After Gohan, Krillin, and Bulma arrive on Namek, they discover that evil forces are already at work on Namek looking for the Dragon Balls also. They search high and low for dragon balls, but usually come up empty handed. Soon Vegeta arrives on Namek as well and pursues the dragon balls too. Vegeta clashes with Frieza's forces time and time again, as Gohan and Krillin avoid anyone they come across. Eventually they meet some of the Nameks and head to see Guru, the elder Namek, who opens up their hidden power. During the mad hunt for the dragon balls, Vegeta battles and kills Zarbon, Dodoria, and Cooey, three of Frieza's strongest minions. Vegeta steals the dragon balls from Frieza and is only missing one, the one Gohan found. To beat Frieza, Krillin, Gohan, and Vegeta team up against the great evil.

Frieza is infuriated by Vegeta's insolence, and calls for the Ginyu force, his super squadron of dancing morons. Once the Ginyu Force arrives they catch up with Vegeta and the others and prepare to take the dragon balls. Captain Ginyu takes the balls back to Frieza while the others decide who gets to kill Krillin, Vegeta, and Gohan. Guldo, the frog-looking weakling of the bunch, goes first against Gohan and Krillin. The fight seems to be going in Gohan's favor when Guldo catches them off guard and it looks like they could be done for. Vegeta, however, still needs them, so he kills Guldo and saves Gohan and Krillin. Recoome steps up next to fight. He pretty much beats the hell out of all 3 of them. He beats up Vegeta, then Krillin, and finally Gohan. Just when it looks like Gohan is done in, here comes Goku.

Goku finally shows up, stronger than ever after training in 100 times earth gravity. He stops Recoome with one blow, then Burter and Jeice burst into action to defeat this new threat. He stops them pretty easily and Jeice retreats to summon Captain Ginyu to help. The captain shows up to settle things. After he sees how strong Goku really is, Ginyu pulls a special attack that switches their bodies. Goku is stuck in Ginyu's body, as the Captain flies off with Jeice to fool Gohan and Krillin. Gohan and Krillin fight Ginyu, and when Vegeta joins in it turns into a massacre. Vegeta kills the unconscious Burter, and Recoome. Then while Gohan and Krillin fight Ginyu, Vegeta chases down and kills Jeice. With that finished, Vegeta beats on Ginyu for a while. Ginyu gets ready to take Vegeta's body, but Goku jumps in the way at the last minute to get his body back. Then when Ginyu tries again, Goku throws a frog in the path of the beam. With Ginyu in a frog's body, the battle with the Ginyus is finally done. The new team of Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and Krillin go to Frieza's ship to heal and prepare for Frieza's eminent arrival. Gohan and Krillin wait for Vegeta to fall asleep and go to make their wish with the dragon balls. They bring Piccolo back to life, and transport him to Namek to help fight Frieza. But before they can get their 3rd wish Vegeta wakes up and shows up on the scene. Before Vegeta can get his wish granted, Guru dies and the dragon balls become useless. It's about this time that Frieza arrives and he's not in a good mood.

After Vegeta and the guys fight Frieza for a little bit, Piccolo merges with the fallen Namek warrior Nail, and arrives on the scene to help. Frieza goes into his second form and spears Krillin. Dende however heals Krillin before he dies. Gohan steps up to fight Frieza and gets beat pretty bad, but Dende heals him too. Piccolo puts up the best fight against Frieza. Frieza goes into his third form and Piccolo can barely handle the new battle mate. By the time Frieza reaches his fourth form Piccolo is pretty outmatched. Before Frieza goes to 4th form, Vegeta talks Krillin into blasting him and then getting Dende to heal him to massively buildup his power. Soon after Frieza's fourth form, he kills little Dende, after seeing the tiny Namek's ability to heal the others. The fighters put up a pretty useless fight against the super-powerful Frieza. Not even Vegeta can touch him.

Goku shows up right as Frieza kills Vegeta, and it looks like Goku has the upper hand for a while. But Frieza proves too much for even Goku to handle. Even after hitting him with a high powered Spirit Bomb attack Frieza still keeps coming. But then Frieza kills Krillin. Goku goes into a terrible rage at this latest atrocity by the evil warlord. Goku starts teeming with new power and he achieves the form of Super Saiyan. A high powered, blonde haired, blue eyes fighting machine. The fight starts turning against Frieza so to ensure his victory he blasts Namek's core, setting the planet to explode in mere moments. Goku and Frieza fight for a good long time until Frieza makes a mistake and ends up sliced up. Goku gives Frieza a small amount of energy so he can survive the blast of the planet's explosion, but Frieza uses this energy to attack Goku. The super saiyan goes ahead and finishes the job, killing Frieza.

After the Nameks and everyone else on the planet, except Goku and Frieza, are wished to the Planet Earth, the heroes use the dragon balls to wish everyone back to life. Goku refuses to come back to Earth because he is not dead and he is training with his new power. Everything returns to something resembling normal and the Nameks go to their home on New Namek.