"Sparking! ZERO" Official Announcement, Pre-, & Post-Release Discussion Thread

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Now that the novelty of “BT4” is gone, it definitely seems like the initial excitement over this game has fizzled out.

There's probably more excitement surrounding the various BT3 mods than there is SZ at this point. Team BT4's Tenkaichi 4 project will enable us to customize super and ultimate attacks in its next major update later this year. How can a mod for a 2007 game feel more complete than the actual new game from 2024 ? Once this mod is complete, it'll be the ultimate Dragon Ball game experience.

[budokaifanatic007]

Now that the novelty of “BT4” is gone, it definitely seems like the initial excitement over this game has fizzled out.

There's probably more excitement surrounding the various BT3 mods than there is SZ at this point. Team BT4's Tenkaichi 4 project will enable us to customize super and ultimate attacks in its next major update later this year. How can a mod for a 2007 game feel more complete than the actual new game from 2024 ? Once this mod is complete, it'll be the ultimate Dragon Ball game experience.

Hell even some sparking zero mods like https://x.com/SabKun2025/media actually make me wanna play SZ.

[TechExpert2021]

I wish there was a BT3 mod that replaces the FUNimation dub terminology with the correct terminology.

[IntangibleFancy]

I feel like Sparking Zero kind of skimped on the DBS content.

• No U6 arc

• no neutral space map

• no Botamo or magetta - this one really angers me because no game seems to want them. BT, which is known for incorporating tertiary characters and fighters that can't fly just flat-out ignores them too

• No Basil or Lavendar

• No ToP-exhibition match or map

• No Universe 4 representation

• No Katopesla

• They left out a lot of attacks, like Vegeta and trunks galick gun, trunks' super galick gun, SSBK Kamehameha, playable Goku/Frieza combo, etc

I say this a lot but people point me to Bregamo and Ribrianne and her two flunkies. I feel like Bergamo and Ribrianne are the bare-minimum given that they're the front men of their universes and had some special fights with cast. Bergamo literally should have been in Xenoverse, but for whatever reason the playerbase voted for a set of Goku and Vegetas that already had better versions in the game

As far as Ribrianne's cronies go, I would have expected BT of all games to put them in and they did, and I expected the same for Bergamo's cronies since they each had fights, enough attacks to make a moveset out of, and models in the game. I expected the same for Botamo and Magetta too but they're not even among those names of characters found in the files. It feels like they never intended on adding them.

I think Anilaza was a pleasant surprise to me at least. I wasn't expecting anything like Watagash or the GoDs but I was hoping this would finally be a game where roster-wise Z could take a backseat to Super for once.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

I feel like Sparking Zero kind of skimped on the DBS content.

They skimped on every aspect of the game. In an unfortunate attempt to make the biggest game in the franchise, every aspect of it ended up being incomplete. I think we would've gotten a far more polished and complete game had it focused exclusively on the Z side of things, then used DLC to cover the other series.

[IntangibleFancy]

I feel like Sparking Zero kind of skimped on the DBS content.

They skimped on every aspect of the game. In an unfortunate attempt to make the biggest game in the franchise, every aspect of it ended up being incomplete. I think we would've gotten a far more polished and complete game had it focused exclusively on the Z side of things, then used DLC to cover the other series.

But we already had 3 other BT games that focused on Z. Sparking Zero pretty much would have been Tenkaichi 3.5. No different from Xenoverse 2 or FighterZ or Kakarot. As much as I think Sparking Zero could have done better focusing on Super I at least like that there’s more than a small handful of characters in the base game and all the meat isn’t held hostage in dlc

Focusing on Super would have been better. There’s enough content to make a full game out of it, it’s popular enough to be sold at full price, and at the same time it isn’t huge enough to for them to have to rush it or skimp on certain things. Plus, there are plenty of characters who have actual fights in the game and enough attacks to derive a moveset from that have never seen the outside of a gacha or heroes.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Focusing on Super would have been better. There’s enough content to make a full game out of it, it’s popular enough to be sold at full price...

