After several rounds of early previews playing the 3D arena fighter Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, I was impressed by the enormous care and polish that let me recreate awesome clashes across the franchise’s anime. But the streamlined fighting system left me a bit puzzled that so much effort was put into what felt like a button-masher with inch-deep complexity across a mile-wide roster.
It was only when given free rein over the game ahead of its release that I found the master key to unlocking the game’s potential: its tutorial mode.
Finally having tutorials was a Rosetta Stone to me not just realizing the depth of the fighting system but manifesting the kinds of combat Dragon Ball is famous for: an enemy teleporting behind me as I hit the right button to counter and teleport behind them, smack them down, dash as they plummet to the ground and hurl them through a rock face that crumbles to dust.
But it also reflects the game’s muddled interface and lack of player direction to go, well, anywhere. Load up the game for the first time and it’s unclear what to do first, and some of the most interesting modes are buried in menus. It’s a quirk of a game that offers more than it seems — and above all, it’s the best simulator of the anime ever released.
Fans of Dragon Ball, this is your game. Just don’t expect to harness the fighting system’s real potential until you play (and get beaten down) a ton. Your panicked button-mashing will give way to instant reactions and escalating intensity… eventually.
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero’s fighting system is the core of the game’s appeal, and all the effort and polish Bandai Namco did to recreate the animations, sounds and special moves of the dizzyingly massive 181-fighter roster (182 with the preorder-only Mini Goku) is astounding. Dragon Ball veterans will be overjoyed pitting their favorite Goku (of 21 different eras or transformations to choose from) against a suitable Vegeta (15 in the game). The graphics painstakingly recreate Akira Toriyama’s signature style and the look of the anime, even when in motion — especially then, as dashes and teleportations seem ripped straight from the shows.
The aesthetic immersion will win over players, but the series of modes should get their fists pumping. Beyond custom battles pitting up to five characters against another team of up to five others of your choice for online or couch co-op fights, the Episode Battles allow players to play through the franchise’s story (starting with Dragon Ball Z — sorry, original Dragon Ball fans). Bonus Battles are premade challenges for the player to defeat, or they can make their own with a surprisingly expansive set of cinematic tools to create dynamic fights that players can share online.
Read more: Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Is or Budokai Tenkaichi Fans Who Will ‘Feel Right At Home,’ Producer Says
As the first game in the Budokai Tenkaichi series in 17 years, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero — with an official release date of Oct. 11, but available late in the day Thursday, Oct. 10, for US time zones — revitalizes the 3D arena fighter for modern gamers. Its aim is not to rival the tournament-balanced 2D Dragon Ball FighterZ, but to give fans the best way to recreate their favorite fights across the anime and films. Characters are unbalanced, the fighting can get too rapid to comprehend and a lot of the roster feels similar to play. No matter: This is the best What If simulator in Dragon Ball gaming.
Dragon Ball Sparking Zero comes out Thursday afternoon on PS5, Xbox and PC.
Fighting like a Super Saiyan
At some point, you too will feel like a fighting god in this game, but you’ll have to do a hefty amount of gamer homework first.
I wasn’t overstating the importance of the tutorial, but I should clarify that it isn’t the take-you-by-the-hand sort of approach. Aside from a short introduction to movement and basic fighting when you first boot up the game, all the intermediate and advanced techniques — most of the language of the game’s balletic combat — is hidden behind lists of concepts that you’ll have to practice. One. By. One.
In other games, this kind of meticulous repetition typically means learning each fighter’s combos. Not so in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero. You’ll need to learn the five ways to guard, five ways to counter, 10-plus ways to close distance (before and after sending enemies soaring), plus a smattering of throws, teleports and a plethora of basic attack strings. All of the above require unique button presses. To wit: When hit by enemies, there are three ways to recover depending on where you’re careening, each of which has a different button input.
This results in a Simon Says of button presses in the middle of a heated fight, many of which I often forget in the panic of getting pummeled. In the limited time we’ve had to review the game, I’m just barely getting my blocks and counters down to understand the rhythm of the fighting system, let alone the litany of advanced moves like Z-Bursts, Revenge Counters, Vanishing Assaults and more.
Each character’s signature special attacks differentiate them from the rest of the roster, as well as skills that boost stats or have other effects that can be used a handful of times each match. Yet characters also differ in overall hit points, attack strength and other parameters, sometimes astonishingly widely: Start-of-Dragon Ball Z Goku is mechanically far less powerful than Broly, Beerus and other late-anime villains. These differences make some fights lopsided, like intentionally using Mr. Satan (who literally can’t fly), though interesting skills can turn the tide of a fight — the stumpy swordsman Yajirobe has less health and can’t move as fast as others, but he comes with health-refilling Senzu Beans.
Sparking Zero doesn’t have the exact precision of a 2D fighter like Dragon Ball Fighter Z, where millisecond animation frames matter when pulling off techs, combos and counters. Heck, Sparking Zero’s high-speed 3D movement leads you to overshoot opponents, and the pyrotechnical screen effects make it easy to lose track of your enemies while you’re powering up or performing special attacks.
