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Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero

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Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
Developer(s)Spike Chunsoft
Publisher(s)Bandai Namco Entertainment
Director(s)Tairi Kikuchi
Producer(s)Hiroyuki Kaneko
Artist(s)Satoshi Tsurumi
SeriesDragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
Platform(s)
ReleaseOctober 11, 2024
Genre(s)Fighting
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero[1] is a fighting video game developed by Spike Chunsoft and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It was fourth main installment of the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi series and the first to be released under the 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 large commercial success for Bandai Namco.

Gameplay

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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] It includes characters, transformations, and elements from Dragon Ball Super and its film Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018), with future downloadable content (DLC) set to include characters from the film Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (2022) and the anime series Dragon Ball Daima (2024). Players can choose from any one of 100 characters at the beginning of the game, and had to unlock other characters using Zeni, an in-game currency earned through 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 shared 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 serves as the game's story mode. These episodes reintepretates the story of Dragon Ball, though players can make narrative decisions at various plot points, leading to different endings when compared with the canon.[6]

Development

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Sparking! Zero was developed by Spike Chunsoft, and it was the first game in the franchise since Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team for the PlayStation Portable in 2010.[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, 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.[7]

The game was revealed at The Game Awards 2023 by publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment.[8] 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.[9]

Reception

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Critical reception

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The game received "generally favourable reviews" from critics according to Metacritic.[10]

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.[11] 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".[15]

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.[14] 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".[12] 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.[13] Several critics remarked that the game's tutorial mode was not intuitive enough for players to truly understand the game's mechanics.[11][16]

Sales

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More than 3 million copies of the game were sold within the game's first day of release.[17] According to Bandai Namco, about 90% of the sales for the game came from North America and Europe.[18] It was the third best-selling video game in the UK, and the second best-selling video game in the US in October 2024.[19][20] 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.[20]

Awards and accolades

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The game was nominated for "Best Fighting Game" at The Game Awards 2024.[21]

References

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Notes
  1. ^ 181 plus "Goku (Mini)" from Dragon Ball Daima as a pre-order bonus character.
References
  1. ^ ドラゴンボール Sparking! ZERO, Doragon Bōru Supākingu! Zero
  2. ^ Bonthyus, Darryns (March 20, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Trailer Reveals How It's A "Genuine" Budokai Tenkaichi Sequel". GameSpot. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  3. ^ Vaz, Christian (November 15, 2024). "Dragon Ball Sparking Zero roster - all characters revealed". PCGamesN. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d Shea, Brian (September 19, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Aims For The Heavens With The Ultimate Dragon Ball Experience". GameSpot. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  5. ^ Saltzman, Mitchell (September 20, 2024). "Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero Producer Talks Encyclopedia Mode, What If Scenarios, and More". IGN. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  6. ^ Saltzman, Mitchell (September 20, 2024). "Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero - The Final Preview". IGN. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  7. ^ Lewis, Catherine (June 13, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is delightfully unbalanced and "definitely not an esports game," so the devs had to find a unique approach to ranked online". GamesRadar. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  8. ^ Mills, Steven (December 8, 2024). "The next DBZ game is Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero". Destructoid. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  9. ^ Blake, Vikki (June 8, 2024). "Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero will feature a day-one season pass when it releases in October". Eurogamer. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  10. ^ a b "Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  11. ^ a b c Parker, Lewis (October 11, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero review - arena fighters don't get much better than this". Eurogamer. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  12. ^ a b Walker, Ian (October 7, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero review: "The pinnacle of fanservice"". GamesRadar. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  13. ^ a b Fanelli, Jason (October 7, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Review - Final Flash In The Pan". GameSpot. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  14. ^ a b Green, Jarret (October 12, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero Review". IGN. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  15. ^ a b McCrae, Scott (October 8, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero review". PC Gamer. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  16. ^ a b Maker, Connor (October 7, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero review: as meaningful a send-up to the source material as one could hope for". VG 247. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  17. ^ Denzer, TJ (October 15, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero sold 3 million copies within one day after launch". Shacknews. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  18. ^ Wood, Austin (November 8, 2024). "Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero "saw outstanding sales," and Bandai Namco says roughly 90% of that was from European and North American fans". GamesRadar. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  19. ^ Dring, Christopher (November 12, 2024). "Dragon Ball and Undisputed deliver big sales in October, as Call of Duty claims No.1". Gameindustry.biz. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  20. ^ a b Valentine, Rebekah (November 22, 2024). "October 2024 Sales Charts: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Sparks Xbox Game Pass Subscription Surge". IGN. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  21. ^ Jackson, Destiny (18 November 2024). "The Game Award Nominations: 'Final Fantasy VII Rebirth' Slices Its Way To Victory With Seven Nominations". Deadline. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
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