FNGC Reviews: Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero (ft. Jared of Play Along Podcast)

[00:00:00] What's up everyone, Nick here. The Friday Night Gamecast is a Patreon supported show, and I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who helped keep the mics and the lights on. Once again, thank you to LadyBlakePlox, Y.A. Pierberg, Dave Jackson, TheIntergalacticPinecone, FabulousBrianna, Chris Ware, Eric Guess, Rick Firestone, Chris of a Novel Console, David C., J.D., Claynees, and Diamond. Will and I both greatly appreciate your support, and we couldn't do this without your help.

[00:00:26] Feel free to check out our back catalog on your podcasting platform of choice to listen to game reviews, topical episodes, and prep for this year's Game of the Year discussion between Will and I. But without further ado, we present to you, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero.

[00:01:01] What's up everybody, and welcome to the Friday Night Gamecast. You're joining us for another FNGC review where we look at one game and take a deep dive into all its moving parts. This week, I'm incredibly excited to introduce a returning cast member to the show.

[00:01:13] He's the indie podcast, Communities, preeminent Pokemon player and historian, and the very man who will decimate any Sparking Zero lobby. Welcome back to the show, Jared from PlayalongPod. Jared, how you doing?

[00:01:25] I'm doing so good, man. Thanks for having me. I was reading the notes beforehand, and I was reading your little intro section, and I saw that part about Sparking Zero, and I was like, that's not true.

[00:01:35] I'm just trying to gas you up. I'm getting my cheeks clapped in those locks, dude. Oh, no. It's so bad. But I'm so pumped to be here, guys. I'm so pumped.

[00:01:44] I don't think I've won a single PvP lobby that hasn't just been a random match yet in this game, so there's that. There's that. This is a way to start the tone.

[00:01:54] So alongside both myself and Jared, we're joined by the one and only Willie DeKid, aka Will. How you doing, buddy? How you doing?

[00:02:01] Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm here. I'm powered up. I popped a Sensu bean right before we hopped on.

[00:02:05] That's crazy.

[00:02:06] Yo, I'm ready to go. I'm on a bean.

[00:02:08] You're ready to represent. I'm looking at your background now, and it looks like you're showing a little bit of soda.

[00:02:13] Do not. Do not. Do not.

[00:02:15] Dear listeners that can't see us visually, there is a disgusting box behind me. No, it's not disgusting.

[00:02:20] It looks very intentionally placed, though.

[00:02:22] There's a PS5 Pro box behind me, and I'm in the house of one Sir Nicholas, the Sony shill himself, who has not only a PS5 Pro, he has, I think, behind you over there?

[00:02:33] Is that a little Sony item where you can play virtually or while you're walking around?

[00:02:39] No.

[00:02:41] What is it? The PlayStation portal hasn't come in yet. It's shipped. It's just not here yet.

[00:02:44] Yet, he says. So he has a PlayStation portal coming.

[00:02:48] Just add a PlayStation shrine.

[00:02:50] Yes. Didn't you buy the vertical stand, too? So you got the vertical stand for your Pro?

[00:02:54] Yeah, I got the vertical stand for the Pro.

[00:02:54] Look at this. This man bought a stand for his console.

[00:02:57] Did you go disc drive as well?

[00:02:59] No. I should have, though, and I might still do it because I'm playing Unicorn Overlord, and I bought it in a disc.

[00:03:04] It's literally the only PS5 game that I have on disc, and I'm going to want to properly play it in the living room at some point.

[00:03:09] That's the thing. Especially with me, I have very few physical PS5 games, but I know the second that I can't play them,

[00:03:16] I'll want to play them, so I'll be like, well, there, got to get the disc drive then.

[00:03:20] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and it's one of those things where as you go forward, there might still be things that I'll see at GameStop when I go in there once a month to go get my $5 off or whatever I'm spending money on.

[00:03:32] But I'm one of those people. It's like I'm a digital library guy.

[00:03:35] I think I have too much faith in these corporations that they're not just going to up and vanish overnight, that I'll still have access to my digital library.

