Friday, August 12, 2022

Dragonball Z Legend of the Super Saiya-jin, Part III - Freeza

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, The Drill Sergeant From Full Metal Jacket: "DAMN IT, YOU'RE STILL PLAYING THIS GAME? ARE YOU HIGH?"

ORIGINALLY POSTED JULY 2011



Gokou: "Woo hoo! Time for more training!"

"AND YOU! SON, EVEN IF YOU TRAIN AT FOUR HUNDRED TIMES GRAVITY YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO DEFEAT MY SOCKS IN A FIGHT! YOU MAKE ME SICK, PRIVATE! NAMEK IS NO PLACE FOR WIMPY LITTLE PUNKS LIKE YOU"

"THE TREES THERE ARE BLUE! JUST LIKE BULMA'S NETHER-REGIONS! BY GOD, WE'VE LOST GOOD MEN IN THAT BUSH!"

"unf...I'm...trying" says Gokou as he jumps around in high gravity. This depletes the HP meter of the gravity machine.

Meanwhile, on Namek... Vegeta's balls are uncovered.

Our heroes get half a second to celebrate getting the Dragonballs together before Captain Ginyu and the Ginyu Force arrive.

"They're...they're beautiful!" says Chaozu in awe.

Of course, they swipe all of the Dragonballs from our heroes with little resistance, due to their overwhelming power.

A bit of a change from the series, as our heroes must battle Recoome and Guldo at the same time. This might be a good time to ask... what's the deal with Guldo? He's like their Chaozu. Is he the joke member of the Ginyu Force?

Guldo is tremendously weak and easily dispatched. I remember when I was watching the show for the first time, and I thought the B-Team would get revived to take on the Ginyu Force. I even had the matchups pegged in advance, like Tien/Yamcha taking on Burter/Jeice.

Guldo falls quickly, leaving Recoome for the real battle. Unlike the show, it's actually possible to defeat him here. Matter of fact, you have to.

Vegeta is the heavy hitter for this fight, but he doesn't always follow orders so it's a hit or miss proposition. Fun Fact: Recoome is the second strongest member of the Ginyu Force, behind Captain Ginyu. The show never made any kind of big deal about this for some reason.

Recoome's ERASER GUN is one nasty attack, but it isn't enough to save him from the onslaught of our heroes. The fight isn't that bad, all things considered.

Next our heroes have to fight Burter and Jeice at the same time. Both of them are nearly as strong as Recoome. In the show, this is where Gokou would show up and whoop everyone, but that doesn't happen in my game for some reason.

Tien going stride-for-stride with Jeice! Get 'em, Tien! And believe it or not, Yamcha is still alive too. He's a bit weak to contribute much, so I generally keep him sidelined.

They have a combo attack that barrages everyone with fireballs and does a lot of damage. The saving grace for the player in this fight is that they only have to beat one of the two to "win".

I took out Big Blue, leaving only the Australian member of the Ginyu Force. Is this guy related to Zarbon or what? He's nearly Zarbon 2.0.

Finally, Gokou arrives on Namek! And if he's wondering what that smell is... it's just the corpses.

Gokou heads over to the battlefield and immediately dismisses the contributions of the rest of our heroes by telling them to go flip pancakes with Bulma. Now they know how it feels!

Gokou then proceeds to take on Captain Ginyu in the battle of the century! The rest of the good guys get to take on Jeice, since they refused to go flip pancakes.

Ginyu is no joke, and can actually defeat Gokou pretty easily one-on-one if you don't watch yourself.

If you do lose Gokou, well... good luck beating the rest of the game, 'cause IT AIN'T HAPPENING.

Tien in action! Man, this never gets old. Go Tien! Don't let Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, the Drill Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket make you feel bad about yourself! You're a champion, you glorious three-eyed bastard!

I let Yamcha engage in the battle, only to have him be one-shotted by Captain Ginyu.

He was 22.

...that's right, Yamcha is finally dead in my game. When a character dies in this game they don't come back... they're GONE FOREVER.

DAMN YOU CAPTAIN GINYU! WHY DID YOU TAKE YAMCHA AWAY FROM US!

Gohan is INFURIATED, and dishes out punishment with his signature 'tude.

Finally, the last two members of the Ginyu Force are defeated, and peace is restored to the galaxy. Jeice wasn't too bad, but Ginyu himself was a total beast. Maybe the toughest fight in the game. I didn't fool around with throwing frogs at him, I just won. He didn't get around to doing the body-switch with Gokou (which adds another part to the fight) either, much like Vegeta didn't go to Oozaru form during that fight with him earlier. Thus is the random nature of this game. These events CAN happen, but it's all random.

