After nearly 20 years of waiting, Dragon Ball fans finally got to see the return of the Budokai Tenkaichi series (or "Sparking!" series as it's called in Japan) with Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. I think it's safe to say that this game had some of the biggest hype that any Dragon Ball game has ever had, and that is saying something considering how amazing many of the projects surrounding the franchise had been up until that point. Needless to say, many people were ready to relive their childhoods, and in preparation for this game I found myself returning to some of the old Tenkaichi games to see how well they hold up, and how well Sparking Zero fares against them. I've been a big fan of the BT games, and of their successor series Raging Blast, so I was very excited to experience these games again. Upon revisiting them, I found that those games still had plenty to offer, and that if done correctly, a new installment could build upon their foundation to create a truly incredible experience for this generation of gamers. So, with all of that said, how did Sparking Zero turn out?

Personally, I thought it was pretty good. However, there are many things that I feel are holding it back.

To start off with positives, I think that the developers were able to nail the gameplay of the BT series. Just like those games, you are given a huge roster of basically every character you could want to play as across Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super. Each character has their own moves that you can pull off, and many of them carry their own transformations and abilities that can further enhance their move sets, making each one feel unique and fun to play with. However, all of them still follow the same basic controls, meaning that once you understand how to play as one character, it is very easy to learn the rest. This makes it very easy to find favorites, put teams together, and just have fun going through everyone on the roster. All this is standard affair for the BT games, but I still thought it was impressive that they managed to carry over the fighting style of the original games so well, since they had to make this new game from scratch. New mechanics also help to differentiate this title from it's predecessors, with new ways of moving around, countering, and counter-countering your opponents attack. This makes for some intense matches where quick thinking and predictive decisions can create fights that look like they came straight out of the TV show. It also helps that Sparking Zero has some of the best graphics that any Dragon Ball game has ever had, period. This is especially impressive considering it's contemporaries, but Sparking Zero is constantly able to impress me with how well it captures the expressions, movement, stances, and art style that the series is known for. The stages all have the same destructibility that the series is known for, the soundtrack is great (even if it isn't to the level of the originals, but hey at least this one has the Kikuchi score), and the addition of online modes, DLC, and updates mean that you have plenty to look forward to when it comes to the future of this game. From a pure gameplay perspective, I think the developers were able to nail it, and I'm really impressed that they did.

However, that is where my purely positive comments end. Every other good thing I have to say about this game comes has some sort of caveat that ultimately gives me mixed feelings. Let's start with multiplayer: The game has two forms of multiplayer: Online and local. Local multiplayer was GREATLY appreciated by many people, including myself, who had family and friends who were hoping to get into some split-screen action just like the good-ol-days. However, this local mode only had ONE stage at launch, locking off all of the other stages for months until they were finally able to optimize the mode enough to include the other stages. It was an appreciated fix, but its something that should have been there at launch. I feel that this one example exemplifies the biggest issue with this game: Stuff that should be there, that may have been present in previous games, just isn't right now.

Another example would be the bonus modes. At launch, the only bonus missions available were in the "custom battle" mode, and basically served as example custom matches that could be used to provide inspiration to players for their own custom battles. However, these missions aren't exactly the most involved matches in the world, and the limited word selection, repetitive camera angles, lack of voice acting, and the small amount of mission types make these custom matches feel very repetitive. If you don't feel like doing the bonus missions, you can go online and try some of the community missions, but I'd say that only a few really get creative with the tools they have. All of the others are way to simple, not because the creators are dumb, but because the tools currently available limit you so much. It was a very disappointing execution of a mode that many of us were excited for. The only other bonus mode is the World Tournament mode, another series staple. This mode feels like a downgrade compared to the previous games, which all had very involved tournament modes that varied greatly depending on which one you selected. Here, the tournament modes are different, but they mainly carry over the same ideas from BT3 without doing anything super differen.t It also doesn't help that the tournament brackets also fell much smaller than the previous games, there just isn't as many fighters competing in this one. It's still a fun mode, but I wish there was a little more to it.

