THE Budokai Tenkaichi series is back after 17 years! This is a breakdown and semi-comprehensive critique of Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero. Please leave a like, comment below with your thoughts, and subscribe for more content like this in the future! Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:38 - Episode Battle/Story Mode 03:47 - Character Roster 07:14 - Gameplay 09:29 - Online/Ranked Experience 10:37 - Rage Quitting 12:38 - Balancing VS Anti-nerfs 15:47 - Custom Battle 18:16 - Unique Additions 21:06 - Verdict
As someone who plays majority solo offline, story mode is criminal. The pacing, the "cutscenes", the random stuff cut out from canon, lack of filler content, lack of DB, lack of GT, lack of movies. There's so much potential that is missing if not heavily reduced from older DBZ games
I’m right there with you. I think I’ve only tried 3 Online battles, rest of my hours on SZ are offline. The story was kinda lackluster. The what-ifs were cool, but I hated the way the story was presented so that didn’t help any; I need more characters too. No Dragon Ball? Barely any GT? Where’s Pikkon, where’s all of the underlings - Wheelo’s Biomen, Garlic Junior’s Spice Boys, Cooler’s Armored Squadron etc.
as another mainly offline player, the ai outside of story mode can be WAY too easy at times. Like they will literally sit there idly waiting for you to move, and it can last like 30 seconds sometimes (on super difficulty), and they take way too long to recover
@@syax022 REAL the AI in story is aggressive as hell and then everywhere else super difficult is either braindead or just dodges everything. There's no other skills involved
@@seifnaiad1728 but what if you want to play through the story WITH awesome fighting mechanics? What if you just expect the same level of storytelling and completion as past games in the same series?
I don't care about ranked or balance at all. My biggest gripe is 1000% the time chamber being the only split screen map. 99% of my time in BT3 was split screen fights vs friends/brothers. 1 (very boring) map for split screen absolutely makes the game worse to me.
It was a letdown... But still a damn good letdown. Really goes to show how massive in scale the PS2 games were. Hopefully they can make things better in updates/maybe a future sequel.
They massacred a bunch of Ultimates and Supers and the craziest thing was, a lot of them were already perfect when updated for Raging Blast 2/Ultimate Tenkaichi. I do not understand why Burst Rush looks so bad 😭😭 I’m certain a sizable amount of people play Ultimate Gohan for that move alone and they did my boy dirty
@@iamnotweak9259 Definitely not, it's literally one of the best fighting games in the last decade and represents DB on a superb level. It's definitely ok if it's not your cup of tea, but straight lying on its name is lame.
@youngkaz9344 Lying on its name or telling my truth? I understand it's strong sides like music, graphics and overall easiness to pick up. But it has one of the worst and most boring story modes I ever seen. It's cheesy af and buttonmashy and don't get me started on Rollback stuff
@iamnotweak9259 sparking zero literally only has two attack buttons.. that's buttonmashy. I'll admit both games have autocombos, but that's where skill and mix ups come into play.When you go sparking mode, all you have to do is mash one button for a basically infinite combo. Story mode in Fighterz was fleshed out with an original story and character. Sparking zero is nothing but slideshow stories, and on top of that, Vegeta has like a handful of fights total. No universe 6 tournament or even actual What Ifs. Fighterz is balanced like crazy where if you're good enough at the game, you can beat Blue Gogeta with Yamcha. That's a balanced fighting game. Sparking Zero ranked is filled with noobs who rage quit and cheese Ults nonstop. FighterZ is definitely not "easy" to pick up. You HAVE to learn the unique combo system for each character. FighterZ is for fighting game players, Sparking Zero was made for casual players who wanna pick it up and spam Vegito or Gogeta. Granted, SZ has VERY in-depth mechanics that are true to the series, but overall, the game is for casuals. See Perception mashers for reference lol
definitely not a failure, it is the 3rd best selling game in Namco history and it has only been out for about 6 or 7 weeks now. The large player drop is expected as we live in an age where things must be balanced in fighting games and a fighting game that is advertised as broken and loyal to character power levels is unfathomable in this day and age.
