Sparking! Zero has finally arrived after months of hype thanks to a great marketing effort and my own nostalgia for the Budokai Tenkaichi series this is a sequel to, and I’m relieved to tell you the game lived up to that hype, and then some! It goes without saying that if you want a more serious, competitive fighter then this isn’t the game for you, but if you want a fun Dragon Ball game then you can’t get much better. Let’s take a look!
Background:
Goku doing his classic pose to kick off the Review!
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero was released on October 10th in Japan and 11th everywhere else, unless you got one of the deluxe or above editions, then you got access on October 8th. It was released on the PS5, XBOX Series and PC, so a proper current gen only effort, which is oddly quite rare!
It’s officially a sequel to the trilogy of Budokai Tenkaichi games on the PS2, which were called Sparking! in Japan, so this was just an effort to bring them all under one global banner. A lot of the creative and technical team from those games were responsible for this one, which shows, honestly. I can’t remember the last time I saw such an open and feedback-taking group of game developers (that aren’t indie ones, anyway)
The roster isn’t a straight “Tenkaichi 3 with more!” effort but it comes far closer than you’d think given they had to make everything from scratch. Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super are all well covered, it’s great playing the characters from the latter for the first time in the Tenkaichi engine, plus they have most of the GT cast from BT3 in and all the Z movie lead villains and their forms (apart from base Garlic Jr, for some reason…), it’s really just the original Dragon Ball series that has been gutted, dropping from over twenty to… one. Just Kid Goku, and a Kid Goku that doesn’t even look right as he has black undershirt on which he never wore. Oh well, there’s always DLC. It also keeps the BT idea of having the major characters split from different eras so they can have unique melee combos, moves and dialogue, so Goku (Z Early), Goku (Z Mid), all the way up to Goku (Super), for an example.
Gameplay:
Each new foe making Goku stronger? Well, yeah… it would be pretty crap if he just One Punch Man’d a big new enemy!
The gameplay is every much a fourth entry in the series as I’d hoped, as it adds new layers on top of the gameplay seen in the originals, gameplay that was surprising deep for an anime-based arena fighter (something some of the younger players that jumped in on this entry have found out the hard way, based on some articles and forum posts!) So as an arena fighter you can freely move/fly in all directions in large open maps which are really destructible, the city levels especially really show the power of current hardware as all the many buildings are fully and partially destructible, allowing you to fight inside them or hit someone at such an angle that just part of the front face of the building crumbles away exposing the multi-level interiors, it’s pretty crazy. You have a basic melee attack button, ki blast button and a block, with the fourth face button acting as a way to dash forward or backward. This is where things can get complicated: there are multiple melee strings and charged, heavy strikes and Ki blasts as well as a throw, plus you can “dragon dash” across the whole map at the expense of some of your Ki bar, but it’s the ways to protect yourself where things get a bit more serious! You can block as well as block upwards and block downwards depending on whether you opponent is trying to hit you straight, up or down, respectively, you can teleport behind them and strike them, but they can then so the same to your strike (leading to some fun teleporting sequences just like the show!), you can also do several different specifically-timed blocks that knock your opponent off-guard for a second leaving them open, and even get a special scene of you holding their fist and giving a cocky remark if you get a super-specific type of block. You can also deflect not only small Ki blasts but full on beam attacks if you have the right set up, plus melee sequences, beam struggles and now tests of strength are all in, leading to button mashing or timed button press mini-games.
Look at that aura! Godly power indeed.
Basically if you know what you’re doing you can make mincemeat out of most opponents (unless they also know what they’re doing, obviously!) and its extremely satisfying to do so! You also have two special attacks and two special abilities, both available by holding down a shoulder button (there are two control set ups so I’m trying to be vague) The abilities use up one or more of your Skill Count (a number that goes up naturally as you fight) and can give you temporary staff buffs, an automatic counter or a small barrier that can knock your opponent away (handy if they’re combo-ing you!) whereas the attacks just use up Ki, which you can charge by holding down a button. Then there’s Sparking Mode, which you go into if you charge up your Ki past its limit and have at least one Skill Count to use up, and here you can do a really powerful and rapid melee combo as well as unleash your powerful Ultimate attack. Honestly this is way too over-powered. Struggling with a story mode fight? Just get into Sparking mode, do two long melee combos in a row and then hit your Ultimate and there goes most of his or her health. Skill Counts are also used to transform, which you can do upwards or return to base form if you wish, plus you can also fuse mid-battle as well. As in the last games some characters have unique attributes, like Androids can’t charge Ki but can hide from detection (there’s still a lock-on mechanic, but it rarely comes up to be fair)
So it’s a really fun and flashy combat system that frankly doesn’t get old, especially as the roster count reaches the 180s as each form has their own melee animations, moveset, intros and outros so even if you can transform from one to the other they’re still very much their own character, selectable from the admittedly unattractive character select screen. Plus the sheer amount of unique intros and outros they’ve added is staggering, it became almost less frequent to hear one of the characters’ default intro quotes rather than some fun interaction playing instead. All modes for the record has you pick either 1-on-1 or any combination of up to 5 on 5, with the option to switch to one of your partners mid-match (unless that’s turned off, obviously) Every character / form can be individually customised as well, although nine times out of ten this just means giving them capsules that increase health, make moves stronger, etc, just like in the old games, and maybe change up their mid-match taunt (or “Emote”) A few key characters have different costumes or cosmetic items but they’re few and far between.
