Summer Games Fest, has us feeling like kids again since we’re seeing and playing so many cool games all weekend. Nothing did moreso than going hands on with Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero at Bandai Namco. The Dragon Ball Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichi games are what I really grew up with as a kid and the games that ignited my love Dragon Ball in general. Playing the newest one this weekend, I must say that the game is just as good as I remember.
First thing first, the game is absolutely stunning to look at from the character models, to the stages, and then the attack animations are incredibly detailed. The game is probably the most anime looking game aside from Dragon Ball FighterZ pure anime aesthetic. Then there’s the gameplay as we were able to play as many rounds as we wanted against the CPU until time was up. The VS battle could be done 1v1 or up to 3v3 withwith the ability to switch between characters mid battle. In the full game, you’ll be able to do up to 5v5 battles. Characters could be pick in whatever forms they have from the character selection screen, and once you pick them, they can transform mid battle as long as your meter is full.
The gameplay is just as I remembered from the mid 2000s and I was flying around the 3D arena so quickly. Then, you can play the game with updated modern controls or play with the classic controls set up. Of course, I went for classic and I immediately picked everything back up. When the game launches, there will be online and local multiplayer. However, local multiplayer will be confined to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber arena, so I do hope they expand that as time goes on.
We also got to see some other new aspects of the game. First, we got to see the game’s story mode known as Episode Battles. In Goku’s, his story will cover the beginning of Dragon Ball Z through the end of the Dragon Ball Super anime. We saw the iconic Goku and Piccolo vs Raditz fight, and this moment introduced the What If? moments. The option here gave us the opportunity to have Piccolo join us or go it alone, however we stuck to the canon event. They did say that the What If? moments won’t just be tied to choices as other conditions could trigger them to happen such a winning a fight you weren’t meant to with a character. Speaking of, battles will have multiple win conditions such as winning or surviving for a certain amount of time. Then, we got to see a really cool moment. In the game, during specific cutscenes you can switch between the usual third person perspective or switch up to first person and see iconic moments through a new perspective.
That wasn’t all we got to see either. As they showed off the game’s Custom Battle mode. This mode allows you to create and share your own custom battle, and there’s so many options to set up for these battles. You can choose what characters are fighting, what interaction they have prefight, the title cards. Then, there are also unique conditions and events you can set up. All this means there is sure to be a vibrant and incredible custom battle scene once fans get their hands on this game.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is set to release this Fall on October 11th 2024.