Summary
I’ve been waiting for a new Budokai Tenkaichi for more than half of my life, so I’ve been totally on board withDragon Ball: Sparking Zerofrom the moment it was firstteased out of nowhere during Dragon Ball Games Battle Hour in early 2023. It wasn’t even that long ago, but Sparking Zero’s changed and evolved so much since then that it feels like an eternity.
Since the first trailer, it’s had one of the most fascinating and occasionally overwhelming promo roadmaps I’ve ever seen. Barely a week goes by when we haven’t hadseveral character reveals,a leak,tweaked gameplay mechanics, or acharacter model changed due to fan outcry. I miss you,Super Saiyan banana hair.
It’s been wild just toseehow much Sparking Zero has changed in the year since it was first announced, but it’s even more of a trip tofeelthose differences two months apart.I was lucky enough to play Sparking Zero for the first time at Summer Game Fest in June, where my little starstruck self messed around with versus battles for 30 minutes before being dragged out kicking and screaming.
Sparking Zero Felt A Little Slow At SGF
My preview session felt like it was over before it even started, but it gave me a good idea of how Sparking Zero was going to play and how much it’s bringing over from the original Budokai Tenkaichi trilogy. The answer was a whole lot of things, though it did feel a little slower in comparison, despite the excellent addition of a quick-step dash that barely takes any Ki and feels like a natural inclusion to each character’s moveset.
Even with the slower overall speed, I walked away from Sparking Zero with nothing in my heart except hope and the desire to play more. I didn’t think that chance would come along again so soon, but lo and behold I got to play around an hour’s worth during Gamescom, which gave me an even better grip on its mechanics. Here, I expected a longer taste of the same demo, but instead, fighters feel even more satisfying and layered as you get used to advanced techniques like Super Perception.
The Gamescom build also featured a bunch of recently revealed characters, including several forms of my all-time GOAT, Gohan. Teen Gohan is an absolute beast.
Of course, it makes sense that Sparking Zero feels better when you know what you’re doing and you’re not just screaming, crying, throwing up because you’re finally playing Budokai Tenkaichi 4, but that’s not the only reason I enjoyed my most recent playthrough more. In just two months (or at least between two builds of the game released as public demos in that time), Spike Chunsoft has made some major changes to Sparking Zero’s speed.
Sparking Zero’s Finally Feeling As Fast As Budokai Tenkaichi
I noticed it for myself when playing as Trunks, but pretty much every action from basic combos to general movement feels faster than it did at Summer Game Fest.A video posted by Twitter user NdukaubaYT comparing Gogeta’s rush attack at SGF versus Gamescommakes it abundantly clear that a lot has been improved behind the scenes in that short span of time - it makes me wonder just how tuned-up everything in the final game is going to be.
That increased movement speed is just the most obvious example out of many things that have been changed between the two demo builds, most of which I didn’t even spot myself until I saw a side-by-side. Certain charactershave been given more unique grab attacks(including some that are only available against specific opponents),Beam Clashes no longer spin quite as vomit-inducingly, and Vegeta’s Super Saiyan Blue Evolved ability has seen a huge overhaul, just to name a few of my favourite tweaks.
Now that the combat has been sped up significantly, the only bug-bear I have with Sparking Zero’s moment-to-moment gameplay so far is its finicky camera, which I hope is the next thing to be fixed.
Combine all of that with the many,manyvisual changes that have been spotted between the many,manytrailers and demos we’ve had for Sparking Zero, and I can’t recall a game that’s changed so considerably in such a short amount of time. Every big-budget triple-A title is bound to look different as it goes through development, but the blood, sweat, and tears are sparking brighter here than I’ve ever seen for a Dragon Ball game.
Even with an hour and a half or so of demo time under my belt, I still haven’t had a play session that feels like a long enough time to properly judge Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero on a mechanical or content level. But so far, that hasn’t bothered me at all, because every time I’ve gone hands-on with it, I’ve only grown more confident that it’s going to live up to my unreasonably high expectations. No pressure or anything.