An example of one of the mini-game clashes… Cell vs. Garlic Jr… that’s quite the random showdown!
As for modes? Well, there’s the Story Mode or “Episode Battle” as it’s known, where you select one of eight characters and play the Z and/or Super story through their eyes (sometimes literally with a POV camera during certain cutscenes) or you can change history and take the story in a “What If?” direction. Some of the what ifs are literally a slide-show cutscene of a hero or villain having won a fight they didn’t in the actual series and celebrating, but others lead to a whole long multi-fight / cut-scene story that can be really fun. Sadly some of the conditions to get these branches are really fiddly and annoying, like having to beat someone within a minute and a half of the fight starting, and then if you don’t meet that requirement there’s no way of knowing until the next cutscene plays, which means you have to quit out to the main screen and go back to the previous fight, start it, skip the cutscenes and THEN start the fight again to give it another go. If there was some obvious indication when I don’t get it so I can just pause and restart it would be fine, but most of the time there isn’t. Hell, the canon ending to Goku Black’s story mode I still haven’t unlocked because you have to hold back and NOT win against Vegito and then get hit by Future Trunks’ ultimate, but the Future Trunks AI keep refusing to do it, I get him down to no health at which point he’s supposed to automatically do it, but he doesn’t! He keeps trying to melee me. Then one time he did do it but I died and got the “Retry?” message! So annoying! It’s a shame because I really enjoyed playing through the other 95% of the mode, it’s been long enough that playing through Z again was fun and the Super stuff is entirely new for a game like this, it’s just a few side-steps that just aren’t fun, and not in a challenging way, just an annoying one.
The other big mode is “Custom Battle”, this allows you to make your own match up, complete with cutscenes, mid-battle dialogue and all the rules you can think up. It’s great fun, and often unintentionally funny due to the dialogue system being, um, not that great. You can upload your creations and download other peoples, so there’s plenty of fun to be had. It also comes with a set of “Bonus Battles”, which are fights the developers have made with the Custom Battle mode and are often how you unlock some of the spin-off characters or extra capsules. Some of these Bonus Battles are challenging, but at least challenging in the fun to retry way rather than the story mode stuff… Then you have the World Tournament mode, where you can fight in the World Tournament (single match, ring out on, World Tournament arena), Cell Games (single match, no ring out, always fight Cell at the end, Cell Games arena), After-Life Tournament (single battle, no ring out, random arena), Battle of Destroyers (team match, no switching, no ring out, random arena), Tournament of Power (team match, switching allowed, no flying allowed, ring out on, Tournament of Power arena) and the made up Yamcha Games (you play a random character, singles match, no ring out, random arena) from BT3, plus you can make your own tournament with your own set of rules, so there’s plenty of fun to be had. Then you have your standard versus mode, and both of these can be played online if that’s your bag (as I’ve said many times, it’s not mine, and by the sounds of it, thank goodness for that!) You can collect Dragon Balls (Shenron, Porunga and Super Shenron this time!) by taking part in the latter two modes, as well as one-offs by completing certain other objectives once, and you can wish for characters, capsules, titles for your online card, and more, including just a big sum of money!
It would be a shame if Star was erased, true…?