[00:03:43] Gosh, I don't know. I'm even at the point now where I'm almost in the Netflix mentality where if something's gone from a digital library or streaming service the next day, it's like, I guess, you know, oh well, it happens.

[00:03:52] Maybe I can read a book. Maybe I can reclaim some of my mental health.

[00:03:56] Blasphemy.

[00:03:57] Friday night book cast. Let's make it.

[00:03:59] Yo, let's go.

[00:04:00] Have you jumped into the PS5 Pro? Have you played anything?

[00:04:04] Yeah, yeah. I've played Dragon Age of the Veil Guard. I've played some of that, and that's been actually really, really beautiful.

[00:04:10] I would say that, like, you know, there's been a lot of negative discourse, you know, in the community, as I'm sure both of you are well aware about Veil Guard.

[00:04:17] For either justified or unjustified reasons, regardless, you know, there's a really negative group of people that have latched onto that game.

[00:04:23] But the environmental design is really second to none.

[00:04:28] Like, we've played some really beautiful games this year, and I would say that, like, this is up there for really, really surprising me.

[00:04:33] Because we both, we're both playing, well, Will is playing through Outlaws now. I finished Outlaws a couple weeks back.

[00:04:38] But Outlaws, frankly, surprised me with how good the environmental design does.

[00:04:41] And honestly, I shouldn't be surprised because Ubisoft is really good at their, like, environmental, like, spatial art, their architecture, their, you know, attention to detail with that sort of thing.

[00:04:51] They kind of fall down when it comes to mechanics and, you know, gameplay and stuff.

[00:04:55] But I would say that, like, that surprised me.

[00:04:57] And then Veil Guard, like, even more than surprised me.

[00:05:00] Because, I mean, yeah, BioWare is known for having, like, beautiful levels and stuff.

[00:05:03] But this is, like, next level.

[00:05:04] So that was really cool.

[00:05:06] Yeah, I did play a little bit of Sparking Zero.

[00:05:08] But Sparking Zero isn't really, like, a visual masterpiece resolution kind of game.

[00:05:13] It is a pretty game.

[00:05:14] But it's, like, it's not something that you're trying to, like, test the pisser technology with.

[00:05:19] You know what I mean?

[00:05:20] Sure.

[00:05:21] Yeah, I'm trying to, I need to spend some more time.

[00:05:23] I did download The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered.

[00:05:26] Because I never played.

[00:05:27] That looks so good.

[00:05:28] I think, I can't remember what the DLC that came out for that.

[00:05:30] It was, like, Grounded or something like that.

[00:05:32] And it came out.

[00:05:33] And so I was going to probably see what I could do about maybe a second playthrough of that game.

[00:05:37] That's a huge emotional commitment for me.

[00:05:39] By doing that and then playing, like, the DLC where you go.

[00:05:42] And I think it's, like, a roguelite mode.

[00:05:43] Yeah.

[00:05:43] Because I think in that, too, you could pick.

[00:05:45] You could, like, be different characters as well.

[00:05:47] You could, like, pick different characters when you go through it, which is cool.

[00:05:49] Yeah, I still have not gone back to Part 2 since my initial playthrough.

[00:05:53] Really?

[00:05:53] Yeah.

[00:05:54] Yeah.

[00:05:55] It's one of those things where it's, like, you really have to commit.

[00:05:57] I think I might.

[00:05:58] Oh, absolutely.

[00:05:59] I might hold off and maybe do.

[00:06:00] I also haven't played the Valhalla DLC for God of War Ragnarok.

[00:06:04] So that might be something I could probably test out and see how that looks and stuff.

[00:06:07] Oh, man.

[00:06:08] Talk about backlogs.

[00:06:09] Will, I still got to finish God of War.

[00:06:10] Oh, no.

[00:06:11] You haven't done that?

[00:06:12] Okay.

[00:06:13] That's on top of the list.

[00:06:13] I haven't finished Sifu, so it's fine.

