What a time to be alive. Despite the flaws Sparking Zero may have, whoever grew up like I did with the Budokai/Tenkaichi series will be inclined to agree what an enormous comeback this is for Dragon Ball. Many reviews have already paid tribute to the passing of Toriyama, and I can only add to that fact by saying Dragon Ball will never die in our hearts.

Combat
The bread and butter appeal of any DRAGON BALL game that belongs to the FIGHTING GAME genre; and the combat is at its PEAK with Sparking Zero. With only 4 hours of playtime so far, I've been immersed in just exploring different combo routes and making my flow charts as smooth and cool as possible. Combo extensions and variety of cancels? Check. Different types of blasts that are useful in a plethora of situations? Check. Four to five ways to counter enemy flow? Check. [insert ecstasy meme here]

Sub Chapters
Without any major spoilers, I just want to add that I was pleasantly impressed with some of the fan service here. It's obvious they made the "main story" paths fairly linear and simple, and the cutscenes are somewhat lazy. But they put some effort into making the sub chapters (aka alternate what-if scenarios) pretty intriguing. One example is the route in Goku's story where they beat the Frieza army early on when they arrive on Earth and Vegeta achieves Super Saiyan following Goku's ascension when they meet on Namek. Super Saiyan Vegeta in original Saiyan armor in a vg cutscene w/ voice acting? Thank you 2024.

Online
Haven't touched this yet, but have heard good things about it so far. I'd like to think/hope they didn't mess this part up in a Dragon Ball game that everyone's been waiting for.

Bandai Namco-esque Quality
The title of this category may be questionable, but something about Bandai Namco-published games have bothered me for the past decade. Obviously, this doesn't trump my satisfaction that this game even exists, but other than the combat, their games seem to drop the ball in other aspects by not living up their potential. I'm talking specifically about factors like customization, offline replayability, and just overall "depth" to the game quality.

All in all, character customization seems lackluster at best; was hoping for different color palettes for characters this time around but why do they always think good customization = just tacking on different trash items on characters (I'm looking at you UNS)? Capsule items is such a lazy and unnecessary mechanic that more or less breaks immersion in fights, lack of super/blast customization is underwhelming considering we've had the feature in past games, story episodes feel lazy and it's obvious, and the character select screen/roster is messy to say the least. They should have hired someone to sit down and say "OK, we have different characters with different transformations, how can we make the roster as neat as possible without having 17 different variations of the same character take up half the screen?"

Final Verdict: A-
With all said and done, I'd like to add that I am one of the OG purists (like with many other beloved franchises - of all cultures - that have been gutted in the past decade) who dislike Dragon Ball SUPER with a passion. The path this series could have taken after mainline Z and even the controversial GT could have been exponentially better than what Super came up with, but some of us had to bite our tongues and settle for less. Regardless, the game itself is a solid A-tier game in its own right (mainly due to gameplay), both as a DB game and a fighting game with easy-to-pick up and hard-to-master mechanics.

PS: Don't buy the DLC if you hate Super, just stick with the base roster and you'll have just as good a time since the main appeal of these games aren't exactly the DLC "stories" (if not better). Cabba? Kefla? They don't exist in my book. The Super Saiyan "tingly back feeling" still has me LOLing to this very day. That's like back in high school when we pretended to go Super Saiyan on the toilet.

[UPDATE] Oct 3, 2024

The P2W aspect may be slightly less forced in PVE than other MMOs SK has put out in the last decade, but I assure you the P2W is there. The shills can just cope until the game dies. My point stands that this game is one of the most soulless experiences I've had in years. Give me my 100% and let me GTFO.

PS: Didn't spend a dime.

Lost Ark PTSD Simulator

Bland story, lack of memorable characters, lackluster quests, janky combat, Ubisoft-level interface with flashy lights + SFX to make you "think" you're making awesome progress until they hit you with the P2W monetization.

Out of 100 players, I guarantee 100 players are not reading any of the dialogue. Mash F to skip, just as we broke the G key last year.

Final Verdict: D+
Another yawn MMO of post-2020. Disappointed in my own country for being so money-hungry all the time and getting in bed with Amazon (AGAIN). /shrug