DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO Review

Though I was never the biggest Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z fan growing up, I absolutely adored the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi series. There was something about experiencing all the epic battles of the series while also being given cool alternate stories and fun character interactions that kept me hooked from game to game, so when I heard this beloved series was coming back after such a long pause, I was giddy with excitement! Continuing the modern trend of using the original Japanese title instead of the localised version, DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO promised to bring me back to my childhood while also bringing with it the many new storylines I have missed since.

If you’re unfamiliar with this series of games, they are 1v1 3D fighters with an emphasis on flashy moves, destructible terrain, beam struggles, and transformations. Fighters are free to fly around large areas with hills or buildings strewn about and have a number of either melee or ranged skills at their disposal in order to take each other down. Unlike in the Dragon Ball Xenoverse games, there are no custom characters as such, but a roster of fighters from the Dragon Ball universe, some with multiple forms.

They even added the menus where each option is a separate location!

Tenkaichi games also, more often than not, offer a story mode wherein players can play through the iconic fights of the franchise, in addition to taking part in tournaments against both computer-controlled fighters and other players. Since we have quite a few modes to cover, let's start off with the single-player side of things with the Episode Battle and Custom Battle modes.

In the Episode Battles mode, you are given eight characters — some of which are unlocked by playing — to play as, going through the key moments and battles of their stories. Each story is represented by a chain of connected nodes, some with diverging paths to tread. The nodes themselves are either story beats with a short bit of plot or, more commonly, a battle. Each node is preceded by a small snippet of the story surrounding the event and may even contain choices for the player, though we’ll get back to that in a bit. The battles themselves are usually either 1v1 affairs or have one team of characters against another, though you’ll only see one character at a time in combat.

An example of branching pathways

Each battle has a win condition and a lose condition, often boiling down to either one side being victorious or a certain amount of time passing. If you’ve seen the series, these are typically pretty clear-cut: Goku has to survive against Raditz until Piccolo has charged up his attack, Goku can’t lose against Frieza, and so on. However, sometimes the mission may have an alternative goal or present the player with a contradictory choice to what the original story did. In these cases, the aforementioned chain of events diverts into a What If scenario, wherein the player can experience an alternate storyline.

I absolutely loved these additions! Though not all of them were equal in quality or length (unsurprisingly the main cast got the best stuff), I felt like each What If scenario was thought out and lasted much longer than I expected. For example, early in Goku’s storyline, you can decide to work with the Kame House gang instead of Piccolo to take down Raditz, which results in both Goku not dying, and Frieza coming to Earth instead of Namek. In yet another, Goku achieves his Super Saiyan form against Great Ape Vegeta, which further messes with the established canon in wonderful ways. They feel like actual thought has been put into them and I appreciate how the characters’ skillset also reflect the given alternate timeline. If Goku never died against Raditz, he never trained with King Kai, hence not knowing the Kaioken or Spirit Bomb.

The animations are just fantastic

The “canon” fights are often fun, too, focusing on what arguably are the most iconic fights for each character. However, the pace at which the different story arcs are told is break-neck, to say the least, with some having one or two fights a piece. While I understand not wanting to make the campaigns too long, it does make it very difficult to understand what's going on if you aren't already invested in the story. Continuing on that note, some of the requirements for the alternate stories or even the main objectives can be very hard to achieve, as the time limits are never explicit and very short, and some objectives rely on the enemy AI hitting you with a specific move.

In addition to the Episode Battles, players can also try out Custom Battles. These small-scale bouts often have a single scenario, something you’d consider a single node in the Episode Battle mode, with custom stories, win conditions, and no voice-acting. A number of these, titled Bonus Battles, are officially made fights you can take on with some fun little side stories to experience like Yamcha asking for a rematch with some Saibamen.

You wouldn't blow yourself up in a friendly exhibition match... right?

In addition to the official content, you can also make and play scenarios created by other players, which I found to be a very interesting feature! Using a simple interface to plan the intro, battle, and outro of the fights, players are given a relatively impressive amount of freedom to create their own little stories. While I don’t doubt these too will be flooded with references, copies of other games, and other silliness (which I also love), I am excited to see what kind of creations gamers will churn out.

Before we go into the other sections of the game, a few notes on the combat itself, even though explaining it via text may be an impossible task. Each fighter has an HP bar, a Ki meter, and a Skill count. Characters can keep on the ground and hop around, or they can take to the sky and fly around relatively freely. Each character has their own melee combo which they can perform and charged attacks used to knock your enemy away or perform some devastating combos, in addition to being able to throw normal or charged Ki blasts that hone in on an enemy. Characters can also block incoming attacks, redirect Ki-based attacks, and dodge out of the way. The dodge can also be used to initiate a Dragon Dash, which allows for both fast movement and closing in on an opponent.

Powering up to Sparking! Mode is a sight to behold

The Ki bar represents the amount of energy a fighter has (shown in bars) and can be charged with the left trigger, accompanied by the now iconic flaring aura and scream. While the left trigger is pressed, the player has two abilities to use, either melee or Ki-based, that eat up a set amount of Ki bars, but also deal a lot of damage. If you charge your Ki to its very limit, you can enter something called Sparking mode, which both gives you a limited boost to power and unlocks your ultimate attack.

The Skill count is used for a few things: in addition to your damage-dealing abilities, each character has a pair of Skills they can use for the price of a few Skill points. These abilities range from auto-dodging an attack to boosting your power temporarily or automatically charging your Ki up all the way to Sparking mode in an instant. Additionally, Skill points are used whenever you Vanish behind an enemy to avoid attacks and other special effects.

