Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO reinvigorates the PS2-era arena brawler for modern hardware and the results are nothing short of breath-taking. Typifying this niche style beat ‘em up is an over-the-shoulder perspective, an up close and personal viewpoint upon which to unleash feisty punches, kicks, combos, and laser beams at blistering pace. Eye melting visuals lifted straight out of the anime series precede ridiculous energy beam ultimate moves; the Budokai Tenkaichi trilogy is a thrilling brand of fighting game, one which many fighters have spent countless hours honing their expertise. With over 100,000 concurrent players on Steam since Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO’s release, many more hours are already being pounded in this long-awaited sequel.
Dragon Ball is amongst the most influential manga of all time, with co-existing anime series Dragon Ball Z up there as a gateway to Japanese animation alongside Pokémon for many in the Western world. With services like Netflix providing streaming access to wide audiences, anime is firmly in the mainstream and its popularity is consistently rising. A new Dragon Ball game is always significant, but we’ve not had a fighting game adaption since 2018’s kaleidoscopic Dragon Ball FighterZ. In the six years since, there’s been tactical card battler Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission, asymmetrical multiplayer Dragon Ball: The Breakers, and the well-received action RPG Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.
Most of the playable characters in Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO are dropping in from the Z-era series and movies, but there are plenty from late 90s sequel series Dragon Ball GT and mid 2010s midquel series Dragon Ball Super featuring too. Interestingly, characters from the original Dragon Ball are vastly under-represented, although these might come in later DLC. Even without original Dragon Ball characters though, Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO’s roster is gargantuan with 182 characters to choose, although it must be said each distinct character harbours numerous transformations – series protagonist Goku has 18 different versions, for instance – so the actual number of individual characters is much lower, but still impressive none-the-less.
And as we hinted earlier, Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO is a looker. Bandai Namco have gone all out to create a brawler which can boast the best anime-style graphics which has ever been committed to video game. The flashy visuals support the bombastic action perfectly, especially in the aforementioned ultimate move animations. In fact, this enhancement can be highlighted in side-by-side comparisons between Sparking! Zero’s ultimate move animations and those of the Budokai Tenkaichi series. Observe the difference between Piccolo’s Special Beam Cannon or Vegeta’s Final Shine Attack animations, they’re night and day. This point isn’t to downplay Budokai Tenkaichi’s technical achievements, but more to highlight how vibrant Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO’s are. Characters are amongst the game’s biggest selling points and developer Spike Chunsoft Co. made the right decision in focusing on unique, visually arresting animations for each one. It’ll make switching between as many characters as you like all the more rewarding as you’ll get to experience each one’s distinct manoeuvres and their associated visual aplomb.
As a further point to underscore the commitment to putting Sparking! ZERO’s warriors front and centre, check out the shifting camera work as you slide through the character selection screen. It’s only a minor attention to detail, but it’s great. The way the camera smoothly adjusts to the character’s size then refocuses on them as they perform a small introductory animation, it’s a nice addition to an ordinarily pragmatic phase of setting up a fight.
There is a steep learning curve if you want to get the best out of your chosen characters though. Each character comes with their own signature abilities, transformations, and techniques. Plus, the game has a broad range of offensive and defensive techniques, plenty of blocks and dodges to practice, and – confusingly – some of these manoeuvres feature more than one variant to wrap your head around. For instance, Sparking! ZERO has no less than three counters to master. And, worse still, fights are so fast paced that reading and reacting to your opponent’s attacks is immensely challenging for first timers. There’s a chance you’ll button bash your way through bouts in the early stages but with practice and time spent in the game’s training modes, you’ll be blocking, dodging, and unleashing rapid fire combos in no time. Once you reach that stage, once Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO’s franticness becomes understandable, the soaring, showy, satisfying combat becomes addictive. And it’s worth overcoming those initial roadblocks for another reason: there aren’t many fighting games quite like Sparking! ZERO, and nor have many emerged since Budokai Tenkaichi 3 in 2007. Naruto Ninja Storm comes to mind, Xenoverse maybe, Dead or Alive perhaps? Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 1 & 2 coming in 2009 and 2010 respectively, essentially 3D fighters loosely based on Budokai Tenkaichi, are your best bet for something similar.
What we’re trying to say though is, much like it’s Budokai Tenkaichi predecessors, Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO is a singular fighting experience. There isn’t much else out there like it. In that sense, it almost feels like this style of 3D arena brawler is tailor made for a series like Dragon Ball. Movement too quick for the naked eye, energy beam attacks, slick mid-air strafing, these kinds of manoeuvres are integral to Dragon Ball’s character set, and whilst the more traditional 2.5D Dragon Ball FighterZ was a brilliant title, shifting these characters to 3D arenas showcases their planet razing skillsets much more effectively. The openness of Sparking! ZERO’s arenas make Dragon Ball FighterZ feel cramped in comparison.
Developer Spike Chunsoft Co. and Bandai Namco have clearly positioned Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO for online matchups. There’s not a lot of sense in the single player campaign, its story mostly told through slideshow cutscenes, and the numerous what if scenarios plunging holes in each character’s narrative arc. If you’re not already familiar with Dragon Ball’s various sagas and story beats, then the campaign likely won’t make any sense. Instead, there’s a range of online modes: Battle Mode harbours ranked matches, each with highly customisable parameters to better find the ideal opponent via balanced character cost restrictions. World Tournament Mode allows you to create or join a championship against rivals across the world, and like Battle Mode features numerous optional tweaks that can adjust stages, victory conditions, or available characters.
Still, given the raft of popular and lesser-known characters from a range of Dragon Ball media and the perplexing story, Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO seems more akin to a love letter to the legendary manga and anime series, and creator Akira Toriyama’s life work, than a game marketed towards none-Dragon Ball fans, or indeed casual fighting game players. “The best Dragon Ball game ever”, state numerous user reviews on Steam, and yeah, we can see that. We’ve said it already, but the 3D arena battler is the perfect mould for Dragon Ball’s characters. Spike and Bandai Namco have ploughed so much focus on the individual characters in this game, applied careful attention to ensure each shine in the widespread arenas they’ll fight in, it proves that careful consideration in how best to represent the source material is as integral as the gameplay itself.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.