Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero Review - Budokai Tenkaichi’s True Successor

Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero is a sequel to the well-revered Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi series in more ways than one, as this new game also takes on its original Japanese series subtitle of “Sparking!”. But does Sparking Zero live up to the legacy and expectations that fans have been holding onto for over 17 years?

A lot has happened between the releases of Tenkaichi 3 and Sparking! Zero. We’ve gotten new movies and even the full-blown series Dragon Ball Super, which has expanded both the lore and the roster of the Dragon Ball franchise. Taking into consideration the fact that Tenkaichi 3 retains its title of having one of the most massive rosters of playable characters in a video game with a whopping 161 fighters, Sparking! Zero has some large shoes to fill.

Tale As Old As Time

We’ve all seen the story of Dragon Ball Z more times than we can count. However, it would be wrong to not include some form of story-retelling, especially in an arena fighter that basically exists as a celebration of the franchise’s greatest hits. Sparking! Zero does this through something called Episode Battle, a simplified method of key battles presented on a board game-esque menu. Instead of playing through key battles as different characters, you instead select a character and proceed to follow the story, but only playing through battles that the chosen character participated in.

There are two main methods of story delivery. The first is done via in-engine cutscenes which have the unique feature of allowing you to change camera perspectives to your selected character’s point of view. It’s a superfluous feature for the most part, but it does make a few moments look extra cool, and is a welcome bonus. The second method is what I like to call “canned animations” (more on why later). I can best describe them as short animations that freeze at key poses. These are advanced via a dialogue box that appears per each scene. Most of the story is delivered in this method, as most of the aforementioned in-engine cutscenes happen during the early Dragon Ball Z arcs, and are virtually non-existent during the Dragon Ball Super arcs.

Dialogue in relation to the events of the story plays out during battles, and they can be a bit hard to follow given that you’re also duking it out against an AI opponent, many of whom can pose a challenge if you aren’t paying attention.

What-If scenarios make a return in Sparking! Zero. These are unlocked by either selecting an alternate dialogue option in a cutscene, or by fulfilling special conditions during story battles. Story sections with branching routes to What-If scenarios are marked, which is a nice touch. The unlock conditions can vary depending on the context of the battle, such as beating your opponent too quickly or landing a specific special attack. One of the more nuanced unlock conditions is dragging the fight on long enough for the dialogue to completely play out, after which only then are you allowed to win. Another is purposely letting Cell use Solar Flare on you. That one I had to do multiple times, since Cell would weirdly always use the technique while being too far for it to actually connect. 

These two examples in particular were actually the conditions to continue the main story. In the past, unlock conditions for What-Ifs used to simply mean winning fast and having the game basically say “the day is saved because our heroes beat the bad guy before they were able to achieve their final form!” So I do appreciate how a few of the What-If scenarios are pretty jam-packed. A few extend to their own routes that branch off for a bit, and sometimes they go as far as giving you big challenges, such as launching into a gauntlet against the entirety of the Ginyu Force without a moment of respite in-between.

The Biggest Fight

The main reason you’ll be playing Sparking! Zero is the combat, and I’m happy to report that punching, kicking, and shooting energy blasts in this game feels good. It very much resembles that of previous entries in the Tenkaichi series, with familiar combo strings, direction-influenced charged smash attacks, charging past a full ki gauge to go into Max Power mode (now called Sparking Mode) and the like. Veteran players will mostly feel at home playing Sparking! Zero, as a large majority of the rules from the old Tenkaichi games still apply here.  However, there are a bevy of new offensive and defensive mechanics that have been added. Ki management is also a lot more important in Sparking! Zero, as it’s now tied to a few offensive and defensive options as well as the new movement mechanic. 

The new big addition for movement is the short dash. Instead of going from slow movement into a full-on dash like in previous games, short dashes give you a quick burst of speed in whatever direction you’re holding. Doing so uses a bit of ki, which could punish players who spam the short dash as a dodge. The short dash also opens up a ton of options. Its properties can change depending on the distance between you and your opponent. You can go for one of many attacks coming off a short dash, or do a defensive weave as you approach your opponent if you’re anticipating some retaliation.

As far as new defensive options go, there are two that are noteworthy. The first is the Perception button. Holding Perception makes you immune to a melee attack. When done correctly, it will halt your opponent’s Rush attack with a counter-attack and essentially put you both into a neutral state. When using Perception against a Smash attack, it instead counters with a move that sends your opponent flying. Holding down Perception slowly consumes ki. Spamming Perception isn’t an option either, as it has a noticeable starting animation and pose, and a long enough recovery time to allow your opponent to punish any reckless attempt. One other thing that Perception can do is deflect beam attacks such as kamehamehas, granted that they’re not the attack’s Sparking Ultimate version. Deflecting beams not only looks cool, but also grants a temporary buff that allows you to charge ki faster. Doing so consumes 2 Skill Points. Skill Points are a valuable resource, as they are needed for certain special moves, allow you to go into Sparking Mode, and give you access to your Ultimate Blast.