[00:06:15] We're in the same boat.

[00:06:15] There you go.

[00:06:15] And I haven't finished Baldur's Gate.

[00:06:17] And Will will never let me forget it.

[00:06:18] You never, never, ever.

[00:06:20] Oh, my gosh.

[00:06:20] We are all good.

[00:06:23] To the main topic of the show, this week we're reviewing Dragon Ball Sparking Zero.

[00:06:28] Dragon Ball Sparking Zero is another line in the Budokai Tenkaichi games.

[00:06:32] It is the most recent, developed by Spike Chunsoft, published by Bandai Namco.

[00:06:36] And this specific title is directed by Tairi Kikuchi.

[00:06:40] It currently is sitting at a Metacritic rating of an 81 on the PS5 and an 83 on the Xbox

[00:06:45] and PC.

[00:06:46] So a huge win for the Xbox fans over there.

[00:06:48] And it's sitting at an overall open critic rating of a strong 82%.

[00:06:52] So critically, pretty high.

[00:06:54] People like this game.

[00:06:55] And looking at the customer reviews or essentially the player-reviewed feedback, it was essentially

[00:07:01] in line with all of the critical reviews in a high 80s or low 80s type situation.

[00:07:07] So anyway, let's go ahead and jump into what our histories are with Budokai Tenkaichi franchise

[00:07:13] as well as just Dragon Ball as a whole, what our thoughts or feelings are.

[00:07:17] Jared, as our honored guest, let's go ahead and jump in there first.

[00:07:20] Let us know about that.

[00:07:21] Oh man, this is the part I was excited about the most because I love Dragon Ball.

[00:07:24] I love Dragon Ball and I love Dragon Ball Z so much.

[00:07:27] And these games and the show and the anime have been such an integral part to my young life

[00:07:32] and gaming and everything.

[00:07:33] We all tried to power up Ghost Super Saiyan as a kid.

[00:07:35] That's just something we all did.

[00:07:37] That's a given.

[00:07:39] But yeah, I played the Budokai games as a kid.

[00:07:42] Budokai 1, 2, 3, all of those.

[00:07:44] The Tenkaichi series was a big part of mine and my friend group's childhood because we

[00:07:50] had so many tournaments that we would host and everything and we would do as a group,

[00:07:54] which was so fun.

[00:07:56] And then so many, I have a list of Dragon Ball Z games and there's just so many that I forgot

[00:08:00] about like Raging Blast and Raging Blast 2 and the 360.

[00:08:03] Raging Blast was good.

[00:08:03] Raging Blast 2 was one of my favorites just because they kind of got weird with it.

[00:08:08] They added some like what if characters like Broly Super Saiyan 3 and Vegeta Super Saiyan

[00:08:11] 3, which is like cool characters that we never get to see.

[00:08:15] Infinite World was cool too.

[00:08:17] Infinite World was kind of like what Kakarot is now.

[00:08:20] It was like a more RPG kind of style Dragon Ball game.

[00:08:24] I'm sad that I still haven't played Kakarot, but I saw your thoughts on Kakarot.

[00:08:28] You don't have to be, you're not missing too much.

[00:08:30] That's all I'll say.

[00:08:31] You're not missing the most.

[00:08:32] And to be fair, maybe that game has transformed.

[00:08:35] I played it at launch and I played like 40 to 45 hours of it at launch.

[00:08:38] And I was just like, I deserve what I was like.

[00:08:40] I have to put this down.

[00:08:40] I can't do this to myself anymore.

[00:08:42] It's just so rough.

[00:08:43] I saw so many people just like burnt out with Kakarot too, just with how, especially

[00:08:46] with like the DLCs and everything, how long that game does get.

[00:08:50] But damn.

[00:08:50] And we'll get into like Sparking Zero and everything.

[00:08:52] But just like, that's what I missed was like some of the visuals from Kakarot are so good.

[00:08:58] And like the cut scenes are a little lackluster in Sparking Zero.

