This could be a one-sentence preview, really. I got to play a solid dozen matches (against the CPU) of Battle Mode, one of a few different modes in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, the upcoming fighting game built around DBZ’s most famous and recognizable heroes and villains. Here’s the key sentence: it absolutely feels like getting to play a battle from the legendary anime. That is both the most obvious thing I can say about it and the exact sentence I imagine that most DBZ fans want to hear.
After choosing your fighter – and there are dozens of variations of well-known characters here – you choose one of over half a dozen stages to battle on, study up on your special moves, and then enter the arena. And once you get there, you’d be forgiven if you thought you were watching an episode of the anime. The cel-shaded visuals are note-perfect to the show, and the animation equally helps sell the idea that your eyes are looking at a pre-baked episode of television and not a real-time interactive experience.
Once you start moving around and attacking, it really locks in as a Dragon Ball battle versus being a traditional one-on-one fighting game on a 2D plane. Not only can you fly anywhere you want – including launching yourself quite high in the air with the press of the left shoulder button – but you can quickly and easily unleash environment-destroying attacks like Goku’s Meteor Smash that will reduce half a cliffside to a pile of dust in an instant. The goal, the Bandai Namco folks told me, was to make players feel as powerful as possible.
If you choose Custom Battle, you can set very unique victory conditions, lending an extra bit of opportunity to recreate your favorite confrontations from the anime, whether you’re fighting Piccolo, Radditz, or one of dozens of other characters. I scrolled through the list and there is truly an insane number of options here. Also, Bandai Namco was also quick to point out that local multiplayer will be available on day one for both Early Access and DBSZ’s formal 1.0 launch.
Even after just a dozen or so matches against the CPU, it became clear to me that Dragon Ball superfans who are exceptionally good at fighting games – or those who intend to practice a lot with Sparking Zero – are going to find themselves having a great time crushing their competition.
