Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has officially launched today, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows via Steam. To commemorate the occasion, Bandai Namco has shared the official launch trailer.
For gamers who don’t remember this franchise, it was a particular high watermark for Dragon Ball video games in its history. While most gamers remember Akira Toriyama most fondly for his character designs in the Dragon Quest series, Dragon Ball also has a rich history of licensed video games. Unfortunately, that video gameography is pockmarked by many poor uses of the license. Particularly notorious was Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22, owing to the terrible reviews of its very late US release.
There were certainly other good Dragon Ball games, but the Dragon Ball Sparking series were a particular highlight. In 2005, the PlayStation could finally do justice to the large scale battles of the Saiyans across vast landscapes, in full 3D.
These three games were full 3D arena fighters, allowing players to move in all directions, including flying. They also had control schemes with easier inputs than traditional 2D fighting games. However, in its place were a set of complex system mechanics that could rival those found in AAA 3D action RPGs like Dragon Age.
What made these games most memorable was the stellar presentation, as developer Spike accurately recreated characters, scenes, entire anime storylines, complete with the original soundtracks and voice acting.
And when fans celebrated Spike’s success in recreating the show, Spike responded by creating insane character rosters for each game. Dragon Ball Sparking 3 featured 98 characters in 161 forms, the most playable characters for a fighting game at the time. While these games had their faults, they were very popular with fans, and very successful.
Of course, we do also have to explain that when Atari released these games in West, they changed the game’s name from Dragon Ball Sparking to Dragon Ball Budokai Tenkaichi. That seemed to be an attempt to make them look like they were sequels to the earlier Dragon Ball Budokai games by Dimps, but today, the whole world will know them as Dragon Ball Sparking.
Dragon Ball Sparking Zero’s ramps up on the fanservice even more, featuring not only five different versions of Goku, but a wide arrangement of characters. That includes new entrants like Kefla and Beerus, and beloved deep cuts like Final Form Cooler and Yakirobe.
While we may have fond memories of the PlayStation 2, that system really only displayed at 480i on CRT screens. Today, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero shows us how that fanservice experience from nearly thirty years ago, looks like on 1080p, running on the full power of the Unreal Engine. It’s a truly glorious sight, that Akira Toriyama would have definitely loved to see.
You can watch the Dragon Ball Sparking Zero launch trailer below.
