DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO Review (PC)

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO’s release took the gaming world by storm, and continues to live up to its reputation. With three million copies sold within the first 24 hours, the action-adventure fighting game proves its immense popularity in full display. As the fourth instalment within the iconic Budokai Tenkaichi game series, it harbors the responsibility of continuing and building upon the legacy established by its predecessors. But the question remains whether it can successfully uphold and enhance that legacy, or if it falls short of expectations.

Story

Sparking Zero’s story mode seems to be very debatable on whether it’s good or not, especially amongst fans of the series that might have experienced arguably “better” story modes in other Dragon Ball games. While this comparison might prove unfair, I would say that the mode does not quite live up to its expectations… but at the same time, it provides a strange, new avenue to go down and explore. This all takes place within the game’s Episode Battle mode.

What I’m referencing would be the game’s What-If scenarios that constitute an adequate amount of the game’s story. Essentially, these allow for the player to explore routes that were previously non-existent to the original story’s canon; something that presents interesting room for undiscovered territory regarding long-time fans. Not only that, but it helps add to the bulk of the story mode’s replayability, as after you’re done doing the distinct What-If routes, you can still come back to the original story and play from there.

Granted, this isn’t the first time that Dragon Ball games have showcased this sort of story format. In fact, there exist many other types of What-If portrayals cleverly displayed within the franchise’s history of extensive games. The What-If choices are also usually pretty cut and dry, however… so don’t go expecting it to be on the level of Life Is Strange or Disco Elysium for that matter either. Nonetheless, the simplicity does not affect the experience to major detriment. Personally, my opinion on the What-Ifs was actually very good.

The developers did exactly as they were supposed to in allowing long-time fans of the franchise to view parts of these infinite possibilities, and develop a more personal connection to them within the fighting game’s formula. My only gripe with the What-If scenarios was that after finishing every single scenario I could have possibly went down, there was a clear mismatch between the length and detail put between each one. For instance, some were very well thought out and elaborate, spanning episodes within the game’s story map that was almost like doing an entire saga again.

On the other hand, some were very cut and dry, where you might initially become excited at the prospect of doing another when the “choice” UI pops up, only to be left disappointed when the choice finally plays out, and doesn’t go that far into detail, or changes the story that much at all.

In my eyes, the worst part was doing one of them where it appeared that the choice just looped back into the original story anyway… essentially making the player’s option of a “choice” towards an alternative path null and void. Thankfully, there were not that many of the aforementioned, so the story mode still gets a bare pass from me on its own, without comparing it to its predecessors.

Regardless of the state of the What-Ifs, the story itself is very extensive. Depending on your skill level and how quickly you plan to go through each episode, you might be in for quite the ride. There are two difficulty settings: default and lowered. Generally speaking, I was able to finish the full story somewhat leisurely (while partaking in portions of the other offline modes) at around the mark of 24 to 26 hours, all on default difficulty.

There are particular episodes that I can see being a much greater challenge towards newer players of the series on the default difficulty, most definitely. But luckily, the developers did leave the option to reduce said difficulty, and that should help to some degree with being able to complete certain episodes.

The only problem is that lowering the difficulty also makes it so that secondary clear conditions, i.e. What-if scenarios, cannot be unlocked. I can already see a slight problem with this approach in restricting lowered difficulty players solely to the regular story routes. But at the same time, I’m sure this was done intentionally to incentivize the challenge of the default difficulty to even the ordinary player, so that they might feel more accomplished in successfully clearing a difficult episode.

The eight main characters that you are allowed to explore the story with consist of: Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Future Trunks, Frieza, Goku Black, and Jiren. A few of these are unlocked by default for you to jump right in; others require beating those default ones first in order to gain the rest.

While you will be gaining new story arcs a fair amount of the time, the majority of these (given that a lot of the characters share connecting roles within story arcs) will repeat. For example, Goku and Vegeta, being two integral characters to the main plot, may oftentimes have roles within the same story arc due to their shared importance. The difference might instead focus on the perspective of these roles, where you get to play as either the hero or villain characters as the case may be.

