cause. This means several hours of replaying certain worn-out stages just to get a silly item or unlock a new character you may grow to hate.

Difficulty-3/10 I was tempted to put a 1, but in actuality, the game can be a bit of a struggle at times, and there may be a time you might lose a character in a knockout. There is little difficulty. The most difficult parts of this game would have to be the AI and the invincibility. When you hit certain enemies too often, they stop taking damage or flinch from your attacks, so a well-timed combo can turn to a combo of beatdowns for you, which can get annoying. The AI, meanwhile, is pretty good, as enemies will try to flank you and beat you in the most unfair ways possible. This game is usually more annoying than difficult, however, and anyone truly good with these arcade side-scrollers will dominate the game through and through. This applies mostly to just story mode, however. There are other game modes which can be amazingly harder, and just really amp the difficulty to eleven, so to speak. The survival mode is perhaps one of the harshest survival modes I have played on any side-scroller, as it is so unforgiving and ruthless. The enemies constantly beat you around and incessantly combo you, which makes it almost impossible to get a good combo going yourself.

Overall-6.8/10 The game certainly has some strong and fun game elements, and it is quite the enjoyable side-scroller. However, this doesn't take away the fact that the game won't mean terribly too much to anyone who doesn't know about or like GT. Once the game is beaten and the scramble for unlockables begins, the game really begins to drag and get really old really fast, and since this game could be beaten in the span of two hours, that won't take much time for some people. The game really does get exhaustingly bad after grinding for a while, and though the game has a few amazing soundtracks, even they will grate after that level has been done to death. The unlockables themselves aren't particularly amazing, either, and most will earn an "Okay, that's kinda cool, I guess?" from most players. The one unlockable I enjoyed was Baby Vegeta, but for the thousands of points needed to unlock him, it took me three hours of incessant grinding to get enough to unlock him. Even when unlocked, he is, like all the other ridiculously expensive characters, only serves as more options for grinding for everyone else, and so the game gets quite stale quite fast. 

The game is quite easy, relatively short, grows really tiresome after a while, and can really become an annoying experience as compared to an enjoyable one. The game, like the show it is based off of, has a lot of weaknesses, and could certainly have been developed better. Despite its many flaws, the game is still worth going through it at least once, for anyone that enjoys side-scrollers. Perhaps the most annoying part of the entire game was that when you killed enemies, they dropped orbs that gradually increased your strength, power, or health. Each character had different stats for these, so throughout a level, you could focus on one character to buff them out for the boss. The annoying part is they reset every time you played a new level, or even the same level over and over again. In the long run, the orbs do literally nothing to change the gameplay and merely garner you 50 points, which is trivial considering you need 10,000 for a single Zeni to unlock things. The tremendous amount of points required to gather even a few unlockable points in this game is phenomenally annoying, and it really weakens the game's overall performance, which is quite sad. 

For those who are huge fans of the show or series, this game does have its worth in nostalgia, but after a while, even that gets overwhelmed by the sheer amount of repetition the game has to offer. The repetition itself wouldn't ordinarily be so bad, but the fact the game has more focus on grinding than the actual game itself, with all of the considerable flaws that the game faces, doesn't do justice.

I spoke quite a bit about the show, and that is simply because that this game doesn't offer much to those who didn't watch it, and so the game wasn't very well-marketed. Even had it been made to be a more open experience, the flaws the game had would certainly have hindered sales, and coming from someone who bought the game when it first came out, I can honestly say I regret doing so, because the game got quite stale really fast and never offered a huge or enduring gaming experience. The game is rather unremarkable, and nothing but one or two of the tracks will ever stick in your mind for longer than a week or so. The game had a great possibility to be an amazing installment in the Legacy of Goku series, but in the end fell flat due to some bad design choices, the lack of an expansive main story, and the ridiculous requirements to unlock fun new items after the game had been played out. The game offers little even to fans of the series in terms of gameplay, and it really pales in comparison to previous installments. Despite this, it is easy to play, fun to get into, and is still fun for a small amount of time, but it's not the game you'd spend thirty bucks on. 

For those who love Dragon Ball or side-scrollers, you may want to give this a shot, but those of you who don't for either might just want to pass this on as a mediocre game with little to offer outside of the music and animations. I personally enjoy this game, but I must forewarn others that this game's performance is overall pretty weak in the series it debuted into.