Gokou is seriously banged up, and Gohan has to carry him to a restoration chamber. Which means that, as usual, our heroes have to hold down the fort while they wait for Gokou to heal up and save everyone. He gets injured more than the AEW guys!

Continuing on, our heroes find the Dragonballs in a cave... guarded by Freeza? What the hell? It's on now, it is.

With no Gokou for this fight, do our heroes have a chance? With Gohan and Vegeta, yes. Barely. Also, does this guy really look like a world-destroying scourge of the universe?

Wait, what? Are you serious, bro? This can't be right. Our heroes are all set to go on a victory lap when...

Oh, it's the "Saibaman in disguise" thing that this game does. It's so dumb, and much like the earlier "Raditz Clone", it takes something away from the novelty of the real fight.

Our heroes have the Dragonballs gathered. All that's left is to get Piccolo back and wait for Gokou to heal, and Freeza is doomed!

Freeza, meanwhile, is harassing Guru and Nail about how to make the Dragonballs work, challenging Nail to a fight for sport. How dumb is this guy? He leaves the Dragonballs essentially unguarded while he goes to find out some information on his own on how to activate them. Why not bring them along? This guy is about as competent as a fig newton.

After an impossible-to-win fight, Nail is defeated. Freeza continues to demonstrate how moronic he is as he stands there demanding a Ball that he already has. Or had. Because our heroes went and stole them.

Namek Shenron is summoned, and much wish-granting is had. Unfortunately, the proceedings grind to a halt when popular circus midget Chaozu jumps in and wishes to have a gigantic penis. There is only so much Namek Shenron can do. He can't work miracles!

With Piccolo revived somewhere, our heroes go to confront Freeza. The real one this time. This is going to be good.

Piccolo finds Nail, who is battered and beaten. Nail gives up his life essence to make Piccolo stronger, and Piccolo's level surges from like 80,000 to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000,000. Deus Ex Machina called this "my finest work" when reached for comment.

Power UP! This begs the question... why didn't the Nameks just start fusing like crazy when Freeza and company showed up? Between that and Guru powerups, they could have fielded a small force of Super Nameks and totally obliterated Freeza. It seems like common sense. Overpowering invaders show up, Nameks all get naked and get to fusin'.

Vegeta takes on Freeza! It's a pitched fight, and it takes a while because only he and Gohan can actually do any real damage. They chip away with 5-10 damage attacks while the other characters stay back. Way back.

Freeza himself has no such damage-dealing issues. Look at Vegeta go flying!

After being defeated by our heroes, Freeza transforms into a demonic fiend. Imagine how much more intimidating the guy would have been if he had been in this form from the start?

He's vastly more powerful now, and it's clear that the good guys are in trouble. There's only one thing we can do now...

...hide behind the newly-arrived Piccolo!

He blasts Freeza right in the penis! This lowers Freeza's power level by one Freeza Penis.

Freeza soon retreats, leaving our heroes to battle with a palette-swap (and assumedly zombie) Ginyu Force... all at once! It's an interesting idea, but the fight isn't difficult. Kinda cool that the game includes this, since such a thing never transpires in the show.

At this point, Dende makes an offer we can't refuse. He can sacrifice himself and give up his essence (with a power level of 10!) to make Piccolo stronger, or he can stick around and keep being the party healer. Believe it or not, it's better to give him up. Freeza kills him off regardless when he hits Form 4, and Piccolo's power boost stays no matter what. Just means you have to get past Form 3 without a healer.

Piccolo's new power level is borderline obnoxious. Really, why didn't the Nameks just fuse? If three of them could fuse essences to create a being nearly as strong as Freeza... eh, better to not think about this too much. The real question is, can we do this without Yamcha? I don't know. I... I just don't know.

Freeza goes to form 3, an Aliens ripoff. The James Cameron estate should sue!

In this form he has brutally high defense, and the only character who can make any real difference against him is Piccolo. Once again, it comes down to one character while everyone else sits on the sidelines.

An epic struggle for the ages! AVENGE YOUR PLANET, PICCOLO-SAMA!

This is definitely Freeza's most bad-ass form, edging out the second. In the show he only utilizes this form for about two minutes, but in this game you get several entire battles out of it. Freeza continuously flees and zips around the world map, presumably just to make sport of our heroes and not because he's actually afraid of them.