But master the cadence of counters, blocks and attacks, and Sparking Zero opens up as a remarkably responsive fighting system with a skill ceiling high enough to feel like a real Saiyan at the limit of your fighting potential. That said, it’s also nice to wallop on your opponents with endless simple combos, fully charge up your power meter and unleash your most damaging special attack. With some delightful touches, like the sky going dark and the music swelling as you charge up to full Sparking energy level, you can’t help but get passionately caught up in the muscle-bound destined combat of it all.
The many modes to realize your Dragon Ball fantasy
The different modes in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero are split between single-player adventures and multiplayer custom tournaments (as well as limited couch co-op fighting), but most of the care has focused on the former. Playing through them is also a fast way to unlock more characters from the game’s massive roster.
The most straightforward “story mode” is called Episode Battle, which lets fans relive classic moments from the anime, starting with the very beginning of Dragon Ball Z with Goku fighting against Raditz (sorry, original Dragon Ball fans, there isn’t much in this game for you). With plenty of cutscenes that you can see from different angles — like, say, if you wanted to experience the iconic moment from Goku’s point of view as he holds his evil Saiyan brother Raditz for Piccolo to kill them both with his Special Beam Cannon.
In keeping with Sparking Zero realizing “What If” fantasies, there are several ways players can split from canon and see how things could end up differently. If the player beats Raditz before time is up, he’ll stay alive and train Earth’s other fighters in preparation for the coming of the other evil Saiyans, Nappa and Vegeta. Episode Battle follows several storylines and time periods, so you’ll be able to jump around playing as villains like Frieza and Goku Black.
“We wanted to show off the ‘what ifs,’ because while you’re playing as that character, you don’t always want to lose when you’re supposed to lose, you want to know what would have happened,” Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero producer Jun Furutani told CNET in August.
Sparking Zero lets you tweak all sorts of conditions in custom battles.
Bonus Battles (nested in the Custom Battles menu) are one-off fights that either recreate specific clashes from the anime or are just fun What If fantasy battles. In one, I played as the Great Saiyaman (Gohan’s superhero alter ego) playing himself in an in-universe film where he fights “kaiju” consisting of physically massive enemies in the game like Great Ape Vegeta — a King Kong stand-in if you squint (and ignore his power beams).
The Bonus Battles are actually premade examples of the creative sandbox available in Custom Battles, where players can make the fights of their dreams. There’s a lengthy list of settings you can tweak, including which characters to include, but also dramatic midfight shifts like characters transforming when their health drops past a certain point. You can also set up cutscenes giving characters dialog while changing their poses and facial expressions.
Cutscenes before, during and after fights can be customized.
When you’ve created your awesome fight, you can throw it online for other players to enjoy (you’ll have to beat it first, weeding out the nightmare-level challenges). The few fights I’ve seen crop up have been the expected matchups between Goku and Vegeta or Frieza that fans love from the anime, but I hold out hope that dedicated creators can make masterpieces mashing up truly unprecedented fantasy clashes.
But there’s something for real fans recreating iconic battles, as the Sparking Zero team included special animations that replicate how those characters fought in the anime as Easter eggs for players to discover. One example Furutani gave was if players use Super Saiyan 2 Teen Gohan to throw Perfect Cell, it will look like it did in the anime.
A Dragon Ball experience crafted with care
It’s obvious that Sparking Zero was carefully made for fans to embody their Dragon Ball fantasies, as reflected all over the game. Each character is voiced and animated to sound and look like they do in the show. The roster is thick with popular and niche characters from the beginning and most current anime. True to their strength in the shows, some are wildly more powerful than others.
Winning fights earns in-game currency Zeni, which you can use to buy all manner of things in shops, from new characters to outfits for each fighter to capsules you can slot in to buff stats and abilities. You can also complete challenges to score the titular Dragon Balls themselves: Collect them all and you can summon the mystical dragon Shenron to grant your wish (such as unlock more characters or complete a particularly tough Episode Battle). There are enough activities built around the solid fighting system to keep fans entertained with the right kind of thematic touch.
My favorite example lies in the gallery of characters, which shows who you’ve unlocked along with their stats and abilities. But best of all, hitting a button for “Girl Talk” brings nonfighter characters Chi-Chi, Bulma and Vidal in to chat about the fighters, giving context for when they appeared in the anime and a bit of gossip. It’s a lot of voice work tucked into a corner of the game that lots of players may not ever find, but it’s the kind of incidental polish that illustrates the care given to the whole game.
Newcomers will find a well-crafted 3D fighter with a signature anime look, but Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero was made for Dragon Ball fans who will appreciate the game’s many ways to recreate the best fights in the anime or manifest the wildest ones they can dream up. While it may not have the precision and balanced roster to end up in esports tournaments, it’ll easily find its way into fans’ homes.
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