Summary
How you turn Super Saiyan has changed over the years (shout-out to Cabba’s back tingles), but it first happened inDragon Ball Zbecause of Goku’s intense andextreme rage over losing one of his best friends at the hands of Frieza. We see how important anger is for the transformation once again in the Cell Saga whenGohan goes further beyond and reaches Super Saiyan 2after giving into his true anger following Android 16’s death.
I’ve never felt loss on the same level as Goku, Gohan, and the rest of the Dragon Ball Super Saiyans, but over the past week, I’ve felt like I could snap and go Super Saiyan at any given moment. Why, you might ask? BecauseDragon Ball: Sparking Zero’s story mode is surprisingly brutal and painfully reminiscent of the toughest sections Budokai Tenkaichi 2 had to offer.
When I first booted up Sparking Zero, I was pretty confident that it wouldn’t give me any trouble. Not only because I’m a Budokai Tenkaichi and Raging Blast veteran (cool I know), butbecause I’d gone hands-on with it at multiple eventsand had around four or so hours to get used to its controls. That cockiness disappeared the moment I jumped into Goku’s story mode.
“I’ll Break You!”
Going up against Raditz as a Kaioken-less Goku was a harsh lesson that Sparking Zero was taking canon power levels very seriously, as he wiped the floor with me without any trouble. That was a tough pill to swallow, but since it was canon to the story I was allowed to move on to the battle against Vegeta.
The Prince of all Saiyans was easy enough to take down in a Saiyan-on-Saiyan match,but things quickly got rage-inducing as he cheated and transformed into his Great Ape form. Giant characters are a returning feature from Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and they’re just as broken and annoying to fight in Sparking Zero since they don’t get staggered by most normal attacks, deal a ton of damage, and are somehow just as fast as regular fighters.
Giant enemies are by far the worst part of Sparking Zero’s roster, even though they’re a really cool thing to include. If I see anyone using them online, it’s an instant-quit for me.
This led to the big monkey beating the everloving snot out of me multiple times in a row and forcing me to listen to the same monologue about Grandpa Gohan on loop. Since Goku doesn’t technically win this fight against Vegeta in the manga and anime, I figured Sparking Zero would throw me a bone and let me lose, but it’s one of few fights you have to clear.
What followed was 30 minutes of muffled swearing and sweaty palms as I tried to have a fair fight with Vegeta, before throwing in the towel and dishonourably going for the good old Kamehameha spam. I eventually won the battle, but I’m not sure it’s a victory Goku would be proud of.
I Can’t Wait To See The Back Of Goku Black
Those early encounters were enough to tell me that Sparking Zero wasn’t messing around with its story mode, but things got a lot easier as I tried out some other modes and came to grips with the mechanics. With a new mastery of vanishing and countering under my belt, I jumped right back in and ploughed through almost all of Goku’s story mode once more with far less trouble.
That was until I came face to face with Goku Black and Zamasu. While most normal fights give characters three or four health bars, Episode Battle goes classic Budokai Tenkaichi by doubling that number, making the fights much longer. Combine that with their AI clearly being on the hardest difficulty setting and not giving a damn about letting you breathe, this made for a truly painful time as the pair kicked my Super Saiyan Blue butt all around the city.
It gets even worse when Fused Zamasu rears his ugly head, as he’s got some attacks that can clear multiple bars of health at once.
After feeling my hair stand on end like I was going Super Saiyan myself, I eventually cleared the chapter and found myself in the Tournament of Power. This saga has never been seen in a BT game before but has some of the strongest enemies Goku has ever gone up against, including Jiren and Kale. The fight against Jiren might be one of the sweatiest I’ve had in a game in a very long time and was reminiscent of some of the toughest moments in BT2 and 3, and one that gets even worse when you do it in reverse as Jiren himself.
Future Trunks (Won’t) Be The Death Of Me
Goku’s Episode Battle is the longest in the game and full of tough fights, but it’s not the one that gave me the most trouble. That honour goes to Goku Black’s story mode, which has you playing as him and Zamasu against Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta and eventually even Vegito Blue. This was pure hell because they’re some of the most powerful characters in the game with the biggest health bars.
That’s bad enough, but the worst of it comes in the final fight against Vegito Blue and Trunks. Those two are tough, nevermind having to take a Spirit Sword Slash from Trunks in order to beat the fight, which means waiting around for him to use his ultimate move and somehow keeping your health bar stable enough after having just taken on Vegito Blue.
As of the time of writing, I still haven’t cleared that fight because the requirements are so specific and annoying and leave it all up to Trunks’ AI. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t like to do his finishing move much and will take you out before he ever goes into Sparking mode, no matter how much you run away and hide.
You can get an alternate ending for defeating Trunks and Vegito Blue, which is ironically easier than letting them finish you off in such a specific way.
This all might sound like a point against Sparking Zero but, just like Goku himself, I love the challenge of a tough fight. Sparking Zero has some mechanics to help you along like Dragon Orbs to make secondary objectives easier to clear, but it mostly doesn’t hold your hand and expects you to learn it inside and out.
Even if I respect the grind and love how classic Sparking Zero can feel at times, that doesn’t fix the irreparable damage that Great Ape Vegeta, Jiren, and Goku Black have all done to my blood pressure. I don’t even have golden glowing locks to show for it.