I honestly don't see many people dropping $70 on a Super focused game. There's a reason it hasn't happened yet, and will likely never happen. Even games like Xenoverse 2 and FighterZ which released during Super's run had Z front and center.

[WittyUsername]

In terms of Super representation, I’m more annoyed that Caulifla doesn’t even have her SS1 form in this game than the lack of characters like Ganos and Katoplesla. This game may technically have the biggest roster, but it feels very incomplete compared to the BT3 roster. BT3 comprehensively covered nearly every possible facet of the franchise at the time, but this game has missing forms and is lacking key characters like Super 17.

It doesn’t help that they also padded out the roster with multiple variations of the same character. There are no less than 18/19 versions of Goku in the base game alone. To their credit, the Raging Blast games managed to minimize stuff like that by giving characters customizable movesets and allowing them to have up to four super attacks, but this game went right back to the BT formula.

Again, I do have a fondness for BT3, but there are some things that the RB games definitely improved upon, and SZ largely ignored them.

[Noah]

This comes from someone who hasn't had the chance to play the game yet: Is Gohan Beast overpowered and overused online like UI Goku?

[budokaifanatic007]

This comes from someone who hasn't had the chance to play the game yet: Is Gohan Beast overpowered and overused online like UI Goku?

From what I know it’s mainly Fusions, Yajirobe and UI Goku.

[Xeogran]

This comes from someone who hasn't had the chance to play the game yet: Is Gohan Beast overpowered and overused online like UI Goku?

From what I know it’s mainly Fusions, Yajirobe and UI Goku.

OK that was funny

[Scsigs]

So, I watched Hidden's video on how Sparking Zero & where it went wrong.
https://youtu.be/yT8ao-9vAhg?si=NrFo46yuU6hu28nI

And since I've finished the story modes & have been dealing with playing online, I wanted to share my evolved opinions here.
I've said before that the game feels rushed & what aspects of it feel that way, so nothing new there. However, playing online make the combat's flaws & weaknesses.
1. The game for some reason has bad input lag randomly. I also noticed this when playing the game normally, but at times the game has this problem. They really should patch it to fix this issue.
2. The game doesn't seem as responsive as it should be, at least on console. Too many times, I get caught in combo strings & can't reliably teleport out of them. I read it was apparently RB on an Xbox controller for the default control scheme, but it doesn't work most of the time. At least for me.

I definitely can’t imagine this sustaining a decade’s worth of updates like Xenoverse 2. Now that the novelty of “BT4” is gone, it definitely seems like the initial excitement over this game has fizzled out.

Yeah. Plus, unless they add story mode missions (which they really should for the money they're charging for the DLC packs), I can't see support for this game from Bandai Namco going more than a few years tops. It doesn't have the same online components as XV2 (I believe it's P2P instead of servers) & it doesn't have microtransactions. Plus, I think the playerbase died down a lot after the first month or 2 as people finished playing the story modes & jumped into the online battles, then saw how woefully unbalanced the combat is.

Yup, I really hope this doesn’t lessen the chances of a Budokai 4. When that happens my childhood will be complete….

This game sold over 3 million copies in a week, 1 of the biggest launches for a Dragon Ball game. I doubt they're not gonna greenlight a Budokai 4 if it's in the cards. Although, for consistency (especially since neither of these games is technically the 4th entry in their respective series), I think a better name would be Budokai Zero, or Dragon Ball Zero since the series in Japan was just Dragon Ball Z 1, 2, & 3. I'd also love if they could bring the HD collection to current consoles & PC, plus throw in 2, Infinite World & the Shin Budokai games, making it an actual collection. Even replacing the music for the other games originally composed by Kenji Yamamoto (& hopefully replacing the worst music replacement choices for Budokai 1's story mode in the HD collection, plus using music from other games made after 2012), I'd love to finally play Budokai 2 in HD & play the other 3 since I didn't grow up with a PS2 or a PSP.

[Scsigs]

I feel like Sparking Zero kind of skimped on the DBS content.

