DRAGON BALL Sparking! ZERO looks sick. But is it competitive?
Written by Michael Hillus
With the release of DRAGON BALL Sparking! ZERO, there's been a question on my mind for a hot second. And no, it's not how gorgeous the game looks, but that is a good bonus.
Sparking! ZERO overhauls a lot of the core mechanics of the Budokai Tenkaichi series - obviously, due to the last game being released 17 years ago, and it got me thinking - how competitive can Sparking! ZERO get? Let's take a quick dive into the system mechanics that govern the game and find out.
Core Mechanics
DRAGON BALL Sparking! ZERO's movement, due to it being an arena fighter, is incredibly freeing and focuses more on large-scale traversal rather than micro-movement. Its multitude of defensive movement techniques such as fast ascend/descend will cause players to, more often than not, focus their energy on moving around the stage as much as possible due to the plethora of tracking that's available.
Every character has tracking on most of their moves, whether it be melee or ranged, and its effectiveness ranges from player to player. While it's not necessarily a bad thing to have tracking in a game like this, Sparking! ZERO sets itself so far out from other traditional fighting games that it's almost necessary to have it, similar to how shooter games have some form of tracking on melee combat (bar Fortnite and its pickaxe).
Combos in this game can only connect if you find yourself behind the opponent, so you're very unlikely to waltz into a true combo unexpectedly. But since defensive options usually require some form of rock-paper-scissors dynamic, it's okay if you land a hit anywhere else, since stringing together rush attacks doesn't require much effort, and does fair damage regardless.
Overall, you don't need to worry too much about the nitty gritty of the system mechanics - everyone functions the same in 60% of ways, and the only differing factors are metered mechanics. Speaking of;
Meter Management
Something important to understand about Sparking! ZERO is that Ki is everything. It's your movement, it's your super moves, your counters, your counter-counters, it's your Sparking...
How you charge Ki is crucial to success in this game. If there's time in a match where you can charge Ki, do it. If you don't want to close in, do it. If the enemy is zoning you out, do it as best as you can. There's no reason not to - it's often the deciding factor of most engagements.
On top of Ki, the Skill Count makes a return from Budokai Tenkaichi 3. Skill Points regenerate at a fixed rate, but can be sped up by using specific Ability items, although their tournament legality is yet to be decided. For now, assume everyone charges it real slowly.
Skill Points are used for super counters/deflections, transformations, fusions, and - if you want to use Sparking, you'll need to spend at least one, otherwise your Ki will only be able to reach five levels before capping out.
Balance and Comp
The mechanics that govern Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO so far have proven to be extremely different from how regular fighting games work, but when solely talking about one on one battles with similar strength characters, there's a discernible difference between a bad player and a good player.
However, because of this game's (confirmed) character discrepancy between weak and strong fighters, comp play is almost decidedly DP Battle, with nearly zero reason to play one on one or Team Battle.
Every character is given a set Destruction Point value, and in DP Battle, you're meant to create a team that fits within the 15 Destruction Points the game provides. (Sound familiar?)
In a way, the game's balance is similar to Marvel vs Capcom 2 - players can pick the top tiers and wail on each other like Mayweather and Pacquiao, but if they do then it leaves a lot of bloat in the character roster where comp players don't choose anything else besides the big guys.
The Personal Bias Section
And honestly? That's kind of sick.
I think most fighting game devs and players nowadays feel like modern FG titles have to be balanced across the board, but at a certain point balance begins to feel worthless. If a character is comically strong lore-wise, but can easily get bodied by a so-called weak fighter, is that really realistic?
It's part of the reason why Super SF4 Arcade Edition had characters like Yun and Evil Ryu dominate the game - strong characters bring hype, hype brings haters, haters breed labbing the game out, labbing the game out brings new findings and stronger results, which in turn loops back around and brings hype.
Of course, there's always a limit to how far a character can be explored, but at that point the community is capable of making competitive decisions, like whether or not to ban a character or to use a different game version. It's always better to give the players options rather than limiting them to whatever the dev team felt like.
Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO is running it back to a time when fighting games were meant to be nothing more than what was advertised on the tin - a fighting game. Not an eSport, not a game filled to the brim with competition, just a game about fighting.
Conclusion
I definitely think Sparking! ZERO has a place in side events and casual comp environments (if that makes sense), but if that's all there'd be I wouldn't mind. Bandai Namco and Spike Chunsoft have already made an immaculate experience for casual and competitive players alike, and I don't think we could ask for more.