Fans may argue about which Dragon Ball game best captures the essence of the famous anime and manga series. However, many love the Budokai Tenkachi series. These are 3D fighting games with fast-paced action in large arenas. Despite not having a new game in 15 years, fans still cherish this series.
Finally, the upcoming Dragon Ball Sparking Zero is breaking this long wait. It’s releasing on Oct. 11 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. I got an early look at it during Summer Game Fest.
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Trailer
Fifteen years is a long time since the last game, and in that time, we’ve seen many new Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super seasons, as well as movies. Bandai Namco’s new game, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero, includes over 160 playable characters.
How many ways will you play? Learn more about the upcoming game modes in DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO#DBSZ arrives October 11, 2024! Pre-order: https://t.co/tVoUq2gRSq pic.twitter.com/qXeoUMWpFH
— Dragon Ball Games (@dragonballgames) June 13, 2024
Many of these characters are different versions of Goku and Vegeta — there are 24 slots just for them. But there’s a reason for having so many versions of the same characters: they let you recreate famous battles.
Recreating specific matchups is the heart of Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. During a preview, we saw a live demonstration of the Episode Battle mode. It’s like a story campaign with eight specific fights from Dragon Ball’s long history. A Bandai Namco employee showed us one of these fights: the big first battle in Dragon Ball Z between Goku and the Saiyan Raditz.
Each fight in Episode Battle starts and ends with a cutscene. These cutscenes let players make choices that can change how the story unfolds — for example, when Piccolo asks Goku if he wants help fighting Raditz, you can choose to say no.
Things happened as expected, leading to Goku and Piccolo teaming up for the first time, but only after Goku defeated or survived Raditz’s attack.
Old fans will remember the next part: Goku grabs Raditz and asks Piccolo to attack them both with his special move. In Sparking Zero, you can watch this cutscene, or you can switch to a first-person view to see this moment in a new way.
Exploring Historic Fights in Dragon Ball Lore
Let’s be clear: I’ve only played a few Dragon Ball games, so this won’t be a full review comparing it to other games in the Budokai Tenkaichi series. But as a Dragon Ball Z fan from when I was younger, I have a lot of good things to say about the new game.
First, it’s really fun to fly around arenas and switch between your team members (we could only use three characters in the demo). After a required match between Goku and Vegeta, I picked my favorite normal guys Krillin, Yamcha, and Tien to take on villains like Frieza and Majin Buu to see if the humans could hold their own this time.
It was awesome to power up Krillin all the way and use his ultimate Destructo Disk attack. It made me feel like a kid again.
I did have some issues while playing. Like in past Budokai Tenkaichi games, it can be hard to get close to your opponents, and sometimes the computer would lose track of my character and start punching randomly (we only played solo in the demo and couldn’t play with friends).
Also, it was a bit confusing to tell the small differences between all 11 Gokus and 13 Vegetas (except for the huge Great Ape Vegeta, who’s his character).
The roster in Sparking Zero isn’t just about having different abilities. It’s more about letting players choose versions of Dragon Ball Z, GT, and Super characters from different times. For example, I picked the first Super Saiyan Goku to fight Frieza on the Destroyed Namek stage, recreating a moment I loved from watching the show as a kid.
Bandai Namco didn’t stop there. They let players create their battles in Custom Battles, which can be shared with others. You can change things like health, the stage, and what appears on the screen. This lets both the game developers and players make their fun scenarios. You can recreate classic anime battles or make up your own “What If” fights. You can even set special ways to win and make your movie-like scenes.
Sparking Zero has a lot for long-time Dragon Ball fans. But even if you’re new to anime, manga, and games, you’ll still have fun fighting with famous heroes in big battles.