The Ginyu Force never fail to entertain

Combat in Sparking! ZERO can seem quite simple, but there is some level of strategy to it, even when fighting against computer-controlled enemies. If you simply spam your abilities, filling the sky with one Kamehameha after another, your enemies will easily see the attack coming and dodge out of the way, retaliating with their own attack while you’re open. The ebb and flow of the conflict is a constant barrage of short melee bouts peppered with the series’ iconic Vanishing dodges and beam clashes, and periodic breaks for snacks and Ki charging.

The fast-paced nature of the battles, as well as the clever Skills some characters have, make matches interesting and offer a variety of playstyles to use… or at least it should. While fighting against other players, I often had a great time playing mind games, using feints and combos to keep them on their feet while also trying not to be exploded myself, but the AI of the game is another matter; this is not an easy game.

The age-old problem with fighting games and AI opponents is how they are programmed: as true artificial intelligence is not yet widely available, your robotic foe must rely on reading your button inputs to react appropriately. This is fine in itself, as you need to have some challenge, but I frequently had the feeling in Sparking! ZERO that my enemy was reacting to my attack at a frankly inhuman speed.

As soon as I let loose an epic blast of energy, they’d already teleported next to me, getting a few cheap shots in before starting up a seemingly endless barrage of punches and kicks. It can be very disheartening to go from full health down to your last dregs of life in one combo when you can seemingly do nothing to prevent it, though I may just be bad at the game, so take it for what it’s worth! In any case, I never felt like I had improved much in my fighting as I often had to retry the fights until I got lucky and the AI didn’t curb stomp me, especially when trying to trigger the alternative goals for What If scenarios.

To my shame, I Ultimate spammed quite a bit

My AI grumbling aside, Sparking! ZERO has a few more modes to look at: the Tournament and Battle modes. In the latter, you can either play offline against the computer, refining your skill and trying out some of the characters that don’t appear elsewhere, or you can challenge other players for fun or in ranked matches either 1v1 or with teams of fighters. The developers have stated that they didn’t even try to really balance all the characters of the Dragon Ball world, as there are so many levels of powers to consider, especially with the addition of Dragon Ball Super. However, the system they did add was absolutely genius in my mind: point-based power.

In short, each character is given a point value that represents how powerful they are, with a higher number meaning a more dangerous fighter. When fighting 1v1, players can search for fights against characters in the same point range to make things more balanced, which is already a smart approach. Where the point system really shines, however, is in the team fights. Each team is given a set amount of points to spend on fighters to fill their roster, however, the point value is small enough to allow only one very strong character with a few weak ones or a full team of middling power. This system is not fool-proof by any means, but it is a nice touch to keep fights entertaining.

One Goku or five Hercules... hmm...

In addition to single bouts, players can also partake in online or offline tournaments, wherein they will go up against other fighters in a bracketed ladder, with one coming out as the champion. As the Dragon Ball franchise has its fair share of tournaments, players can pick any of the iconic matchups, each with their own separate rules and team compositions. Continuing the trend of giving players tools to express their creativity, you can also create a custom Tournament to fit your needs!

Now, game modes are all fine and dandy, but often a fighting game, especially ones based on beloved IPs, are made and broken on their character roster. DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO does have a respectable amount of fighters, with a total of 182 at the time of writing, with more coming via DLC. However, it should be noted that many of these are simply the same character in a different form, like Goku alone counting for almost 20. Interestingly, there is a noticeable difference between starting with a character at base level versus picking the same character at max power, as performing the transformations themselves gives the character a boost in health.

There IS some customisation to be had

As far as I tried (there are a lot of characters, okay?) each character felt unique enough to play, with each set of skills and moves being representative of the characters. Even the aforementioned forms of Goku were different enough from each other to not feel overwhelmingly samey while played back-to-back. The characters also have a great way of emoting and affecting the surrounding environment that adds a layer of depth, with heavy or gigantic characters shrugging off blows that would send smaller fighters flying, and lighter combatants zipping about the field. The sheer amount of characters should ensure that everyone can find someone they like!

A factor I really appreciate in the game is the attention paid to how the characters both act and react toward each other. Characters meeting often have unique bits of dialogue and in the team building screen, certain combinations of characters can result in a wholly unique scene! These small touches make the game feel like it was made by people passionate about the source media. Finally, Sparking! ZERO kept my absolute favourite feature from earlier games related to characters: the Encyclopedia.

This may have been the first thing I opened up in-game

While this lengthy list of characters and their relevant trivia is fun in itself, especially for players not as familiar with the media, the absolute best feature is Girl Talk. With the push of a button, you can get a short dialogue from the leading ladies commenting on whichever character you have selected. These are often humorous and offer some fun insights into how the human women see their friends, foes, and denizens of the many universes.

The audio and visual design of Sparking! ZERO are, to me, phenomenal. Each attack is given the weight and fanfare they are due, with a mix of fully animated and cartoony effects used to keep the series’ distinct style. The animated cutscenes for attacks are fantastic and the battle scars your ferocious match leaves on the terrain is a great touch. Sure, we may not see the classic “explosion visible from space” scenes from earlier games, but there is more than enough here to impress. Similarly, the game offers a rocking soundtrack of original and anime music to make each fight an epic confrontation.

Hey, so could you beat this boss for me, or...?

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO is a game for fans. It gets to the good bits, lets us play out our favourite battles and provides some stellar What If scenarios to explore, while also giving players possibly the largest roster of characters to date. While the lack of story clarity may drive away gamers looking to get into the series and the AI can be controller-smashingly aggravating, being able to play a title that so well captured the games of my childhood is an absolute treat. Just never make me fight Great Apes again, please.