Dragon Ball Sparking Zero is bringing back Budokai\u2019s best but forgotten feature Bandai NamcoAs a teenager, I spent an inordinate amount of time playing what I consider to be one of the best fighting games of all time: Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3. It was fast-paced, exciting, and best of all, it let me play as all my favorite Dragon Ball Z characters. I spent so long playing the game that I basically became the Beerus of my friend group. I was completely untouchable in multiplayer, and I defeated each and every Dragon Ball villain who dared raise their fists against me in the campaign mode. As a result of sinking a significant percentage of my time on Earth into the game and growing my power level beyond 9,000, I found plenty of Budokai 3\u2019s secrets, including some fun hypothetical scenarios. What If\u2026? It was possible, for example, for Vegeta to go Super Saiyan on Namek and become the end boss of the Saga. Or, Broly could pop up during the Buu Saga to cause trouble. I\u2019d later learn that these \u2018What if\u2026?\u2019 scenarios weren\u2019t exclusive to Budokai 3; they were a tradition in the fighting franchise, and there were many other, far more bizarre scenarios like Cell absorbing Krillin and becoming \u2018Cellin\u2019, or Vegeta transforming into a Super Saiyan after the death of Nappa. Indeed, these peculiar stories, which took the established canon and threw it in the bin, would continue into the Budokai Tenkachi and Raging Blast games. Now, I\u2019ll admit writing about these stories seems kind of innocuous and a bit low effort. Still, they were actually really fun for long-term Dragon Ball fans because the first Budokai game was released nearly a decade after the end of Dragon Ball Z. As a result, the majority of us knew the story of the Z Fighters backward and forwards by the time we stripped the cellophane off our copy of Budokai. These \u2018What if\u2026?\u2019 scenarios, therefore, were designed to be a gut punch that knocked the wind out of those who smugly thought they knew exactly where the story was going. I remember being genuinely surprised and more than a little scared at the prospect of having to fight Super Saiyan Vegeta as an untransformed Goku on Namek, and it\u2019s probably one of my fondest gaming memories. It\u2019s over 9000! I always thought it was a shame then that these What-If events sort of faded away with the release of later Dragon Ball Z games like Dragon Ball FighterZ and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. It\u2019s not that these games were bad; they just seemed to be playing it a bit safe in their story modes, so I played them, but the quintessential magic that hooked me to Budokai 3 was missing. That\u2019s why I was so delighted while watching Summer Game Fest to see that Dragon Ball Sparking Zero is bringing back the What-Ifs. It might be a bit premature, but I think it\u2019s a sign that the Dragon Ball games are going to their roots and learning to have a bit of fun again. In my wildest dreams, I like to think they\u2019ll be as bold as the Dragon Ball Heroes games, which take things to an absurd level. Heroes include entire What-If Dragon Ball sagas that introduce bonkers concepts, like Super Saiyan 3 Rose, Golden Cooler, and even Raditz is going Super Saiyan at this point. That\u2019s what I want from a Dragon Ball game: for it to really lean into the wild and unexplored opportunities the main series never explored. Anyway, if you\u2019ll excuse me, I\u2019m taking matters into my own hands and gathering the dragon balls to make this happen. While I\u2019m gone, why not check out the full Dragon Ball Sparking Zero roster? We\u2019ve also ranked the best Dragon Ball Z fights and ranked the Dragon Ball Super villains by power. Finally, if you\u2019re interested in learning more about anime, we have a guide breaking down this year\u2019s most exciting upcoming anime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dragon Ball Sparking Zero is bringing back Budokai\u2019s best but forgotten feature Bandai NamcoAs a teenager, I spent an inordinate amount of time playing what I consider to be one of the best fighting games of all time: Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3. It was fast-paced, exciting, and best of all, it let me play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}