Of course, the main event was the story mode, and there are a few things one could say about this one. As expected, this story mode retells the whole story of Dragon Ball Z, but now it also includes the story of Super as well, which may be a first for these games. The story is separated across 7 playable characters, all of whom have their own paths to follow, and their own choices to make as the story goes on. Because of this, Sparking Zero is able to continue the series traditions of offering players special "what-if" scenarios that can be triggered by the player on normal difficulty (NOT on easy). All of this sound great, but the problem is mainly the execution of the mode. To begin with the first problem: the separation of each characters story into their own areas can make the story map a little annoying to get through, especially considering how many of these stories overlap. I just think that if two different characters are in similar places in the story, I should just be able to access their missions without having to switch out. Another issue is how the story is presented, Although some moments are fully animated and voice acted, most of the story is told through stills and narration that simply explains the events that are currently unfolding. It makes this story mode feel cheap, especially considering that the last BT games have full-fledged story modes with proper voice work and cutscenes. In-between narration was kept to a minimum, and even then, it was only used in certain moments to help move the sorry along. Here, the narrator isn't always present, meaning you basically get to watch a slide show and read some of the dialogue in the most boing way possible, However, the biggest problem with this story mode is how lacking it feels. There are no traces of Movie stories, or of "Special" stories (Think "Bardock" or "History of Trunks") so already were missing content that was in the last few games, and it feels like such a huge missed opportunity. Many of the characters also don't get to progress throughout the whole of Dragon Ball, and thus it feels like there are a lot of stories that the game never gets to tell. Why does Vegeta's campaign end before Super, there's a lot that could have been done there, same goes for Piccolo? There are so many fun what-ifs that could have been done with those stories, so why not try to tell them? That's another thing, the what-if segments are very mixed in terms of quality. Some of them are VERY intriguing, and feel like genuine surprises when you unlock them. Some of the best ones are so interesting that you become invested in their development, just so you can see where they'll end up going. However, a lot of the other what-if plotlines are very basic, and reuse a lot of the same fights as the main story, that it becomes more of a chore to get though all of them. It also doesn't help that once you do get through them, it becomes a coin toss to see if this what-if story was actually worth all of the hard work, or not. Some of the most boring ones will feel almost exactly like the main story, but with a few tweaks that do NOT justify the existence of their timeline. This is especially true for some of the villain's missions: in particular, those of Goku Black and Jiren. Their stories are very short, but the idea of spending so much time on them, for what felt like a retread of stuff that I already knew about, was very tiring. While I did enjoy much of what the story mode had to offer, especially when it came to some of those alternate paths, It just felt like there was so much more that they could have done. They could have done a better job with the presentation, they could have added more missions, they could have made actual cutscenes (instead of just showing a few "Sparking episodes" that animate select scenes from the show), they could have made more interesting what if storylines, they could have done a lot of things. Ultimately, what we got wasn't bad, it was fun enough, but it felt like it was missing things that the older games have.

Which brings me back to my overall thoughts on the game: It's fun, but it is missing a lot of stuff that the older games had. You might be thinking that I may have missed something, but no. This is all the game has to offer, many of the other modes from the other games are just not present. "Mission 100" had to be added after launch, and the team has promised that survival mode will be added later, but why weren't these there at launch? It just feels like the game is lacking so much content, that the player isn't left with much to do once they beat the story and bonus modes. While I enjoy the online multiplayer, it isn't enough to hold me over, and I never felt like it was a good enough replacement for all of these other modes from the past games. There are also missing characters, such as all of those characters from the original Dragon Ball, of which two are present in the game as it is now. The dev team has also promised that many of them are going to be added later for free, but I wish they had been there on launch. But the worst piece of missing content has to be the stages: what happened here? BT3 had over 22 stages when it released, while Sparking Zero only has 13. This sounds like a decent number, until you play the game for long enough and realize that many of the cutscenes have had to be moved to different locations because the developers did not develop the proper areas for many of these fights. It just makes things more repetitive, even Raging Blast 2 had more stages on launch, and at very least they had more variety. There's so much that's not here, that you can't help but notice. Even if you are a new player, you'll find yourself wondering what there is to do once the story mode is finished, aside from some random matches every now and then. I'm not saying the game has to be some sort of live-service, with a bunch of stuff to keep you entertained endlessly, but there should have been more.

I think when discussing all of this, it's important to remember Sparking Zero's name, and what it means for the series. Sparking ZERO indicates the beginning, a new start that brings the series back down to the number ZERO. As a result, I think it's obvious that the developers don't see this game as a true "sequel" to the BT series, but instead they see it as a reboot for the franchise. A second chance for the series that we all know and love. In that case, I think that Sparking Zero is a fine start for the series, and over time I'm sure that it can evolve to something greater. However, I can't review a game for what it will be, only what it is right now, and right now DB SZ needs a lot of time and attention. The foundation for an amazing Dragon Ball game is present, the developers did a great job of realizing what a modern take on the BT formula could look like, and the game runs very smooth with very few glitches. Now they need to really hone in on why those older games worked so well, and find ways to expand upon that the basic gameplay that they already have. I've had fun with this game so far, and I'm glad to see that the developers are passionate, but only time will tell if this game will hold up as well as it's predecessors. The team at Spike Chunsoft have the pieces to create an incredible Dragon Ball game, they just need to rise to the occasion, and find a way to break through the game's current limits.

7.5/10