It's only Budokai Tenkaichi if it comes from the Tenkaichi region of Japan. Otherwise it's just Sparking! Zero.
My favourite game of all time is probably Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for Wii, so any newcomer that aims to revive the Budokai Tenkaichi name is going to face a harsh comparison. Perhaps that's why the developers of the latest Dragon Ball game opted to call it "Sparking! Zero" instead. They were afraid of my blog that gets visited by literally dozens of bots per day.
But I can see through their clever disguise. Dragon Ball: Sprite! Zero is a new Budokai Tenkaichi game in everything but the name. The general gameplay is pretty much identical, except there's no Nintendo version this time to let us play with motion controls. That was the best part of BT3 on Wii. To do a Kamehameha you actually had to do the hand movements from the show, and it was awesome.
I like how Spanking! Ozone doesn't try to be a fighting game, though. The controls are simple, special attacks can be performed by holding two buttons, and even combos aren't very complicated. It's really easy for someone who doesn't play fighting games to get into. Which is why when the game suddenly gets really difficult it's complete bullshit because it never prepared you for it. Several missions have unlockable alternate story paths that require you to defeat all of the enemies "quickly" without ever defining what that means. You just have to charge up to full power so you can use the 20-hit combo over and over and hope that you've pummeled the bad guys fast enough when the mission is over (spoiler warning: you haven't). These missions are the worst part of the game and are the main reason I stopped playing. I was really enjoying myself before failing to beat Frieza in under 10 seconds for the hundredth time so that I could see the alternate ending where Piccolo wears a cute hat and has tea with King Kai.
But How Are The Graphics?
Dragon Ball: Spandau! Ballet uses the same visual style as Budokai Tenkaichi 3, with cel-shaded models and painted textures on the environments to emulate the look of the anime. But in 4K the effect doesn't work as well. The low resolution of the Wii helped blur the differences between hand-drawn animation and 3D animation trying to look hand drawn. Sporting! Zebra is too sharp so you can always tell it's a 3D pretender. Every time a character model rotates the 2D effect is ruined. It doesn't look bad. It just doesn't look as much like a cartoon as I'm sure the developers were hoping for. The style works better in Dragon Ball: The FighterZ because most of that is animated on a 2D plane.
A Story Is Just Graphics You Can Read
The aforementioned story mode is pretty good when it isn't locking half its content behind nigh-impossible requirements. I wouldn't care so much about that if the alternate story paths weren't genuinely fun to experience. It's like getting to rewatch DBZ but the characters actually listen to you when you shout at the screen, which fulfills about 86% of all childhood fantasies. The cutscenes are really unimpressive, though. They're basically just slideshows of precious moments between Goku and his besties.
My biggest problem with the game is how much the story and content focuses on Dragon Ball Super. It makes sense, because that's the latest series and the one that young people in the 12-25 demographic are enjoying. But these people are fucking idiots and if you're giving them anything other than five across the eyes you're an irresponsible adult. This is the generation that idolizes chunky public bathroom splatters like Andrew Tate and turned out to vote for Donald Trump in 2024. Clearly we haven't been hitting our kids enough ever since 9/11.
I have tried to give Dragon Ball Super a chance multiple times, but it's just so stupid in every way and I'll never forgive it for retconning Dragon Ball GT, the inarguably best Dragon Ball series. Super has half a dozen new Super Saiyan levels, and they're all the dumbest thing I've ever seen. They just change the colour of Goku's hair and call it something like "Super Saiyan God Shirtless Sam Neill" or "Basic Instinct Son Goku -Sign-."
 |
| Just be thankful I illustrated this one instead of shirtless Sam Neill. That would've been way too sexy. |
GT started out as a great return to the more light-hearted formula of the original Dragon Ball, but then at the end it changed gears and introduced Super Saiyan 4 which is the coolest thing Japan has produced since they figured out how to make Scarlett Johansson Japanese.
So I'm thankful that Sprouting! Azaleas includes Super Saiyan 4 Goku, Vegeta and Gogeta, as well as some of the other characters and transformations from Dragon Ball GT. But there is no GT story content, which is the only thing I really want. Even the new Dragon Ball Daima series is basically doing GT over again. Clearly there is a market for turning muscular adults into children outside of Tumblr and DeviantArt, and the animators should all be reported to the FBI but this is Japan where the legal age of consent is an hilarious idea, you joker.
I've been really harsh in this review, but that's exactly what I promised. If Budokai Tenkaichi 3 didn't exist I would probably call Sparking! Zero one of my favourite games ever instead. But in the current universe we live in—the one where Mr. Popo was blue for a while—I can't help but compare it unfavourably to what is objectively a much better game. I do appreciate getting more of a good thing, but it's like getting a cupcake after you just finished licking icing off of Kat Dennings' ass. Like, yeah, woooo, cupcakes... I guess.
Post a Comment