Dragon Ball Sparking Zero: hands-on report

The world-famous Dragon Ball saga is no stranger to game adaptations, but there’s one Dragon Ball game series in particular that fans have held in high regard: The Budokai Tenkaichi series. The original Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi debuted on the PlayStation 2 back in 2005, followed by two sequels in 2006 and 2007 and a PSP installment in 2010.

Now, after years of fans waxing nostalgic over their love of those classic titles, Bandai Namco Entertainment and developer Spike-Chunsoft are bringing back the much-beloved 3D arena-fighting gameplay of Budokai Tenkaichi in Dragon Ball Sparking Zero – launching on PS5 October 11. We got our hands on a pre-release version of the game, and we’re here to tell you all about the awesome fighting that awaits.

A universe-rocking roster

Dragon Ball is a sprawling saga filled with a menagerie of memorable characters, and one of the first things you’ll notice about Sparking Zero is how huge the selection is. Besides familiar faces from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, you’ll be able to control numerous characters from Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super–and, if you preorder, you’ll have access to Goku (Mini) from the much-anticipated new Dragon Ball DAIMA series. Several characters have variations and transformations that reflect their growth over the series’ timeline, and these can be dramatically different from each other. Taking into account all of the characters, variations, fusions, and transformations, Sparking Zero’s starting roster is a whopping 181 playable characters.

But don’t feel intimidated by the amount of choices you have: many of the base controls are shared between characters, so you should be able to pick up a new character quite easily. You can also equip various capsule items acquired in the in-game shop to bolster your characters’ base abilities if you want to give yourself a bit of a boost, along with cosmetic items to up your aesthetic power level.

There’s a lot to do in Sparking Zero, but perhaps the best place to start is the Episode Battle, which has you playing through some of the series’ most important sagas through the eyes of its most prominent heroes–or villains. We tried out a few characters in this mode: Goku’s story and combat were a fairly simple introduction to the game’s mechanics, while characters like Frieza and Goku Black faced significantly more challenging one-against-many fights from early on. Depending on how fights go and the narrative choices you make, you might see the well-loved stories take some unexpected new directions.

If you’d prefer to get straight into battle, Tournament Mode is also open from the get-go. Here you can play recreations of famous events like the Cell Games and the Tournament of Power. You can even set up your own rules and fantasy bracket if you’d like.

We fight like Saiyans

When you leap into a battle, you’ll be using 3D space to move in every direction to get the advantage over your foe as you dash, fly, attack, fire energy blasts, charge your ki, and react to your opponent’s actions. It feels incredible to utilize your combat techniques and the environment skillfully to get the upper hand over a dangerous foe.

The Skill Count gauge charges up over the course of battle (indicated by a blue elliptical bar separate from your life and ki meters), and a large number shows your stock of charged skill bars. Certain combat abilities, like the new attack-absorbing Revenge Counter and transformations, require skill stocks, as well as bespoke abilities unique to each character, like Goku’s famous Kaioken, that give effects like stat buffs and movement boosts. 

The visuals add tremendously to the experience, as well: as battles progress and heavy blows are exchanged, you’ll see certain characters become scuffed up and dirty, with torn and tattered clothes indicating just how fierce the fighting has become. Environments transform in realtime from the effects of energy surges and super-powered blows. When characters use skills and special attacks, you’ll see close-ups and visual flourishes that call upon some of the series’ most memorable and iconic images.

Wishing dream battles into reality

The new Custom Battle mode lets you craft your own stories and battle scenarios. Select the player and enemy characters, add in some special settings (like setting lower health or turning transformations off). You can customize more than just the gameplay, too: the music, the intro and ending cinematics — you can even add some mid-battle twists for a dramatic flourish if you want. If you need some inspiration, there are plenty of pre-made Bonus Battles designed by the developers to give you some ideas. Once you’ve made your epic encounter, you can upload it and share it with other Dragon Ball fans across the globe.

As you create your battles and set up your dream matches, you’ll see firsthand just how many cool inter-character dialogue elements and interactions Sparking! Zero features. With such a huge roster, you’ll be able to have fights and team-ups between characters who would have never met in canon–and you might be surprised at some of their conversations!

We asked the game’s director, Jun Furutani, about these fun dialogue bits. “It’s really interesting to see the special interactions between two characters with similar backgrounds who would have never met in canon,” he says. “But there are surprises, too–take the villains Baby and Zamasu. Baby’s goal is to control life, while Zamasu’s is destroying all living things. Those two ideas can’t coexist, so when you bring them together, you’ll see a very cool interaction. We want players to try out all sorts of combinations and see what they find.”

Thankfully, you won’t have to wait much longer to see your most wished-for bouts come alive. Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero will debut on October 11, with Deluxe Edition and Ultimate Edition owners able to play three days earlier.