Sparking Zero’s Great Ape Vegeta Presents a Significant ChallengeBandai Namco Embraces the Memes as Players Wrestle with the Great Ape
In all games, boss fights are designed to be challenging. They’re meant to test your skills and provide a satisfying sense of accomplishment. But there’s difficult, and then there’s Great Ape Vegeta in DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO. Great Ape Vegeta has emerged as one of the first major boss battles in the game, and he’s causing havoc for players with brutal attacks and seemingly insurmountable moves. Things have gotten so out of hand that even Bandai Namco is joining the meme-making, adding fuel to the fire for a battle that’s proving to be a near-universal difficulty spike.
If you’ve ever seen Vegeta’s transformation into the colossal Great Ape in Dragon Ball Z, you know how much devastation he can cause. Sparking Zero takes that legendary form and seemingly cranks up the difficulty to over 9,000! From the moment you face him, he opens with a barrage of beam attacks, including the infamous Galick Gun, and has a grab attack that can significantly deplete your health. The fight quickly feels less like a battle and more like a survival mission where players are just trying to hold on for dear life. It's so unforgiving, in fact, that players quickly restart the fight as soon as they see him preparing to unleash a Galick Gun.
To make matters worse, players encounter Great Ape Vegeta early on in Goku’s Episode Battle and is a major obstacle for those new to Dragon Ball fighting games, as the fight can immediately start with him unleashing a barrage of super moves.
Rather than issuing a hotfix, Bandai Namco decided to engage with the player feedback humorously. When players began to express their frustrations en masse, Bandai Namco’s UK Twitter (X) account chimed in with a perfectly timed meme. They tweeted "This monke got hands," accompanied by a GIF of Great Ape Vegeta overwhelming Goku with a barrage of energy attacks.
However, it's important to note that Great Ape Vegeta has historically been a challenging opponent in the Dragon Ball fighting game series. Some players even recall their difficult encounters with the infamous Great Ape Vegeta in the original Budokai Tenkaichi, which was a true test of survival.
Great Ape Vegeta wasn't the only challenge players faced in Sparking Zero. Even on Normal difficulty, the CPU opponents could unleash devastating combos that were difficult to counter. This was especially true on Super difficulty, where the AI seemed to have an unfair advantage, consistently landing long strings of attacks that left players struggling to react. Players are then faced with only one choice: adjust the difficulty to Easy.
Regardless of how many are being overwhelmed by Great Ape Vegeta’s "monke hands," the latest Dragon Ball game that embodies the spirit of the Budokai Tenkaichi games has already taken Steam by storm. In just a few hours of early access, the game has already reached a peak of 91,005 concurrent Steam players, making it one of the biggest fighting games ever to hit the platform—and it's not even fully out yet. DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO has even surpassed prominent titles like Street Fighter, Tekken, and Mortal Kombat.
This isn't entirely surprising. Despite not being officially labeled as such, DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO marks the long-awaited revival of the Budokai Tenkaichi subseries, and fans have been eagerly anticipating its release for years. Game8 awarded the game a score of 92, stating that "With a massive amount of playable characters, stunning visuals, and several scenarios to explore and complete, this is the best Dragon Ball game we’ve had in ages, and nothing comes close." For more on our thoughts on DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO, check out our article below!
