Sparking! Zero is old-fashioned Budokai in all its facets

After more than seventeen years of withdrawal symptoms, Dragon Ball fans will soon be able to have fun again with a new, Budokai-like Dragon Ball game. With the subtitle Sparking! In this new fighting game, Zero also spotlights the recent Super anime series, with the power of Unreal Engine 5. That’s a treat.

After a quick calculation, I conclude that I must have been just fourteen when Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 was released. It was more than half my life ago, but I still remember it so well: sitting in front of the television with the PlayStation 2 with my nephews and mashing those buttons. There was no question of sound tactics or even consciously throwing out combos, but we had so much fun. We replayed the anime we loved and discovered many more chapters from the Dragon Ball universe along the way.

That fun and wonder is all coming back now that I’ve spent the necessary hours on Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero spent. The new game offers the same simple fun, but with more content than ever. It’s no secret that Sparking! Zero introduces more characters than ever (including about ten versions of Goku). It’s all the more impressive because everyone has their own authentic super attacks. With the help of Unreal Engine 5, they are all visually stunning. With goosebumps and open mouth, I regularly drooled like a little child when I saw Vegito’s Spirit Sword and Goku’s very first transformation into Super Saiyan in the fight with Frieza.

Journeying through the anime multiverse

You will of course experience all those iconic moments again in Sparking! Zero. The new Battle Episodes mode takes you through the different storylines from Dragon Ball Z, GT and this time they also include the latest Dragon Ball Super anime. You experience everything from the perspective of a certain character. During my review I unlocked about seven characters, both villains and heroes, with whom I walked a timeline with battles that are etched in my memory.

The game puts a funny twist on this by letting you make choices along the way that deviate from the story. There used to be a separate ‘What If’ mode for this, but now it is incorporated into the story mode, including a touch of extra interaction with the player. In the Saiyan Saga I choose not to take Piccolo, but the Z-Fighters to the fight with Raditz, so Goku does not die from our green friend’s Special Beam Cannon. The condition is that I complete an additional combat challenge to activate the branch of the timeline. I have to beat Raditz in a very short time with the Kaioken version of Goku.

Instead, the story takes a surprising turn that even continues into the subsequent Namek Saga, which for a change seems to take place on Earth. I will take on the Ginyu Force with all (!) Z-Fighters, but will Captain Ginyu also take over Goku’s body? It’s scenarios like that that make the story of Dragon Ball Z a little more fun to relive. It is the first time that I have seen the Super-anime adapted in this way, so I have followed that story faithfully. This can also be done through the eyes of Goku Black, one of the major villains in that storyline. As a Dragon Ball purist, you will really enjoy going through this, because you will always wonder what twists and turns await you in a mission in which choices can be made.

Have fun with RSI

All that fun is somewhat tempered by the controls, especially in the first hours. Just like before, it is actually very simple. They are virtually identical for each character: combos are performed by pressing attack buttons multiple times, alternating with occasionally pressing two buttons simultaneously to use an instant transmission and teleport behind your opponent to stomp him hundreds of meters away from you . Especially that one instant transmissions I couldn’t get the timing right in the first few hours and because the fighting is as fast as it should be, my thumbs started to hurt in no time.

I’m over thirty, I was exhausted from another time-consuming review and the RSI seemed to say goodbye to me between the knuckles and the cartilage of my thumbs. After a good rest I turned out to be a huge poser and fighting was quite manageable. It is quite recognizable if you can imagine the Budokai series, but the controls have indeed been adjusted. Certain maneuvers such as parrying, ascending and descending are located just below a different button, so it is certainly worth taking a moment to go through the tutorial. Of course, the well-known ones also return quick-time events back when your super attacks hit each other at the same time and you have to press a lot of buttons mashen to come out on top of the clash. And yes, just like in the past, it is often childishly simple and you come out on top.

Naturally, in battles it is important to reach the highest power level as quickly as possible by charging with R2 (on PlayStation), so that you can perform the strongest attacks such as the Spirit Bomb or Final Kamehameha. Movement is important, because depending on your strength level you become faster and faster, until you reach the highest level where a lightning bolt indicates that you are faster than the naked eye can follow. With the camera behind your character, you fly at lightning speed through the open arenas while mountains split. If you can’t dodge a big fat attack, your clothes won’t be spared and you’ll end up fighting in your shirt.

These are beautiful details and effects made possible by Unreal Engine 5. This is just exactly what I ever wanted to experience in a Budokai-like game. The colorful glow effects of the different Super Saiyan levels, but also of a ‘simple’ Kamehameha, reflect beautifully on the cel-shaded characters created by the late Akira Toriyama. At the start of the review session, I did some fiddling with the HDR settings, which seem to be much too dark by default. However, if I pump up my in-game brightness setting all the way, everything looks a lot better, although at the time of writing I still have the feeling that shadows in particular are still a bit too dark.

Pleasant disorientation

Camera movements used to be a thing in the Budokai games; How many times have I become disoriented because everything is moving so quickly. There are super attacks that let you zoom towards your enemy at lightning speed, but miss your target and you zoom so far that the camera has to react much too quickly. The result: disorientation and a bit of frustration, but they are quite minor annoyances compared to the pleasure it provides. If I want to play a competitively designed and well-balanced Dragon Ball fighting game, I’ll fire up Dragon Ball FighterZ.

The biggest criticism is something that the makers can’t really do anything about. It’s been a while since the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero movie came out, but it leaves a big gap in the story compared to the manga. Because the games draw exclusively from the anime, although the amount of content is immense, the game still feels somewhat incomplete. Of course, the upcoming Dragon Ball Daima anime will still come to Sparking Zero via seasonal content. Unfortunately, we miss the complete Moro saga and that is very popular and perhaps even better than the Tournament of Power storyline.

Nevertheless, as a fan from the very beginning, I consider myself fortunate that we can welcome a worthy successor to Budokai Tenkaichi 3. There is a ton of single-player content available and you can also compete against each other online in tournaments and co-op battles. The entire experience can be customized to taste with different pieces of background music and environments, while characters sometimes interact pleasantly with each other in their introduction videos. How cool is it to see Frieza and Cell acknowledge that they have been dead for a long time, but are now resurrected just to see who is the strongest villain? More authentic than Sparking! Zero won’t be a Dragon Ball game anytime soon.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will be available on October 11 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S and PC. For this review, the game was played on PlayStation 5.