Bandai Namco is finally giving Dragon Ball fans what they’ve been asking for – a spiritual successor to the Budokai Tenkaichi series. The Dragon Ball franchise has seen many games over its expansive history, with the Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi series being highlights. I grew up playing the likes of Budokai 3, with many fond memories of heated battles on a couch, yelling special attacks at siblings and friends.
While Dragon Ball FighterZ is an incredible fighting game in its own right, it didn’t scratch the same itch as the Budokai Tenkaichi series. These games were the blueprint for many anime arena fighters we see today, which have been absent from the spotlight since 2007’s Budokai Tenkaichi 3…but no longer. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a fantastic throwback to the games I grew up with. The animation and graphics are incredibly clean as if they just leapt out of the anime. The fights are tense and frantic, warping around enemies and blasting them to bits at ridiculous speed. There are many modes, over 180 fighters, and a ton to dig into. At the same time, the primary campaign’s difficulty will be a turn-off to some: Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a fan’s dream come true.
Fight Through Your Favorite Dragon Ball Moments – With A Twist
There are a ton of different modes in Sparking! Zero. Several campaigns are based on franchise favourite arcs, ranging from the obvious in Goku and Vegeta to some surprises like Frieza and Goku Black. The lengths range in playtime, with Goku’s being the longest, but each one offers a fun ride through the famous fights in the series. The coolest part about the campaigns, though, is the Sparking episodes. Each campaign has at least one, with Goku having multiple, where a specific fight will have unique secondary win conditions. For example, if Goku can take out Raditz alone, without Piccolo’s help, he avoids the mortal blow that kills him in canon. What spins out instead is a wild story that I won’t spoil here, but it is a ton of fun. Gohan’s is a personal favourite, going into some genuinely cool moments.
While starting with the campaign sounds like a good idea, Sparking! Zero is hard. So much so that I was getting my teeth kicked in during the very first fight. There isn’t a gradual curve here. It tosses you right into the deep end and expects you to float. I quickly retreated and went into the comprehensive training mode. There are a ton of different explanations, demos, and opportunities to test out the moves you’ll need to win. I can’t remember the last time I spent multiple hours working on guard and counter timing, which is genuinely tough to land at points.
The tutorials don’t do the best job of teaching you everything, with some of the more complicated techniques being left to simple explanations. But when it does click, it feels so satisfying as you head back into the campaign to start making progress. This may be a total turn-off for some, as the difficulty is a mix of unbalanced opponents and an AI that seems to know every move as you make it. The early fight with Great Ape Vegeta stands out as he deals wild damage at an insane rate. The thing is, the Budokai Tenkaichi series has always been like this. It’s not a cakewalk and not always fair, but finding the path through a fight is so satisfying.
Sure, it may be a lot of running away, powering up, and looking for tiny opportunities to spam your super move, but the ebb and flow of the fights feel like the anime. You’ll get clowned, figure out how to not do that, and return ready to throw down and move to the next level. Would I have liked a more balanced and fair adventure? Sure, but the old-school feeling that the new entry manages to capture is something special, resting more on nostalgia. The Dragon Ball games have never been balanced, and I’m glad Sparking! Zero keeps up the tradition.
Conversely, the tournaments are a great place to cut teeth and sharpen your skills. With a bunch of different ones focused on different fights throughout the series, including the Cell Games and World Tournament, you choose a character and fight your way to the top. The difficulty curve here is much smoother, allowing for experimentation across characters to find your main. You can play these offline and online, letting friends go head to head to see who the best Z warrior is.
Regular battles are also a blast—more straightforward offline and online fights. Sparking! Zero does have local multiplayer, but it’s limited to one stage. I wish we had more offerings for locales to battle through, but given the console limitations, I’m glad we at least have something. A Dragon Ball arena fighter without local multiplayer wouldn’t have felt right.
Bonus battles are another area to fight through. They’re custom battles with special restrictions or challenges, pushing the player to complete the fight uniquely. They’re fun, albeit short, fights that change the flow of gameplay. The coolest part is the ability to craft and upload your own for others to play. It gives a good measure of replayability, hopping through challenges to test yourself and see what an exciting story proposition is. The story setups can be pretty funny because of how the dialogue works, as certain words are swapped and replaced to go with the current situation. I laughed, making a scenario that frames Frieza as a Z warrior and protector of Earth, Bulma praising him after winning a fight.
Hyperbolic Sweat Chamber
Online, though, is a beast on all its own. Players can fight across unranked and ranked matches. It is a sweaty, drag-out fight every time, as the unbalanced characters shine here. At this point, it feels like a lot of the same strongest characters online, with variations of Vegito, Gogeta, Goku Black, and Great Ape Vegeta being staples. They’re stronger and more powerful characters, so going against them with SSJ2 Teen Gohan is an impossible challenge. Sure, I get stomped most times, but the few times I’ve edged out a win have felt fantastic.
