I, like many others excited for Sparking! Zero, have been a life-long Dragon Ball fan. I’m a newcomer to this site so i’ll explain my fandom, just a little. My love for the series started with Pokemon of all things. Way back in the ancient times of 2006, My parents would buy me anything that looked even remotely similar to Pokemon and its anime aesthetic. This culminated in me and my older brother receiving copies of Dragon Ball Z: Sagas and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 for our shared PS2. The opening theme music for Budokai 3 remains my personal favorite to this day.

Since that Christmas, I’ve been a diehard fan of the series. Staying up late countless times to catch random rerun episodes of Dragon Ball Z on Toonami. I vividly remember playing split screen battles for hours on Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for PS2 with my brother. I continued to play the games, hoping one day we’d get a Tenkaichi 4.

16 years later and that day has finally come! Sort of.

A Brief Introduction

For those unaware and potentially living under a rock, Dragon Ball is a Japanese media franchise created by the late but great Akira Toriyama in 1984. The Budokai Tenkaichi series was a 3D arena fighting game series created in 2005 by Spike (presently Spike Chunsoft) and published by Bandai Namco & Atari (in North America). You may be wondering how the name Sparking! ZERO has anything to do with Budokai Tenkaichi. That is because in Japan, the Budokai Tenkaichi series was never called such and the name is unique to NA and EU. In Japan, the series was always the “Sparking!” series with different subtitles for the various games. The name was changed for this new entry due to it being a somewhat reboot of the series.

Now, with all of that out of the way, we can discuss this incredible new entry to the Budokai Tenkaichi/Sparking! series.

So What is The Game All About?

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO is, as fans know, Budokai Tenkaichi 4. This new entry like the rest of the series, is a 3D arena fighter. This entry retains many of the series staples that fans are expecting with some fun new additions. For starters, this game includes a whopping 182 characters from the entire series including Dragon Ball Super and the recently premiered Dragon Ball Daima (covered by us originally, HERE).

The campaign is a bit different this time around with 6 interconnected campaigns to play through. Each one is from the unique perspective of different main characters of the series. These vary in length depending on the characters’ roles in the different sagas. Of course, the longest story campaign is Goku’s, which runs from the beginning of Dragon Ball Z to the end of the Tournament of Power arc in Dragon Ball Super.

What Are The Negatives?

As a fanboy, I figured it’d be more fair to start with what I didn’t like first before I talk about what I liked. The 6 campaigns have been noted by players to be extremely difficult with many complaining specifically about Goku’s fight with Great Ape Vegeta. While I do understand those sentiments, it is possible to turn the difficulty down to beat the fight and continue on. However, this interferes with how the special what-if stories also known as “Sparking! Episodes” are unlocked, as you must be playing on Normal/Hard to even be able to unlock them.

In addition, I have some complaints with how the stories are handled. First off, the fights are seemingly picked as if its a “greatest hits” list more than an actual storyline. While you’re able to understand what’s going on via cutscenes in-between the fights, they are very slideshow-esque. Although, some cutscenes were animated in game which were seemingly random.

On top of that, they do a lot of telling and not showing throughout the stories. With many instances of mentioning fights happening off-screen, some of which were entirely possible to include. For example, during the Android saga, Goku goes from fighting Android 19 straight to fighting Perfect Cell. Another example being that Vegeta’s story campaign ends with the end of the Buu saga despite his heavy involvement in Dragon Ball Super. I feel like separating the campaigns by character, while interesting in concept, doesn’t work well story wise here. I would’ve rather had either one long campaign with everything rolled into it or at least have had the option to do so.

Another issue I have is the lack of OG Dragon Ball representation. Despite being a celebration of the series, there’s a very glaring lack of anything from the original series where it all started. Even Budokai Tenkaichi 3 had story content from the original Dragon Ball series. I’ll admit that it isn’t the most interesting story in the world. However, it is the origin of the series and deserves a spot in this game too. I want to add that GT also has the issue of no story representation but GT at least has numerous characters on the roster. This could be fixed with free or paid DLC but right now the game feels incomplete in that regard. Speaking of DLC, I want to note that the 2 currently available anime music packs both being $14.99 each is a bit much for what you’re getting.

The Positives!

Now with all of that being said, I still love this game and personally have it as one of my games of the year.

As a Dragon Ball fan, Sparking! ZERO despite it’s minor shortcomings, is everything I wanted and more. The fights are fun and quite the spectacle sometimes! Despite my issues with the campaign it was still a blast to run through the different storylines! Goku’s story was of course the highlight as it’s the longest in the game. The other characters’ stories were also a treat to play through as well. I loved the Sparking! Episode scenarios throughout the different characters campaigns; there was one specifically with Gohan’s storyline that as a fan, was so cool! If you know, you know! But, I won’t spoil that for you, just in case.

I played on PlayStation 5 and the game maintained a buttery smooth 60 FPS the entire time which was excellent for a game that gets as hectic as this! I love how the visuals feel like the next evolution of Dragon Ball games beyond FighterZ in the best way possible. The intro cinematic is also just incredible and really sets the stage for the kind of game this is! The soundtrack is very epic and grand in scale, It truly makes every battle feel like a big showdown straight from the anime. I’ve also had loads of fun messing around in online PVP with all the wacky strategies people have come up with.

For example, despite being one of the weaker characters in the game, Yajirobe is the current most played character. This is because he has an ability allowing him to use Senzu Beans to heal himself. So of course players are abusing this with stall strategies. On paper, this sounds horrendous in a fighting game. However, Budokai Tenkaichi/Sparking! was never about balance, it was about fun. Stuff like this is what makes Sparking! ZERO a blast to play online and offline despite what some players may say.

Speaking of characters, the roster is stacked! As a fan, I know a good chunk of the roster is just variations of Goku and Vegeta, but that is just part of the fun. Even with that fact there’s many cool and interesting picks. Some of my favorites are the super deep cuts that most wouldn’t recognize such as Dr. Wheelo from the 1990 movie, Dragon Ball Z: The World’s Strongest. There’s so many inclusions similar to Dr. Wheelo in that regard. Some of these characters are newcomers to the series such as Tapion and Hirudegarn from the 1995 movie, Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of The Dragon. I feel that the roster, despite not having everyone’s favorite characters (RIP Farmer with a Shotgun), Sparking! ZERO has a good representation of the 40 years worth of stories Dragon Ball has.

Conclusion

Bandai Namco and Spike Chunsoft have hit it out the park with this new entry in the Budokai Tenkaichi series! Sparking! ZERO is a massive love letter to the 40 years worth of Dragon Ball. I love all of the new additions to the game such as the what-if Sparking! Episodes! Everything from the beautiful graphics to the downright incredible soundtrack kept me coming back for more! Despite the game’s minor shortcomings, this game still made me feel like I did all those years ago playing Budokai Tenkaichi 3 on PS2 with my older brother.

Watch the trailer for DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO, HERE.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO was reviewed on PlayStation 5. The game released on October 11th for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam.