I totally missed out on a bunch of stuff from this part of the game. Like I took zero screenshots of the whole "Gokou = Ginyu" part. Rest assured, we missed nothing. That part almost feels like filler to me now. You fight Gokou (as Gohan) and stuff happens. Regardless, moving on with the story...Freeza interrogates Nail to find out how to use the 'balls. Let's just get to the actual Freeza battle before the show PTSD starts again. Regardless, Captain Ginyu is defeated, all the body-switching stuff is over with, and Gokou is laid-up in a healing tank. That's right, he's out of action AGAIN.
Form 2 Freeza is pretty awesome looking and I kinda wish this was his final form. It's all he really needed, as everything beyond this was just more power level abuse.
...wait, Form 2? That's right, there's no fight with Form 1 Freeza in this game. All of the filler, and they left Form 1 Freeza out. I don't get that at all.
Gohan is just the warm-up act here, but you still have to win the fight.
Freeza then crushes Gohan in cutscene, and taunts Vegeta for his inaction. Vegeta is completely mortified during all of this. I don't think he realized that Freeza had a second form...he thought Form 1 was it and that he could beat that form.
Course, the REAL fight begins when Piccolo arrives, post Nail-fusion. Piccolo is nearly as strong as Freeza here and they have a damn good battle.
Here's the actual fight, plus Form 3. Playing as Piccolo against this guy is pretty awesome.
Come to think of it, Piccolo vs Freeza and Piccolo vs Android 17 are probably my favorite fights from those two sagas in the show.
Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon is one of the sickest attacks in the game. I love landing one of these. It's a little slower on the windup, so you need to be sure your opponent doesn't get out of the way. Best time to use it is right after another attack that sends your foe reeling.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, Freeza has more forms to pull out of the air. Here's his Xenomorph Form. Man, H.R. Giger could have been suing EVERYBODY in the 80's and 90's.
Piccolo mops up Form 3 as well without much trouble (unlike the show) and it's time for...
...Form 4, complete with Vegeta completely losing it at how outclassed he is. He already did this with Form 2 but he's even worse-off now, begging Kuririn and Dende to mortally wound and cure him repeatedly so he can hurry up and power up. This is reaching points of ridiculousness now.
It was even worse back when I was watching one episode a week of this in Japanese, since the American version was allergic to progression. It took YEARS to get to this point, only to have things drag on and on with all of these forms, and Gokou being incapacitated again.
Freeza has his way with Vegeta and smacks him all over the place, and it's tough to watch. For some reason...yanno, we forget how horrible Vegeta actually was early on. He killed a bunch of Namekians and wanted to become immortal and rule the universe or whatever, so he got what was coming around. In any case, that's it for Vegeta. Luckily, death is only a speed bump in the world of DBZ.
BUT WAIT! Gokou is here! Again! The best part is that the healing chamber also healed his damaged clothes.
Here's the scene from the show, and the music for this part in Kai is awesome.
Unfortunately Super Dragon Soul doesn't play in the game, but it's still Hype AF to finally have Gokou vs Freeza.
Of course, the victory doesn't last long, as we soon get my least-favorite series moment...
...Freeza annihilates Kuririn, just because he can.
This prompts Gokou to lose it and go Super Saiyan because he's had enough of Freeza hurting people who DID NOTHING.
The resulting fight is awesome...and a total wipe-out. The previous fight was fairly even*, this one is a total beatdown.
* - I like that the previous fight was even in this game. In the show, it's a one-sided beatdown with Freeza having his way with Gokou, and goes on for like ten episodes. Just derails most of the show's momentum if you're watching one episode a week like I had to back in the day.
Powering up is now even more fun with Gokou in this form.
Another fight follows after that, now with shirtless Gokou and the planet falling apart. I think this is the "both guys get serious" version of the fight. Another thing this game mercifully left out: All of that annoying stuff from the show about how Freeza was only using "25% power" and then "50% power" and WHO CARES GET TO THE POINT
Suffice to say, this isn't my favorite part of the show (outside of the absolutely iconic transformation) but I had a blast with this part of the game.
The mixture of fighting and RPG that this game offers has veered more towards fighting at this juncture. However, it still handles better than a lot of actual fighting games.
Freeza unleashes his ultimate attack: Freeza Death Ball. Which I'm now realizing is the same attack he destroyed the Saiyan homeworld with. It's a good idea to just sit there and block this one...or try to.
Post-fight, Freeza gets dismembered by his own disc attack. Then he begs Gokou for mercy...and gets it. Gokou gives him enough energy to escape the planet...then Freeza uses that energy to sneak-attack him. What an irredeemable piece of shit Freeza is.
Gokou turns around and just annihilates Freeza in a glorious full-power blast that leaves apparently nothing left. This might be the only time in the show that Gokou actually kills someone.
I mean, spoiler alert, Freeza survives. Gokou didn't know that though.
So that concludes this saga. The game could have probably ended right here, since it has already had like a 12-hour runtime in the main story alone. However, rather than save the rest for Kakarot 2: The Quest For More Money, they went right ahead and covered the rest of DBZ. That's pretty cool.
NEXT UP: GARLIC JUNIOR SAGA.
I'm just kidding, it quickly gets right to What's Left Of Freeza arriving on Earth for revenge, with his gigantic father in tow. King Cold is a bit of an enigma. The official word seems to be that he's stronger than Freeza, but he doesn't have a chance to show anything. Is he in his first form, or is he in Form 2? Does he have multiple forms at all? Who knows.
And who cares, because now it's TRUNKS TIME~!
Super Saiyan Trunks vs Mecha Freeza is another fun battle, though it's mostly designed to be a bit of a slaughter. You don't even fight King Cold in this game, though in the show he barely fights either, Trunks just sorta rolls him over in a few hits. Still, would have been good to get a King Cold fight. Why not?
Trunks slices Freeza in half, and that's the end of Freeza. For good this time. At least until DB Super.
For those keeping track... Freeza killed numerous people, including lots of kids. Felt nothing about it, never showed even a hint of remorse, and took advantage of every bit of kindness Gokou tried to show him. THEN he shows up on Earth with the plan of painfully killing all of Gokou's friends as some sort of "payback", despite Gokou giving him way more mercy than he deserved.
The idea that this guy is a "good guy" later on in the series is baffling to me, but I guess I'll watch that eventually and find out how the hell they rationalized that.
In any case, Trunks is a dude from the future who is here to warn our heroes against terrifying humanoid androids that are going to turn the world into a hellscape.
In short, he's Kyle Reese.
Next time on Kakarot: The game becomes even more like a fighting game with the Android Saga! Alas, the rest of the story doesn't lend itself as well to an RPG as the Namek Saga does. The overall game continues to be very good, and better than I expected.
Video time: SSJ Gokou vs Freeza. Terrific fight in this game. They get right to the point with Freeza going to max power and buffing up. I also like how Gokou leaves afterimages in this fight.
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