I think the game was very nice and I have a very fun time with it. I am only a offline player so i literally can’t say anything about the online mode but honestly from what I heard… I really don’t care to try it out. I’m having fun playing against the CPU and the story mode is not the best but I honestly think it nice for what it is. I will be honest i never played any of the old Budokai Tenkaichi games so i can’t really compare them like some older people who actually did play the older games can. Anyway, my opinion is that it a fun game to play in short bursts and then let yourself chill down and then jump back in the next day, I can’t wait for the DLC!
One critique, that I don't think I see brought up enough is the fact that they tried to shorten every animation too much. There's a lot of iconic rush supers in particular, that are just way too short and don't look nearly as impactful or cool as they did originally. Key example. Ultimate Gohan's Burst Rush is virtually unrecognizable from how it originally looked, now it looks generic and lacking in style. I also don't like the censorship. There are way too many weird, unnecessary attempts to sensor certain attacks like Second Form Frieza's HAIL FRIEZA Ultimate attack, which lacks impact and the Black and White affect obscures you from seeing him impale the character. Raging Blast did that attack far more justice.
I 100% agree, balance the game to make it more fun, I like the game but it is undercooked and we should be allowed to criticize it. The game needs more quality of life changes, but that does NOT mean, I don't have fun with the game. I especially agree on the lack cinematic angles and impact/sound design for supers.
The impact of puches reallys lacks that grit man. And some of the rush super attack feels cut eg. The meteor smash. The story mode is really weak man. Like no gt story?? or movie story ??? Really? My issues with this game is less content for offline, it’s just versus/ customs battle. No survival mode.. gameplay wise there a bugs man and it really affects the gaming experience. Dragon dash is tooo damn slow man compared to the homing dash they deffo gotta fix that. Cant use dragon fist on giants expect hirudegarn is abysmal. You can revenge counter everything which is very stupid especially after QTEs. Not enough map destruction for other maps
To delight you, ragequittees/ dissconnecters are getting permanently banned if they disconnect in the middle of the fight. Sparking zero said they’re making fighting games great again, and I fully and whole heartedly agree.
As somebody who ownes the first tenkaichi and 100%ed all 3 games in at their respective times of released as a player in High School. I'm still very much ecstatic that this game exists. My primary issues would be considered so.. Story: The story being shown in a slide show presentation was not a good move. However I will excuse it to a degree being Kakarot being what is available for those wanting a more in depth story. I would have much prefer them.Go the route of 2 In animate sections of a fight before the actual battle an let the player play out the fight (example, animate Gokus warmup with Cell and let the players take over after the warmup) Gameplay: I feel as if the game play itself is solid as it just gives extensions to preexisting movesets. Thats all it really needed to me. However, mechanically having misread inputs and input delay makes me want not play out of sheer frustration. There is not a single situation that grab counters anything that cant be grab blocked. the fact that the defense is oppressively strong in this game. Supercounters are just too easy to do and come up too frequently. Mastered online, can shut down melee as an option entirely. Perceptions uptime is insane. In BT3 it was a half a bar of ki and about 1 second animation lock per use. Here it can ne activated 32 times per 1 bar of ki, and sets up for counter attacks. Not to mention it generates faster then its activation cost so if yoused in 1/4th second taps it can be indefinitely used in perpetuity. Low DP character are more lethal then higher Dp characters because AIS shuts down melee and can generate blast stock while AiS is upcreating situations where AiS can be used again as AIS ends. Targetting system is dogshit Characters feel to floaty To smack away beams is too costly and it isn't worth it. I should get increase ki buff for melee attacks for smacking that shit away. It should be 1.5 bars to use. (I wanna scream GET DAT SHIT OUTTA HERE!!! For that moment of glory but when blocking is a less costly alternative it makes it a detrimental mechanic to use.) Speaking of detrimental mechanic , the revenge counter is absolutely useless in its current state. I use 18/Goku End/Z Bardock, And all three of them come out plus frame on revenge counter use for the enemy. Meaning it being used against me is allowing me to reset my combo making it worse for the activator. Menu: They wiffed HARD imo on this one. What made the series so iconic to me was the anime stylized menus. I guess this is a modern take on the menu and im no fan of it. Anime menus please! Extra battles I don't really care for the extra battles. I've done too, but it's not rearly doing anything for me.At least in its current state. I'm here for the game play and I got exactly what I wanted for the most part... Solid 7/10 Sparking Zero had some big shoes to fill, their feet are alil small right now but theirs room to grow into those shoes. I play it and enjoy it. But if they remastered bt3 and the gameplay was as tight as 3 like it was on the ps2, Id rather play that until they fix Sparking Zeros issues.
