Dragon Ball Sparking Zero: Hypes and Fears
The most anticipated anime video game for 2024 is Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero. It's a follow up to the highly acclaimed Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 from 2007 on the PS2 and Nintendo Wii. Just like its predecessors, it's an open arena fighting game where there's plenty of space for the characters to fly around, knock each other around, and fire their immense beams. While there has been a healthy amount of footage for the game, there are still a lot of relative unknowns and things to wonder about.
With various aspects to speculate on, there are both hopeful and concerning elements. As a believer in ending on a positive note and addressing the bad news first, let's explore some of my concerns about the game.
Concern #1: Possibly No Local Multiplayer
My biggest concern is the strong chance that this game will not have local multiplayer. In an interview with French content creator, LaunSSJ, one of the game’s producers mentioned that there will not be any local multiplayer. This decision is reportedly due to Sony and Microsoft believing that local multiplayer would hurt console sales. If this is true, it is very disappointing. Sparking Zero is a fighting game, and 99% of fighting games can be played with a person right next to you. Many Tenkaichi fans, myself included, have fond memories of playing together with friends. Additionally, games like Call of Duty still offer split-screen mode, so why wouldn’t Sparking Zero be allowed to have it as well? Do they not realize that people can still buy the game and look forward to playing with friends in person? My friends and I typically buy games we're interested in and still enjoy the typical “couch play”.
It's also possible that the developers couldn't get split-screen working correctly and just don't want to admit it, given that games have become much more advanced since the PS2/Wii days. Granted, I don't want to assume this is the case, as I believe the developers are trying their best and being transparent. The producer did mention that they are trying to find a solution for this, which is promising. However, this could just be PR talk for damage control. My suggestion would be to try what the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm and Demon Slayer games have done and see if there's a way to get both players on one screen.
Concern #2: Base Roster May Not Represent the Entire Series
Something that has sparked significant debate within the community since the game's announcement is the idea that characters from the original Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball GT, the non-canon movies (Cooler's Revenge, Fusion Reborn, Tree of Might, etc.), as well as the newest film, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, might be DLC and not part of the base roster. There are a few reasons for this concern. In the case of Super Hero, it is considered "too new," especially with the game supposedly being in development for five years and the movie only being a few years old. For the other cases, not a single character from any of these series has been confirmed for the game as of yet. However, a somewhat obscure character from Dragon Ball Super, Kakunsa, was recently revealed suggesting that the roster may focus on Dragon Ball Z and Super...
Cooler (Frieza’s Brother)
There are also a few reasons to remain hopeful for these characters. First of all, in the initial teaser for the game, footage from the old Tenkaichi games is shown. At one-point, Super Saiyan 4 Goku from GT is shown performing the 10x Kamehameha on Baby Vegeta (possibly). Why include these two characters in the teaser if they won't be in the game at launch? There were many other characters from Dragon Ball Z that could have been shown instead.
Additionally, the previously mentioned interview did state that "Characters from GT may be included, possibly in the base game or base roster," as well as "Characters from Dragon Ball movies will be included, possibly up to Gohan Beast." This is reassuring but also feels somewhat vague. We can only wait and see, but as someone who loves the characters from the movies and GT, it is frustrating, especially considering these characters have been in the Tenkaichi series since the beginning. Frieza is a great villain, but his non-canon brother will always be... Cooler, in my heart.
Concern #3 - Single Player Content
This is not specifically aimed at the Tenkaichi series or its creators; it’s that fighting games in general tend to be light on single-player content. Typically, the "new standard" is a cinematic story mode with great cutscenes but little reason to replay it, and then the game mainly expects you to fight other players online. Fighting games, currently, are generally geared more toward the competitive crowd, aiming for sponsors and prize pools for e-sports. While I'm certainly not against making the game deep and competitive with good online features, it's frustrating that this often comes at the expense of a great single-player experience.
The previous Tenkaichi games always had a bunch of characters, abilities, skills, and stages to unlock, often through multiple modes. It would be such a shame to see Tenkaichi follow the path of many other fighters. Even Tenkaichi's successors from the PS3/360 days, Raging Blast 1 and 2, still had at least decent single-player content. There has been little said about single-player modes for the new game, other than the same interview mentioning that "a complete story mode will be present, following and evolving from Tenkaichi 3." Given the trend, there is concern that the game could include microtransactions as the only way to unlock skins. For example, Tekken 8, another Bandai Namco fighting game, has started including those. However, at the time of writing, there is thankfully no evidence of microtransactions being a factor in this game.