Gameplay

By definition, Sparking Zero (not unlike its predecessors) was made to be an arena fighter that simulates matches as close as technically possible to its source material. That being said, the gameplay exhibited through the game’s numerous modes might very well be its saving grace for me. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, I would safely admit that running the game via mid-tier specs at 60 fps on High settings, I certainly did not experience any performance issues besides the very occasional, rare frame hiccup or slowdown. These small performance issues being so infrequent that just one of them through hours of consecutive playtime would be enough to catch me off-guard.

Before I even set foot in the game and watched pre-release gameplay through the lens of playtesters, my first thoughts were that it looked very “floaty”. It seemed a bit close to the Budokai Tenkaichi franchise with regards to the moves, but I wasn’t sure as to how the impact of those things would feel for myself without actually putting the controller in my hand, first. Rest assured, my worries were quickly stifled… because as a former Tenkaichi player, the game had honestly felt right at home under the configuration of its classic settings.

Now, it only felt a bit floaty, yet it was so easily something to get used to that I quickly forgot about it, and Sparking Zero’s gameplay soon became the new norm. Practically, I love everything about it. There’s not a single major flaw here that dissuades me from wanting to pick up the game and go again and again with grinding. This is especially with regards to the game’s online, which consists of both Ranked and Regular game modes, inclusive of a tournament mode. These all include settings that you can tweak to get your favored matches.

Be warned that if you don’t play the game online, you might just be setting yourself up for a gameplay loop of mainly offline tournaments, episode battles, and versus against the CPU. Not that the offline modes are bad, but I feel like they just do not incentivize play as much as the game’s online would, where you’re more exposed to many different styles of fighting and approaches from individual players like yourself.

Most of the major rewards you can get from any of the game’s modes, inclusive of the online mode, would be player XP towards your player level (maxed out at level 20) and Zeni (the game’s currency). The rewards for engaging specifically within the game’s offline mode can also be Dragon Balls, of which there are three sets of seven for Shenron, Porunga, and Super Shenron. These are the game’s three “eternal dragons” that grant wishes. Such wish options shared between the three typically include: gaining more Zeni, outfits, titles, and raising your player level amongst a few select others.

In summary, both the online and offline of this game have their own distinct and unique purposes. Yet, once the story and other offline modes are completed, you may have to find yourself resorting to the game’s online for renewed excitement. Mainly, this statement is meant to be with regards to the base game, as I am sure with time there will be DLC that adds to the offline experience again once more.

Touching upon other miscellaneous features, there are also: Shop / Customize, Custom Battle, Zen-Oh’s Orders and Whis’ Stamp Book (for missions and rewards), Replays, an entire Encyclopedia of the 182 total characters within the base game, and much more. What you can customize is largely but not limited to outfits, emotes, and even chosen background music when you enter “Sparking” mode (basically “MAX Power” from the older games).

For anyone truly new to the series, there’s also the standard addition of a Battle Training mode with a mostly new UI compared to the previous Tenkaichi games, but it’s not something anyone might have trouble utilizing whatsoever.

The design is simple, and it tells you exactly what to do under your individualized control scheme which allows you to clear the training objectives once you get it right. The only complaint I’ve heard so far from other players being that specific options are harder to find within their respective categories, but such might be subjective. I partially agree with this sentiment, but once you do find it, things shape up just fine.

The visuals are breathtakingly stunning, with each special move (known as a super, and its more powerful versions called ultimates) feeling riveting and like a true labor of love for every single one. Alongside that, without any exaggeration, there’s truly a plethora of easter eggs that even the least Dragon Ball fan might pick up on. These include unique dialogue exchanges, grabs, party interactions and more. You just have to look at a handful of these to know that a lot of care and dedication was put into this game by the developers.

Criticisms

Thankfully for Sparking Zero, a good bulk of these criticisms are not substantial to the main core features that the game represents. That is, they do not take away too much from the experience for the vast majority of cases, but can simply be considered as shortcomings with regards to how things could have been better.

