Ever sinceDragon Ball: Sparking Zerowas firstrevealed as the long-awaited next Budokai Tenkaichi game, I’ve been stoked to see my favourite Dragon Ball gaming series make a comeback. As great asKakarot,Xenoverse, andFighterZare, this is what fans have been wanting for nearly two decades.
That’s a very high bar for Sparking Zero to live up to, but thetrailers that we’ve seen since its re-reveal at The Game Awards show that it’s up to that nearly impossible task. The graphics look phenomenal and rival FighterZ’s masterful recreation of the anime, the roster is somehow planning onsurpassing Budokai Tenkaichi 3’s record-breaking number of fighters, and thereturn of iconic mechanics like Beam Clasheshas made it clear how closely BT’s formula is being followed.
As exciting as all of that is forDragon Ballfans, there remained one big piece of the puzzle - the gameplay. It looked like Sparking Zero wastrying to replicate what Budokai Tenkaichi did so well, but we’d only been shown such small segments of gameplay that there was still some nervousness about how accurate of a follow-up it was going to be. After all, Raging Blast tried to revive the series in the past, only to end up disregarded and viewed as a pale imitation that couldn’t quite capture the same lightning in a bottle.
Although Raging Blast doesn’t quite live up to Budokai Tenkaichi due to how much slower the gameplay is, it’s still a worthy follow-up that doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
Those worries were all squashed last week,when Bandai Namco released the first gameplay showcase for Sparking Zeroand showed us what a full battle will look and play like. This deep dive cemented my excitement even further by showing how much Spike Chunsoft has captured the original Budokai Tenkaichi series’ appeal.
Goku and Vegeta move blisteringly fast around the battlefield, and their fights are much speedier than it has been in recent Dragon Ball games. This is the one thing that most fans were worried about, and while it’s not quite at the same speed as BT, it’s certainly a lot closer than we’ve been to it in decades.
The gameplay reveal also showcased a bunch of returning mechanics and features from Budokai Tenkaichi, such as characters not always flinching from frontal attacks and being able to snap vanish to extend combos and launch enemies across the battlefield. From the moment I saw Goku and Vegeta teleporting behind each other in quick succession, it was clear that Sparking Zero understood the assignment.
Sparking Zero is clearly taking as much as it can from Budokai Tenkaichi, but it was surprising to see that it’s also dipping into Raging Blast’s well of ideas. The overall speed of combat seems to be a mix of the two series, but the most notable examples of this are with some new mechanics that have been introduced.
Raging Blast isn’t the only Dragon Ball series that Sparking Zero is taking notes from, as the beam clash being timed button presses instead of pure mashing is clearly inspired by the Budokai games.
One of these mechanics is something that was first shown during the game’s re-reveal - the ability to counter beam attacks. Super Perception, as it’s since been called, is clearly inspired by a similar technique that was introduced in Raging Blast, albeit made much smoother and easier to pull off.
Vegeta and Goku are also shown entering some kind of overpowered state when they charge up their Ki to its absolute maximum, causing the environment and soundtrack to change with them, as well as letting them unleash an ultimate attack. This was also present in Budokai Tenkaichi, but the music and background change seem to be inspired by what we saw in Raging Blast. There’s not a separate state that fighters can activate like in that game, but it’s hard to ignore the influence.
Combine all of that with the brand-new mechanics that Sparking Zero is introducing, like the ability to dash around and counter attacks without having to use the rare explosive wave move, and it looks like Sparking Zero is mixing together elements from past Dragon Ball games and still managing to make something fresh.
The only thing that was disappointing about the gameplay showcase to me is that we still don’t have a solid release window. That “Wishlist Now” is going to be the bane of my existence, I swear.
We won’t know for sure if our wish to Shenron has been granted until we get our hands on Sparking Zero (and I’ve still got some concerns about how far the roster is going to go), but everything that we’ve seen and heard about the game so far is shaping it up to be one of the most exciting Dragon Ball games of all time.