Now that some of my concerns are out of the way, it's time to power up to the more positive aspects that Sparking Zero has put on display. While I will only list three, there are many other aspects I'm loving about the game so far. If I were to list them all, this article might be longer than the entire Majin Buu saga. Let’s continue why I’m excited about the game.
Hype #1: Graphics/Aesthetics
While I don't think graphics make a game, they certainly help. Sparking Zero is perhaps the best-looking Dragon Ball game ever, or at least on par with Dragon Ball FighterZ, which is seen as the "Golden Frieza standard" for Dragon Ball game graphics. This is especially invigorating because the developer, Spike Chunsoft, hasn't had the strongest hits lately, especially in the graphics or art style department, with games such as Jump Force. It seems like Spike is trying to bring their A-game, and they've been slowly improving the graphics since the first gameplay reveal at The 2023 Game Awards.
Dragonball FighterZ
The animations, effects, and environments look very accurate to the source material and in some cases, I would say the game may look better than the source material. For instance, I love how the new version of Broly spreads his green energy beam from his mouth, creating a large wall of green energy and smoke. Sparking Zero's graphics seem like a natural evolution of the first Dragon Ball: Raging Blast's graphics, which was probably the last time I've heard praise for the look of a Spike Chunsoft anime game. While I didn't mind Raging Blast 2 or Ultimate Tenkaichi's graphics, this does feel closer to the look of the anime.
Hype #2: Large Roster
Generally, in modern fighting games, the amount of characters in the base roster, tend to stay the same or decrease, with every preceding game, most likely due to how much more difficult it is to develop them in video games. It is refreshing to see in this day and age, a fighting game sequel that not only keeps the same size of characters, but actually surpasses the roster of the last game. Tenkaichi 3 had 161 characters, so Sparking Zero surpasses it by a bit. Even if the worst-case scenario happens, and there is no Dragon Ball, DBGT, or Super Hero characters present, there's still a plethora of characters to choose from. For me, I'm still looking forward to playing as Broly (Dragon Ball Super), Hit, Future Gohan, and Android 17.
With Sparking Zero, every transformation is its own character, as well as similar looking versions of characters from different parts of the series. For instance, Goku and Vegeta are separated into Early (Or “Scouter” for Vegeta), Mid, End, and Super. The Tenkaichi games did this, however they didn't really start separating them until the second or third game prior to Dragon Ball Super. I much would've preferred if they followed Raging Blast's format where it was less versions, but that’s my opinion. Something that reassures me is that Spike is putting more effort into giving these variations more unique special moves, such as Vegeta’s (who had very generic special moves in Tenkaichi 3) technique that he used to kill Pui Pui in the Majin Buu Saga.
Hype #3: Returning Mechanics
Typically, when a sequel takes a long time to develop (especially over a decade), the developers tend to reinvent the wheel. They feel that since the game has been out of players' minds for so long, they need to add new mechanics to appeal to new players. Sometimes this can be a great way to evolve the series and keep it from becoming stagnant. However, other times the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" would have been a better mindset to have.
With Sparking Zero, Spike seems to be sticking to Tenkaichi's roots and bringing the old feel back with a new coat of paint. The combo strings appear similar to Tenkaichi, with the stun hits and close-range beam blasts. Beam clashes (where two energy attacks fired at the same time clash) seem to make a return, hopefully adjusted to not break controllers. It's also great to see some good ideas from Raging Blast making a return was well, such as the deflection ability. Thankfully, it can't be spammed, as the player needs a certain amount of blast stock (which seems to replace the stock gauge) to pull it off.
One mechanic that's buzzing about is the Sonic Sway. This was shown by Gohan dodging Videl's attacks in the “Master and Apprentice Trailer”. The Sonic Sway was a mechanic only in Tenkaichi 3, where the character would auto dodge hits from the opponent and then knock them away. Personally, I was never the best at performing this due to the timing of the button inputs, but I'm happy to see it return, and that fuzzy blur effect added to it is a great touch. Finally, it's also fantastic to see that 5 vs. 5 team battles are returning, where each player picks 5 characters that you can switch between. This was the main setting me and my friends would play in Tenkaichi 2 and 3.
Final Thoughts
For now, I would say the excitement outweighs the worries, but that can easily shift as more news comes out. Once a release date is revealed, it will help give us an idea of how much more the game can be tweaked. Spike Chunsoft seems to be looking for feedback, and even though this could just be PR talk, I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Dragon Ball games have been mostly on the upswing ever since Dragon Ball Xenoverse, so even if this isn't the best Dragon Ball game ever, my scouter tells me fans will get some fun out of it. Regardless of the quality of characters chosen for the roster, they may have already surpassed the old games at least in terms of quantity.