I don't think i have enough hours to say i have a "main", BUT i have enjoyed melee trunks + trunks in super Saiyan level 3, and all of the Vegeta characters
Many cool characters are missing from GT, movies and normal dragon ball, but they decided to give is DB Daima characters... maaaan who cares about those chibi characters?! We don't need another small goku, we don't need another small vegeta....
the fact that you think is not supposed to be played ranked doesnt mean everyone has the same opinion, the game has incredible ranked potential, and yet you expect people to play for fun in a ranked lobby?, there is actually a friendly match online lobby, why not go there? then, i agree with you completely on the fact the game needs changes, but is basically because it just wasnt finished upon release, they sped up the release as marketing for daima, which just seems like a stupid decision in my opinion
I main zarbon always liked weaker characters makes winning the fights feel better or characters that deserved more if arale or grandpa Gohan was in would definitely use
they could easily make more maps for split screen for example imagine Space (beerus vs SSG goku) where the earth is visible or a Giant Space pod( think Vegetas Grav Chamber but bigger) Or Inside Majin Buu (this stage would Unfuse fusions after a time limit) if you die to a person spamming ki blast ur just a terrible player its not that hard to deflect them
Honestly the complaining about ranked is dumb, it’s ranked when ur in high ranked in any game ur either gonna get actual good players or cheese stop complaining it’s always gonna be like that if I spend 70+ on a game and I wanna cheese I’m gonna cheese as simple as that 🤷🤷
@@iggywiggy4858 understand that but it still doesn't change the fact that it's corny af to just cheese every fight sure no one's physically stopping you from cheesing and you can realistically do what you want with the game you paid for but if you play that way you can't be mad if no one respects you as a player
When the cheese kills the community and the game we payed for takes 15+ minutes for a casual or ranked match cause people wanna have fun honest fights then yeah you can use your cheese on bots. The player count has already nose dived far more then the usual honeymoon drop and with un-fun cheese ruining the game it will keep dropping. 90% bro it's depressing Other games aren't perfectly balanced either but sparking should have some measures in place to minimize abuse of the cheese. Ki sickness (Underwater ki charge debuff) after instant sparking and afterimage strike (both are locked out of use during ki sickness), make ki blasts drain sparking way faster(twice as fast) less skill point gain in general (30% reduction in gains across the board, keep the bar per HP bar lost) Make every ult blockable except certain rush ults and explosion ults and remove the lose lock-on after ult, save that for solar flare and instant transmission.
I will sey is good geme, but not worth 100$ at release, i guess better wait for some promotion in store if you are dragon ball fan. Geme is kinda disapoting for me because of stroy mode on trailer if I remember correct it look like amazing story and we get so much cut of show. Next are bugs or online meny cherecters are unbalanced if you pley online the seme characters aperd like jiren,goku ui,gogeta sjj4,breuss,whis,broly and this mf yajirobe with his bean. To bugs problem with auto seve hmmm meybe im wrong bug with ki blast camera angles are wird somtimes button are clamsy. And I wan't sey one thing is a pity that now gemes have pey dlc's old gemes have a skill to unilock
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
THE Budokai Tenkaichi series is back after 17 years! This is a breakdown and semi-comprehensive critique of Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero.
Please leave a like, comment below with your thoughts, and subscribe for more content like this in the future!
