Dragon Ball: Spark! Zero review

As someone who grew up with the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai trilogy and only enjoyed the later Budokai Tenkaichi games, I admit I felt bitter when I first heard about Dragon Ball: Spark! Zero. In my opinion, an inferior trilogy of PS2 games is being brought back, and all I could do was sit and watch. And look how I did it as Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero took off in a flying nimbus straight to the top of the Dragon Ball totem pole.

While Dragon Ball games up to Budokai consisted primarily of 2D fighting games, Tenkaichi (aka Sparking in Japan) was the first game to truly depict fighting like an anime series, turning the arena into an open zone rather than a typical side-view fighting game. This meant there was a whole modern level of combat that had you flying around, dealing with heights, fully 3D movement, positioning, and lots of hitting each other’s mountains

In the 17 years since Tenkaichi 3, countless Dragon Ball games have tried to recapture that same essence. None of them have. they ranged from okay to terrible. Fortunately, Sparking! Zero, this isn’t a Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 moment; captures the atmosphere of PS2 classics. I felt at home all day playing this game, like I was 12 years elderly again and only taking breaks to watch Vegeta x Papa Roach Last Resort AMV on YouTube.

The combat is as crazy as ever. While it’s not like Street Fighter or Tekken – you won’t be memorizing long combinations of combos or attack frame data, and you’ll mostly be mixing squares and triangles – it’s Is mechanically complicated. During combat, you’ll have to deal with movement, teleportation, charging your ki, and triggering transformations. Once I got into the groove, it was challenging not to get emotional as I slammed into series villain Frieza and blasted him to pieces with the kind of final move that rewarded me with brilliant, exaggerated animation.

It’s a lot to take in, even overwhelming at times, and Sparking! Zero’s tutorial isn’t the most intuitive. There is a menu full of deeper training scenarios, but it’s tedious to operate because you have to manually exit each lesson and move on to the next one. All the information is there, but it could have been presented in a much more engaging way that wouldn’t have added boredom to an already steep learning curve. Overall, the menu is a bit complex to navigate. While the animations in the main menu – where Goku flies around and visits groups of characters – are a lovely detail, they do add a delay between transitions. Navigating the character selection screen can be a nightmare.

The biggest attraction of Budokai Tenkaichi matches has always been the gigantic lineup; If you want the afro-headed human comedian Mr. Satan to face off against Goku’s dad or the literal God of Destruction, you totally can. And a spark! Zero’s roster of 182 players can handle it. There are many common move sets (29 character slots are adjacent to Goku), but voice lines and special abilities are unique to each character. This number includes many specific forms, so although Goku (Super) can transform into Super Saiyan Blue Goku, it still counts as one of the 182 individually. But there are still great, unexpected choices and rarely seen characters from the movies like Turles (basically Evil Goku), anime fighters like Garlic Jr., and even representatives of GT’s unloved, non-canon sequel like Baby, a parasitic alien who on Vegeta’s body takes over in a heated minute.

Picture 1 With 5

Story Mode allows you to follow one of the eight fighters in Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super (covering the four main arcs and canon films from Z and only the later Future Trunks/Tournament of Power Arcs from Super). Apart from Goku, they are not comprehensive (Gohan starts in the Cell Saga and the others only appear in certain arcs). You know what to expect if you’ve seen the show or played the games, but Sparking! Zero shines with its inclusion of what-if scenarios rather than staid repetition.

If you stray from the main plot (say Goku defeats his brother Raditz without dying), you’re dropped into the “Spark Episode” which tells an alternate story, such as the one where Goku awakens to his Super Saiyan powers while fighting Vegeta instead of later. The highlight is Gohan defeating Super-era Golden Frieza, which leads to the main villain Zamasu becoming Gohan Black instead of Goku Black (another version of Evil Goku) in Trunks’ future. For those of you who are just joining us, you know that I’ve been playing games that tell the same story for over 20 years, so being able to make an impact this time is a gigantic plus. These deviations transform the game from a solid recreation of the saga to a must-play for Dragon Ball fans. Additionally, there are low “oh hey, you win” cutscenes when you win a fight you shouldn’t, which serve as a little alternate timeline snack.

Bonus episodes allow you to take on selected challenges, such as Mr. Satan fighting all of the (canonically much more powerful) Z fighters. There are 30 pre-made scenarios, but you can go in and create your own scenarios and publish them online. While there are limitations, such as splitting words into pre-written sentences rather than writing your own dialogue, it’s a nippy little system whose full potential won’t be seen for some time.

Picture 1 With 8

Despite these fun narrative side stories, Sparking! Zero falls into the same trap that every Dragon Ball game falls into, in that it is too focused on Dragon Ball Z. Of course, Z is the most popular, but considering Dragon Ball Super and the many movies that have come out since the last entry, it would be it would be nice if it was more contemporary. And the original Dragon Ball series was relegated solely to Kid Goku, which is a huge shame because it would have been nippy to see the mercenary Tao Pai Pai (who was defeated by Kid Goku) come to terms with 30 years of anime power scaling and go up against someone like Super’s ultimate antagonist, Jiren.

Despite the frantic pace of battles and enormous arenas, the game ran perfectly at 1440p/60fps on high settings and felt extremely well optimized. While I haven’t been able to get the game to work on Steam Deck at all, I’m hopeful that something will be resolved with the day one patch. I was also able to test the online connection very briefly, but so far it seems to be performing well in the same region, although it has had some issues at times.

Dragon Ball: Spark! Zero is the modern benchmark for Dragon Ball games. It perfectly captures the magic of the original Tenkaichi games, while its fresh take on a well-worn story and its deep character roster are the best celebration of Akira Toriyama’s classic (at least for now). When it’s pure Dragon Ball that millions know and love, it’s great; When he wonders what would have happened if Zero had really stood out in Sparking Epices.