Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero review

I’ll be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the game not having a long set of moves like Tekken or Street Fighter, but after playing for a few hours, I realised that it’s actually better to not have a spreadsheet’s worth of moveset for 182 characters. Sparking Zero plays on the fantasy of ‘looking’ like a Dragon Ball Z game rather than mimicking other fighting games. You’ll mostly be mashing square and triangle to land hits while teleporting behind the enemy to dodge attacks and blocking perfectly to counter. It gets increasingly intense as you manage your Ki metre and make sure your power abilities land. Characters also do different things depending on your distance from the opponent. The X button will work as a dodge button, cartwheeling Goku into the periphery of the opponent to land hits even if they are holding down the block button, but if you’re at a short distance, then X will quick dash you closer to the enemy, and if you’re far away, then you can either move towards the enemy or dash around the arena into an advantageous spot.

Sparking Zero is a fighting game where timing is everything. If you get the timing of the block button right, you can punish anyone who's just mashing buttons. Holding down the O button makes you dodge all physical attacks like you're Ultra Instinct Goku. Tap the R1 button at the right time, and you'll teleport behind the enemy. Using your Ki to execute abilities triggers a cool little animation of your character before they unleash their move. When everything comes together in Sparking Zero, every fight feels like a well-choreographed scene from an anime. It's like you're transported back to the early 2000s, when watching your favourite blonde character scream for five minutes straight was the ultimate hype.

Sparking Zero has a cool cast of characters and a story mode that lets you follow their journeys from beginning to end. It's like the classic DBZ experience, but with some fun twists and turns. If you complete a mission in a certain way, you might end up on a different path, facing new enemies and unlocking new power-ups. We won't give away any spoilers, but Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has some really awesome moments in story mode. Make sure you play through all of them!

I sorely miss the loading animation from the Budokai games where you could button mash to feed Goku copious amounts of food till the game loads. But modern-day games don’t need a loading screen, and this game is very well optimised for it. However, the menu is very clunky. Goku flies from one place to another when you switch between sections in the menu. However, Sparking Zero has increased the animation speed since the launch. The sluggish animation felt delayed and unnecessary. However, I, somehow, understand the sentiment behind it. Back in the day, the 12-year-old me would have not complained as much but now can you blame a generation of folks who have an attention span of 3 seconds (thanks to social media) to sit through an unnecessary animation while moving inside the menu?

That said, the in-game animations are done with such care and love for the franchise that it’s hard to put down the game after playing it for hours. In earlier games where only main Ki abilities collided to create a button-mashing quick time event, Sparking Zero brings a quick time button-mashing bonanza! So if you Rush charge an enemy at the same time as them or both of you press grapple throw together, it will trigger a QTE.

Graphics and animation are smooth and feel like you’re watching something from the anime. The game ran without any hiccups on our Nvidia 4080 Super test bench, and on a handheld like the Lenovo Legion Go, it chugs through the battery, but we never got a steady frame rate here. It would move from 35 FPS to 45 FPS and to 60 FPS between action and non-action scenes on the Legion Go. On our desktop Nvidia 4080 Super, the game is as smooth as Goku’s Super Saiyan hair pomade.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a nostalgic love letter to fans of the franchise, capturing the look and feel of the anime with its impressive graphics and animations. Its fast-paced, accessible combat, while not overly complex for newcomers, has plenty of nuance for the battle-hardened Saiyans. It offers a satisfying challenge that centres on timing. Although the menu navigation could be smoother, the overall experience is a thrilling ride that will keep you hooked for hours. If you're a Dragon Ball Z fan looking to relive those epic battles, Sparking! Zero is a worthy contender.