The newest entry in the mega-popular Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi series made its world premiere at The Game Awards. Its name is Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. Although Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero doesn't have a set release date, fans can wishlist the game on Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5, and Steam.
Back in March, Bandai Namco virtually broke the weeb gamer portion of the internet with the teaser trailer for a new Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi game at the Dragon Ball Games Battle Hour 2023. At the time, the nostalgia-infused CRT trailer didn’t give much away in terms of how the new game would play aside from showcasing Goku's explosive Super Saiyan Blue transformation. Not only does the reveal trailer show actual gameplay and cutscenes from Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, but it also shows some iconic old and new faces from Akira Toriyama's ever-expansive universe.
The opening moments of the trailer show Goku and Vegeta blitzing across the Gizard Wasteland, destroying mountains in their wake, before transforming into their Blue forms and firing off their titular beam attacks. Before we see which hero prevailed in their test of strength, the trailer cuts to a Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta battling Frieza on a soon-to-be-destroyed Planet Namek. Their brief tussle is later unceremoniously interrupted by Broly from Dragon Ball Super: Broly who thrashes his opposition into the ground like the space rent was due.
The Budokai Tenkaichi series has long been lauded by fans as one of the best anime fighting games ever made. The first Budokai game was released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube. Since then, Bandai Namco released two sequel 2D fighting games, Budokai 2 and Budokai 3, before releasing a trilogy of 3D fighting games with the Budokai Tenkaichi series (Dragon Ball Z: Sparking! in Japan) in 2005.
Bandai Namco would follow the release of 2007's Budokai Tenkaichi 3 with the less-than-stellar Dragon Ball: Raging Blast series, Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi, and Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z games. Fortunately, the subsequent release of games like Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot would land Bandai Namco back in the good graces of diehard DBZ fans.
In IGN's review of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3, we wrote: “Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 delivers an extreme 3D fighting experience, with over 150 playable characters, enhanced fighting techniques, beautifully refined effects and shading techniques, making each character's effects more realistic, and over 20 battle stages.” Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero looks to carry over the feel of its predecessors with its high-quality cel-shaded character models, destructible environments, and satisfying teleportation counters.
Other characters spotted in the blink-and-you'll-miss-it closing portion of the minute-long trailer include Piccolo, Krillin, Tien, Yamcha, Future Trunks, Android 18, Perfect Cell, Mr. Satan (AKA Hercule), Majin Buu, Future Trunks (Super's version) Jiren, and Bergamo. If you're wracking your brain like I was trying to remember who Bergamo is, he's the wolf guy from Universe 9 from Dragon Ball Super's eclectic Tournament of Power Arc.
If deep-pull characters from Super like Bergamo made it on Sparking! Zero's roster, there's a high chance other supporting characters from Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball GT will make the cut as well. I'm hoping Sparking! Zero includes Launch, Dragon Ball's sneezing bandit, and Dr. Slump's Arale Norimaki — the real strongest fighter under the heavens among its cast of fighters.
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