After already highlighting some of the cons within the game’s story, there are a couple other miscellaneous issues that should surely be touched upon. These flaws are not necessarily deal-breakers, as the game over time is likely to go through periods of updates that help to potentially fix all of these matters that will be discussed. Nevertheless, this review is set to focus on the launch version of the game, so there still holds some necessity for these drawbacks needing to be addressed.

For starters, there’s a couple of issues with the control scheme that are made hard to ignore. I’ve found that one of these issues only pervades the online scene, while the other exists within both offline and online environments.

The first one is very likely to be fixed in the near future as it’s been reported through numerous player sources, and involves the classic control “Supers” being switched for standard controls, which blocks access to the “Super 1” depending on which player you are (P1 or P2). The bug is visibly non-existent when you’re set as Player 1, but given that the online mode fully randomizes what player you are set to, it becomes a 50/50 chance whether as a classic controls player you have access to the entirety of your kit or not.

With regards to fixes before long, the second one though… probably not so much. It’s solely another classic controls issue which involves the ground throw conflicting with forward momentum ki blasts, primarily because they share the same inputs. This deviates from the regular throw, and is a more uncommon fighting move that yet conflicts with the control scheme in a more direct manner. As a result, there’s very little of a workaround for this and as the problem is a bit more specific, it’s likely to go undetected for quite some time.

These two issues are bound to affect returning players more, who are very likely to be using classic controls due to that being the base configuration for the older Tenkaichi games.

The third issue is on a much larger scale of importance that should be addressed immediately within the upcoming patch. It involves the deletion of a player’s save data for the entire game (allegedly at random) that may only be affecting console players, but I wouldn’t take the risk with Steam either. On Steam there are cloud saves, but if you really feel the need to preserve your save even more, you can potentially make a backup copy of the game’s save file somewhere secure just in case.

Finally, the fourth is much lesser of an issue, and more of a personal gripe for me if anything. More music tracks can be purchased within the game’s shop via Zeni, which seems to be around 90k per song. The player is then allowed to use these tracks… but apparently in a much more limited fashion than you might have expected for some (but not all). 

If you bought your favorite music track, you can absolutely use it for things like your player cards (displayed for online) or the BGM upon entering “Sparking” mode through customization. But for whatever reason, certain music tracks cannot be played within battles themselves on stage selection… despite some of them already existing as background music for certain episodes within the story mode (in other words, clearly battle tested).

Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way after buying one of the tracks titled “Absolute Domination” that I remember playing in these episode battles, only to realize later on that the option to select it wasn’t there. To me, it makes no sense to have these expensive music tracks within a shop that are clearly compatible and could be used in battles to enhance the player experience, only to then limit their usage to set niches alone.

All of these problems shape up for a partially rough week one launch by all means, but again will not necessarily be detrimental to the overall future of the game within the patches to come.

Summary

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO is a thrilling, faithful instalment to the Tenkaichi series that does not deviate from the original formula of what made the past games so great. While the game is a guaranteed upgrade with gameplay, the story mode could be considered a bit lacking… but this is not harmful to the rest of what the game has to offer. With a base roster of 182 characters and plenty of stages (with some having added day/night customizations as well), there’s no shortage to the amount of fun you can have.

Despite initial concerns about “floaty” controls, Sparking Zero closely mirrors its source material and feels familiar to Tenkaichi veterans. The online mode stands out as a major draw, offering ranked and regular matches alongside tournament modes, while the offline modes, though extensive, may lose appeal after initial completion without additional DLC.

The game has a few notable flaws, such as control scheme issues, save file bugs, and limitations in music customization, but none detract significantly from the core experience. Overall, Sparking Zero lives up to its hype as a thrilling addition to the Dragon Ball franchise, with room for improvement through future updates and potential DLC.

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO is out now for PC, priced at $69.99 for Standard Edition. It is available for purchase on Steam. It is also available for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.