• No U6 arc

• no neutral space map

• no Botamo or magetta - this one really angers me because no game seems to want them. BT, which is known for incorporating tertiary characters and fighters that can't fly just flat-out ignores them too

• No Basil or Lavender

• No ToP-exhibition match or map

• No Universe 4 representation

• No Katopesla

• They left out a lot of attacks, like Vegeta and trunks galick gun, trunks' super galick gun, SSBK Kamehameha, playable Goku/Frieza combo, etc

I say this a lot but people point me to Bergamo and Ribrianne and her two flunkies. I feel like Bergamo and Ribrianne are the bare-minimum given that they're the front men of their universes and had some special fights with cast. Bergamo literally should have been in Xenoverse, but for whatever reason the playerbase voted for a set of Goku and Vegetas that already had better versions in the game

As far as Ribrianne's cronies go, I would have expected BT of all games to put them in and they did, and I expected the same for Bergamo's cronies since they each had fights, enough attacks to make a moveset out of, and models in the game. I expected the same for Botamo and Magetta too but they're not even among those names of characters found in the files. It feels like they never intended on adding them.

I think Anilaza was a pleasant surprise to me at least. I wasn't expecting anything like Watagash or the GoDs but I was hoping this would finally be a game where roster-wise Z could take a backseat to Super for once.

In order of actual importance to talk about:
Yeah, actually surprised there's no neutral space stage. You'd assume they'd have at least one above Earth because of Battle of Gods.
The U6 arc not being included is really disappointing. It's the introduction to all of the U6 characters that show up in the Tournament of Power.
Magetta's a worthless comic relief character where you laugh at him being sad & crying from Vegeta's insults, so I could take him or leave him. Botamo I could also take or leave, tbh.
I'd say we were lucky enough to get Bergamo considering I don't think he's talked about enough, tbh. The other werewolves? Nope. I honestly think the first DLC should've been delayed another month or 2 so they could add the other characters that should've been in the base game in addition to the Super Hero ones, tbh. Super 17 from GT is 1 I'm actually shocked they didn't add in for the first DLC. They have to know a lot of people are confused & upset he's not there by now.
Surprised they're really cheaping out with alternate movesets. Even Xenoverse provides alternate movesets for the same outfits. Even then, would being able to pick from multiple movesets, or set what attacks & skills we want really out of the question? They should really add that ability in the next big patch for the next DLC.
I'm also surprised there's no version of Goku where his sparking ultimate move is the alley oop with Freeza from the Tournament of Power. FighterZ has that, so it'd be really cool to have a variant of Super Goku with that in this game as well.
Also surprised Champa's not in the game, tbh.
Also surprised Gohan Black wasn't made a playable character in the first major update. Even if most of his moveset would be reused from Goku Black's, I don't care. Just make him playable.
Overall, the game was definitely rushed. Where this is felt most is the story modes which skip over important shit for no reason on most of the important characters.

In terms of Super representation, I’m more annoyed that Caulifla doesn’t even have her SS1 form in this game than the lack of characters like Ganos and Katoplesla. This game may technically have the biggest roster, but it feels very incomplete compared to the BT3 roster. BT3 comprehensively covered nearly every possible facet of the franchise at the time, but this game has missing forms and is lacking key characters like Super 17.

It doesn’t help that they also padded out the roster with multiple variations of the same character. There are no less than 18/19 versions of Goku in the base game alone. To their credit, the Raging Blast games managed to minimize stuff like that by giving characters customizable movesets and allowing them to have up to four super attacks, but this game went right back to the BT formula.

Again, I do have a fondness for BT3, but there are some things that the RB games definitely improved upon, and SZ largely ignored them.

Ok, to play devil's advocate here on this, Budokai Tenkaichi 3 was the 3rd game in that particular series. The previous 2 games created a lot of the characters & movesets, then with each game they added & refined more. I assume this game had about 2-3 years of development time at best, was moved to UE4 from their older engine, & they had to create everything from scratch since they elected to redesign the characters in Nagamine's artstyle & didn't reuse assets from the other games. I think the game's better for it since FighterZ used the original Z artstyle, Xenoverse 2's artsyle sucks, & Kakarot's isn't bad, but could be better. The game was also set up to be part liveservice with DLC & update support.
However, that doesn't explain the missing characters who should be there.

