Dragon Ball: Sparks! No review

As someone who grew up with the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai trilogy and only dabbled in the later Budokai Tenkaichi games, I have to admit that I was bitter when I first heard about Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. In my mind, the inferior trilogy of PS2 games was brought back, and all I could do was sit and watch. And watch as I did when Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero flew straight to the top of the Dragon Ball game's totem pole with a flying nimbus.

Must know

What is that? A new entry in the arena fighter series Dragon Ball Budokai Tenkaichi
Do you expect payment? £55 | $70
Developer: Spike Chunsoft
Editor: Bandai Namco
Reviewed on: RTX 3060Ti, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer? Yes
Steam deck: Unknown
Link: steam

While Dragon Ball games were mostly 2D fighters up to the Budokai, Tenkaichi (also called Sparking in Japan) was the first game to truly depict the fights like the anime series, turning the arena into an open zone and not in a typical side view of a fighting game. This meant there was a whole new level to combat as you flew around and dealt with altitude, full 3D movement, positioning and lots of slashing through mountains

In the 17 years since Tenkaichi 3, countless Dragon Ball games have attempted to recapture that essence. None of them have. They ranged from okay to terrible. Luckily, Sparking! Zero, this isn't a Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 moment; It has the feeling of those PS2 classics. I felt at home playing all day, like I was 12 again, only taking breaks to watch a Vegeta x Papa Roach Last Resort AMV on YouTube.

The combat is as crazy as ever. Even though it's not that comparable to Street Fighter or Tekken – you won't remember long combo inputs or attack frame data and will mostly mix square and triangle – it Is mechanically complex. As you fight, you'll have to deal with movement, teleportation, charging your Ki, and triggering transformations. Once I got into that flow, it was hard to resist the excitement as I bypassed series villain Frieza and blasted him to pieces with an ultimate move that rewarded me with a flashy, over-the-top animation.

It's a lot to take in, sometimes even overwhelming and tingling! Zero's tutorial isn't the most intuitive. There's a menu full of more in-depth training scenarios, but it's tedious to use as you have to manually exit each lesson and navigate to the next. All the information is there, but it could have been presented far more attractively without making the already steep learning curve even more boring. The menu navigation is generally a bit bumpy. While the main menu animations – where Goku flies around to visit groups of characters – are a nice touch, they add a delay between transitions. And navigating the character selection screen can be a nightmare.

The biggest draw to the Budokai Tenkaichi games has always been the gigantic roster; If you want the afro-haired human comic surrogate Mr. Satan to face off against Goku's father or the literal God of Destruction, you absolutely can. And it sparkles! Zero's 182-member roster does it justice. There are many shared movesets (29 character slots border Goku), but the voice acting and special abilities are unique to each character. This number includes many specific forms, so while Goku (Super) can transform into Super Saiyan Blue Goku, he still counts as one of the 182 on his own. But there are still great, unexpected picks and rarely seen characters from the films like Turles (basically the evil Goku), anime filler fighters like Garlic Jr., and even representatives from the unloved non-canon GT sequel like Baby, one parasitic alien that takes over Vegeta's body for a hot minute.

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Dragon Ball: Sparks! Zero — Hey, it's him! Goku. The original and the best.(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Story Mode lets you follow one of eight fighters through Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super (covering the four main storylines and canon films from Z and only the later Future Trunks/Tournament of Power storylines from Super). Outside of Goku, these are not all-encompassing (Gohan begins in the Cell saga and others only appear in some storylines). You know what to expect if you've seen the show before or played the games before, but Sparking! Zero shines with its inclusion of what-if scenarios rather than staid retellings.

If you deviate from the main story (such as having Goku defeat his brother Raditz without dying), you will be involved in a “Sparking Episode” that tells an alternate storyline, such as one in which Goku fights against Vegeta awakens to his Super Saiyan powers instead later. A highlight is Gohan defeating Super Era Golden Frieza, resulting in the main villain Zamasu becoming Gohan Black instead of Goku Black (another version of Evil Goku) in Trunks' future. For those who are just joining us, just know that I've had games telling the same storylines for more than 20 years, so being able to influence them this time is a big plus. These deviations take it from a solid recreation of the saga to a must-have for Dragon Ball fans. There are also short “Oh hey, you won” cutscene variations when you win a fight you weren't supposed to win, which serve as little alternate timeline snacks.

Bonus episodes allow you to take on curated challenges, such as pitting Mr. Satan against all of the (canonically far more powerful) Z Fighters. There are 30 pre-built scenarios, but you can also create your own scenarios and publish them online. While there are limitations, such as having to insert words into pre-written sentences rather than writing your own dialogue, it's a cool little system whose full potential only becomes apparent after some time.

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Despite these fun narrative side stories, Sparking! Zero falls into the same trap as every Dragon Ball game by focusing too much on Dragon Ball Z. Obviously Z is the most popular, but considering Dragon Ball Super has made several films in the time since the last entry, it would have been nice if it were more modern. And the original Dragon Ball series is limited to Kid Goku only, which is a shame because it would have been fun to watch people like the mercenary Tao Pai Pai (who was defeated by a little Goku) get to grips with himself at 30 years old arranged by anime power scaling and take on someone like Super's ultimate antagonist Jiren.

Despite the hectic pace of the battles and the large arenas, the game ran perfectly for me at 1440p/60fps on high settings and felt extremely well optimized. Although I haven't been able to launch the game on Steam Deck at all, I'm hoping that this will be sorted out with the day one patch. I was only able to test the online game for a very short time, but so far it seems to be holding up well in the same region, even if it had problems at times.

Dragon Ball: Sparks! Zero is the new benchmark for Dragon Ball games. It perfectly captures the magic of the original Tenkaichi games, while the fresh take on the tried-and-tested story and extensive roster of characters serve as the ultimate homage to Akira Toriyama's classic (at least for now). If it's the pure Dragon Ball that millions know and love, that's great; When it comes to “what if” sparking episodes, Zero really stands out.

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