Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero has always aimed to be the ultimate Dragon Ball fighter, and as the roster expands and the Goku count grows ever higher through DLC, it's laying a strong claim to that title. Another Goku – or, perhaps, two more Gokus – are hitting the game as part of the upcoming DLC 3 release on September 24, and at this point I'm starting to worry Bandai Namco might be running out of new Gokus to add.
A fresh trailer for DLC 3 shows off a new round of Daima characters with battles based on the anime's final fight – spoiler warning, by the way. The six additional characters are Goku (Mini) Super Saiyan 4, Goku (Daima) Super Saiyan 4, Vegeta (Daima) Super Saiyan 3, Majin Duu, Third Eye Gomah, and Giant Gomah.
Naturally, we here at the GamesRadar+ offices soon started trying to count Gokus, and we keep coming up with different answers because few of us agree on what constitutes an entire Goku. My colleague Scott argues that transformations and other alternate forms do not count as full Gokus, and thus this DLC would bring us to a Goku count of nine.
- Goku (Z-Early)
- Goku (Z-Mid)
- Goku (Z-End)
- Goku (Super)
- Goku Black
- Goku (GT)
- Goku (Teen)
- Goku (Mini)
- Goku (Daima)
I think this count is needlessly reductive. Both myself and US managing editor Rollin agree that Super Saiyans and other similar transformations do count as full Gokus. After all, even this DLC pack is billing Goku (Mini) Super Saiyan 4 as a whole new character, setting the precedent that another transformation increases the Goku count. This count would take us to 24 total Gokus.
- Goku (Z-Early)
- Goku (Z-Mid)
- Goku (Z-Mid) Super Saiyan
- Goku (Z-End)
- Goku (Z-End) Super Saiyan
- Goku (Z-End) Super Saiyan 2
- Goku (Z-End) Super Saiyan 3
- Goku (Super)
- Goku (Super) Super Saiyan
- Goku (Super) Super Saiyan God
- Goku (Super) Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan
- Goku (Super) Ultra Instinct
- Goku Black
- Goku (Super) Ultra Instinct -Sign–
- Goku Black Super Saiyan Rosé
- Goku (GT)
- Goku (GT) Super Saiyan
- Goku (GT) Super Saiyan 3
- Goku (GT) Super Saiyan 4
- Goku (Teen)
- Goku (Mini)
- Goku (Mini) Super Saiyan
- Goku (Mini) Super Saiyan 4
- Goku (Daima) Super Saiyan 4
While I would stop the count here, I do have to acknowledge that some might reasonably argue that fusions – where Goku joins with another character to become something else – should each count as one-half Goku. I think this gets away a bit from the spirit of what a Goku truly is, but I can respect the idea. If we count the various versions of Gogeta, Vegito, and Fused Zamasu as each being 0.5 Gokus, our Goku count reaches 29.
But I'm not the first to do research in this area. Last year, Aftermath did a thorough Goku count to try and estimate exactly how many Gokus were in Sparking Zero. Their count included transformations and fusions, but they also added one more argument: since Cell is partially made up out of Goku's cells, each version of Cell should count as one-fifth of a Goku. This idea would take the Goku count to 30.
However, I would argue that if you're counting a character made up of Goku's cells as a partial Goku, I think any character sharing Goku's genetic material should count here. Yes, that means we need to be counting Goku's children as partial Gokus. If I'm counting correctly, and we assume a child equals one-half of each parent, there are 14 Gohans – equalling seven Gokus – and two Gotens – equalling one Goku.
We've been counting fusions this entire time, so the three Gotenks included in Sparking Zero would give us another three-quarters of a Goku, and Super Buu's absorption of Gohan should probably bring us another quarter-Goku. We've also got Super Buu's absorption of Gotenks, which gives us .125 Gokus, and we can't forget about Goku's grandchildren, as Pan would give us another quarter-Goku.
I think that takes us 39.375 Gokus, but I'm starting to feel a bit like Scott Steiner here. In this instance, the numbers might lie, but they're only spelling disaster for anybody trying to do a thorough Goku audit of Sparking Zero.
These are the best fighting games you can play today.
