Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Review

Dragon Ball has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up on reruns of the anime on Cartoon Network with my brother, read through the manga before I even understood why the name ‘Bulma’ was funny, and couldn’t go five minutes without watching YouTube AMVs with Linkin Park’s In The End playing over footage of Super Saiyan transformations.

Most importantly, I lived and breathed the many Dragon Ball games that were released during George Foster (Teen)’s childhood, a trend that hasn’t slowed down as a 25-year-old man-child. I’ve got a lot of love for Burst Limit, Kakarot, Xenoverse, FighterZ, and all the rest, but my all-time favourite series has always been Budokai Tenkaichi.

The Budokai Tenkaichi games were both the blueprint for and kings of anime arena fighters that kept me locked in for countless hours with their humongous rosters, in-depth mechanics, and unending love and respect for the source material. I’ve spent the last decade and a half dreaming of a new entry, and I can’t believe that Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero not only lives up to that legacy but, just like Goku going Super Saiyan 3 for the first time, goes even further beyond.

Taking Budokai Tenkaichi’s Combat To The Next Level

Right off the bat, the most important thing that Sparking Zero had to get right was Budokai Tenkaichi’s gameplay. While arena fighters have a bit of a bad name nowadays, BT kicked the genre off right with in-depth mechanics to master and fast-paced battles set in massive arenas that made you feel like you were in an episode of Dragon Ball Z, screaming as you charge a blindingly bright Kamehameha.

It’s been a long time since those games, but Spike Chunsoft (who has returned for the fourth entry) hasn’t missed a beat with the fighting mechanics. The combination of light attacks, heavy finishers, vanishing, counters, and special attacks is fast-paced and crunchy as it was in the original trilogy, but with even more depth thanks to the introduction of a mid-air dash and the ability to deflect beam attacks.

Sparking Zero also brings back a bunch of different clash mechanics, a mainstay of the Budokai Tenkaichi series that has been missed in most Dragon Ball games.

Although the combat mechanics take a lot of getting used to (especially with a fairly unhelpful tutorial), once you do, Sparking Zero is just as satisfying to play as FighterZ and feels even more like an episode of the anime thanks to the gorgeous destructible environments and detailed character designs. FighterZ is a good comparison point here, as the overall look and sound of Sparking Zero is on the same, if not higher, impressive level.

That being said, there are a few small instances where the joy of firing off Kamehamehas and using Kaioken wears off. The camera is the biggest example of this, as it can often get caught in the scenery or go under the map altogether. This also becomes a problem when using Rush Supers, which occasionally have lousy tracking and send you flying across the arena.

Battles against Giant characters can also be frustrating at first, as they don’t abide by the same rules. That first Great Ape Vegeta battle is hell, I tell you.

The Biggest And Most Detailed Dragon Ball Game To Date

Budokai Tenkaichi’s other trademark was its massive roster and near-endless amount of content and modes, something that Sparking Zero brings back with significant upgrades. Outside of a few omissions like characters from OG Dragon Ball and a few from GT (Teen Goten, I’ll always be rooting for you), the roster here is perfect and spans every saga and series of Dragon Ball.

Sure, there are a lot of Gokus and Vegetas to play as, but Sparking Zero makes nearly every character and form feel distinct from one another with unique special moves and combos. With 182 fighters to pick from, it’s a triumph that they all feel like worthy picks and not clones of one another, thanks in part to the unique interactions, voice lines, and even character-specific moves like Goku swinging Frieza around by the tail.

All of that, combined with the charming menus and extra features, makes Sparking Zero the ultimate love letter to Dragon Ball that’s absolutely packed with content. But that is a bit of a double-edged sword at times, as having so many interactive menus and characters to look at means the menus are crowded, unintuitive, and a pain to navigate, especially when the charm of seeing Kame House when you want to go to the shop wears off.

Sparking Zero’s What-If Scenarios Make For A Surprising Story Mode

When you’re not struggling to scroll through Sparking Zero’s immense roster, the main thing you’ll be doing is playing through the story mode, which is split up into eight sagas called Episode Battles. Each of these focuses on a different character and lets you play through their story, such as taking Gohan from the Cell Saga to his role in Resurrection F and the Tournament of Power.

While most of these Episode Battles are just the story of Dragon Ball Z (and Super for the first time in the series) that you know like the back of your hand, Spike Chunsoft has made them far more interesting for long-term fans by going all-in on what-if scenarios. In the original trilogy, what-if battles were used sparingly, but they’re sprinkled throughout every character’s campaign to keep you guessing at every turn.

Some of them are minor and just offer alternate endings, like if Gohan beat Dabura before Majin Buu even shows up, but the most interesting are Sparking Episodes, which offer massive deviations and huge surprises. I won’t mention any of them here since they play with the source material so gleefully, but even if they can be frustrating to unlock they’re still the highlight of the game and had me shouting “No way?!” at my TV every time they showed up. Gohan’s Sparking Episode especially is not to be missed.

Episode Battle, just like the rest of Sparkling Zero, is unbelievably packed with things to see and do and could easily take more than 30 hours to complete, and that’s just the beginning. With the community-focused Custom Battles, Tournaments, and online play (which is surprisingly stable from the limited amount I could try pre-launch), there’s so much here at launch that it puts most other Dragon Ball games and triple-A releases to shame, even if you’ll be fighting throughout almost all of it.

Custom Battle is a lot of fun and far more in-depth than I expected, but it’s really going to be worth talking about when the community goes hands-on with it.

Even after playing Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero with a massive grin on my face for more than 50 hours, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of everything that it has to offer and still have so many more battles and events to make my way through. Its smart evolution of Budokai Tenkaichi’s combat, stacked and detailed roster, and near-endless amount of modes and features make it one of the best Dragon Ball games of all time and one that’s going to be nearly impossible to Toppo.

Score: 4.5/5. A PS5 code was provided by the publisher.