The Revenge Counter is one of the actions that you can do whilst you’re on the receiving end of a beatdown. This is a move that can only be done while you’re being attacked, and consumes 2 Skill Points. Another reason to not rely too much on using RC (Revenge Counter) is because your opponent can retaliate with their own RC, or take it to the next level and actually use Perception to catch your RC and knock you away. But if you’re anticipating that your foe will use an RC against your RC, you can also catch them with Perception. These little exchanges can lead to fun and epic moments in a fight, as catching an RC with Perception stops the action with a little anime “gotcha” moment right before the counter hit.

A Bag of Senzu Beans

If you’ve played the Tenkaichi games, you’ll remember all those loud and sometimes obnoxious but often fun menus where scrolling through nearly each and every one prompts a voice clip from one of the characters. That type of overly-bombastic menu system sort of makes a return in Sparking! Zero, but not exactly to the same extent. What we get now per menu screen is Goku visiting various locations populated by different Dragon Ball characters. These are riddled with neat little details and references for the hardcore fan, and are a visual marvel for sure. It just comes off as a bit chaotic at times, with a smorgasbord of animation and sounds happening when all you want to do is get to a specific mode as fast as possible. Despite my complaints, I do appreciate the effort put into the menus.

A cool addition is Custom Battles. Remember those “canned animations” that I mentioned earlier? I labeled them as such because Custom Battles features an editor where you can create your own unique battle scenarios. You pick whoever you want to fight, and can then craft your own story scenario by stringing together cutscenes using said “canned animations”. You can edit poses, effects, facial expressions, and can even set your own dialogue and title screens to make your very own Dragon Ball episode. 

The edits can also be applied to actual combat, as you can set custom values (health, strength, etc) and force tag-outs and transformations when conditions are met to match the story that you’re weaving. Your creations can then be uploaded to the World Library for others to play once you have beaten them yourself. Feel free to try out Custom Battles that other players have created. Some of them are really challenging. The game also has a few pre-made Custom Battles that you can also edit once you’ve cleared them the first time.

With as big of a roster that game has (over 180 fighters at launch), Sparking! Zero technically cheats by labeling transformations as their own characters. You’d also think to yourself “Why would I pick base form when I can immediately start as a super saiyan?” This tends to matter more for online play in Dragon Points versus mode, where you have a maximum amount of 15 DP (Dragon Points) for your entire team of up to 5 characters. Each character and transformation variant has different DP values. Also, doing your transformation in the heat of battle using a Skill Point actually grants higher buffs when compared to selecting said form in the character select menu. 

Speaking of online play, Sparking! Zero’s netcode is actually pretty decent, which I was not expecting from a game such as this. It’s far from perfect, and has some obvious input lag even with the best connections. But even at the lowest connection bars, it isn’t a catastrophic, unplayable, underwater-feeling nightmare. It’s playable, and has what seems to be a proper ranking system to boot. If you don’t like the team-based DP mode, you can also test your mettle online in Single Battle.

Can’t Be Wished Back?

Unfortunately, with the good also comes the bad. While there’s nothing egregious with Sparking! Zero, there’s the fact that despite the game being bigger than the predecessor it’s being compared to the most (Tenkaichi 3) by having more characters and features, it still feels like there’s something lacking - to be specific, Sparking! Zero is missing characters that were present in previous games, and there’s a lack of variety in costumes. No alternate colors and barely any cosmetics for the majority of the cast is disappointing. These of course are issues that can be fixed with later patches, or will most likely be added as DLC.

Another sore spot is the fact that we can only play local split-screen versus in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber stage. This might be due to performance limitations and all that, but this isn’t a viable excuse. Previous titles on significantly weaker hardware had workarounds for the limitations by essentially making a second version of every stage with lower quality environmental details and less destructible objects.

A lot of signature fights are also missing in Episode Battle. Goku gets to participate in most of his iconic fights, but the rest of the playable characters either skim through their most well-known battles, or don’t even get there at all. Vegeta’s story doesn’t go beyond Z. And not a single fight from Super?

Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero is a hefty game, yet the clear omissions make it feel like a lesser product compared to a title from nearly two decades ago. And while that may disappoint a lot of players, what is present is a great action fighter that looks and more importantly feels awesome to play. If this really is the return of the Sparking! series, all of these issues and more could be addressed in whatever it is that might follow. But in the meantime, Sparking! Zero is a solid new entry that’s been a long time coming.

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Verdict: 3.5/ 5 (Great)

PROS

• Visually stunning with great cel-shaded models and cinematic attack animations

• Fun combat with enough depth to keep things interesting and intense

CONS

• A few unintuitive menus, especially in the training and tutorial modes

• Noticeable lack of features and content

• Lack of crossplay for both online versus modes and community-created custom battles

What I’ve Played 

• Around a total of 15 hours

• Cleared all of Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and Goku Black’s Episode Battles so far, What-Ifs included

• Player Level 17

*This review is based on a Steam review copy provided to the publisher

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