Also, they mainly focused on BT3 because no one remembers Raging Blast or holds it in as high of a regard.

I wish there was a BT3 mod that replaces the FUNimation dub terminology with the correct terminology.

For that, you'd need to incorporate AI voices that replicate the dub actors' voices & that wouldn't be very good. Most you'd get is an alternate subtitle track that does it, imo.

They skimped on every aspect of the game. In an unfortunate attempt to make the biggest game in the franchise, every aspect of it ended up being incomplete. I think we would've gotten a far more polished and complete game had it focused exclusively on the Z side of things, then used DLC to cover the other series.

Ok, no. Them adding in Super stuff was NOT the problem. What was the problem was the amount of time Bandai Namco gave them to make the game. At best, this game was made in 2-3 years They had to make everything from the ground up, focusing on what people liked about BT3 & what could be improved upon, & go from there. Even Kakarot, which focused exclusively on Z for the base game, couldn't cover everything because reasons. They cut basically every cool fight before Cell with Vegeta & Trunks in the Android Arc for no reason but they were probably rushed a bit. And then there was the Battle of Gods DLC for it, which was VERY bare bones for no reason as well, possibly COVID. Spike was able to cover the majority of Z in the story modes & include every important character from Z in the base roster, plus the Super characters they had, the GT ones, & several movie villains. I don't think we were wanting too much for characters or content because it was there. The baffling things are just the small amount of characters & which characters got certain story missions.
The story modes in this game were clearly very inspired by the Dragon Universe mode in Budokai 3. The only characters I feel had things missing in the story modes were Vegeta & Trunks. Maybe Piccolo, but yeah. Also certain story parts from the Super portion of the story. However, they also made a ton of what-ifs which were great. I don't think they needed to make story modes for Goku Black or Jiren since they didn't actually do too much with them & could've put that time & energy towards making more story missions for the others that needed them, but yeah.
The gameplay is also pretty polished & a step up from BT3's. It needs a patch to take care of input lag problems & being unable to get out of combo strings, but it's mostly pretty good.
Online is where I think it needs the biggest balance patch & UI updates. There's no reason for the online to be full of cheap strat spammers & overcrowded with fusions just because they're the strongest characters in the game.

At this point as well, most Dragon Ball games are going to incorporate Super into the base game rosters. The devs just need the right amount of time to make the games as they want to.

[TechExpert2021]

I wish there was a BT3 mod that replaces the FUNimation dub terminology with the correct terminology.

For that, you'd need to incorporate AI voices that replicate the dub actors' voices & that wouldn't be very good. Most you'd get is an alternate subtitle track that does it, imo.

I would prefer another company to dub the Dragon Ball games accurately into English (along with using the correct terminology) with a different English dub voice cast and avoid any traces of, references to, and any dub terminology from the old English dubs (Vegeta saying, "It's over 9000!" instead of "It's over 8000!" in Sparking! Zero, for instance).

[Scsigs]

I wish there was a BT3 mod that replaces the FUNimation dub terminology with the correct terminology.

For that, you'd need to incorporate AI voices that replicate the dub actors' voices & that wouldn't be very good. Most you'd get is an alternate subtitle track that does it, imo.

I would prefer another company to dub the Dragon Ball games accurately into English (along with using the correct terminology) with a different English dub voice cast and avoid any traces of, references to, and any dub terminology from the old English dubs (Vegeta saying, "It's over 9000!" instead of "It's over 8000!" in Sparking! Zero, for instance).

Yeah, that ain't happening.

[Vegeta th3 4th]

Them adding in Super stuff was NOT the problem. What was the problem was the amount of time Bandai Namco gave them to make the game. At best, this game was made in 2-3 years They had to make everything from the ground up, focusing on what people liked about BT3 & what could be improved upon, & go from there.

They actually had 4 years to develop it. If not Super, then definitely GT and the movies should've been left out. They simply tried to do too much in too short of a time. 4 years may seem like a lot, but not for what they tried to achieve.

