It's here, guys! After seventeen years, we finally have the long-awaited fourth installment in the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi series. Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO is one of the most hyped-up games of the year, and with good reason. Anticipation is high considering the franchise has expanded massively since the last Budokai game came out. There are dozens of new characters to be added to the game. After getting a stellar 2.5D fighting game in Dragon Ball FighterZ, can they pull off a similar level of care in an open 3D fighting game? The answer to that question is a resounding yes - with a few hiccups here and there.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO is what you would expect from old-school Budokai games. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? You have two standard attacks, ki blasts, and special moves usable after charging up enough ki, which you can accumulate by either hitting your opponent or by holding down the charge button. Interrupting your opponents from gathering ki is ideal, but ki can also be used in different ways. Do you want to keep your distance and max-charge your ki gauge to execute your most powerful move, wiping out three bars of your opponent's health in a single hit, or would you rather use your ki to teleport behind your opponent and unleash a flurry of combos so they don't have time to recover? Some characters have special abilities or attacks linked to their ki, which can make them inherently better than other characters. The game isn't always balanced, as if the developers were trying to take character lore into account, where some are miles beyond others in terms of power. I didn't have a chance to experiment with all the characters at the time of this writing, as the campaign is rather lengthy and the requirements to unlock all the characters require a few playthroughs. However, I'm very curious about which characters will be played more, especially in the online and competitive scenes.

You fight opponents in one-on-one or occasional team battles in open 3D environments based on iconic set pieces throughout the franchise. All of these locations are rendered in stunning cell-shaded 3D. The character models are expressive with the right amount of exaggerated movement in their attacks. Particle effects are plentiful, and I love the little attention to detail both inside and outside of fights. There are certain dialogue interactions that open up when two characters are paired against each other and one of my favorite little details is seeing things like the Ginyu force doing their silly poses whenever they enter a charge state.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO covers everything from the beginning of Dragon Ball Z to Dragon Ball GT, with the inclusion of Dragon Ball Super. You're given the opportunity to play through the story with the available playable characters. However, you only engage in fights relevant to the chosen character. For example, if you go through the story as Goku, you will play the fights that Goku was engaged in during the story and everything else is covered in stylistic stills that are typically not accompanied by narration. It is a shame since it would've made getting through the story more engaging otherwise. Luckily, the important plot points involving the selected character are accompanied by lovingly recreated cinematics.

During the story campaigns, some moments offer opportunity to pick slight story deviations. For example, at the start of Dragon Ball Z, Goku may fight Raditz with Krillin instead of with Piccolo. I was excited about this because I thought we would get cool branching paths. Some of these moments offer unique battles and scenarios, but ultimately a lot of the encounters that I came across didn't alter the battles much or how the overall story played out. A lot of scenarios are saved outside the campaigns where you can do a couple of custom battles that become unlocked as you complete more of the game. These are more isolated wacky match ups with slight story context behind them. Some range from being lazy, like somehow Turles survived the end of the Tree of Might movie and coming back to look for Goku before the Buu saga starts. Others are cute, like the Great Saiyaman filming a movie involving kaiju, which would involve him going up against three extra large characters in the roster. These are fun and add a lot more value to the game if you find yourself getting tired of playing through the same three-decades-old Dragon Ball scenarios.

The difficulty curve when going up against the CPU feels just right with only a few moments of noticeable challenge. During one-on-one matches, your speed is tested above everything else. One standard approach is that the CPU tries to juggle and get behind you, prioritizing teleporting and fast movements over big dramatic finishers. Guarding and dodging will also be your best friend, as there are button inputs that will allow you to counter at specific frames to potentially end a juggle and recover in mid-air after you get knocked away, which is a great way to save yourself from eating a beam blast to the face.

That being said, the game's difficulty balance does get a little bit tricky with certain characters. I never like fighting the giant characters in this game because while they are larger and thus their hitboxes are technically bigger, some of them have the same speed and block potential as smaller characters. They also hit a lot harder. I can't tell you how many times I had to redo the fight against Vegeta as a giant monkey because his encounter starts with a beam blast to the face and he could easily shoulder tackle you into a mountain. When reaching story-specific moments, the game will just have you take on three characters back to back with the same health bar. It makes sense in the story and the game will allow you to adjust the difficulty if you lose too many times before starting up another match, but it's not a graceful difficulty curve.

Some of these fights were made a bit more difficult by the game optimization. I played the PC port of this game, and I think my PC is a bit more powerful than most considering that I live-stream and sometimes juggle six different programs at once. However, the frame rate for the game was far from consistent. It's the most noticeable when transitioning between story scenes and the match setups, but occasionally you would get a dip in the middle of a hectic exchange of blows. The camera was also surprisingly difficult to work with at times. Most of the time it would stay locked on your opponent and you're always either facing them or rotating around them. Sometimes the camera would get stuck, sometimes you could see through the floor (which is disorientating), or the camera would completely stop locking onto the opponent. The really strange thing is that I ran into these issues mostly playing through the story mode and not in online mode. Despite the matches taking a while to load up, it wasn't nearly as bad. The game is far from unplayable but it's not as optimized on the PC port as I wish.

The soundtrack and voice acting for the game are an absolute highlight. Whether they're new or returning actors, everything sounds on point. I like how well-written some of the scenes are, as it feels like they have a little bit more of an extra flare compared to what we are used to. The music for this game sounds incredible with a variety of familiar leitmotifs that hit a nostalgic cord for longtime fans while also introducing some newer renditions and tracks that make it feel like a modern-day Tenkaichi game.

This is an expanded and updated Budokai Tenkaichi game through and through. If you were never a fan of those games then I don't think Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO will change your mind. Despite having dozens of characters, most of them feel distinct from each other with moves, set pieces, and finishers that felt ripped right out of Toriyama's manga. The “what if” scenarios are fun, and there are plenty to unlock, from different outfits to playable characters, and the battle system allows different playstyles. A few things are holding the game back from getting a perfect score, such as optimization and overall character balancing. However, as the game feels more like it's about celebrating the franchise than being a perfect fighting game experience, I have to give it high marks. I've sunk dozens of hours into the game and I can tell I will sink more.