Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero review - The best Dragon Ball toybox

Sparking Zero isn't a fighter or a story-driven game, it's the truest Dragon Ball toybox

Goku Rose / Bandai Namco

For all of the truly incredible innovations and genre-defining plot beats you can find in the original Dragon Ball manga, there’s one huge downside that has become synonymous with the shonen genre: powerscaling. I remember being in the playground, debating with other kids about who’d win, Perfect Cell or Broly? Oh, but what if Frieza teamed up with Cooler instead of being antagonistic, would they have wiped out the Earth Saiyans? These are the questions that the late and great Akira Toriyama never cared to answer, but Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is here to speak to your inner child and make all of your wishes come true, courtesy of Shenron.

That’s the promise, at least. This is the most packed Dragon Ball game with dozens upon dozens of playable characters, each given lavish attention to their special moves, with detailed attack animations that reference the original anime and manga. In its best moments, Sparking Zero is a genuinely incredible game to behold. 

Incredible to behold, and awkward to actually play. I truly adored Dragon Ball FighterZ for masterfully weaving Dragon Ball’s signature attacks and mechanics into a 2D tag fighter, but Sparking Zero returns to the 3D playing field, with huge arenas, long ranges, and two distinct types of combat. At range you can charge your ki and let off ranged attacks like small ki blasts, which interrupt ki charges, but get ignored by an opponent Dragon Rushing towards you. Once at close range, you’re given the ability to combo with two attack buttons, and zip behind your opponent to dodge and punish strikes.

Trunks / Bandai Namco

Things just start getting unnecessarily complicated, though, and the AI won’t struggle to execute weird button combos. For example, if you’re getting attacked you can press R3 to counter an attack, but an opponent waiting for this counter can press circle to counter the counter. Why we needed to introduce a new counter button for each step in this weird string I have no idea, but it’s just the beginning of the nuances that Sparking Zero introduces. 

Aside from other 3D Dragon Ball games, Sparking Zero takes most of its inspiration for its combat system from mech games. That ranged combat has all the hallmarks of two mechs strafing and launching missiles from a distance, but the up-close melee combat just happens at a much faster pace. 

Super Gogeta / Bandai Namco

It’d make sense in most settings, but in this weird 3D arena with explosions, teleports, and flashy attack animations happening so regularly, it’s hard to properly read and keep the pace of the combat. I kept plugging myself into the heat of the action after going through the tutorials to ensure I didn’t miss anything, and it wasn’t clicking. Then I had a revelation: just charge ki and unleash ranged attacks or your super move. It’s the path to victory, and there isn’t a single AI opponent that can counter such a strategy.

With experience, the battles become easier to read, but it never made going through those slow tutorials to memorize weird situation-specific button inputs worthwhile. I’m a fan of traditional fighting games, and while Sparking Zero stands above the majority of anime arena fighters, it still doesn’t manage to weave its mechanics together in a way that makes me want to test my skills and improve. Luckily, linking a quick melee combo into a super doesn’t take that much skill, and that’s all you need to win anyway.

Jiren / Bandai Namco

Sparking Zero isn’t supposed to be the next big competitive fighter, it’s a love letter to Dragon Ball, and when you take a step back to appreciate it from that angle, things make much more sense. Even the episodic story mode, which is split per character, does a few things only fans will appreciate.

For one, the story mode assumes you know everything about Dragon Ball’s lore and story. Otherwise, playing through Goku’s story will have you bouncing between only battles that Goku is a part of, going straight from duking it out against a Cell Jr. to fighting Majin Vegeta. That skips an arc climax and the beginning of the next arc. The setup for each battle is mostly a low-key affair too – while some cutscenes are fairly nice, for the most part, you’ll be looking at static character models as dialogue plays out.

Great Ape Vegeta / Bandai Namco

Where it gets interesting, though, is the ability to change the future, and see alternate Dragon Ball timelines. These timelines aren’t extensive, but they’re interesting. What if Goku declined Piccolo’s offer to help, and went to fight Radtiz with Krillin instead? It’d end mostly the same way, actually. Likewise, what if Goku fought alongside Piccolo and Android 17 against Cell, and won, ending the Cell arc before the Android arc even finishes? Again, these aren’t extensive alternate timelines, but they’re a fun way to account for winning or losing battles in a way that isn’t canon to Dragon Ball.

Custom Battle steps away from the Dragon Ball timeline and allows you to create your own situations, in addition to a bunch of pre-made encounters. For example, you can play as Kid Goku fighting against Master Roshi, as the old man tests the abilities of his pupil. It’s all stuff you can imagine happening in a filler arc, and when you create your own Custom Battle you can customize it like a story encounter, with a title, setting, dialogue between the opposing teams, win conditions, and more. And of course, you can upload your Custom Battle online, or download the battles others have made. It proposes a truly unfathomable number of character, stage, and situation combinations.

Broly / Bandai Namco

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero isn’t a competitive fighter or a story-driven adventure; it’s a toybox. It’s a place for you to play and experiment with the Dragon Ball universe, toying with its timeline, characters, settings, music, and more. It’s not the sort of thing that manages to charm me, it’s a bit “10 hours of jingling keys,” but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a big smile on my face when I finished off Perfect Cell with an Instant Transmission Kamehameha before Gohan even got a turn. Wish the lads from the playground could see that now.

Score: 8/10

Platform: PS5