Bandai Namco loves to put out Dragon Ball games that come in all shapes and sizes, but the one that’s coming up next has got the attention of quite a few. Bringing the series back to the beloved arena fighter formula, the upcoming Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO has been on the radar for no few people, and ahead of its imminent release, here, we’re going to go over a few key details that you should know about it.
BUDOKAI TENKAICHI SUCCESSOR
Between 2005 and 2007, Bandai Namco and Spike Chunsoft delivered three arena fighter Dragon Ball titles with the Budokai Tenkaichi series, but fans’ cries for a fourth instalment had gone unheard for over a decade and a half. With Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO, however, Bandai Namco is finally bringing the series back, withe the upcoming fighter confirmed to be the fourth instalment in the Budokai Tenkaichi series.
DYNAMIC AND DESTRUCTIBLE ENVIRONMENTS
Seeing the ridiculous scale and escalation that generally characterize fights in Dragon Ball recreated was always one of the Budokai Tenkaichi series’ bigger strengths, and Sparking! ZERO is looking to deliver in that area as well. In fact, as you progress through a fight, you will also notice the environments around you reacting to it, with your surroundings changing and deteriorating dynamically based on the things that you and your opponent do over the course of your duel.
EPISODE BATTLE MODE
Episode Battle is Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO’s main single-player mode. It stars eight playable characters in the form of Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, Gohan, Piccolo, Future Trunks, Jiren, and Goku Black, with each stage covering battles from across Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super. Cutscenes will vary from character to character, while interestingly enough, players will also be able to make choices at times that will impact the story, allowing you to go for events that don’t align with what happened in the source material.
CUSTOM BATTLE MODE
Beyond Episode Battle, players will also have access to the Custom Battle mode, which allows you to play entirely original battles. As the mode’s name suggests, players will also get the ability to customize and change a number of things, including playable characters, camera cuts, pre- and post-battle cutscenes, title screens, background music, and even the characters’ facial expressions, among other things. Custom Battle will also include Bonus Battles, which will task players with trying to get victories through specific victory conditions.
ROSTER
The strength of the roster can make or break a fighter, and in this area, it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to find Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO lacking in the slightest. Bandai Namco has confirmed that the game is going to have a whopping 182 characters in total, which is more than we’ve ever seen in a single Budokai Tenkaichi game before.
NEW CHARACTERS
Of the 182 characters that the game will feature at launch, though a large number will be characters that were featured in past Budokai Tenkaichi titles, a significant chunk will also be entirely new introductions for the series. In total, there will be nearly 30 new characters in Sparking! ZERO, including the likes of Frieza Force Soldier, Android 13, Slug, Turles, Bojack, and many others.
CHARACTER STATS
Every character in Sparking! ZERO will have their effectiveness in battle determined by a pool of five different stats. There’s HP, which is self explanatory; there’s attack, which will focus on the strength of smash and hand-to-hand attacks; there’s combo, which will inform combo damage; there’s special attack, which will focus on Blasts and Ultimate Blasts; and there’s Ki, which will determine how strong a character’s Ki blasts are and how quickly they restore their Ki.
MOVEMENT DETAILS
Mastering movement in Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO’s 3D arenas will be key, and players will have plenty of ways to move around. The Step or the Short Dash will be your primary method of movement, and will do exactly what the name suggests, while the Dragon Dash will let you rush in a certain direction at high speed. Combine that with the Z-Burst Dash, and you’ll be able to get behind your foe with a high-speed movement. Using your Ki, you can also ascend or descend towards or away from foes.
OFFENSIVE ACTIONS
As you would expect, Sparking! ZERO is going to be a very aggressive game- but what exactly will you have at your disposal in terms of your basic moveset? On the offensive side of things, players will be able to use Rush Chain combos (which will do higher damage the longer they are), and Smash attacks, which have to be built up before being unleashed, and do varying damage based on how much you build them up. Then there’s the Lift Strike, which will send your enemies flying in case you want to turn proceedings a bit more aerial, while Grand Slash will do the opposite and direct your attack downwards. Different kinds of combos and various follow-up attacks will also be available.
DEFENSIVE ACTIONS
There will, of course, be times where you’re going to have to be on the backfoot a little bit, and Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO will present players with plenty of options on that front as well. In addition to guardian against incoming attacks, players will also be able to evade attacks in different ways, while a number of different methods of countering available.
LOCAL MULTIPLAYER
Being a fighter, Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO is, of course, promising a fairly robust multiplayer component, and though the bulk of that will focus on the online side of things, there will be some limited options available for local multiplayer as well. Specifically, the Hyperbolic Time Chamber will be where you will head to play local splitscreen against your friends, while you can also play Tournaments offline against (though opponents will be generated for you).
ONLINE MULTIPLAYER
The online multiplayer side of things will be more fleshed out. For starters, the aforementioned Tournaments will be on offer here, allowing players to join a variety of different tournament types (or create a custom one) to duke it out against other players online. On top of that, a Ranked Mode will also be available, as you’d expect. Leaderboards will be included, while players will also be able to set matchmaking conditions.
STANDARD AND CLASSIC CONTROLS
Much like many other fighters do in today’s day and age, Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO is going to offer multiple control schemes. Classic Controls will let you play with controls that will emulate the Dragon Ball: Budokai Tenkaichi games (with some alterations here and there), while Standard Controls will be changed and modernized and, as the name implies, will be the default way to play the game.
CUSTOMIZATION DETAILS
In addition to being able to buff up characters’ previously mentioned stats courtesy of capsules customizations, Sparking! ZERO will also feature a handful of cosmetic customization options. As you’d expect, multiple different outfits will be featured for each character, while players will also be able to equip them with different accessories.
PC REQUIREMENTS
For those who’re hoping to play Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO on PC, thankfully, its system requirements aren’t too high. For minimum settings, you’ll need either an i5-9600K or a Ryzen 5 2600, along with either a GeForce GTX 980, a Radeon RX 590, or an Intel Arc A750, and 8 GB of RAM. On recommended settings, meanwhile, you’ll need either an i7-9700K or a Ryzen 5 3600, along with either a GeForce RTX 2060 or a Radeon RX Vega 64, along with 16 GB of RAM. On either setting, you’ll also need about 29 GB of free storage space.
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