Dragon Ball: Sparking Zerohas arrived forDragon Ballfans everywhere, and they are already digging into what it has to offer. Pulling fighters from across the animatedDragon Ballcanon, as well asGTand the movies,Dragon Ball: Sparking Zerotouts itself as the greatestDragon Balllove letter yet. There’s a lot to do in this star-studded package, and players have only begun to unravel the depths of this game’s homage to Akira Toriyama’s classic franchise.
ExploringSparking Zero’s roster, and the possibilities therein, will form the brunt of that unraveling. Whether it’s looking into competitive value online or discovering uses in the Custom Battle editor,Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero’s 182 initial charactershold a lot of value for many different players. That’s not even getting into the simple joys of watching their animations play out, which now include detailed transformation sequences that pay respect to one ofDragon Ball’s most iconic elements. As the protagonist, Son Goku is no stranger to transformations, although fans wishing to see his most up-to-date lineup of forms will have to wait for an uncompromised version.
Goku’s Transformations in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Have An Odd Restriction
That may sound strange givenDragon Ball: Sparking Zero’s thorough collection of almost everyone’s forms, with only niche exclusions likeobscure villains Garlic Jr. and Hirudegarn’s base forms. As for Goku, the only forms he’s missing are Teen Goku’s Great Ape andGTGoku’s Golden Great Ape, but there’s a catch.Dragon Ball: Sparking Zerosplits characters with many forms into separate versions based on different eras. Players can start fights as any of said forms, but they can only transform into other forms assigned to that version of the character. That means any given Goku can only assume forms relevant to him at that point in time, which is fair enough.
Sparking Zero Fell Short Of Portraying The Strongest Goku
With three stages of Super Saiyan, the red and blue God Ki forms, the two stages of Ultra Instinct, and even both notable instances of Kaioken,all of Goku’sDBZandDBSformsare present somewhere inSparking Zero. There’s no issue there — just a missed opportunity.Dragon Ball SuperGoku has access to his base, SS1, SSG, and SSGSS forms, but is unable to progress into Ultra Instinct -Sign- and Ultra Instinct, with those forming their own Goku instance. It’s a shame that Goku’sSuper-era transformation progression wasn’t collected into one character, especially since the developers clearly had that in mind.
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Has Laid The Blueprint For Goku’s Path
One ofDragon Ball: Sparking Zero’s Bonus Battles, examples of the Custom Battle system made by Spike Chunsoft with their own rewards and progression, sees Whis sparring with Goku (Super). Things start normal, but this Goku has been set up with triggers to automatically ascend through his three other forms, and then enter Kaioken. When the fight seems to be nearing its end, Goku is suddenly replaced by a full-strength Ultra Instinct -Sign-, with the idea being that he powered up even further. Asthe excellentDragon Ball Super: Brolymoviedemonstrated, there’s a lot of inherent appeal in watching Saiyans gradually power up, butSparking Zerohad to cheat a little to achieve the same effect.
DBS Goku’s Wildest Fight Yet Will Have To Wait
Unfortunately, that means that even with the release ofSparking Zero, there still hasn’t been a playable take onDragon Ball SuperGoku that can assume all of his forms in one fight. After this near-miss, it falls totheDragon Ballgame followingSparking Zeroto make this happen, hopefully with more rules connecting Ultra Instinct to the rest of Goku’s repertoire becoming established by then. While it may take a while, the vision proposed inDragon Ball: Sparking Zeroshould become a real, exciting moment one day.
