So..Whats after Sparking Zero?

[budokaifanatic007]

Honestly, I’m not really convinced that a Budokai revival is on the table anytime soon. The arena fighter approach has pretty much been the norm for two decades now and even Dimps seems to have moved on from the Budokai style.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but there doesn’t seem like there’d be much of an incentive for it. Pandering to nostalgia can only get you so far.

Nostalgia sells and Bandai is mainly interested in games that will sell well. Maybe Bandai looked up the combined sales of the original Tenkaichi/Sparking! trilogy(~7.5mill) and decided to bring it back on that merit. The Budokai series if I'm not mistaken sold more(~8.7mill) than the Tenkaichi/Sparking! trilogy, maybe they went with Sparking first because of it being an arena fighter. Hopefully we can get a look into what the next game will be at Battle Hour 2026.

[WittyUsername]

Honestly, I’m not really convinced that a Budokai revival is on the table anytime soon. The arena fighter approach has pretty much been the norm for two decades now and even Dimps seems to have moved on from the Budokai style.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but there doesn’t seem like there’d be much of an incentive for it. Pandering to nostalgia can only get you so far.

Nostalgia sells and Bandai is mainly interested in games that will sell well. Maybe Bandai looked up the combined sales of the original Tenkaichi/Sparking! trilogy(~7.5mill) and decided to bring it back on that merit. The Budokai series if I'm not mistaken sold more(~8.7mill) than the Tenkaichi/Sparking! trilogy, maybe they went with Sparking first because of it being an arena fighter. Hopefully we can get a look into what the next game will be at Battle Hour 2026.

As far as SZ is concerned, while I’m sure nostalgia played a major part in its existence, the game also had the hook of promising the largest roster of any Dragon Ball game. Character Rosters were never really the selling point of the Budokai games. Plus, as I said, arena fighters seem to have long since become the norm for anime games. FighterZ is an exception, because that was meant to serve as a competitive fighting game first and a Dragon Ball game second.

Again, I’m not saying we should completely rule out a Budokai revival, but I don’t think it’ll be able to exclusively bank on nostalgia. It doesn’t help that part of what’s so nostalgic about the Budokai games is the Kenji Yamamoto soundtrack, which a new Budokai game wouldn’t be able to use.

[funrush]

Yeah it's hard to picture Budokai with a different score and without that fuckin sick Steve Lukather guitar. I think they did swap out the scores for that HD collection but I never got around to playing that as I still have my old copies.

The Budokai and Sparking series both had pretty awesome OSTs and I feel like the new games haven't quite been hitting that standard the old ones established. Like I'm trying to remember a song from Dragon Ball Fighterz and the only one coming to mind is the main menu music and that's probably just cause I've heard it a billion times. Where is Hironobu Kageyama these days?

[Jord]

Yeah it's hard to picture Budokai with a different score and without that fuckin sick Steve Lukather guitar. I think they did swap out the scores for that HD collection but I never got around to playing that as I still have my old copies.

The Budokai and Sparking series both had pretty awesome OSTs and I feel like the new games haven't quite been hitting that standard the old ones established. Like I'm trying to remember a song from Dragon Ball Fighterz and the only one coming to mind is the main menu music and that's probably just cause I've heard it a billion times. Where is Hironobu Kageyama these days?

I feel FighterZ had a great soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wirsuuf ... dGhlbWU%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OOGkJa ... dGhlbWU%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnDknAp63OE

Kageyama is busy with Jam Project and still did some promo stuff for DB here and there.

[budokaifanatic007]

Any chance we’ll hear something during Jump Festa about a new game? Unless the 2026 DB game is XV2 for switch 2

[WittyUsername]

If nothing else, the fact that SZ is supposed to continue adding new characters next year means we probably shouldn’t expect a sequel to that game in 2026.

[budokaifanatic007]

If nothing else, the fact that SZ is supposed to continue adding new characters next year means we probably shouldn’t expect a sequel to that game in 2026.

I wouldn't be shocked if we never see a sequel but a continuation of DLC support like XV2.