[00:09:01] It was very stylized with its art style, but just man, the visualization of Kakarot and

[00:09:05] just the spectacle, everything was so cool.

[00:09:07] So still need to get into that.

[00:09:09] But this year I actually just went and watched Dragon Ball for the first time front to back.

[00:09:15] Because I watched.

[00:09:15] Whoa, really?

[00:09:17] Yeah.

[00:09:17] That is a treat.

[00:09:18] Oh man, that's awesome.

[00:09:18] I still have to go back and watch Z because I haven't watched Z since I was a kid.

[00:09:22] But as of right now, I think I might like Dragon Ball better than Z, which feels a little

[00:09:27] It's objectively so good.

[00:09:29] It is legitimately so much better than a lot of what, because Z has like those peaks.

[00:09:35] It has the Mount Everest moments in Z that like you can't get back to because we were

[00:09:40] like those are formative like childhood.

[00:09:43] But like the story of Dragon Ball as a whole has a really, really consistent beginning,

[00:09:47] middle and end.

[00:09:48] And it's like the arc of Goku in Bulma, Master Roshi, even Krillin has like really, really

[00:09:52] cool character moments.

[00:09:53] It's a great show.

[00:09:54] Yeah.

[00:09:55] And that was something someone gave me the perspective of because that was something

[00:09:58] with Dragon Ball Z that I felt was lacking that Goku doesn't have a lot of character

[00:10:04] growth himself.

[00:10:04] Like obviously he gets stronger throughout Z, but you could see his growth from like the

[00:10:08] beginning of Dragon Ball to like the time skip after he's fighting Piccolo.

[00:10:11] You see that growth in his character.

[00:10:13] But someone pointed out that Z is almost a Piccolo, Vegeta, Gohan story, right?

[00:10:19] Yeah.

[00:10:19] Goku's kind of finished his arc and the story's less about Goku, which I mean, he's always dying

[00:10:23] and coming back in that show.

[00:10:25] So he's always never in it.

[00:10:27] But it focuses more on like, you know, obviously Piccolo's redemption arc because he's the villain

[00:10:31] in Dragon Ball, Vegeta's arc, and then Gohan's arc as well.

[00:10:34] And then having that perspective, I was like, okay, I can see that a little better now because

[00:10:38] I was disappointed that Goku didn't have as much agency almost or like growth in that.

[00:10:43] But man, it was so good.

[00:10:44] It was such a treat to go back and like having the old like 80s art style and the intro.

[00:10:49] Oh, it's so good.

[00:10:50] Yeah, the hand-drawn 2D art.

[00:10:51] It's like you can't get better than that, honestly.

[00:10:53] No, it doesn't.

[00:10:54] For sure.

[00:10:54] It was so good.

[00:10:55] But one of the first Dragon Ball games I remember playing was Legacy of Goku and Legacy

[00:11:00] of Goku 2 on the Game Boy.

[00:11:02] Yeah, on the Game Boy.

[00:11:03] Those games are hard.

[00:11:04] Yeah, they're not easy.

[00:11:06] They were not easy.

[00:11:07] I don't think I got very far in the first one because Legacy of Goku I think is notoriously

[00:11:11] clunky with a lot of its gameplay and things like that.

[00:11:13] But Legacy of Goku 2 was a ton of fun.

[00:11:15] I really need to get back and play it because that was a good Dragon Ball Z game.

[00:11:18] But there's so many Dragon Ball Z games out there.

[00:11:21] It's kind of crazy.

[00:11:22] Yeah.

[00:11:23] So when Sparking Zero was announced, I was so excited because the Tenkaichi, we've been

[00:11:27] like waiting for Tenkaichi 4 for so long.

[00:11:30] Another Dragon Ball Z fighting game.

[00:11:32] And Fighters was fun.

[00:11:32] Like I absolutely love Fighters.

[00:11:33] Fighters was a good time.

[00:11:35] 2D Fighter, it was beautiful too.

[00:11:36] But just like that kind of 3D platformer arena fighter kind of thing, I was so pumped

[00:11:41] for Sparking Zero.