I don't think they needed to make story modes for Goku Black or Jiren since they didn't actually do too much with them & could've put that time & energy towards making more story missions for the others that needed them, but yeah.

I would've also kept Freeza out. Tell the best story possible with Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Trunks, & Gohan. Freeza and anyone else could be DLC.

The gameplay is also pretty polished & a step up from BT3's.

The gameplay could've used more time in the oven.

At this point as well, most Dragon Ball games are going to incorporate Super into the base game rosters. The devs just need the right amount of time to make the games as they want to.

I think Sparking Zero should've started out with a base roster of 100 characters, with the rest of the development time and money going towards game modes, stages, and general polish. Bringing back Raging Blast's customization would've enabled them to avoid all those Gokus and Vegetas.

[Dbzfan94]

I feel like Sparking Zero kind of skimped on the DBS content.

• No U6 arc

• no neutral space map

• no Botamo or magetta - this one really angers me because no game seems to want them. BT, which is known for incorporating tertiary characters and fighters that can't fly just flat-out ignores them too

• No Basil or Lavendar

• No ToP-exhibition match or map

• No Universe 4 representation

• No Katopesla

• They left out a lot of attacks, like Vegeta and trunks galick gun, trunks' super galick gun, SSBK Kamehameha, playable Goku/Frieza combo, etc

I say this a lot but people point me to Bregamo and Ribrianne and her two flunkies. I feel like Bergamo and Ribrianne are the bare-minimum given that they're the front men of their universes and had some special fights with cast. Bergamo literally should have been in Xenoverse, but for whatever reason the playerbase voted for a set of Goku and Vegetas that already had better versions in the game

As far as Ribrianne's cronies go, I would have expected BT of all games to put them in and they did, and I expected the same for Bergamo's cronies since they each had fights, enough attacks to make a moveset out of, and models in the game. I expected the same for Botamo and Magetta too but they're not even among those names of characters found in the files. It feels like they never intended on adding them.

I think Anilaza was a pleasant surprise to me at least. I wasn't expecting anything like Watagash or the GoDs but I was hoping this would finally be a game where roster-wise Z could take a backseat to Super for once.

Most of those characters will inevitably be DLC, but there’s no way they were gonna be base game in this modern era. If anything got skimped is original DB. No way they weren’t going to prioritize Z either.

As for the maps, it skimped on every aspect of the franchise not just Super. No Tuffle Planet, Kami’s Lookout, Kame House, RRA base, (both DB & Super) etc plus the ones you mentioned.

The “Goku/Freeza duo” playable you mean as a Super? If so I agree but there’s zero way they would have made a dual character otherwise.

[Scsigs]

They actually had 4 years to develop it. If not Super, then definitely GT and the movies should've been left out. They simply tried to do too much in too short of a time. 4 years may seem like a lot, but not for what they tried to achieve.

Making characters with movesets that they not only had a basis for from the shows or movies, but previous games they made & others wasn't gonna take long to do. I assume most of the dev time for each came from programming in all the animations associated with them to match the shows or movies as close as possible (which they kinda needed when Budokai 3 was able to do better animations than BT3, as well as later games innovating on those & providing cool animations for attacks & the like). BT3 basically gave everyone the majority of the same animations for shared moves & the others weren't very dazzling, especially by modern standards. Then there's them programming in the story modes with all the what-ifs. I think they could've had fully animated cutscenes as well outside of the Sparking episodes & important moments, but they focused on what players would see the most as opposed to once. Considering that the GT & movie characters are literally just in the character select & not incorporated into the story modes in any way as well as the few they left out, I consider that irrelevant.

I would've also kept Freeza out. Tell the best story possible with Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Trunks, & Gohan. Freeza and anyone else could be DLC.

Freeza's was at least a bit more fun, with his what-if that he won against Goku & Vegeta in Res F & then went on to be in the Tournament of Power & recruiting different people he knows to be on the team, although I don't like how the games continue to treat the movie version of Cooler as canon when he hasn't been established in anything Toriyama's written or signed off on as being so, to my knowledge. If there was 1 extra story mode besides those 5, I think Freeza's is fine to be there. Like, Budokai 3 had Broly have a story mode even though it was short & worthless for example. Goku Black's & Jiren's are just kinda worthless because they don't tell us anything about them we don't already know, or take the stories they're in in any interesting or entertaining directions.

