Hannan Mundia 
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will resurrect the Budokai Tenkaichi series, and fans might have gotten some hints on which characters the roster will have.
15 years since the last game in the series was released, fans had been anxiously awaiting any news of these legendary games making a return. It was revealed in March 2023 that the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi game series was finally returning, and even more information was given to fans at The Game Awards 2023. The first trailer was revealed alongside several other major titles including Marvel’s Blade and the next Monster Hunter game.
In addition to announcing the official name and giving a glimpse at how the combat of the game will be, key characters from specific arcs of the infamous anime and manga series were shown in the game’s official announcement trailer. Couple that with leaks from a well-known Dragon Ball leaker and fans now might have an idea of the size of the game’s character roster.
What is Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero?
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is the official name of the new Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi game as announced at The Game Awards.
While there wasn’t much information regarding the game previously, it has now been confirmed that the combat of this game will be very similar to past entries in the Budokai Tenkaichi game series.
Players will have the choice to pick one of the many playable characters before being thrown into a sandbox location based on the Dragon Ball series. Some characters will have transformations and every character will have moves taken from the source material.
Similar to past games, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will also have iconic gameplay mechanics like beam clashes, rush attacks, high-speed movement, and abilities that have the power to decimate a planet. The battle arena is also confirmed to react to the actions of the players. This means there will be mountains and buildings that players will be able to destroy, and certain attacks will irreversibly affect the arena’s terrain.
Which characters are in Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero?
While the character roster hasn’t been officially confirmed, there are hints that the game will include just about every character from the Dragon Ball series.
The official Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero page confirms that the game will have “a historic number of playable characters, each with signature abilities, transformations and techniques.”
Additionally, user DbsHype, a well-known news reporter in the Dragon Ball space reported that the game will have the biggest roster of characters any Dragon Ball game has ever seen. They state that Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will be featuring characters from the following series:
- Dragon Ball
- Dragon Ball Z
- Dragon Ball: GT
- Dragon Ball Super
- Dragon Ball Daima
It was already speculated that the game would feature characters from Dragon Ball, DBZ, and Dragon Ball GT as previous games in the series had done the same. Additionally, both of the currently released trailers feature characters from Dragon Ball Super, although it’s currently uncertain whether the game will only adopt characters from Super anime or if it’ll bring elements from the manga too.
As for Dragon Ball Daima, that series is set to begin airing in Fall 2024. If the reports are true and the game will truly have characters of this upcoming series, then it’s likely that the release year of Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will be 2025 or beyond. Questions also still exist as to whether players will be able to compete in offline multiplayer in the new game.