[00:11:43] Yeah.

[00:11:44] One of the cool things about Fighters 2 was the idea.

[00:11:47] Again, what you were saying about implementing those cool non-canon characters like Android

[00:11:51] 21 and all of that stuff.

[00:11:53] Is that right?

[00:11:54] Was her name Android 21?

[00:11:55] She's kind of like a boo Android crossover person.

[00:11:59] Yeah.

[00:11:59] Which was really cool.

[00:12:00] Stuff like that's cool.

[00:12:01] I wish they would do some of that stuff in Sparking Zero.

[00:12:03] I mean, we kind of seen the path of the DLC and they might just be focusing on, you know,

[00:12:08] canonical anime characters.

[00:12:09] But I love the like what if stuff.

[00:12:10] That's so fun.

[00:12:11] That's true.

[00:12:12] It's always fun.

[00:12:13] And there's so much room to do that in a universe and like a canon that is as expansive

[00:12:17] and big.

[00:12:17] And I mean, they literally, I mean, we have an entire show called GT, which is just that.

[00:12:21] Regardless of whether or not people liked that.

[00:12:23] I like GT.

[00:12:24] Yeah.

[00:12:24] You like it?

[00:12:25] Okay.

[00:12:25] Okay.

[00:12:26] Yeah.

[00:12:26] I was, I'm in the boat where I like, well, it's also like I grew up watching GT, right?

[00:12:29] Okay.

[00:12:29] Me and my friends watch GT, so that probably helped a lot of it.

[00:12:32] But just like we got Super Saiyan 4 Goku and stuff from that.

[00:12:35] Like Goji, like those designs are so good.

[00:12:37] Like, yeah.

[00:12:38] Yeah.

[00:12:38] It's, it's, I mean, and that's why you see characters like that appearing in Sparking

[00:12:42] Zero because they're so important to the franchise and to like the fan base.

[00:12:46] They're like, they want to see more of that.

[00:12:48] Yeah.

[00:12:49] But yeah, that's awesome.

[00:12:50] Will, how about yourself?

[00:12:51] What, what has been your history with Budokai Tenkaichi as well as just Dragon Ball as a

[00:12:55] whole?

[00:12:56] Yep.

[00:12:56] So very similar to Jared.

[00:12:57] I mean, I think he's played more based on what you were talking about.

[00:13:00] You probably played more of the actual, especially the fighting games that I have with Dragon Ball.

[00:13:04] Love Dragon Ball, love Dragon Ball Z.

[00:13:06] I feel like I've watched most of, if not all, GT.

[00:13:10] And then I was really not in the position to watch a lot of Super when it came out.

[00:13:14] Yeah.

[00:13:15] But I did catch like quite a bit of it kind of afterwards, like just post, you know, friends

[00:13:20] are talking about it and I would go like look it up later on and kind of find it, especially

[00:13:23] of course the end of the tournament of Power Arc when things got super hype with Jiren the

[00:13:27] boy.

[00:13:27] Oh yeah.

[00:13:28] Glad to see all those characters in here in Sparking Zero.

[00:13:31] But very similar.

[00:13:32] I feel like I did play Budokai.

[00:13:35] If not when it came out, I definitely went back to it.

[00:13:37] But started off with Budokai 2 and then my baby, my favorite Budokai 3.

[00:13:42] Still one of my like top games of all time when it comes to the Dragon Ball series.

[00:13:46] I just love it.

[00:13:47] All the different mechanics and things.

[00:13:48] So it's really cool.

[00:13:49] Obviously not seeing a one-to-one translation.

[00:13:52] But seeing a lot of different mechanics in Sparking Zero where I'm just like, all right,

[00:13:55] cool.

[00:13:55] You're not just mashing buttons, right?

[00:13:56] There's a lot of strategy that you can actually do, which I felt like you could do with Budokai

[00:14:00] 3.

[00:14:00] Yeah.

[00:14:01] I still have when I go and visit my hometown.

[00:14:04] I still have friends that live there.

