Gohan has always been a major player in the story of Dragon Ball, but fans are divided about how the character was handled. Gohan’s inner struggle represents his desire to train and grow strong enough to protect the world and his loved ones, while battling against his own ambitions to be a scholar and raise a family. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot depicts this as well, but opts to give Gohan a little more training in DLC 2 than he got in the original story of Resurrection F. While fans of Gohan are no doubt thrilled about this development, it ends up creating more issues than it solves.
Gohan is an interesting character because he is widely believed to have the most potential out of the entire cast. If he trained as hard as Goku and Vegeta do, it’s likely that he would surpass both of them with relative ease. Despite this, Gohan’s power fluctuates throughout the story of Dragon Ball, as his irregular training schedule causes him to get rusty at times. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot retcons Gohan, making him more powerful by the time Golden Frieza arrives on Earth, but while this is represented in the gameplay, the story seems to pretend that it never happened.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot‘s history with retcons is a bit contentious, as fans weren’t too happy when the game claimed that Piccolo’s iconic moon-destroying feat never actually happened. Instead, the Namekian created an illusion that made it look like the moon was destroyed in order to stop Gohan from rampaging as a Great Ape. On the other hand, this DLC 2 Gohan retcon is more well received, as fans have always wanted Gohan to tap into his true power and become more of a frontline fighter for the Z Warriors.
Immediately after the player unlocks Super Saiyan Blue for Goku and Vegeta, a loading screen takes players back to Earth. Here it is revealed that Gohan and Piccolo have been undergoing an intense training session to get the half-Saiyan back to his full power. As a result of this training session, Gohan is still able to access his Ultimate Form, despite barely being able to go Super Saiyan in the events of Resurrection F. This mostly serves the gameplay, as players wouldn’t have taken it well if Gohan actually lost access to these transformations in the DLC.
In Resurrection F, Gohan uses his Super Saiyan form to make quick work of Frieza’s henchman, particularly of Shisami, one of the most powerful in the new Frieza Force. In the movie, Shisami poses a real threat to the Z Warriors, but Gohan goes Super Saiyan and takes the foe out in one punch. Shortly after this, First Form Frieza uses his most iconic technique to handily dispatch Super Saiyan Gohan with a series of death beam blasts, showcasing just how powerful he’s become. During the Namek Saga, a Super Saiyan was enough to defeat Frieza’s Final Form, but now Frieza’s base form can take one out without breaking a sweat.
Oddly enough, things seem to go exactly the same for Gohan in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. The exact details of the fight aren’t clear, as it cuts away from the Z Warriors on Earth after the Ginyu Force, Zarbon, Dodoria, and Cui have all been defeated. When Goku and Vegeta arrive, they see Gohan in tatters, presumably having been beaten by Frieza in much the same way. Shisami and Tagoma aren’t in Kakarot‘s version of the story, so it’s unclear how he would have fared against them, but Frieza is already in his Final Form when Goku and Vegeta arrive.
This implies that Final Form Frieza was able to defeat Ultimate Gohan with ease somehow, as it doesn’t appear that he’s much worse for wear after the fight. It’s possible that Gohan put up enough of a fight to force Frieza into this form, but even if this is the case, then the extent of Frieza’s training to his base form was severely understated in both the anime and the movie. What’s more, it also says something about Goku and Vegeta’s power in base form that doesn’t seem to add up with how things go later on in Dragon Ball Super.
During the Buu Saga at the end of Dragon Ball Z, Gohan’s Ultimate Form is far more powerful than Goku’s Super Saiyan 3. In that form, Goku struggles to keep up with Majin Buu, and the drain to his Ki and Stamina is too much for him to maintain the form for very long. On the contrary, Ultimate Gohan is able to overpower Super Buu with ease, only starting to struggle once Buu absorbs Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks and gains all of his powers as well.
When Goku returns to Earth to fight Frieza in the DLC, it is revealed that his base form is comparable in power to Frieza’s Final Form. The fight is about even until both of them power up to Super Saiyan Blue and Golden Form respectively, at which point Goku has the upper hand. If Final Form Frieza was able to take out Ultimate Gohan easily, that implies that Goku’s base form is now stronger than Ultimate Gohan, Super Buu, and even Buu Saga Super Saiyan 3, but later in Dragon Ball Super, Ultimate Gohan gives Super Saiyan Blue Goku a run for his money in a training match.
Other than shrugging this off as dissonance between gameplay and story, the one potential explanation for the strange power scaling at play here is that Gohan wasn’t at full power after his training with Piccolo. It may have been enough to allow him to maintain his Ultimate Form, and in terms of gameplay his stats were all the same, but canonically he still isn’t as strong as he was in the Buu Saga. This is corroborated by a statement made by Piccolo right after the two finish training, in which the Namekian says that Gohan is “a lot sloppier than before.”
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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