Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
Cover art featuring (L-R): Jiren, Broly, Frieza (top), Vegeta, Goku, and Trunks (bottom)
Developer(s)	Spike Chunsoft
Publisher(s)	Bandai Namco Entertainment
Director(s)	Tairi Kikuchi
Producer(s)	Hiroyuki Kaneko
Artist(s)	Satoshi Tsurumi
Series	Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X/S
Release	October 11, 2024
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero^[1] is a 2024 fighting game developed by Spike Chunsoft and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Based on the Dragon Ball franchise created by Akira Toriyama, it is the fourth main installment in the Budokai Tenkaichi series, a sequel to Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (2007), and the first to be released under the original Sparking! title outside of Japan.

Sparking! Zero was released for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows on October 11, 2024. It received generally positive reviews from critics and became a massive commercial success for Bandai Namco.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a 3D team fighting game in which players can form a team of five characters and pit them against another team. The game introduces several new combat systems such as Skill Count, Revenge Counter, and Vanishing Assaults, while retaining the counter and the dash system from previous games.^[2] It features both new and returning playable characters, forms, and stages, with the stages containing destructible elements, for a total of 182 playable characters.^[a][3] Players can choose from any one of 100 characters at the beginning of the game, and have to unlock other characters using Zeni, an in-game currency earned by playing the game.^[4] The game also has 12 stages at launch.^[5]

The game introduces a new mode named "Custom", allowing players to create their own Dragon Ball fight scenarios and share them online with other players. Custom mode is further divided into a simple and a normal mode, allowing players to customize their stages with a variety of tools.^[4] The game also includes "Episode Battles", which serve as the game's story mode, following the perspective of eight playable characters: Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Gohan, Future Trunks, Frieza, Goku Black, and Jiren. These episodes portray the story of Dragon Ball Z (1989–1996) and Dragon Ball Super (2015–2018), although players can make narrative decisions at various plot points, leading to differing endings from the original.^[6]

In this single-player mode, players can control eight different characters. In each stage, there will be an introduction before going straight into battle. These battles come straight from Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super. The amount of cutscenes varies between characters, and some cutscenes are in first-person to provide a more immersive experience. Choices can be made in certain stages that differ from the original story, allowing players to change the outcome of the story.

Characters playable in Episode Battle:^[7]

• Goku
• Vegeta
• Gohan
• Piccolo
• Future Trunks
• Frieza
• Goku Black
• Jiren

Additional playable characters available temporarily in certain levels:

• Krillin
• Tien
• Android 16
• Android 17
• Android 18
• Vegito
• Cooler
• King Cold
• Zarbon
• Dodoria
• Zamasu
• Fused Zamasu

Challenge players online across various tournament modes and victory conditions to become a champion.

Local split-screen multiplayer is available to play with friends, exclusively in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. After a patch update, it is now available for all stages.

Sparking! Zero was developed by Spike Chunsoft, and it was the first game in the Budokai Tenkaichi series since Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team (2010) for the PlayStation Portable.^[4] The team described having a large roster of characters for the game was "challenging" since they cannot reuse any assets from the older games.^[4] Sparking! Zero, unlike Dragon Ball FighterZ (2018), was not envisioned as an eSports game. Some characters, if they are weaker in the Dragon Ball canon, will remain weak in the game. To keep the game balanced, the team introduced the "cost" system. Each player only has a predetermined cost in each round, and stronger characters will cost much higher than the weaker characters.^[8]

The game was revealed at The Game Awards 2023 by publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment.^[9] It was released on November 10, 2024, for Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S. A season pass will also be available, giving players access to three downloadable content packs that is expected to introduce more than 20 new characters.^[10]

The game received "generally favourable reviews" from critics according to Metacritic.^[11]

Lewis Parker from Eurogamer described it as a "polished" and "rich" experience. While commenting that players did not need to be a fan of the series to enjoy it, it was "everything Dragon Ball fans will have wanted". He praised the extensive amount of fan service present in the game, singling out the Episode Battles and their branching player paths.^[12] Scott McCrae from PC Gamer described it as one of the best Dragon Ball games ever released, and wrote that the game was "mechanically complex". Concluding his review, he praised the game for successfully capturing "the magic of the original Tenkaichi games", and felt that its approach to storytelling and its diverse roster of characters "serve as the ultimate celebration of Akira Toriyama's classic".^[16]

Jarrett Green from IGN criticized the game's menu for being cumbersome. While he appreciated the team for introducing branching paths to the story, he felt that battles in the story can become frustrating, as players need to perform very specific feats during combat in order to reach a new story path.^[15] Ian Walker from GamesRadar called the game the "ultimate toybox" and praised the customization options offered in the Custom mode, adding that it will likely provide "hours upon hours of creative fulfillment after finishing everything else the game has to offer". However, he was disappointed by the game's enemy artificial intelligence for encouraging repetitive combat tactics, and remarked that the game lacked "the depth of its more serious competition to the point of becoming rote".^[13] Jason Fanelli from GameSpot praised the game's visuals for being "visually stunning" and wrote that it did a "serviceable job instant-transmissioning the Budokai Tenkaichi format into the modern age", though he was disappointed by the limited mode variety, the repetitive combat system, and characters sharing the same control scheme.^[14] Several critics remarked that the game's tutorial mode was not intuitive enough for players to truly understand the game's mechanics.^[12][17]

More than 3 million copies of the game were sold within the game's first day of release.^[18] According to Bandai Namco, about 90% of the sales for the game came from North America and Europe.^[19] It was the third best-selling video game in the UK, and the second best-selling video game in the US in October 2024.^[20][21] It went on to become the best-selling Dragon Ball game in the US, and the third best-selling Bandai Namco game, trailing only behind Dark Souls III and Elden Ring.^[21]

The game was nominated for "Best Fighting Game" at The Game Awards 2024, but lost to Tekken 8.^[22]

Notes

References

• Official website