Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Review: A Blast From The Past

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero

Recommended

Platform reviewed on: Xbox Series

Pros

• "What if" stories are fantastic
• Huge number of characters
• Stellar music

Cons

• Uptick in difficulty can feel daunting
• Controls aren't properly explained
• Occasional awkward camera angles

ESRB Age Rating: Teen
ESRB Content Descriptors: Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence
ESRB Interactive Elements: In-Game Purchases

Review code provided by the publisher.

Dragon Ball has always held a special place in my heart. Growing up in a Latino community as a Mexican-American, I always heard the joke, "Toriyama [the creator of Dragon Ball] has a choke hold over our people," and it was true. When little me wasn't watching the show, I would play Budokai games on my PlayStation 2 and create fights, hoping to one day see them played out on TV.

Flash forward twenty-some years later, and that choke hold Toriyama had is as strong as ever. Instead of watching Dragon Ball Z, I'm now watching Daima, and instead of playing Budokai Tenkaichi on my PlayStation 2, I'm playing Dragon Ball Sparking Zero on my Xbox Series X, all while experiencing the feelings of optimism and perseverance that are ingrained in the series.

Before I jumped into any of the game modes, I knew I was in for a good time when I saw the cinematic introduction. The video featured all of the main characters, from Dragon Ball Z to Super, fighting various villains from the franchises. But the catch was, things played out differently from the show. For example, during Trunks and Goku Black's fight, Gohan appears to save the day, and then Baby Vegeta comes out of nowhere to wreak havoc. This cinematic told me a lot of what I needed to know about the game – that this will be a love letter to older fans, while also exploring new "What if" routes in the Dragon Ball universe.

Without skipping a beat, I launched into "Episode Battle," which essentially serves as the game's story mode. Here, I was able to play the series through Goku's eyes and have the opportunity to break off from the canon route. And that's exactly what I did the second time I was given the chance to create a new, original plot. I was blown away by how fleshed out these stories were. I remember thinking, "Okay, this should only take an hour at most," but I was wrong. By the time Gokus's new "What if" story concluded, nearly two and a half hours had passed.

I never knew I needed to see the Namek saga unravel on Earth instead of Planet Namek until I experienced it for myself. I was left smiling like a little kid and laughing because it was so much fun to see these alternate situations play out. Bandai Namco took care to make these new stories while staying true to the characters from specific eras in the franchise.

But getting to these new and original storylines proved to be a challenge within itself. As much as I liked the game, getting started proved to be rather tricky. Sparking Zero does a poor job of teaching you how to play and introducing the game’s core mechanics. Instead, you're left to discover how to perform moves on your own. As someone who plays their fair share of fighting games, I understand that learning how to do combos is a key part of the genre's charm. But Sparking Zero drops the ball when showing players the ropes.

As a result, certain story beats in "Episode Battle" are hard to unlock because many of the mechanics are poorly explained. To make matters a bit worse, you'll notice a sudden uptick in difficulty when playing specific levels. I understand this is meant to mirror the challenges Goku and his friends faced throughout the show, but it quickly becomes annoying when you find yourself in the middle of a 30-hit combo on your fifth attempt at beating a level.

But that's not to say that the power scaling is all bad. The game purposefully has overpowered characters to show off how strong they truly are. This makes fights with people like Yajirobe against anyone else extremely hilarious because you know that they will only last for a few minutes at most.

It also helps that all of the characters have similar base move sets. For example, you'll never have to worry about knowing the basic light combo because it's the same for everyone. The same can be said about specific mid to heavy combos, too. This makes exploring new characters easier because you can still hold your own if you're a madman like me and try out new characters while playing Ranked.

Things start to change when you play characters of other species. For instance, you can't power up while playing as an android in true Dragon Ball fashion. Your ki will naturally go up as you play the game. This creates a unique challenge for those looking to main one because it forces you to be wise about your attacks.

Similarly, if you decide to play as certain humans, you won't be able to stay in the air for long. On top of that, giant enemies like Great Ape Vegeta can't be grappled or tossed around.

Characters who can transform also add a unique flair to the fight. It may be easy to forget, but if someone picks base Goku from the Dragon Ball Super era, they can power up to Super Saiyan Blue and transform them into an entirely different character mid-fight.

But picking a character is half the charm of Sparking Zero. The game has 181 fighters to pick from, ranging from Dragon Ball Z to Super and even GT. As someone who grew up consuming all Dragon Ball content, this made my inner child extremely happy because there's nothing like seeing a Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta go toe-to-toe with Dragon Ball Super-era Broly. It answered the age-old question of "Who would win in a fight?"

To take this concept a step further, I spent a fair amount of time in the game's "Custom Battle" section. This mode can be compared to Halo's "Forge mode," which gives players creative freedom to do whatever they want. Here, players can use the game’s tools to create their own original short stories and brief cutscenes, and have any characters they want fight it out.

Even though I wasn't clever enough to come up with a witty or dramatic story, the Sparking Zero community had me covered on that. One of my favorites was having some of the strongest characters in the multiverse fight and lose against Chiaotzu because, in this timeline, he became a menace.

The mini-stories didn't stop there. Each section of the main menu felt like it was telling its own subplot. In the "Episode Battle" screen, you can see Beerus, Whis, and other characters hanging out and enjoying the sun, while in the "Battle & Training” area, Piccolo, Gohan, and Android 17 can all be seen getting ready for the World Tournament. Switching between the game’s sections became much more enjoyable because it felt like I was playing an older 2000s game on my PlayStation 2.

Sparking Zero looks and feels gorgeous. Each time I powered up, I couldn't help but be in awe of the characters’ clothes blowing around because of the energy my character was emitting. Seeing a Spirit Bomb in Unreal Engine 5 was epic.

That being said, there were some elements that looked a bit choppy. When characters are standing still in cutscenes, things begin to look a bit odd, and the newly added first-person camera change was often hit or miss. On the one hand, this feature did offer some cool POV, but on the other, it just showed off characters like Krillen awkwardly standing still with the occasional hand movement.

As a long-time Dragon Ball fan, I enjoyed my time with Sparking Zero. There were plenty of moments where I felt like I was going to shed a tear due to the sheer amount of happiness I felt from watching my childhood heroes kick some serious butt. Although it does shoot itself in the foot a few times with key components, there are still plenty of things to enjoy while screaming at the top of your lungs, just like Goku.

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero

Release Date: October 11, 2024

• Windows
• PlayStation 5Buy
• Xbox SeriesBuy