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:38 - Episode Battle/Story Mode
03:47 - Character Roster
07:14 - Gameplay
09:29 - Online/Ranked Experience
10:37 - Rage Quitting
12:38 - Balancing VS Anti-nerfs
15:47 - Custom Battle
18:16 - Unique Additions
21:06 - Verdict
As someone who plays majority solo offline, story mode is criminal. The pacing, the "cutscenes", the random stuff cut out from canon, lack of filler content, lack of DB, lack of GT, lack of movies. There's so much potential that is missing if not heavily reduced from older DBZ games
I’m right there with you. I think I’ve only tried 3 Online battles, rest of my hours on SZ are offline. The story was kinda lackluster. The what-ifs were cool, but I hated the way the story was presented so that didn’t help any; I need more characters too. No Dragon Ball? Barely any GT? Where’s Pikkon, where’s all of the underlings - Wheelo’s Biomen, Garlic Junior’s Spice Boys, Cooler’s Armored Squadron etc.
as another mainly offline player, the ai outside of story mode can be WAY too easy at times. Like they will literally sit there idly waiting for you to move, and it can last like 30 seconds sometimes (on super difficulty), and they take way too long to recover
@@syax022 REAL the AI in story is aggressive as hell and then everywhere else super difficult is either braindead or just dodges everything. There's no other skills involved
Go play DBZ kakarot if you wanna play a dragon ball story. Sparking zero isn't that
@@seifnaiad1728 but what if you want to play through the story WITH awesome fighting mechanics? What if you just expect the same level of storytelling and completion as past games in the same series?
I don't care about ranked or balance at all. My biggest gripe is 1000% the time chamber being the only split screen map. 99% of my time in BT3 was split screen fights vs friends/brothers. 1 (very boring) map for split screen absolutely makes the game worse to me.
Bozo take
W TAKE
It was a letdown... But still a damn good letdown. Really goes to show how massive in scale the PS2 games were. Hopefully they can make things better in updates/maybe a future sequel.
Best rant!! ❤
They massacred a bunch of Ultimates and Supers and the craziest thing was, a lot of them were already perfect when updated for Raging Blast 2/Ultimate Tenkaichi. I do not understand why Burst Rush looks so bad 😭😭 I’m certain a sizable amount of people play Ultimate Gohan for that move alone and they did my boy dirty
the character select screen looks like the shit youd see from a roblox dbz game in 2011.
Aye show FighterZ some respek man. Goated fighting game
Complete garbage. But I respect your opinion
@@iamnotweak9259 you just suck at fighting games bro But that's okay I respect your opinion those types of games are a huge time investment lol
@@iamnotweak9259 Definitely not, it's literally one of the best fighting games in the last decade and represents DB on a superb level. It's definitely ok if it's not your cup of tea, but straight lying on its name is lame.
@youngkaz9344 Lying on its name or telling my truth? I understand it's strong sides like music, graphics and overall easiness to pick up.
But it has one of the worst and most boring story modes I ever seen. It's cheesy af and buttonmashy and don't get me started on Rollback stuff
@iamnotweak9259 sparking zero literally only has two attack buttons.. that's buttonmashy. I'll admit both games have autocombos, but that's where skill and mix ups come into play.When you go sparking mode, all you have to do is mash one button for a basically infinite combo. Story mode in Fighterz was fleshed out with an original story and character. Sparking zero is nothing but slideshow stories, and on top of that, Vegeta has like a handful of fights total. No universe 6 tournament or even actual What Ifs. Fighterz is balanced like crazy where if you're good enough at the game, you can beat Blue Gogeta with Yamcha. That's a balanced fighting game. Sparking Zero ranked is filled with noobs who rage quit and cheese Ults nonstop. FighterZ is definitely not "easy" to pick up. You HAVE to learn the unique combo system for each character. FighterZ is for fighting game players, Sparking Zero was made for casual players who wanna pick it up and spam Vegito or Gogeta. Granted, SZ has VERY in-depth mechanics that are true to the series, but overall, the game is for casuals. See Perception mashers for reference lol
definitely not a failure, it is the 3rd best selling game in Namco history and it has only been out for about 6 or 7 weeks now. The large player drop is expected as we live in an age where things must be balanced in fighting games and a fighting game that is advertised as broken and loyal to character power levels is unfathomable in this day and age.
I think the game was very nice and I have a very fun time with it.
I am only a offline player so i literally can’t say anything about the online mode but honestly from what I heard… I really don’t care to try it out.
I’m having fun playing against the CPU and the story mode is not the best but I honestly think it nice for what it is.
I will be honest i never played any of the old Budokai Tenkaichi games so i can’t really compare them like some older people who actually did play the older games can.
Anyway, my opinion is that it a fun game to play in short bursts and then let yourself chill down and then jump back in the next day, I can’t wait for the DLC!