Speaking of money, there’s a shop, and helpfully you can actually buy every character, costume and capsule that you otherwise unlock via story mode or bonus battles pretty much right away, some only appear as your account levels up with XP (it goes up to Level 20 and just by doing story mode and one or two other fights will get you there) so if your favourite character is locked behind a challenge further in the game you can just unlock it with in-game money earned in every mode and then when you unlock them later you get your money back. A perfect system, satisfying all types of players. Then there’s two types of rewards in games, one set from Whis that are based mainly around viewing the unique dialogue or getting a unique finish or even doing one of the unique throws (yes, some pairs of characters have different throws depending on the match up!) whereas the Zeno missions are staggering in that they mostly relate to how often you’ve played each of the 182 (at present) characters as each one has a “Character Proficiency Rating” that goes up from 1-star for having played them once, to 7-stars for having played as them TWO HUNDRED TIMES. Each of the 182 characters has a unique title that Zeno gives you for reaching 7-Star Proficiency so if you want to unlock every online title card in the game you have to play as all 182 characters 200 times each. Good luck!
That’s your lot, apart from options for visuals and sound and the like. It’s a great package, while I do wish there was a survival-type mode like the old “Battle 100” from BT1 just to give me something more to do now I’ve done the Episode Battle and Bonus Battles, but honestly booting it up, picking a character or team of characters and going through a tournament is still good fun at the moment. This game will certainly be my go-to whenever I’m in a Dragon Ball-y mood.
Graphics and Sound:
An example of the crazy Ultimate moves. Some of these cutscenes are frankly amazing to look at each time.
The graphics are outstanding, all the models are cell-shaded to perfection and have lots of expressions and movements, plus the lighting, explosion and smoke effects for when you do moves are brilliant as well. It’s as beautiful an anime arena fighter can get, honestly.
Sound-wise is a little harder to judge. The voice work and sound effects are top notch (well, at least in original Japanese, no idea if the US dub is good but by now I expect it is…) but I will say that none of the background OST is in any way memorable like a lot of the PS2-era games were. I am happy to report that the flashy CG intro is back, but its set to DB Super’s 2nd Opening rather than a new catchy song like BT2 and 3. I mean, it could be worse, the OST could stand out because its bad, but it’s still worth pointing out, especially as this is pretty much officially a sequel to BT3.
Story:
Dun Dun Dun!!
As mentioned, the story covers the Saiyan, Frieza, Cell and Buu Arcs of Dragon Ball Z and the Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Future Trunks and Universe Survival Arcs of Dragon Ball Super (missing out the whole Universe 6 vs 7 “Tournament of Destroyers” arc entirely, I guess because they didn’t get the arena done in time…? Plus the Broly movie, despite the Super versions of Gogeta and Broly being in the game with all their flashy movie moves in and everything…)
As for the What Ifs? Also as mentioned they range from “Goku beat Cell instead of Gohan, now he lived happily ever after!” to more fleshed out stories. Highlights include Goku going Super Saiyain in his battle with Vegeta, Vegeta going Super Saiyan on Namek, Future Trunks sticking around and entering the Tournament of Power, and perhaps more impressively, a Gohan side-step that ends up creating a Gohan Black instead of a Goku Black, complete with new model and dialogue (that isn’t unlockable… yet.) and even a new model of Fused Zamasu with Gohan Black’s hair influencing the Fused hairline. So there’s some fun stuff to find, it is a shame a lot of it is told by freeze frames and narration rather than cutscenes, but hey-ho.
Downloadable Content:
One of the only original Turles opening dialogues that doesn’t revolve around him looking like Goku, and it’s with Goku’s Dad!
It’s 2024 so you better believe there’s DLC on the way! Those who Pre-Ordered have already got Goku (Mini) from Dragon Ball DAIMA (a show that’s only just started airing, which is really weird!) as well as a unique item of the Nyoibo (or Power Pole) that you can give to Goku (Super) that gives him a new rush attack. There’s also two Anime Soundtrack packs where you can classic songs from the various shows to add to the background OST but they’re £11.99 a pop, meaning to get both is nearly half the cost of the full game itself. WAY too expensive.
Then we have the Season Pass (or let’s face it, Season Pass 1…) which will be released in three “packs”, with Pack 1 having characters / forms from the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero film, while Packs 2 and 3 will feature characters / forms from Dragon Ball DAIMA, once the show’s done airing I guess (again, really weird to think about playing as characters from a show so soon after it airs!) Given Xenoverse 2 is STILL getting DLC character packs eight years later, it’s safe to assume more will arrive in the years to come…
Thoughts Now:
Playing as the giant characters is even more fun with all the destructible environments!
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero has been on the forefront of my mind for most of the past year and I’m relieved to say it’s great! Lots of characters, really fun gameplay and plenty of flare, flash and passion from the people who made it. It might be nice to have another mode or two for Single Player, and a few more stages wouldn’t go amiss, but I really can’t complain. This is the “Dragon Ball simulator” of my dreams, and I’ll be playing it to death in the years to come.
Hogan Reviews 