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I’ve never really been a fan of Dragon Ball. Nothing against Akira Toriyama, but his art didn’t really resonate with me. Every damn character looked so similar to each other! But I love the games…so when Bandai Namco invited us for a preview session at the Tokyo Game Show 2024, how could I say no? Especially when it’s a session for Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO.
There wasn’t much content for the game in the demo at the show, but it was more than enough to give an impression of the battles. The roster’s impressive too with various incarnations of Goku from all the different Dragon Ball series. There’s also outlier characters like Brolly, the Ozaru (Great Ape) version of Vegeta and even Lord Beerus to cover all the bases.
The game shares a lot of similarities with the Dragon Ball Xenoverse games, and even Dragon Ball Z Kakarot. Hell, even fans of Dragon Ball Z Budokai will feel right at home. Characters spend more time flying and dashing through the air than on terra firma. They fire ki blasts and massive super attacks that decimate the landscape.
They punch, dodge and counter faster than the eye can see.
It’s all reminiscent of past Dragon Ball games but much more polished and visually amped. This is honestly the prettiest Dragon Ball game I’ve ever seen. It even puts Dragon Ball FighterZ (and its beautiful character models) to shame.
Of particular note are the smoke and blast effects.
Getting hit with a super attack is devasting, complete with killer particle and lighting effects and roiling smoke. Environmental destructibility is even more impressive than in past games, with buildings and the landscape itself being blown to pieces. This is the closest yet that anybody has come to making a game that looks like an episode of the cartoon.
I fought 2 battles, once with Brolly and another with Ozaru Vegeta. Both of which play uniquely different.
Brolly (or Super Brolly), overwhelms with powerful punches and massive ki attacks. Vegeta (you can only fight Vegeta in the demo) was hammered relentlessly under the massive Saiyan’s withering blows. I never particularly liked Vegeta and I took great pleasure in smashing his mug all over the map with Brolly’s attacks.
Vegeta took the brunt of numerous specials, Ki attacks and of course, punches to the face that sent him flying off and smashing into the ground or buildings. It’s extremely cathartic let me tell you that. There’s nothing quite like smashing somebody into the buildings of a town and then repeating it all over again when he gets up to come at you.
By the end of the first brawl, impeccably dressed Vegeta was all bloodied and bruised, with clothes torn and ripped. A very excellent end.
For my second fight, it was Giant Ape Vegeta versus…well, Vegeta. There’s nobody else you can do up against in the demo. I mentioned that already!
So anyways, this time around it was Giant Ape Vegeta versus Vegeta. I thought I had the hang of the game since I played and kicked ass as Brolly in the previous fight. Nah, not even close.
For one thing, there’s the huge size difference between Giant Ape Vegeta and the diminutive (by comparison) Brolly. Giant Ape Vegeta is HUGE. He’s Godzilla-sized. Or perhaps King Kong-sized considering that both are apes. Yeah, whichever comparison floats your boat.
He’s huge! Really big! Ginormous!
Due to that, he’s slower than a damn turtle.
God, it takes ages for even a simple punch to get thrown. Meanwhile, the AI Vegeta was happily dashing about, chucking Ki blasts at me and coming in once in a while to do some melee combos. The camera pulling so back (so that you can see Giant Ape Vegeta on-screen at all times) makes it a bit hard to see where Vegeta was too.
I flailed about for quite a while before I got lucky (or the AI got stupid) and nailed Vegeta with a 3-hit combo from Giant Ape Vegeta’s hairy fists.
You know that gif of Antonio Banderas throwing a chef’s kiss to the air? That’s exactly how I felt when I connected. Holy crap it felt good! Giant Ape Vegeta’s mitts were already as big as Vegeta and having it hit him THRICE was pure bliss.
It didn’t kill Vegeta but it did knock him around a bit. I got lucky the next few times too and caught Vegeta napping or coming in too close. I smacked him like an unwanted step child before unleashing a huge ass Galick Gun to blow Vegeta to King Yenma to be judged.
So yeah…that’s my impression of how Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO was when I played it the Tokyo Game Show this year. Did I have fun? Yep! Did I know what the hell I was doing? Not really! Would I recommend it? Sure!
Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO comes out October 11 2024. We’ll be sure to have a review of it once it’s out, so stay tuned!
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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