One critique, that I don't think I see brought up enough is the fact that they tried to shorten every animation too much.
There's a lot of iconic rush supers in particular, that are just way too short and don't look nearly as impactful or cool as they did originally.
Key example. Ultimate Gohan's Burst Rush is virtually unrecognizable from how it originally looked, now it looks generic and lacking in style.
I also don't like the censorship.
There are way too many weird, unnecessary attempts to sensor certain attacks like Second Form Frieza's HAIL FRIEZA Ultimate attack, which lacks impact and the Black and White affect obscures you from seeing him impale the character.
Raging Blast did that attack far more justice.
You’re such a GT fanboy 😂 great vid bro
not gonna lie this video was so good i thought you would have like atleast 100k subs
I 100% agree, balance the game to make it more fun, I like the game but it is undercooked and we should be allowed to criticize it. The game needs more quality of life changes, but that does NOT mean, I don't have fun with the game. I especially agree on the lack cinematic angles and impact/sound design for supers.
No.
So I wont or shouldnt get judged for liking and wanting to play Beerus?
The impact of puches reallys lacks that grit man. And some of the rush super attack feels cut eg. The meteor smash. The story mode is really weak man. Like no gt story?? or movie story ??? Really? My issues with this game is less content for offline, it’s just versus/ customs battle. No survival mode.. gameplay wise there a bugs man and it really affects the gaming experience. Dragon dash is tooo damn slow man compared to the homing dash they deffo gotta fix that. Cant use dragon fist on giants expect hirudegarn is abysmal. You can revenge counter everything which is very stupid especially after QTEs. Not enough map destruction for other maps
😅 you gunna complain about using broken characters but you use gogeta bro 😅
To delight you, ragequittees/ dissconnecters are getting permanently banned if they disconnect in the middle of the fight. Sparking zero said they’re making fighting games great again, and I fully and whole heartedly agree.
I think that’s already a thing because I be rage quitting a lot and I haven’t found a single match in like 2 weeks. That’s bs
As somebody who ownes the first tenkaichi and 100%ed all 3 games in at their respective times of released as a player in High School.
I'm still very much ecstatic that this game exists.
My primary issues would be considered so..
Story:
The story being shown in a slide show presentation was not a good move. However I will excuse it to a degree being Kakarot being what is available for those wanting a more in depth story. I would have much prefer them.Go the route of 2 In animate sections of a fight before the actual battle an let the player play out the fight (example, animate Gokus warmup with Cell and let the players take over after the warmup)
Gameplay:
I feel as if the game play itself is solid as it just gives extensions to preexisting movesets. Thats all it really needed to me.
However, mechanically having misread inputs and input delay makes me want not play out of sheer frustration.
There is not a single situation that grab counters anything that cant be grab blocked.
the fact that the defense is oppressively strong in this game. Supercounters are just too easy to do and come up too frequently. Mastered online, can shut down melee as an option entirely.
Perceptions uptime is insane. In BT3 it was a half a bar of ki and about 1 second animation lock per use. Here it can ne activated 32 times per 1 bar of ki, and sets up for counter attacks. Not to mention it generates faster then its activation cost so if yoused in 1/4th second taps it can be indefinitely used in perpetuity.
Low DP character are more lethal then higher Dp characters because AIS shuts down melee and can generate blast stock while AiS is upcreating situations where AiS can be used again as AIS ends.
Targetting system is dogshit
Characters feel to floaty
To smack away beams is too costly and it isn't worth it. I should get increase ki buff for melee attacks for smacking that shit away. It should be 1.5 bars to use. (I wanna scream GET DAT SHIT OUTTA HERE!!! For that moment of glory but when blocking is a less costly alternative it makes it a detrimental mechanic to use.)
Speaking of detrimental mechanic , the revenge counter is absolutely useless in its current state. I use 18/Goku End/Z Bardock, And all three of them come out plus frame on revenge counter use for the enemy. Meaning it being used against me is allowing me to reset my combo making it worse for the activator.
Menu:
They wiffed HARD imo on this one. What made the series so iconic to me was the anime stylized menus. I guess this is a modern take on the menu and im no fan of it. Anime menus please!
