Dragon Ball Z Sparkling Zero is the brand-new Budokai Tenkachi game, shown on the stage of The Game Awards 2023. The game features Goku, Vegeta, Broly, Frieza, and more confirmed as playable characters.
Sparkling Zero is undoubtedly one of the biggest surprises revealed in this year’s The Game Awards yet. While the name “Sparkling Zero” was circulating for a while as the next Japanese Budokai Tenkaichi game’s name, we now know it is what the game will be called worldwide, thanks to the trailer.
The trailer starts with Goku and Vegeta fighting each other in their usual fashion, both eventually transforming into their Super Saiyan Blue form as the octane of the action ramped up. The combat appears similar to that of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, where the player is able to move their character more freely and fights are a lot more strategic.
At one point Frieza uses a death ball on Namek, similar to what happened in the show and even Cell makes an appearance. This may follow the storyline of the show like previous Budakai Tenkaichi games did. Normally the games make up a new story, which the exception of Kakarot, and it is likely that the well-received Kakarot showed Bandai Namco that fans are ready to see the old story again.
Since Kakarot does such a good job of showing an open world where the player takes control of characters, this one may stick to just letting the player go through the fights from the show. Although, we have no confirmation of this and Super Saiyan Blue kept appearing on screen so this may focus more on Super than the original games.
We’ll have to wait and see what’s coming, but it’s clear that this will be a good game for fans of the Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi series. This will be available on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
