The Frieza Saga expansion set occupies a weird place in the Dragon Ball Z CCG. It followed the clunky and often times outright broken Saiyan Saga (yet is somehow the set with the most cards banned by Score) and preceded the game’s reformation in the Trunks Saga. While you can see a few things getting tightened up, aside from adding a few staples and the introduction of “preview” sets there were no new mechanics or card types introduced. The Frieza Saga expansion brought little to the franchise, that is unless you count the unlikely revival of characters killed of in the show.
Now, the DBZ CCG was never cannon. At no point was Tapkar ever the strongest character or was Bardock allied with any of his descendants. But it mostly followed cannon. Now here we have two characters killed off in the show but featured in a flashback, which is where these images came from, depicted as being “Restored”? Does this imply that the DBZ CCG has its own cannon where Nappa and Raditz have been brought back to life?
If you ask me, the game should have created it’s own cannon where these things were possible. If it did, we would’ve seen more support for some of these single saga personalities besides a random named card several sets later. Other than a Raditz Memory we never see a new personality or named card for either Nappa or Raditz until the Dragon Ball GT CCG. Like in the show, they simply cease to appear. A revived (or restored) villain returning to Earth and living a somewhat quiet life was an interesting addition to the Kakarot video game (it’s basically Android 17’s character arc from DBZ to Super), and it would have been nice if the CCG leaned more into its own cannon so that it could give us more than just five new Goku named cards every set.
And while the declaration that Nappa and Raditz have been revived has amusing connotations, it’s important to remember that many of the other Frieza Saga Level 4 cards have continuity issues. For example, two of them say the character is “On Namek” when they are clearly NOT “On Namek.”
And the images for Gohan and Piccolo just get reused in the very next set as Level 3 personalities.
Which brings us to the absurdity of Level 4 characters before the Trunks Saga. In the Saiyan Saga, other than the nigh unusable Saibaimen, the only way to get a Level 4 for your MP was as a promo mostly available in DBZ VHS tapes (geeze, this game is old).
On top of their scarcity, the Level 4 personality cards really didn’t need to do anything at this point but exist for the purposes of a Most Powerful Personality Victory. By this point in the game, Goku had three Level 4 cards to choose from (four if you count the error dupe promo since it is slightly different), which would only matter if someone used the aptly named It’s Just Not Worth It! promo (it has to be activated as an action before a player wins) or The Talking Ends Here in the brief window before it was banned.
Yeah, pre Trunks saga the situation with the Level 4 cards was kind of a mess, creating their own cannon while not really doing anything but being part of the stack. It seems like Vegeta On Namek was the only rare Level 4 to work in continuity, know what planet he’s on and not be recycled later. On the whole, at least the Frieza Saga Level 4’s had some redeeming play value unlike most of what you would find in the Trunks Saga. It’s too bad that was the last time the game tried to bring someone back to life.
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Later BroZ!
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