[00:14:06] And every time I pop into town, he has a physical copy of Budokai 3.

[00:14:09] We play Budokai 3.

[00:14:10] Because it's just so good.

[00:14:12] It's just so fun.

[00:14:13] It's where I fell in love with one of my favorite characters, Bardock 2, just because I really

[00:14:17] like his ultimate move.

[00:14:20] So I'm just like, oh, every time I get that off.

[00:14:22] So I played all those.

[00:14:23] I played a little bit of Tenkaichi.

[00:14:25] But honestly, obviously contrary to the game we're talking about now, I wasn't really

[00:14:29] a big of a fan because I love Budokai so much.

[00:14:32] The 2D or kind of like Tekken-ish where you can kind of step in and out, but still stayed

[00:14:37] on like facing plane.

[00:14:38] I liked a lot.

[00:14:39] So when they did the Tenkaichi slash Sparking series, and it was more of like the big arenas

[00:14:43] that you fly around, I was just like, this isn't it.

[00:14:47] This isn't the right way to do it.

[00:14:48] So I didn't really get into the series that much, but I still appreciated all the stuff

[00:14:52] they had and how cool it was.

[00:14:54] Hashtag not like Dragon Ball.

[00:14:55] Played Legacy of Goku 1.

[00:14:56] Not mine.

[00:14:56] I was like, I can't do it.

[00:14:57] I was like, this is too much for me in a 3D space.

[00:15:01] 3D?

[00:15:02] Yeah.

[00:15:03] But that was fun.

[00:15:04] I played Legacy of Goku 1.

[00:15:05] I didn't play 2, but I did play 1 on the Game Boy, and that was fun.

[00:15:08] I did do some Raging Blast 1.

[00:15:10] But I've really kind of been in and out when it comes to the Dragon Ball series.

[00:15:13] Like I don't pick up every single Dragon Ball game, just like you.

[00:15:16] I haven't played Kakarot either.

[00:15:17] So I think this is honestly making me want to go back.

[00:15:20] I know, like you were saying, Nick, you're not missing a whole lot, but at least want to

[00:15:22] go back and check it out.

[00:15:24] If not, play it through on one of these services that have it available.

[00:15:28] And at least maybe go watch some of the specific canon fights online.

[00:15:32] I've seen the Vegeta and Goku.

[00:15:34] I can just do console sharing with you for that.

[00:15:36] Yeah.

[00:15:36] That'd be pretty sweet.

[00:15:37] Yeah.

[00:15:37] Because I saw the Goku and Vegeta fight when you're actually doing it in the Saiyan saga,

[00:15:41] and I was like, this is so sick.

[00:15:43] They do like the beam clash.

[00:15:45] It's so good.

[00:15:45] And then they do, in one of the DLCs, they have a post-Boo saga Vegeta and Goku fight.

[00:15:53] And it is incredible.

[00:15:55] It looks visually stunning.

[00:15:56] It's wild.

[00:15:57] Yeah.

[00:15:57] That's awesome.

[00:15:58] So I think a lot of that is to just seeing the cool stuff happening and maybe not necessarily

[00:16:02] playing Kakarot, but just like witnessing some of the awesome events that happen.

[00:16:06] Yeah.

[00:16:07] I'm trying to think, there was another Dragon Ball game that I didn't like a lot.

[00:16:11] I feel like I liked it a lot.

[00:16:12] Aside from, of course, Fighters, which Fighters, like you were saying, fantastic.

[00:16:15] Did you play the Xenoverse games?

[00:16:16] Any game where I can get Super Saiyan Bardock, I'm good to go.

[00:16:18] Yeah.

[00:16:19] I didn't play any of the Xenoverse games, and I've seen people really like them and really

[00:16:23] not like them, but everything I look and I see, it does not speak to me.

[00:16:27] Yeah.

[00:16:28] I'm like, oh.

[00:16:28] I felt the same way, because I remember Xenoverse coming out, and the idea of creating your

[00:16:32] own Dragon Ball character blew my mind.

