Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero – Cha-La Head Cha-La, Tenkaichi 4 is finally here!

Before we jump into the game with Son Goku, Vegeta and Co., we first have to clarify one question: Which is fine Dragon Ball: Sparking? Let me take a moment… or just skip to the next paragraph if you already know the answer and don’t want a history lesson. The series of Dragon Ball: Sparking-Games started on the PlayStation 2 and was released to us as Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi known.

But whether fans played the Japanese Sparking or the Western Tenkaichi version, the opinions were clear: never before had a brawler managed to come so close Dynamics and the atmosphere of the template to approach. Vast battle arenas with mountains collapsing in style under Kamehameha fire, characters gliding through the air, lightning-fast combos and incredibly huge energy projectiles Dragon Ball Z perfect one.

After the celebrated third part for PlayStation 2 and Wii, the offshoot Ultimate Tenkaichi was released for PS3 and Xbox 360, but caused disillusionment and is generally considered the worst entry in the series. That was 2011, and since then there has been radio silence regarding the Tenkaichi-Series. Until now, because After 13 years, publisher Bandai Namco is reactivating the series with which now also in this country Sparking the so-called new clunker, which, at least according to the title, is a “zero number”. In the test I now want to clarify whether this also applies in terms of play, or whether we might have the best one here Dragon Ballgame of all time is ahead of us.

We fly higher and higher, here we are free!

If you’ve ever played a game of… Tenkaichi-series, you know roughly what you’re getting into Sparking! Zero expected. The fights take place in huge areaswithin which you can move relatively freely both horizontally and vertically. Of course, the duels between anime heroes and villains not only take place on solid ground (or even under water), but the opponents also have the ability to fly. However, this doesn’t change the combat behavior, because your characters “stand” in the air, so to speak, instead of flying in a horizontal position like Superman.

The general fighting behavior of the fighters is also very similar, because you always use a similar repertoire of key combinationsto trigger punch and kick combos, fire off energy attacks or spit in your opponent’s soup with a reversal and counter his attack. If you then use a super attack to smash your opponent into a rock formation, for example, and it effectively collapses, it’s pure fan service that couldn’t be better. What varies among the characters, however, is the strength and tactics you can use with them. In this context, I recommend, first of all to start with your favorite character from the seriesbefore you try out more fighters – the fully unlocked roster includes almost 200 (!) characters.

Do you feel the power that lives deep in your soul?

If you Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero When you start for the first time, you become formal overwhelmed by a flood of possible modes. You shouldn’t pay any attention to the shop, the missions, the online mode, the story and other nonsense at first. Anyone who, like me, immediately jumps into the story from the series to replay Son Goku’s adventures (or the seven other characters) in several 30-minute chapter chunks will probably get a real kick out of the seemingly unfairly difficult fight against Vegeta’s huge monkey form . No, The first step should be proper training. After all, Son Goku already knew this in the series – he often did nothing other than train like a man possessed for half a season in order to be able to beat his opponent in the end.

The game offers you a practice mode that explains basic maneuvers as well as techniques for advanced and professional players. You can practice the actions one after the other with detailed explanations and then try them out in practice in sparring. Believe me, this is an important step because the controls are anything but beginner-friendly. Punch and kick combos aren’t even half the battle here. Special maneuvers require the interaction of shoulder and action buttons. Every now and then you even have to move from the left analog stick to the control pad or quickly move your thumb from the action buttons to the right stick to trigger a reversal.

After training, it’s a good idea to play a few versus matches against AI fighters and also try out team mode. This is how you get into the game little by little until you have internalized the controls and are ready to tackle the story mode. One of the tricks is to to gradually recharge his Kito be able to fire super attacks. If you hold down the lower right shoulder button, an aura flares up around your figure and you charge the Ki bar. However, you cannot move, which is why this mechanic should be portioned out tactically. For example, while the opponent is also charging. It’s almost like in the series when the opponents face each other for an entire episode, increase their fighting strength and make speeches. No, it was just fun! In the game, of course, it’s much quicker and you’ll be able to do it in no time in fully charged Sparking mode, which allows really powerful attacks. Then Monkey-Vegeta isn’t that big of a problem anymore, as I found out for myself – and man, when I finally took down the stupid beast, I almost felt like a Super Saiyan!

Open your heart, you have the power to do anything!

Okay, so we have largely clarified how the duels and the controls work. But what has Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero anything else to offer? A whole lot! First of all, there are the “missions” that the game gives you Collect currency, characters or Dragon Balls. If you fulfill the conditions that can be viewed in separate menus and collect seven of the orange balls, you can summon Shenlong, the Namekian dragon Polunga or Super Shenlong via another menu to have your wish fulfilled. The range extends from simple in-game currency to level increases for your player account or additional characters.

But the new Custom Battles are more interesting. Here you can use modifiers Put together duels according to your own rules and share it online with other fans, including cover images and intro clips. Like Nintendo’s Mario Maker Before uploading, you have to prove that your creation can actually be created. For a foretaste and inspiration, you can try out the development team’s included custom battles.

There are also, of course, online duels and tournaments in which you can prove yourself against other fans. And Social offline gamers are also catered for: Couch versus is possible via split screen, which works quite well despite the severely limited field of vision for each player. However, here (probably for technical reasons) there is only the rather empty space of mind and time as a background for the beating.

Kai is a freelance writer for IGN Germany and started playing video games in the 1980s when he was around six years old. He spent over 20 years professionally at GamePro and finally went down as captain of the print ship. He prefers to play action games, but is also not averse to action adventures or the occasional role-playing game. When he’s not gaming, he watches films and anime, looks after his action figure collection or makes Gundams. You can check out the latter on Instagram: @actionfigure_kai