Forget Super Saiyans, Gods, and Frieza \u2013 this is who Dragon Ball Sparking Zero should focus on DexertoAfter a 17-year break, the beloved Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi franchise is finally returning with its spiritual successor Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. While the roster is set to be the biggest yet, the original Dragon Ball saga, and protagonist, Kid Goku, deserves some time to shine. Over the years, I\u2019ve built up a pretty solid collection of Dragon Ball Z games, but nothing has felt quite as close to recreating the action of the anime and manga as the Tenkaichi trilogy. Between the comprehensive character rosters, destructible environments, and litany of great modes, the trilogy hooked me for years. The over-the-shoulder camera put me right in the action, and I loved wiping the floor with all the Dragon Ball Z villains. That said, the most vivid memory I have of the games isn\u2019t from the Z saga. In fact, it\u2019s simply the joy I felt when I unlocked Kid Goku as a playable fighter for the first time. Between all the beam-clashing and otherworldly threats I\u2019d come up against, there was something magical about playing as the kid who started it all \u2013 and it\u2019s time for him to make a reappearance. Enter Son Goku Kid Goku appears in all three Budokai Tenkaichi games, so it\u2019s feasible for him to be playable in Sparking Zero. The original Dragon Ball is much more of an adventure tale than a battle Shonen like Z, and Kid Goku is obviously nowhere near as powerful as he eventually becomes in Z, GT, and Super. However, he still has plenty of standout moments that deserve the spotlight. So, what if instead of kicking off the game\u2019s story mode with the Saiyan Saga, players had the chance to step into a younger Goku\u2019s weighted boots and take on his earliest opponents? Smaller scale but full of heart One of Goku\u2019s toughest challenges is when he faces Jackie Chun (who\u2019s actually Master Roshi in disguise) in the final of the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament. It\u2019s a formidable match on a much smaller scale than the fights in Z, just featuring simple hand-to-hand combat. Yet despite this simplicity, this fight is every bit as heartfelt and compelling as any of the future battles from Z, GT, and Super. It\u2019s a showcase of everything Goku\u2019s learned so far, and it hammers home the endless potential he\u2019s got. To top it all off, it\u2019s a finale that sets the bar for every tournament arc that comes after \u2013 and that alone is enough to make it iconic. Aside from the world tournament, Goku goes on to fight adversaries like the menacing Mercenary Tao, and, of course, the final big bad, demon King Piccolo. While Budokai Tenkaichi 3 did have a dedicated Dragon Ball Saga included in its Dragon History story mode, it was relatively short, with just three fights and a neat bonus where Goku squared off against Arale (the protagonist of another Akira Toriyama series, Dr Slump) so getting to experience even more in Sparking Zero would be fantastic. The kids got moves Kid Goku may not have a spirit bomb to unleash or countless Super Saiyan transformations (though he can turn into a Great Ape) in his arsenal but, he\u2019s still got some great moves he could unleash in Sparking Zero that have already been shown off in previous entries. There\u2019s his trusty power pole, of course, that\u2019s always enjoyable to use. His Rock, Scissors \u2018N\u2019 Paper attack inherited from beloved Granpa Gohan always packs a punch, as well as the standard Kamehameha. Finally, the Great Ape Fist (also known as \u2018Penetrate!\u2019) \u2013 in which Goku propels himself into the air with a reverse Kamehameha before landing a devastating punch on his opponent \u2013 is an incredibly cool Ultimate. After all, he defeated King Piccolo with it, so you can\u2019t get more ultimate than that! Kid Goku can\u2019t soar through the skies in the Tenkaichi games but he can use his Monkey Tail as a propeller to hoover off the ground briefly \u2013 a tiny detail I\u2019d love to see return. Ultimately, the younger version of the franchise\u2019s protagonist isn\u2019t as powerful or flashy as he becomes later on, but he\u2019s still a massively beloved character who not only deserves his space on the roster but also to have a spotlight on some of his biggest moments. After all, if that young boy had never gone searching for the Dragon Balls in the first place, we wouldn\u2019t have Sparking Zero to begin with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forget Super Saiyans, Gods, and Frieza \u2013 this is who Dragon Ball Sparking Zero should focus on DexertoAfter a 17-year break, the beloved Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi franchise is finally returning with its spiritual successor Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. While the roster is set to be the biggest yet, the original Dragon Ball saga, […]<\/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-80920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80920","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=80920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}