Extra battles
I don't really care for the extra battles. I've done too, but it's not rearly doing anything for me.At least in its current state.
I'm here for the game play and I got exactly what I wanted for the most part...
Solid 7/10
Sparking Zero had some big shoes to fill, their feet are alil small right now but theirs room to grow into those shoes.
I play it and enjoy it. But if they remastered bt3 and the gameplay was as tight as 3 like it was on the ps2, Id rather play that until they fix Sparking Zeros issues.
Sparking Zero Episode Battle is not better than BT3 STORY MODE.
Newer does not mean better
I don't think i have enough hours to say i have a "main", BUT i have enjoyed melee trunks + trunks in super Saiyan level 3, and all of the Vegeta characters
Many cool characters are missing from GT, movies and normal dragon ball, but they decided to give is DB Daima characters... maaaan who cares about those chibi characters?! We don't need another small goku, we don't need another small vegeta....
Idk if that was just satire but ssj4 gogeta is incredibly broken for damage output alone
the fact that you think is not supposed to be played ranked doesnt mean everyone has the same opinion, the game has incredible ranked potential, and yet you expect people to play for fun in a ranked lobby?, there is actually a friendly match online lobby, why not go there? then, i agree with you completely on the fact the game needs changes, but is basically because it just wasnt finished upon release, they sped up the release as marketing for daima, which just seems like a stupid decision in my opinion
I main zarbon always liked weaker characters makes winning the fights feel better or characters that deserved more if arale or grandpa Gohan was in would definitely use
@@supersaiyansnack201 big respect 🫡
they could easily make more maps for split screen for example imagine Space (beerus vs SSG goku) where the earth is visible or a Giant Space pod( think Vegetas Grav Chamber but bigger)
Or Inside Majin Buu (this stage would Unfuse fusions after a time limit)
if you die to a person spamming ki blast ur just a terrible player its not that hard to deflect them
Honestly the complaining about ranked is dumb, it’s ranked when ur in high ranked in any game ur either gonna get actual good players or cheese stop complaining it’s always gonna be like that if I spend 70+ on a game and I wanna cheese I’m gonna cheese as simple as that 🤷🤷
You def spam ki blast with broly 😂
@ actually I main turles, cooler, vegeta and janemba, but like I said every game has cheese and ppl are gonna
Do it no matter what
@@iggywiggy4858 understand that but it still doesn't change the fact that it's corny af to just cheese every fight sure no one's physically stopping you from cheesing and you can realistically do what you want with the game you paid for but if you play that way you can't be mad if no one respects you as a player
When the cheese kills the community and the game we payed for takes 15+ minutes for a casual or ranked match cause people wanna have fun honest fights then yeah you can use your cheese on bots.
The player count has already nose dived far more then the usual honeymoon drop and with un-fun cheese ruining the game it will keep dropping. 90% bro it's depressing
Other games aren't perfectly balanced either but sparking should have some measures in place to minimize abuse of the cheese.
Ki sickness (Underwater ki charge debuff) after instant sparking and afterimage strike (both are locked out of use during ki sickness), make ki blasts drain sparking way faster(twice as fast) less skill point gain in general (30% reduction in gains across the board, keep the bar per HP bar lost) Make every ult blockable except certain rush ults and explosion ults and remove the lose lock-on after ult, save that for solar flare and instant transmission.
How could you type something so stupid with such confidence
I will sey is good geme, but not worth 100$ at release, i guess better wait for some promotion in store if you are dragon ball fan. Geme is kinda disapoting for me because of stroy mode on trailer if I remember correct it look like amazing story and we get so much cut of show. Next are bugs or online meny cherecters are unbalanced if you pley online the seme characters aperd like jiren,goku ui,gogeta sjj4,breuss,whis,broly and this mf yajirobe with his bean. To bugs problem with auto seve hmmm meybe im wrong bug with ki blast camera angles are wird somtimes button are clamsy. And I wan't sey one thing is a pity that now gemes have pey dlc's old gemes have a skill to unilock
Budakai tenkaichi 3 story mode is fire and 100x better then sparking zeros story mode
um.no.
you misssplelled critique 🤓
2nd form cell main ppl hate idc lol
Respectfully, i think you need to talk slower
This isn’t Tik tok
First