The popularity of Dragon Ball around the world is not up for discussion. It is such a great product that it transcends decades and now that it is 40 years old it doesn’t sound bad at all to revive the Budokai Tenkaichi saga, which not only brought together dozens of players through various platforms, it also put an end to many controls and left injuries in the hands. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero That’s what we call fun in every game and every moment of play. It’s like telling Akira Toriyama: “Thank you for everything and that Enmasama has sent me to paradise”.
I had the chance to play an almost ready version of Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero on PC and I was able to realize the good, the bad and the ugly of what could also be called Budokai Tenkaichi 4. Because the game is far from being perfect or that wonder that will revolutionize the fighting game scene, it is rather a product with plenty of nostalgic value and a combat system that will surely entertain you for hours.
The first thing I learned from Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero It doesn’t try to be something it’s not, it just wants to leave a clear lesson that: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” You’ll see that the gameplay mechanics are faithful to all the other games in the series and even to other recent offerings based on the work of the legendary Akira Toriyama.
Yes, the next special is influenced by the tremendous love I have for the series I grew up with for a good part of the 90s, with which I learned a bit of katakana and much more…
What we know right now about Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero
Combat system
The Budokai Tenkaichi placed the characters of Dragon Ball in an exaggerated and enormous 3D scenario that they could destroy with their powers. The animations, the dramatic moments and so on made the experience feel like you were in an episode of the anime. Yes, the latter is a very exaggerated precept, but that was the perception that the game left you with after several games.
You have a button to generate a chain of blows, another to launch ki blasts, one more to defend yourself and another to activate the “Sparkin!” which we will talk about later. As in the other games based on Akira Toriyama’s most famous work, in Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero You can dodge attacks, dash forward at full speed and chain attacks. In other words, it’s not something you haven’t seen before… Rather, it’s a product you haven’t seen for a long time and on current platforms.
You charge your ki bar, which helps you perform special moves. The most basic ones can be a Taiyouken, some taunts to the enemy, and then there are more articulated moves like a Kame Hame Ha or maybe a combination of punches. These last two are executed as animations, so if they don’t land, you’re already down, unprotected and at the mercy of your opponent.
A very focused player would say “well they should cancel it”, but the conversation revolves around Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zerowhich doesn’t need it. The joke is that you get cornered by your mistake and get a “Flash Ending” nailed in your face. The cool thing is that with all 181 characters in the game, you’re going to find a variety of moves. For example, Babidi and Chaos, who seem useless, can paralyze the opponent and from there, you can start a sequence of hits. Also, the learning curve is not that complex, especially once you’ve mastered dodging moves and defending yourself.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is spectacular in every way
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero It seeks to be striking in each of its moments. It will not skimp on throwing fan service at you everywhere. This means that yes, you have many transformations, a relatively slow ki charge that will allow you to perform your Sparkin movement and then from there you will see one of those animations that will excite you a lot.
It’s easy to say that when a game is guilty of fan service, it falls into mediocrity, as it doesn’t contribute much to the discussion of gameplay. However, that talk is very pretentious and if you’re having fun launching frenetic attacks on your rival, it’s because the game is fully fulfilling its task. Now, it must be recognized that this is not a super game with a AAA budget.
Why? Well, the truth is that at least in what I was able to play, there were some rather bare-bones scenarios or some camera shots that are going to need some final fixes to make everyone happy. Also having 20 versions of Goku (I’m exaggerating) and with minimal differences makes the product fall into the ridiculous, however, you also have to admit that, well, that’s how it works and the formula is already more than proven.
In the end, I think that Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero comes to fill a void that was not completely filled Dragon Ball Fighterzwhich is very good, but it will soon be 7 years old and the truth is that it has already given everything it had to offer, apart from the fact that the online is already broken and the meta is still defined. This “Budokai Tenkaichi 4” will refresh the Goku fighting game scene and thus the community will be much happier.
You will also relive the old classic stories
Okay, the fights I was able to carry out in Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero They were very entertaining, especially when I set themes like “use only short people” or no aliens, only Earth inhabitants. You will be able to edit some details within each game and customize very specific things so that you do not feel that the experience is repetitive.
But beyond the challenges that await you, it is a fact that the game must have some kind of campaign and just as you will be able to relive the great moments that made Goku one of our favorite characters in life, you will also be able to follow the path of other great fighters, such as villains of the stature of the Great Freezer or Goku Black.
Let’s say you decide to play as Freezer, then you are placed on the Namek stage and you begin to fight against the Z Warriors one by one and so on until you reach the final stages with the Prince of the Saiyans. It’s a joke to endure all these fights and that gives a high challenge value to this experience. Whatever it is from each one, they put a lot of effort into this section and that should be applauded.
Returning to the topic of reliving Goku’s adventures, I came across a very peculiar detail: during the cinematics, you can have certain perspectives, such as, you can see everything from the third person or, failing that, see it from the eyes of the fallen character. This may be a bit dramatic, but it gives a different flavor to the game.
I want to carry it, but I think the ROG Ally won’t hold it.
This is dedicated to those consumers who already have their Steam Deck or a ROG Ally in any of its forms. The truth is that the game on PC looks very nice. The animations are very fluid and the experience fully meets its objective. According to Steam, they will ask you for a 2060 to play it at its recommended specs, which does not exactly translate into “ultra” perhaps high.
That brings me to portable PCs. I can smell that many will try to put it on the go, which doesn’t sound so far-fetched, but I can bet that there will be a lot of graphical sacrifices, the kind that hurt. I hope I’m wrong, but every time you play, you’ll see that your computer will want to do a kaiohken every time you put it on. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero.
On the other hand, I’m very curious if there will be support for ultra wide screen monitors, that would be great, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Well, beyond the fact that this title doesn’t have Spanish dubbing (which it doesn’t need) or that it’s stuck with Fan Service, I can come to a conclusion, and I still have to play it, that at the end of the day, the product is looking for you to have fun.
Remember that Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero The game is out October 10, 2024 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. If you pre-order the Deluxe or Ultimate edition, you’ll get early access 3 days early, plus plenty of extras. Are you going to get your hands on it on day 1? Don’t forget to follow the discussion through our channel Discord. Also don’t miss out on news about video games, anime and much more in the Google News from TierraGamer.
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