FighterZ Gohan Line Doesn't Make Super Saiyan 4 Stronger Than Ultra Instinct

When Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta was added to Dragon Ball FighterZ, a line of dialogue from Gohan set off an argument about whether Super Saiyan 4 is stronger than Ultra Instinct. My answer is no. A statement in a fighting game does not change the power scale of the series, and it isn't meant to be taken seriously.

Dragon Ball FighterZ (2018) is the arcade fighting game from Arc System Works. Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta is a very popular character from Dragon Ball GT, where he appears in episode 60, and his arrival in the game made him the main topic of conversation among fans.

The tweet about Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta and Ultra Instinct

The discussion started with a tweet from a Dragon Ball GT fan. He wrote that this was the first official statement in a Dragon Ball product saying Super Saiyan 4 is stronger than Ultra Instinct, and he told fans to eat their hearts out.

First of all, there's no heat here at all, and I don't want anyone sending negativity his way. He's a huge Dragon Ball GT fan, and he was joking around. He wasn't calling out fans. His sense of humor has always leaned heavily toward GT, and in my experience with him, I like him.

I'll also say what I've always said: GT gets a lot of unwarranted negativity. No, it's not a perfect series, and it does have many problems. Some of it can be boring. But GT is not as terrible as everybody says it is, and there's a lot of cool stuff in it.

What Gohan says about Gogeta in Dragon Ball FighterZ

The comment in question apparently comes from Gohan. I haven't played with Gogeta in the game yet, so I don't know exactly the context. The line reads: "that form is nothing like super saiyan blue or ultra instinct i've never seen anything as powerful as this."

That Gohan is obviously the one from Dragon Ball Super. So no, he has never seen Super Saiyan 4, because Super Saiyan 4 doesn't exist in Dragon Ball Super. That part is obviously true. It's also true that Super Saiyan 4 is nothing like Super Saiyan Blue.

As for him saying he's never seen anything as powerful, Gohan never felt the true power of Ultra Instinct. He saw it in the Tournament of Power, but he never felt it.

FighterZ Gogeta is the GT version, not Super Saiyan 4 Limit Breaker

To clarify, Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta in FighterZ is not Super Saiyan 4 Limit Breaker from Dragon Ball Heroes, so don't get it twisted. The FighterZ version is from GT, and he was only in one episode and a little bit of another.

It's funny, because Bandai has made enormous use of Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta. Think of how many toys of him exist and how many times he's been a big, impactful character in the games. Yet he's only been in about one and a half episodes of the entire franchise, and I'm not counting Heroes.

For a long time, he was the strongest character. If you count GT as part of the continuity and go from the beginning of Dragon Ball to the end, anime wise, Gogeta was the strongest. He's the one who pummeled Omega Shenron, who was the strongest villain before Super came along.

Dragon Ball games do their own thing

I have to say this time and time again: this is a game, and the games do their own thing. They have no real resonance with the Dragon Ball series, whether that's the manga or the anime. They take aspects of it and adapt them so we can all have fun. The games have always said wild and wacky things, and I've talked before about what Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot gave us.

Akira Toriyama's name gets put on these things because he's the original creator, and his name carries a lot of weight in Japan. Akira Toriyama's name on anything and it will help it sell, and there are numbers that prove this.

Toriyama did help with FighterZ and with Kakarot. He designed Android 21. But he's not the primary creative force or the primary writer. He gives tidbits here and there, and we have no way of knowing whether this line came from him. Toriyama didn't even invent Super Saiyan 4. Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru designed it, and it was Kozo Morishita and the team on Dragon Ball GT who came up with it, not Toriyama.

Ultra Instinct remains the most powerful form

I think a lot of people take Dragon Ball way too seriously. It's never been taken too seriously by me. There are things in Dragon Ball that I think can be taken seriously and that we can learn from, and there are parts of the series that I think should be better dissected and better enjoyed. But it has never been a super serious show. Plenty of other shows, anime or not, are far more introspective, more serious and carry more social commentary. Dragon Ball is supposed to be fun.

Taking this statement seriously does a tremendous disservice to what the game is supposed to be. I always find it silly when fans fight over something like this. Kakarot, Legends and FighterZ are all games we're supposed to enjoy and have fun with.

So no, this does not mean Super Saiyan 4 is more powerful than Ultra Instinct. Statements from Jump magazine and other promotional material have said numerous times that Ultra Instinct is the most powerful form in the series. Gohan's line is a statement made in a game, and it's not meant to be taken seriously.