[00:16:34] I was like, oh, this is going to be incredible.

[00:16:35] And then it just kind of like fell on the wayside for me, and I just never checked it

[00:16:39] out.

[00:16:40] Yeah.

[00:16:40] Well, maybe not the one for me, but it's cool, though, that it has a community of people

[00:16:45] that still play Xenoverse, too.

[00:16:46] It's still up.

[00:16:47] It's nice.

[00:16:48] And obviously, they're still supporting it.

[00:16:50] That game still gets new characters and still gets DLC to this day, which is wild.

[00:16:54] Yeah, they get DLC from the Beast Gohan stuff that they got from Super Heroes.

[00:16:58] Yeah, it's in there.

[00:16:58] So it's been good.

[00:17:00] Cool.

[00:17:01] Well, that's incredible.

[00:17:02] Yeah.

[00:17:02] So I would say that I don't have too terribly much to add on in terms of the history besides

[00:17:07] both of you.

[00:17:07] I think we're all of similar age cohorts here.

[00:17:10] So we all kind of went through that same journey together in terms of playing the games and experiencing

[00:17:14] the show and everything here.

[00:17:16] But obviously, grew up enjoying and watching Dragon Ball as a kid.

[00:17:18] I vividly remember Z going on, and it was like the Frieza saga was happening right around

[00:17:23] 9-11 and everything, sort of that.

[00:17:25] So it's kind of ingrained into my memory.

[00:17:27] But yeah, I didn't really enjoy the Budokai Tenkaichi games until much later in my high

[00:17:33] school, college careers when I started playing 3, and there were friends that were posted up

[00:17:38] in the communal hall.

[00:17:39] And we'd get on the sticks together and have a good time just fighting each other and just

[00:17:43] being kind of like a friendly thing or going over to a friend's house even when I was

[00:17:45] in high school or something and playing with folks over there.

[00:17:47] So I went on a long hiatus with Dragon Ball games until Kakarot came out.

[00:17:52] Before that, I did play Raging Blast.

[00:17:54] And I also have fond memories playing with my cousin, the Burst Limit games.

[00:17:59] I don't know if you guys remember those.

[00:18:00] The Burst Limit games were really fun.

[00:18:02] I thought that when we talk about something, obviously what you said here with one of the

[00:18:06] big critiques of Sparking Zero is how incredibly abridged they treat the storylines besides the

[00:18:12] big fighting moments that you get in Sparking Zero.

[00:18:15] That was one of the cool things of the earlier games.

[00:18:18] Even in Kakarot too is that it is just a retelling of the Dragon Ball Z story at its core as

[00:18:27] you go through the games.

[00:18:28] And so that was really, really fun and I enjoyed that.

[00:18:29] But then Kakarot came out and I was super hyped for it because it was the idea that people

[00:18:33] were pitching to that it was something that I've been waiting for for a long time.

[00:18:36] It's like the Superman RPG that people have been waiting for for a long time.

[00:18:40] Will thinks that it's not possible to do it and make it fun.

[00:18:42] Like my opinion is that you can absolutely do it and make it fun.

[00:18:46] Just get weird with it.

[00:18:47] Get kooky with it.

[00:18:47] Just get super crazy with it.

[00:18:49] Yeah.

[00:18:49] Just get weird.

[00:18:50] I mean, it's going to be fun.

[00:18:50] But anyway, yeah, you jump in and you're playing as Goku and you're going through the different

[00:18:53] storylines.

[00:18:54] And like you said, Jared, like it was really, really cool because they had the environmental

[00:18:58] design down.

[00:18:59] It was cool.

[00:18:59] Like, you know, the way that you were able to in Sparking Zero, you know, move around

[00:19:04] and fly around in the Dragon Ball space.

[00:19:06] Being Goku and flying around the Akira Toriyama like Earth was really fun and genuinely cool.

[00:19:11] And that's something that I enjoyed about it.

