DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO has just launched in early access for those who pre-ordered the Deluxe and Ultimate editions of the fighting game, and one colossal ape has already left players battered, bruised, and clinging desperately to their sanity.

Sparking Zero’s Great Ape Vegeta Has Players Doing the Yamcha Death PoseBandai Namco Joins in on the Meme as Players Struggle to Beat 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 impossible-to-counter moves. Things have gotten so out of hand that even Bandai Namco is jumping in on the memes, adding fuel to the fire for a battle that’s proving to be a near-universal pain point.

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 wipe out a huge chunk of 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 massive wall 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 have a little fun with the outcry. 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 traumatic encounters with the infamous Great Ape Vegeta in the original Budokai Tenkaichi, which was a literal survival mission.

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: swallow their prides and lower the difficulty to Easy.

Regardless of how many are getting slapped across the terrain by Great Ape Vegeta’s "monke hands," the latest Dragon Ball game that takes 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 titans of the genre 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!