What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, Spike Chunsoft and Bandai Namco? You can’t just go into a fighting genre, change up how they work, and then go about your normal business. You can’t. Yet, you did.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero changed two things upon its release. First, it changes expectations of how anime games look, feel, and work. As my oldest (age 22) put it, “This might be the first great anime game since I’ve been alive”. And it might be. It respects the material, puts in the passion, and throws its player into the scrum of the Dragon Ball Z world.
The second change is that it has changed how one looks at the fighting genre. While past titles of the series have contained a 3D world look and feel, this game seriously puts that to the test with bigger open environments that don’t limit the amount of space and destruction the fight can accomplish. The destruction especially is what makes this entire experience so intense and fun. From enemy destruction to punching someone through a damn mountain and then down to the bottom of an ocean, there’s so much going on in the 3D world delivered that it creates a constant and fun active fighting adventure.
So, sit back, collect some dragon balls, and prepare to fight me on this review.
A 3D world full of fighters
You all know the story of these characters, so I won’t insult you by trying to recount Goku, Saiyans, and how the weak only exist on the outer rims of the universe. It would be insulting to you coming from a noob like me. My DBZ knowledge is limited at best. So, I won’t try to explain. Butttttttttttt I will say that it’s accurate, over-the-top, and passionate. Lots of screaming and revenge-seeking characters that kick each other’s ass. There are details in between but you can fill those in.
Now, let’s get to the real dessert for this dish of a game.
The concept of Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero puts players in a 3D world to fight each other and to follow episodes of the story, which are so much fun. The latter especially brings a fair amount of drama that ignites how fighting goes and puts a wonderfully false sense of urgency and motivation to take down bad guys. Or aliens. Or frogs. I’m not sure what they are but, damn, they’re fun to fight in a 3D world.
What is remarkable about the gameplay is how easy it is to control characters during a fight and seek out enemies quickly. The first episode fight I was thrown into had me going up against a Saiyan and one I took to task by punching the hell out of them across land, sea, and air. It was intense fighting that gave me a quick fix of high sensation value and had me wanting to deliver more brutality to my opponent.
Smashing your opponent through a cliffside, then taking them down to the bottom of a sea, only to launch them up into the air is something to behold. I didn’t expect the amount of space to move around in to work so well within a fighting environment. In the fighting genre, there’s typically a limitation of space because it wants to contain you and quickly get you back to the fight. Kind of like that scene in Lionheart where JVC is stuck in a small tent forced to fight and having no escape. Hmm. Attila looks familiar. Oh, well, back to the review.
The 3D environment works well with this game’s backbone. The world of Dragon Ball deserves a large space to destroy everything in sight and to be as anime as anime gets. In past games of this series, the 3D environments were typically bland, and the fighting was central. Now, the 3D space comes to life and adds flavor to the fight by how destructible it is and how much fun that seems to be once you get going in knocking the hell out of another character. Spike Chunsoft made all of this such an experience and the way they treated the 3D environments and space was nothing short of beautiful.
All said and done, the gameplay in Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a nice way to get people in the mood to fight. All of this is done by a pure XY axis stare with quite the amount of freedom to move and go wherever it is safe during a fight. Getting into the world and moving in the game was a lot easier than I expected it to be. I thought that total freedom to move around the world might be too big of a space to fight in, but it was surprisingly easy. I didn’t mention this prior in the review, but I never played any of the past games in the series, so the 3D world was a new experience for me, and one I hope to revisit in the future.
Getting back to movement, the controls were simplified to match the environment, as you moved to and from with your character in the 3D world by moving the left thumbstick quickly, then charging up a move with R2/L2 and executing it on your opponent while completely focusing on them. In a way, Spike Chunsoft did keep that XY axis intact, but it is only locked in when you want it to be. And you want that to be locked until you must move and dodge enemies. For example, playing as Goku, I went up against the giant ape version of Vegeta, I had to find ways to stick and move against the monkey man. The only way to win was to make sure I could constantly and consistently dodge his attack, mainly by getting behind him when he performs a move, and then going in for a combination. The only way to dodge him was to break from that XY axis and have fun in Z. It’s truly a 3D environment and it works as much as you want it to work. It felt like I was in a damn anime.
Anyway, there are just so many ways and combinations to approach a fight in an open environment that gives the player total freedom of movement. Moving around enemies, avoiding attacks, and retreating for a quick charge is not something a fighting game typically does in a big space. For the most part, a fighting game will just give you enough room for a small breather. Not give you enough room to breathe, strategize, and then execute on your whim.
