DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO Review (PlayStation 5)

by Jim Smale · October 11, 2024

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO Review, DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO takes the legendary gameplay of the Budokai Tenkaichi series and raises it to whole new levels. Become a super warrior and experience the earth-shaking, limit-breaking power of DRAGON BALL battles!

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO Review Pros:

Awesome anime graphics.
27.73GB Download size.
Platinum trophy.
Graphics settings – motion blur quality and camera shake. And HDR Support.
Music option – enable Anime music BGM which basically has music from the Anime play in bonus battles, and episode battles instead of the game soundtrack.
Two control methods – standard and classic.
Battle assist options – battle assist (off/auto/semi auto/custom), combo assist, follow-up attack assist, dragon dash, guard assist, recovery, and revenge counter assist.
Beautiful anime-quality cutscenes and character interactions.
Japanese or English voice choice.
Arena fighter gameplay.
Opening tutorial section.
Camera settings – Invert axis and sensitivity sliders, and strength of adaptive triggers slider.
180 plus fighters from DRAGON BALL Z, DRAGON BALL Super, DRAGON BALL GT, and selected DRAGON BALL movies
Controls can be changed for each individual player.
Two modes customer battle and episode battle.
There are two game difficulties and the lower one means you cannot clear secondary conditions.
You can skip cutscenes if you want.
Over the top action, you can smash each other into buildings, and mountains, fight underwater, fly all over the place and so much more.
It’s so satisfying to play even if you are button-mashing.
Slow-motion attacks and final hits kick in.
Cutscenes or set sequences happen as you are fighting, it happens seamlessly.
End-of-fight breakdowns showing completed missions, earned exp, rewards, etc.
Full combo counter.
Episode mode has a full map level selection so you can replay levels.
A full breakdown of each episode you play in the episode mode.
Six character stories to play through in episode mode – Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Frieza, and Goku Black. Each story has its own save.
Your character gets battle damage over the course of the match.
Custom battles trigger special effects when conditions are met, you can also choose to make your own.
You can upload and download other players’ created custom battles.
All uploaded battles can be favorites and liked which increases their rankings, this gives you special master-level titles.
You can upload and watch other players’ replays of matches.
The interface for the uploads uses filters like top week, daily, my page, and rankings but to make it all easier it uses tags.
Bonus battles unlock one after the other and once you finish a battle you can then take the effects out and use them in your own creations.
Creating battles is surprisingly easy thanks to the way it breaks down each element and then comes together at the end.
It’s a game that fans will love just for all the options and how the game plays.
Whis Stamp book is a set of objectives you complete over time and coming here gives you rewards.
Zen Oh has its own set of objectives like Whis but these are more for damage caused and blocked and have multiple tiers to each of them.
All menus on the main part are animated and voiced.
The player card lets you customize what players see from playtime, favorite BGM, favorite stage, and proficiency rank.
The shop lets you buy – characters, BGM tracks, player card items, strategy items, voices, and outfits.
Zeni is the game currency in the game and is earned from playing.
Customise is a place where you can edit each individual character – ability items, outfits, CPU settings, emotes, fusion, and sparking BGM.
The gallery has your full stats and unlocks breakdown, a theatre to rewatch cutscenes, and a full-on encyclopedia.
Come forth is where you collect the seven Dragonballs for each character to summon them – Shenron, Porunga, and Super Shenron.
Super training section.
World tournament mode lets you play on and offline tournaments.
Battle mode on the main menu is like arcade mode in that you just pick a character, a stage, and any conditions, and then just go. It supports on and offline play.
This is the game that lets you make every dream match up you ever wanted to see.
Using the battle mode sharing of replays and matches DOES NOT require a Playstation Plus subscription to use.

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO Review Cons:

You cannot remap the controls.
The controls do take a lot of getting used to as nearly enough every button is in use.
On episode battles, you don’t see the difficulties you just get a pop-up when you change it.
There is no option to have the interactions auto-scroll through.
Cutscenes are sometimes animated and sometimes not and it’s a bit all over the place.
You don’t get told the missions until you pause the game and look.
The game does have some balancing issues with the difficulty.
Learning to block even with assists on is very tricky.
It can be very hard to learn as you have to monitor health, time counters, and blocks, and still find time to fight.
If you get easily overwhelmed by fast-paced actions and loud noises and flashes then this game could be a real nightmare for you.
So much to take in.

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