Almost 2 years ago I made a review of all the revealed Gigabash kaiju in the lead up to the game’s release and what they were homages to, but the game is now almost 2 years old and its third dlc pack of guest fighters has just released. So I thought now’s as good a time as any to revisit Gigabash’s ten original kaiju and provide much more commentary as someone who’s played the game extensively, starting with…
Gorogong!
Gorogong is essentially the “starter” or brawler character on the roster, an agile character with reliable attack and defense and movement options, but with a surprisingly high skill ceiling. Do not underestimate a Gorogong player! A truly skilled one can wipe the floor with you.
Design
Gorogong is pretty much the poster child of Gigabash and showcases the main design inspiration for most of the original kaiju in the game. Passion Republic Games is a Malaysian company, and Ultraman is really popular there. With this information in mind it becomes clear that Gorogong was designed using traits from a few monsters in Ultraman’s extensive roster. Off the top of my head I can see some silhouette inspiration from Red King EX, and the face reminds me of Bemular (which apparently was the main facial inspiration) and Guigass. Miclas was probably a bigger inspiration than those latter two though.
Overall he wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Ultraman. But despite being a grab bag of traits, his design process was actually quite extensive! And you can see concept art showing the multiple different iterations he went through before PRG finally settled on what we got.
Gorogong is also pretty obviously a volcanic monster, with his stony hide and lava leaking from its cracks. Gorogong burst into the modern world of Gigabash after being disturbed from his hibernation in a volcano after humans stole something from him. But why was he in the volcano, and what was the important thing humans stole?
Lore
Gorogong’s home turf is Luana Island of the Kahu’a Republic, a Polynesian island smack dab in the center of the Pacific Ocean. How long he was there isn’t known, but what is known is that when Polynesian settlers came to the island many centuries ago he was far from happy. Actually that’s an understatement, because Gorogong’s rage is his primary character trait.
He nearly eradicated the settlers and chased the stragglers for hours around the island before cornering them. But right before he could finish them off, Princess Luana, daughter of king Kahu’a and namesake of the island, began singing to crying children to soothe them. Her voice was so beautiful that it calmed Gorogong and pacified him.
In an effort to save her people she led him into the volcano on the island, and in the art showing this backstory in Gorogong’s story mode, Giga energy (what exactly it is or might be is something I’ll further elaborate as these overviews go on) is seen flowing out from the volcano as it then sealed the kaiju inside.
It was only through Princess Luana’s sacrifice that people were able to settle down on the island, and apparently they remained isolated from the rest of the world until the 1940s. Soon after, travel agencies and fast food companies flocked to the island and now it’s a tourist destination flocked with tourists and companies. Much to the frustration of the natives.
The entire time, Gorogong was sleeping in the volcano undisturbed. Of course word of Gorogong’s legend eventually reached the Global Titan Defense Initiative, an anti-kaiju international military organization created during the first kaiju crisis in the 70’s, nowadays though the organization is filled with corruption and uses its military power and resources to rig elections in favor of politicians who’ll throw more money at them, and many governments around the world are dependent on them. They cause more problems than they solve in their efforts to eradicate kaiju. They set up a base on the volcano to investigate if the legends were true, and it quickly became apparent that the volcano was filled with Giga energy and that a kaiju was indeed inside it. There was also a massive Giga Crystal inside (which admittedly looks kinda like a purple turd) and some point they were commissioned by OtamaTEC to remove and retrieve it for a project (which will be covered in another post). Taking away this artifact woke up Gorogong though, and it seems that he’ll follow anyone who takes it from him to the ends of the earth in order to retrieve it, and there’s some implication that the Giga turd is what became of princess Luana.
Overall, Gorogong is a great poster child for the game and was painstakingly designed by PRG to be loving homage to classic Ultraman monsters. He’s also very fun to play and draw.
This is Kenji Serizowa here with a report of titans in the area. It appears that both Godzilla and the rock ape known as Gorogong have teamed up to fight Pipijuirus who is kind of confused as to why he is on earth.
Gorogong from "GigaBash" is going to kill Gregory from "Hellpark" and Gregory from "Gregory Horror Show" LOL, then Paramountfan2002 and rhylietheheroiccaterfly are gonna get pissed off, guess what? I'm a fan of "GigaBash" and little bit of kaiju fan.