Piccolo may be the only character truly able to go toe-to-toe with Freeza, but Vegeta is able to do a little bit of damage as well to speed things up.

After taking him down several times, Freeza transforms... for the final time. What monstrosity could possibly be in store for the good guys?

...why, it's another midget form! Don't be deceived, though. He's more powerful than ever. He's also got a Clockwork Orange stare that would make Malcolm Macdowell shudder.

Piccolo takes him on, but even Piccolo can't measure up at this point. The rest of the cast can't even show their faces on the battlefield. Our only hope... is Gokou.

...and there he is! This scene is actually well-done, considering how bad the game is...

FLY, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD! FLY!

And... what? Gokou's power is far lower than Piccolo's. Matter of fact, if he goes toe-to-toe with Freeza, he quickly gets destroyed. As if being able to lose him to Ginyu wasn't bad enough... what's up with the underpowered Gokou in these late stages of the game? It's especially weird when you consider how the game overpowers the rest of the cast.

Gokou challenges Freeza! ...I wouldn't do that, champ, he was kinda beating up Piccolo single-handedly and Piccolo is almost ten times stronger than you. For some reason.

This form of Freeza has more battle animations than any other foe in the entire game. It feels like the developers actually made a real effort here! Regardless, Freeza easily trounces Gokou. There's only one chance of victory in this fight... but it involves sacrificing a character to trigger Super Saiyan. There's no way I'm letting Freeza kill off Kuririn in this game, and that scoundrel Yamcha already got killed. This leaves...

...Ant Man stunt double Chaozu to make the ultimate sacrifice! Go get him, sport!

"POWDERRRRRRED! TOAAAAAAAST! MAAAAYYYYYYYYN!"

With that, part-time Japanese geisha and full time male model Chaozu is no more.

He was 55.

Gokou gets REALLY PISSED at the demise of Chaozu. And somewhere off-screen, Kuririn is wiping his brow with a relieved sigh.

Gokou goes Super Saiyan and his power level shoots up by like thirty times. NOW we're talking.

Gokou and Freeza lock horns! I'd say this is an epic confrontation, but it's pretty one-sided.

"He got that boom boom pow" says rapper Will.i.am when reached for comment.

 BOOM! That's for Chaozu! God rest his soul!

With that, Freeza is defeated, and the game is won. Namek didn't even get destroyed! Now our heroes can return to Earth knowing that they saved an entire planet from destruction.

Look at them flying over Namek! What a heart-warming scene! There's nothing that can put a damper on this awesome day.

...nothing except for Vegeta, the secret post-credits boss! That's right, let the credits roll and sit there for a minute, and Vegeta shows up. He's now a Super Saiyan, and he challenges Gokou for supremacy.

This is the REAL final battle that the game lacked (since Freeza was so inferior to Super Gokou). It's actually a challenge, but I've got a lot of cards and powers saved up to unleash on this beastly foe.

Nothing can stop Gokou's Z/Z energy attack card! Nothing!

This battle was missing from the show until much later, that's for sure.

Vegeta: "LET'S SEE YOU DAAAANCE SUCKA YOU GOT NOTHIN' ON ME!"

Once sufficiently powered-up, Gokou completely runs Vegeta over. Winning isn't ever in doubt after that.

With that, the game is over... for real.

What an atrociously bad game.

Don't ever play this... eeeeever.


4 comments:

  1. "Piccolo finds Nail, who is battered and beaten. Nail gives up his life essence to make Piccolo stronger, and Piccolo's level surges from like 80,000 to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000,000. Deus Ex Machina called this "my finest work" when reached for comment."

    Hahahahahaha

    ReplyDelete
  2. "At this point, Dende makes an offer we can't refuse. He can sacrifice himself and give up his essence (with a power level of 10!) to make Piccolo stronger, or he can stick around and keep being the party healer. Believe it or not, it's better to give him up. Freeza kills him off regardless when he hits Form 4, and Piccolo's power boost stays no matter what. Just means you have to get past Form 3 without a healer."

    Huh, how about that. Of course if you do that he can never be Dende again so no one will be around to make the new Dragon Balls after... oh whatever.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Gokou gets REALLY PISSED at the demise of Chaozu. And somewhere off-screen, Kuririn is wiping his brow with a relieved sigh."

    Kuririn: Woohoo! Not me!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Huh, SSJ Vegeta with shoulder pads.

    Good stuff.

    ReplyDelete