Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero review: incredible fighting sandbox stumbles on story

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero MSRP $69.99 Score Details Pros

Amazing voice performances
Fights feel true to the anime
Custom Battles are a highlight

Cons

Poor onboarding
Disappointing Episode Battles
Tedious upgrade system

I wore the paint off of my Dragon Ball action figures as a kid by recreating all my favorite fights from the anime. I only had two, meaning I had to recruit my other non-DBZ toys to fill in for other characters as best I could (my Silver Surfer made a great Frieza, while Ganondorf took more imagination to play Cell). Getting my hands on my first Dragon Ball games felt like getting a ton of new figures to add to my toy collection.

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Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, Bandai Namco’s giant 3D Dragon Ball fighter, is the equivalent of going to a friend’s house who owns every Dragon Ball figure you can think of — and many you wouldn’t. It gives me complete freedom to play with all my favorite characters in any combination I want with all their authentic moves, voices, and designs, but leaves me to make that fun for myself. That makes for an enjoyable fighting game, but not one that’s without flaws. Existing fans might be able to overlook its disjointed story mode and its uninspired branching paths, but I can’t say that it’s the best way to introduce yourself to the wide world of Dragon Ball.

Back to the hyperbolic time chamber

Booting up Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, I quickly got a brief tutorial framed around Goku and Vegeta sparring. This teaches the basics of attacking, charging Ki, using special moves, and so on. If you jumped from this introduction into any other gameplay mode, as I did right away, then you would be woefully underprepared for anything beyond the first few initial battles.

While not on the level of a strict fighting game like Dragon Ball: FighterZ, Sparking! Zero has far more depth than mashing