Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero

Those willing to spend two long and frustrating hours sculpting their muscle memory and honing their reflexes will experience a click. Suddenly, you “got" it. Like Neo in the Matrix against Agent Smith or Goku transforming into Super Saiyan for the first time. What follows is a tsunami of serotonin that makes my inner teenager foam at the mouth. In the skin of Goku catapulting vicious Frieza hundreds of feet away after a barrage of attacks. Then to treat him to a kamehameha on his icy face? I dreamed of it as a 14-year-old and this game is my dream in game form. A lot of love for Dragon ball has been put into it. Too bad the barrier to experience it is so high.

A vibrant, flashy and overdue return to one of Dragon Ball’s best game series. But it’s not quite fresh enough to keep me coming back for more.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a final flash from the past, sometimes to a fault, as demonstrated by its archaic menus and remedial training tools. Its Episode Battles have the kind of reaction-heavy difficulty that doesn’t really exist in most games these days, more than once crossing the line between challenging and frustrating. But the feeling of traveling back to a simpler time when games didn’t have to be balanced or competitive to be fun is a good one, especially when that action stays so true to that of the show it’s recreating. Reliving a story that was foundational to my youth, looking and sounding as great as I remember it, with the opportunity to alter it in sometimes dramatic new ways is clever, and the addition of tools to attempt to create our own stories could elevate the experiment even further if a community can figure out how to make the most of them.

In its approach to campaign integration, Sparking! Zero is much weaker. While it presents strong ideas in having branching story pathways, the narrative’s varying quality and beige storytelling is a letdown. The flash and style of individual battles may be enough to dazzle you, but those looking for anything deeper will need to dive further back into Dragon Ball‘s video game past to find it.

Ultimately, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero feels like a game made for the fans, above all. It oozes fan service, and the amount of content and characters proves that the developer wants to satisfy the needs of as many people as possible. It's because of this that the playability comes across as a bit of an imprecise slap in the face, as this otherwise competent action game sometimes struggles in practice.

Extremely extensive fanservice, but disappointing fights in the long run.

Caught in a struggle between being a definitive casual game while also being a hardcore competitive experience, Sparking! Zero makes the best of its numerous limitations. The core game is fun enough, it looks great, and it contains an impressive collection of Dragon Ball fan service. Sparking! Zero pushes limits in all of the ways a Dragon Ball game should. Unfortunately, various limitations push back just as much, resulting in a game that still has plenty of training to do in order to reach its full potential.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero delivers thrilling fights, but its disjointed story mode doesn't hold up its end of the bargain.

There's fun to be had in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, but ultimately this return to form does not spark as much joy as we'd hoped.

Intentionally prioritising flashy fanservice over competitive play, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero provides the most complete series toybox yet. But, with simple enemy AI and repetitive fighting mechanics, it lacks the depth of its more serious competition to the point of becoming rote.