Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero review – arena fighters don't get much better than this
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero reviewDeveloper: Spike ChunsoftPublisher: Bandai NamcoPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X/S
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with arena fighters. My recent (one-star) Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash review is probably a decent example of that. Although I’ve come to loathe it in recent years, I actually have very fond memories of the genre. Coming home from school and mashing buttons in split-screen multiplayer was the norm for me, and my friends and I unanimously agreed that Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi was the cream of the arena fighter crop.
Fans of the series, myself included, have been begging Bandai Namco for a fourth Budokai Tenkaichi game for years, and now it’s finally here. Make no mistake, the name may be different but Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero Budokai Tenkaichi 4. Everything from the controls to the overly inflated roster and the ‘What If’ story modes have made a comeback. The nostalgia-blinded 12-year-old in me is thrilled. Thankfully, the fully-grown, arena fighter-jaded reviewer playing it is pretty happy too.
Arena fighters get a bad rap, which is unfortunately well earned. They’re 3D, over-the-shoulder button mashers, and almost exclusively feature anime characters. They’re often criticised for being much of the same: a copy-pasted formula with a new anime aesthetic draped over the top. They’re simple by design, and in this respect Sparking! Zero isn’t trying to rock the boat.
Sparking! Zero is not a particularly complex game to learn. One button is punch. One button is a ranged attack. These two buttons, used in tandem with some directional inputs, can be combined to create some relatively simple combos. There are grabs and high/low attacks and dashes, but I don’t think you need a PhD in fighting game terminology to get to grips with it all.
 
																			 
																			