Ranked introduces a points system, with a max of 15 and different characters having varying costs. For example, SSJ2 Teen Gohan costs 7 points, meaning he can be paired with Super Vegito for 8 points to round out the 15. Ultra Instinct Goku costs 9, limiting options for who else can be used. Bringing in top characters costs more and limits the number of fighters you’ll have, while choosing lower-cost characters gives you more bodies to throw at the opponent. While the characters are unbalanced, player ability still reigns supreme.
The actual matchmaking, on the other hand, is just okay. Searching for a quick match loads you into a room where other players may already be battling. You can find yourself waiting for their fight to finish before you can go up against the winner. In theory, it’s an excellent idea, replicating the old-school arcade feeling of tossing a quarter down on the cabinet for the next fight. I’ve learned a few things watching others fight.
The issues arise when you don’t get that opportunity, as many players leave after their fight, leaving you alone in a room. It’s a waste of time and frustrating when this happens back to back. Ranked doesn’t have this issue, but not everyone wants to fight through ranked. I hope a more classic quick match gets added, as sometimes I like to hop in for a few games without the wait.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero does have a few connection issues online. They do let you search by connectivity strength, trying to mitigate it. I haven’t had many problems, but when I do, the whole fight can slow down for a few seconds. The game doesn’t have a rollback netcode, though input lag hasn’t been noticeable. I’ve had mostly a smooth experience, so the few times haven’t stood out too much, but they exist.
A Fighter For Everyone
The core gameplay of Sparking! Zero is a ton of fun. The fights are massive and frenetic, wildly moving around the giant arena to try and get a couple of quick hits in. The combat has a lot of depth, and learning it takes time. It’s seemingly simple at first, as pulling off combos or super attacks doesn’t require a complicated button combination but a simple shoulder and face button press. The depth comes in positioning, counters, revenge counters, differences in attack patterns and types of attacks – there’s a lot here to understand.
There are accessibility options to help smooth out the experience, allowing some heavy lifting to be taken off the player. The fights feel like watching battles in the anime, as players warp around and shoot off massive attacks. It’s a lot of fun, drawing you in with the surface simplicity before diving deep into the complex mechanics underneath.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero‘s character roster is also enormous, with over 180 characters and transformations. Spike Chunsofty covered the whole gamut, with characters from the original Dragon Ball, Z, GT, Super, and movies represented. You’d be hard-pressed not to find a handful of your favourite characters to learn and make your primary fighter. One of the best parts is that the characters need to be unlocked by playing the game. Different modes unlock different characters; some must be unlocked by summoning them with the dragon balls. You can collect them as you play, with some initially tied to specific tasks; otherwise, you can randomly drop them as you win matches.
Messy Menus
There are issues with the overall flow. The menus are lively and fun, but take time to move through. While initially fine, moving through them with time can get annoying. The campaign fights are tough, but navigating the menus is cumbersome. With many Sparking episode qualifiers being based on time, if you don’t hit restart before the match ends, you’re left sitting through menus to be given another attempt.
Similarly, if you lose, there are unskippable scenes that follow. It’s fine when you lose a few times, but some of these fights require repeated attempts, and waiting through them isn’t fun. A quick menu that pops up with a proceed, restart, or main menu would fix a lot of these issues rather than leaving it behind padding.
The character menus are also all over the place. Rather than choosing Goku and then a version, all the transformations are splayed out. It just elongates an already long page and doesn’t flow well. The 45-second timer for character selection in online fights should also be elongated, as working through many characters requires more time.
Verdict
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a fantastic return for a beloved series. The roster is massive, and the action is loud and satisfying, with enough modes to keep any fan busy. While not everything is finely tuned or balanced, it retains the heart and energy of the anime and the original games. Some things, like the overall flow between fights and menus, need work. It may not be for everyone, with the campaign difficulty and lack of overall balance enough to turn some away, but I’m having an absolute blast with Sparking! Zero because it is a dream come true.
[The publisher provided a copy of the game for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Review: Dragon Ball: SPARKING! Zero – A Wish Come True
Summary
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a fantastic return for a beloved series. The roster is massive, and the action is loud and satisfying, with enough modes to keep any fan busy. While not everything is finely tuned or balanced, it retains the heart and energy of the anime. S
ome things need work, with overall flow and menus being standouts. It may not be for everyone, with the campaign difficulty and lack of overall balance enough to turn some away, but it is an absolute blast.
Liked
Core gameplay is fast and frenetic
Tons of modes to experience
Huge roster filled with favourite characters
Didn’t Like
Character balance is messy
The UI/Flow needs improvements
