As the release date for Bandai Namco’s upcoming fighting game Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is approaching. MonsterVine was invited to a hands-on preview of the game to get our final impression of it before its debut early next month in October. From what I played, I can confidently say that Sparking Zero is a love letter to older Dragon Ball fans who grew up playing the original Budokai Tenkaichi games, but it does have some setbacks that make it a tad bit difficult to play.
The build I was able to play for a handful of hours felt like a complete game. Before I decided to jump in and throw hands with other Dragon Ball characters, I first looked through the customizations, and I was pleasantly surprised with the various outfits I could equip on players. This was a nice touch because it helped variant characters really stand out from one another. Right off the bat, I knew which Goku was from the DBZ era because of his torn outfit, and I knew which one was Super Goku because of the Whis Gi he received in the show.
These little changes added extra quality-of-life details that I didn’t realize I wanted until I began doing it. Even though Goku only wore his Yardrat outfit once in the entire show, there’s something that feels so right whenever I see him go Super Saiyan in this outfit. Perhaps it’s because it scratches the itch that the original show never did for me.
On top of that, I had the option to buff them, too, so if I felt as if Goku wasn’t punching hard enough, I could give him an upgrade that did just that. This was extremely funny because buffing an Ultra Instinct Goku doesn’t seem fair at all, but here I was doing just that while giving Hercule the beating of a lifetime. Granted, from what I could tell, these buffs didn’t go into effect while I was playing the story. So don’t go in thinking that you can create the ultimate build for Goku and blow through all the bosses the game throws at you.
The actual gameplay was a lot of fun. But one of my main critiques was the same one I had while playing it during Summer Game Fest. It can often feel like a button masher. The controls for the game can be a little overly complicated in the sense that you need to press a series of buttons to do a simple low attack, and the same can be said whenever you want to aim high. I often found myself needing to pause the game mid-fight to remember how to do some of the simplest combos.
A lot of the time, it felt like I just needed to power up and be the first person to do one of the stronger attacks. Although it is cool seeing Teen Gohan do a father-son Kamehameha, it does begin to lose its flair after you’ve done it four to five times in a single match. In addition, some of the attacks will require your character to rush toward your enemy, and this will trigger a higher-level attack. Although it was more of a user error, it did become increasingly annoying to see my character fly above them and completely miss the initial attack. Because of this, I again fell into the main loop of charging up for spam power attacks.
Another thing that became a bit tedious to me was closing the gap with my enemy. The game allows you to dash toward your enemies, but most of the time, there is not nearly enough movement to get within fighting distance, so I was spamming the dash move repeatedly.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a dream roster for fans
That being said, I still enjoyed myself very much. Sparking Zero has close to 200 playable characters, and as someone who grew up in the franchise, I found it highly pleasing to get lost in the sauce of how many people I could play. Like many Dragon Ball Z fans, the films made during that era have a special place in my heart, so being able to recreate iconic moments with characters like Tapion, Android 13, or even Cooler made the little kid inside me beyond happy. What was a pleasant surprise was finding out how these characters could compete with some of the stronger fighters, such as Jiren and Goku Black.
One of the main lures of the upcoming Dragon Ball game was the story mode and how players can explore non-cannon routes to create original story beats within the pre-established universe. I jumped straight into Goku’s story, which begins at the start of DBZ when Raditz kidnaps Gohan and raises some hell. Even though I had watched the show from front to back countless times, Bandai Namco gave it some new life. During the cutscenes, you’re able to view what’s happening through the main character’s POV, and seeing a Special Beam Cannon get shot through my chest and Great Ape Vegeta in the first person is a bit scary.
The game does give you plenty of options to break off from the non-canon route, and sometimes, it can be a bit easier to tell when you can versus when you can’t. This can be a bit of a bummer. Mainly because I’m a sucker for what-if scenarios, and I would have loved to see them play out. But it does give me a reason to go back and replay the game to try and unlock these new story beats. Without giving too much away, fans may be excited to hear that players will be able to revisit story beats from the eyes of other characters that haven’t been shown before. This is yet another reason for someone to keep coming back.
All in all, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero has the making of a phenomenal Dragon Ball game. It was clearly made with the older generation in mind but offers enough for younger fans to enjoy. With the sheer amount of content in it, I find it hard to believe that the average Dragon Ball fan won’t find something for them to enjoy. There are some amazing matchups with close to 200 fighters that I would not have thought possible. If it’s not obvious, I am beyond excited to get my hands on this game when it comes out.
