A lot can be said about the Dragon Ball franchise's issues with power scaling, but most can agree that it does make some characters obsolete. Unfortunately, this results in certain characters, hero and villain alike, being relegated to the sideline in recreations of the story even if they played a major role originally. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot has rectified this mistake for one character, the first major threat to the safety of Earth, the full-blooded Saiyan, Raditz. Many players are finding quite quickly that they are actually struggling with the boss fight against Raditz in the new game, which is not something most can say about any other Dragon Ball games.
For those unaware, the fight with Raditz, Goku's brother from Planet Vegeta, is not often forgotten in retellings of the story, but rather downplayed significantly. This fight results in Goku's death and foreshadows the coming of Vegeta and Nappa, but for the most part tends to be a pretty easy fight regarding game mechanics. Raditz, although powerful at the time, has quickly fallen into irrelevance as far more powerful adversaries have arrived, but that does not mean that his importance and power should be downplayed. He is the first major enemy faced in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.
After a very enjoyable and heartwarming sequence of events involving Goku spending time with his son, Gohan, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot really kicks off with the arrival of Raditz on Earth and his encounter with the farmer with a shotgun. Raditz comes to find Goku and find out why he hasn't destroyed the Earth yet. Obviously, what he finds is not what he expected, and he eventually kidnaps young Gohan in order to coax Goku into fighting him. The first encounter with Raditz is a one on one between him and Goku, and although mechanically this fight doesn't prove too difficult, it is made clear that Raditz is holding back in the cutscene that proceeds it.
The final battle with Raditz takes place in two separate parts, the first of which sees Piccolo helping Goku to face down the Saiyan. With the aid of Piccolo, the fight is relatively straight forward and manageable. A two against one approach gives the player room to breathe when they start to get overwhelmed, but once the two defenders of Earth realize that they cannot defeat him through normal methods, Piccolo retreats to start charging his special beam cannon. This marks where the fight takes a turn for the worse, as now Goku must face Raditz alone.
Facing Raditz alone, and at full power, is no easy task. The difference in power between the player's character and Raditz is like day and night, and this is made clear by the magnitude and scale of Raditz's attacks and damage output. His unblockable charge attacks in particular really hurt, and with no backup there is little time to recover from devastating blows. Fans may find themselves actually losing to the Saiyan in this uphill battle and may need help beating Raditz, something that likely hasn't happened for most in a Dragon Ball Z game in a long time, but uphill battles are what define both Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.
Ultimately, that is the purpose of the fight with Raditz, to set the tone for how the rest of the game will be. This isn't going to be a walk in the park like previous Dragon Ball games, and things will not be any easier for the player than they were for Goku in his many seemingly impossible battles. If someone like Raditz, who by and large has been portrayed as weak, can put the hurt on so well, then further boss fights like Nappa, Vegeta, and eventually Frieza are sure to be devastating. Thankfully, the player will grow stronger before these fights arrive, but it will take more than just higher stats to overcome these bosses; skill will be needed as well.
Raditz truly needed this redemption of his character, as in previous games he has been very lackluster. This is likely due to the nature of fighting games in general which most Dragon Ball games adhere to, but nonetheless, Raditz was portrayed very poorly in the past. He would often show up on the roster of playable characters, but would almost never be chosen, and the boss fight with him required to progress in the story could hardly be called a boss fight at all. Often it wasn't just his stats that were unimpressive, but his AI as well, and he was used in video games mostly as a tutorial to help the player ramp up into the real fights.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, by comparison, does not hold the player's hand in this way, and certainly won't do so at the expense of one of its characters. Like iconic games such as Dark Souls, Kakarot thrusts the player headfirst into a challenging and uphill encounter. All of this is Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot's effort to remain true to the source material. When Raditz arrived on Earth, he was truly a monster that could not be beat. Goku and Piccolo, the two strongest beings on Earth at the time, could not hold a candle to the might that Raditz portrayed, which is why when he claimed Vegeta and Nappa to be even stronger than him, the protagonists panicked.
With Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot finally in the hands of the players, fans of the series are now able to experience all this for themselves. Most players have probably beaten Raditz by now, but hopefully they will not forget how they struggled against him and will use what they've learned to overcome the next challenge. Raditz's character is easily one of the most poorly represented villains of the Dragon Ball franchise when it comes to video game adaptations, so it is a breath a fresh air to see the character shine in the newest game. One thing is for certain, though; Raditz has set the tone for the entirety of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, and fans should not expect things to get any easier from here on out.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