The gameplay could've used more time in the oven.

I mean, I don't disagree. The fact that they had to apply some balance patches & those still haven't addressed the overuse of the strongest characters in the game in online battles, input lag, usage of cheap strats, etc is proof of that alone. I've said words to this effect before.

I think Sparking Zero should've started out with a base roster of 100 characters, with the rest of the development time and money going towards game modes, stages, and general polish. Bringing back Raging Blast's customization would've enabled them to avoid all those Gokus and Vegetas.

The base roster is said to be 178 characters, but it's actually closer to 100 considering that the roster is bloated with transformations, which are the same characters just different to some degree. That means outside of their specific attacks, they're the exact same as their previous forms. However, the companies are still counting them as separate characters rather than variants of the same ones.
I agree that they should just consolidate them into 1 character & let us pick the movesets we want to use. I've said this before that it'd be a good innovation. I don't know if consolidation would've taken away from dev time, though. They still would've had to have programmed in the moves & then let you pick from them in either alternate movesets, or a customizable one. The same with the different forms & outfits. I think you're underestimating how much they still would've had to have done for the game even with this change. It would've been roughly the same amount of work.
As for the abundance of Goku & Vegetas, I really don't understand this complaint fully. They divided every character between not only forms if they have any, but eras of the story they appeared in to separate out the movesets & transformations. This is something they did in previous games & the UI update that consolidates the different forms with the characters' base forms was a welcome change. Realistically, there are only 8 Gokus (early, mid, end, Super, Ultra Instinct, teen, GT, & mini) & 6 (soon to be 7) Vegetas (Scouter, early, Majin, end, Super, GT, & mini). I count transformations as just variants of the ones they belong to, even if the company doesn't. Some of these, you couldn't count as 1 character. Like, the kid or teen forms of characters aren't the same as their adult selves & I don't count GT versions of the characters to be the same as the Z ones considering it's an entirely different series. Would I like them to be consolidated with changeable moves? Sure. However, with the UI update, it cleans up the character select substantially so it's less of a headache.

[Nickolaidas]

I can't speak for anyone else, I'll just speak for me.

The second I saw the trailer interview which talked about Sparking!'s Single Player modes, I should have listened to my gut and cancel my preorder.

This game has the same 'problem' that FighterZ had for me. There is almost zero single player content once you beat the mediocre story modes. Sure, there is some fun to be had at a what-if Frieza protag mode in FighterZ, but at the end of the day, I was spoiled by single player modes that gave you something to do and grind with ... with EVERY single character. There are some fighting games which do that, like the Universe mode in Raging Blast 2, or the single player Towers in Mortal Kombat 11. It's not a story mode, but those games gave me a TON of arcade ladders with goals and rewards for every character in the roster.

In Sparking! Zero? If you do not care about multiplayer like me, you play the six / seven 'story' modes and then all you get is basically Vs mode or a 'DIY Vs Mode' with some slideshows on the side. Basically, it's Spike telling me, 'Bro, I spent ALL of the development time in giving you the biggest roster in history, I didn't have time to do anything else, how about you do it for you?'

This game feels like Budokai 2 on the PS2 - polished gameplay, zero SP content. Except that this time there was never a Budokai 1 before it, and we have no idea if a sequel will come out.

Personally, instead of giving me Daima characters who feel completely out of place when put next to Z/Super characters, I would prefer to see DLC which gives me grindable SP content for every single character. Would gladly pay (for something I feel that should have been in the game day one).

Otherwise, I don't see myself bothering with this game, despite pre-ordering it.

[miguelnuva1]

Sparking Zero is a party game more so than a single player game. You pick almost any character you want and fight it out against other players.

Going off Budokai and Tenkaichi I'm glad Sparking is back but I'm also waiting for the sequel and Budokai and Sparking before both put out decent first games, better sequels and then by the third game is arguably the best in the franchise.