Have you ever wanted to jump into the Dragon Ball franchise but didn’t know where to start? Or maybe you’re a diehard fan who wants to create their ideal battle scenarios? Even if you are somewhere between those extremes, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will be great for you. There’s enough content to help you learn about Dragon Ball while also giving players the chance to test their fighting skills.

A quick tutorial and various practice sessions let you build your skills while fighting. The computer’s AI is challenging enough to push you, letting you adjust when you feel more confident. Creating custom battles is great for your own scenarios and letting your imagination fly. Several opportunities to interact with other players greatly extend your playtime. Aiming isn’t perfect and some features are only attractive to hardcore fans, but it doesn’t detract from the game’s charm.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero starts with a brief introduction of the game’s tutorial before letting you pursue what you want. You can explore the story through Episode Mode or start practising your skills in tournaments. Each character’s story starts from the beginning and covers their involvement in an arc. The protagonists’ stories always cover what actually happened, while the villain stories serve as a “What If?” scenario.

These episodic scenarios serve as decent training exercises and are a great way to learn the story. While nothing beats the manga or anime, the summaries properly cover the events. There are also glossaries, character commentaries, and other options to help you learn about the world. By the end of a character arc, you learn enough to talk about more recent characters and storylines with fans. You also get to view different character viewpoints and make choices that can impact your battles.

Playing with a character through these episodes also helps you build your knowledge and experience. Going through a character’s stages of growth helps you learn about their abilities gradually, preventing you from being overwhelmed. There are also several characters to play, letting you learn different playstyles and strategies. The cast of characters is large enough that there’s always someone to master or something to improve.

Spending time learning how to use a character is also rewarded through character challenges and missions. You earn rewards that can be spent on character customisation, unlocking new characters, or changing the music. There’s always something to do, giving you the motivation to try new characters or improve on your existing skills.

To ensure that your skills aren’t just limited to AI battles, there are several multiplayer options. The first is the traditional battle matches where you can fight locally or online. You can participate in various online tournaments with different rules and restrictions, testing your capabilities in certain circumstances. The second involves creating your own battle scenarios and sharing them with other players.

Having a variety of methods to engage players online keeps the content fresh. You can test your skills against other players in a pure fight or in tournaments with certain rules. Sharing your custom battles also lets you access creations from other players. A few bonus scenarios give you some inspiration, but eventually, you can create the perfect fan scenario you’ve always wanted.

Creating your unique scenario is a fan’s dream come true. If you want to show how strong your character can be, you can arrange a fight demonstrating exactly that. Should you get into a debate online about which character is stronger, why not create a scenario to try and determine an answer? This also applies to story scenarios; you can create your own “What If?” battles and see what happens.

That level of customisation is fun to work with, especially because the sky is the limit. Once you make a few practice scenarios, you can test them out before uploading them online. If you can succeed in your own scenario, you can upload it. You can customise the name, text, and characters involved. This is a great way for fans to interact with other fan-made content and make your Dragon Ball wishes an actual reality.

The slight downside is that this scenario is only really appealing to hardcore fans. While the default bonus battles are great and have in-game rewards, sharing scenarios requires people to create them. Players new to the franchise probably won’t be creating many custom scenarios, and there are other options for fighting fans. However, it is still great and rewarding to have your own Dragon Ball vision come to life.

The visuals of Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero are great and hold up even in intense battles. Hand-to-hand combat is fast and there’s lots of “teleporting” involved, but there are no frame rate drops. Visual cues are also clear, letting you know which attack is coming your way. The environments are majestic and fragile, accurately capturing the appearance of the Dragon Ball universe.

Some of the best parts of the game involve using the environment to your advantage. Rock pillars aren’t just decorative; you can hide behind them to avoid enemy attacks. Knocking enemies into the water isn’t just cool as it takes longer to recover when submerged. Even fighting in different terrain doesn’t slow down the intensity, making you feel like it’s an actual Dragon Ball battle.

The destructiveness of a character’s move isn’t lost on the environment either. Regular punches probably won’t break rocks, but aim a Kamehameha or a Galick Gun and even hills get destroyed. While you won’t be destroying planets like Frieza, it heightens the coolness of a character’s move. Smashing your opponent through rocks or blowing them away feels rewarding, as if demonstrating your character’s superiority.

However, the graphics do hit a snag when it comes to some parts of combat. Camera angles and alignment don’t always match up and the AI exploits this. It’s not unusual for the computer to ‘take’ a point-blank projectile only to ‘teleport’ to the left or right afterwards. The range of special moves can also be unclear, with some moves seemingly connecting but then obviously missing. This can be frustrating when you are trying to practice or learn.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero has lots of content to explore and is a good entry point for anyone interested in the franchise. It has one of the best battle systems that captures the intensity of every major story battle. With multiplayer content and the option to create your own scenarios, it’s easy to overlook some of the flaws. It’s not perfect, but it’s a Dragon Ball fan’s dream come true.