In the end, I was just impressed with how well the 3D fighting environment worked and how I could control my fighting character within it. Other companies have tried creating fighting environments like this but have always failed. Capcom tried it once with Street Fighter back in the 90s and it failed (they went back to XY soon after). Sega tried it with Virtua Fighter but had to forever stick that fighting experience on an XY axis, even though you could roll around as if it were 3D freedom (it wasn’t). Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero does such a good job of creating a truly accessible and usable 3D fighting world while making sure the player doesn’t feel constrained or locked down to a particular axis. It’s going to be tough to go back to a 2D fighting game after this one. Hell, it will be tough to go back to an anime game after this much goodness.
Now, to get you in the mood for this 3D fighting experience, the game includes many characters from the series, and these just aren’t the same model of fighters with new skins. Nope, these are honest-to-God fighters that are built differently and some that could be overpowered against others.
In the fighting genre, there have been imbalanced characters that balance out typically when going up against others. I think the genius of fighting games is how well developers can figure out ways for players to be skilled enough to find that balance. Street Fighter is a prime example of this, as Capcom has always found a way to make sure all characters are different but also can take down more powerful beings when moved and acted right.
Spike Chunsoft doesn’t seem interested in that at all. Maybe that is a fault, but it seems like the developers were more concerned with staying true to the story and characters rather than watering things down so that everyone has a chance to win. I can respect the hell out of that sentiment, as it is a live by the sword and/die by it sort of situation.
Yes, that might turn some folks off from this game, and there have been grumblings of that in the community, but it’s entertaining to see a weaker character take down a more powerful one. Nowadays in gaming, having an impossible challenge only motivates the gaming community to see it get done. It’s why people love the Dark Souls series so much and why Elden Ring is such a success. People like overcoming impossible challenges.
Having so many different characters at your disposal, fighting in a well-made 3D environment that gives you nearly all the freedom you can handle, and going up against odds and challenges that don’t work in your favor seem to be the driving entertainment factors for this title. And it is all very entertaining.
Modes and customizable
Beyond all the above jazz, the game gives you a few modes to tinker with to mix things up. The first is fighting within episodes of DBZ. This means following a storyline and introducing the main and side characters as you progress through it.
You’ll get to meet Saiyans, aliens, and other powerful beings that are familiar to DB fans. You’ll get to acquire them through the progression of the episodes, and at the very least prepare yourself for an online battle with other players in regular and ranked matches. The more you complete the episodes and accomplishments, the more you unlock, and the more you earn coins and XP. The former of the last part there is used to acquire other characters to play as, while the XP is used to build up characters.
In addition to episodes, online, and offline modes, there are also tournaments you can compete in. These tournaments range in difficulty and include offline/online modes. You don’t have to get your ass kicked by an actual person. You can get your ass kicked in a tournament by the CPU.
As you become successful through the above modes and tournaments, you can collect coins (as mentioned above). All of those coins you collect as you progress through fights, and challenges you meet during that progression, equals coins you can use to buy costumes and characters. While this isn’t going to be the most customizable game you’ve met in the gaming world, it’s still nice to have a bit of your personality with your characters.
I can dig that type of customization.
Aside from the usual customization, you can also stack your characters with abilities that you purchase or acquire. The abilities can be added to specific characters in the customization portion of the game. It’s a neat way to buff out characters. You can add boosts or specific training to characters and power them up for fights. The number of customizations is high, which means the player gets a lot of control and say-so over how a character is built and how it functions. Could it be a bit cheap for some players? Yeah, but as stated previously, to be the champ you must beat the champ. Sometimes that means going up against someone who is stacked and trying to find a way around them. There are no second-place trophies in this game but once you earn first place, you’ll have the right to pat yourself on the back with whatever character you built to get there. And that all depends on your strategy with abilities you apply to characters.
Anyway, depending on how you feel about modes, customization, and success through hard work, there could be enough content here for you. For me, I’m sure there will be a wall I hit when it comes to content but as it stands there is plenty to fight for and do in the game. Online modes don’t impress me like good offline content, and Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero has plenty of both types right out of the gate.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero from developer Spike Chunsoft and publisher Bandai Namco is a wonderful fighting experience. It has all the bells and whistles, including a massive number of characters from the series and different ways you can customize and shape them. The imbalanced fighting might be tough for some players to overcome to enjoy the experience.