[00:19:13] It was just like they were proposing this idea of like they wanted to do an Elden Ring for

[00:19:17] Dragon Ball, but they just didn't have the resources at the time to do it right.

[00:19:21] That would be crazy.

[00:19:22] Yeah.

[00:19:22] That would be an interesting world.

[00:19:23] It would be so cool, wouldn't it?

[00:19:25] It's such an interesting idea, but they kind of they failed in the execution, even though

[00:19:28] they kind of got some of the story depictions right.

[00:19:31] I would say that when we're comparing Kakarot to Sparking Zero Kakarot, it was much easier

[00:19:36] at certain points.

[00:19:38] There wasn't the difficulty spikes that we had mentioned previously in the game that you

[00:19:42] run into with this one.

[00:19:44] So that's that was definitely a fun time.

[00:19:45] But obviously getting Sparking Zero and jumping back into it and having this like flood of nostalgia

[00:19:50] for the Budokai Tenkaichi games coming in.

[00:19:53] And it was just much more refreshing than I thought it would be.

[00:19:55] And I was like, I was like, this is actually great because I said this time and time again

[00:19:59] leading up to 2024.

[00:20:00] I was like, I'm playing my backlog.

[00:20:02] I'm not playing new games in 2024.

[00:20:04] And they got me every single time.

[00:20:06] All the games I said I wasn't going to play got like nine out of tens.

[00:20:10] And I was like, what am I going to do?

[00:20:12] What am I going to do?

[00:20:12] So that was that was really fun.

[00:20:14] But yeah, so that's our history.

[00:20:16] Let's go ahead and jump into what is Dragon Ball Sparking Zero for folks who haven't been

[00:20:20] able to surmise or kind of guess what it is, you know, from our descriptions here.

[00:20:25] But this is referred to as what what is known in the video game community as an arena fighter.

[00:20:29] This is not a 2D or like 2.5D fighter the same way that Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter

[00:20:35] is.

[00:20:36] This is strictly a 3D arena fighter where you're put in the game.

[00:20:39] It's less technical, but it also has a lot of the same steep learning curve that you have

[00:20:44] in a lot of other fighting games.

[00:20:45] You could probably play this game with a fighting pad if you really wanted to.

[00:20:49] It's the most recent title in the Budokai Tenkaichi games.

[00:20:53] And it's actually I don't know why they did this, but it was known in like the Japanese

[00:20:58] market as the the Dragon Ball Z sparking games.

[00:21:01] We just called it Budokai Tenkaichi here in the States.

[00:21:04] And so this is the first title that's adopting that sparking moniker, which is where we have

[00:21:08] that sparking zero.

[00:21:09] So it seems like so interesting why they why they did that and made that decision.

[00:21:12] I just think Budokai Tenkaichi sounds way cooler than sparking.

[00:21:17] They do that sometimes where it's like all the Americans will really like this.

[00:21:21] So it's an interesting, you know, play on marketing when it comes to that.

[00:21:24] But essentially what this game is, is this allows players to play through an abridged

[00:21:29] storyline of the anime starting with Z and going through super.

[00:21:33] So all of the things that happen in between, you're not going to be playing any of the

[00:21:36] GT storyline from what I understand.

[00:21:38] But this is kind of like what we consider the main canon, which is just Z starting in

[00:21:42] the Saiyan saga and then going through the end of the Tournament of Power in super.

[00:21:46] So that's what we have here in sparking zero.

[00:21:49] It's also one of the interesting things about sparking zero that we'll get into a little

[00:21:53] bit further on is that you can play through the with the mode called episode battle from

[00:21:58] multiple perspectives.

[00:21:59] So you play through Goku is like the first one that you can select.

[00:22:02] But then you can also choose to play from the point of view of Vegeta, Trunks, if I'm not

[00:22:07] mistaken, I think there's like a Gohan, Frieza, Goku Black, as Jared said earlier.

[00:22:12] So there's a lot of different choices to see like what these characters are doing in any

[00:22:16] given moment and filling in the pieces for new players that are new to the franchise

[00:22:20] to be like, oh, what was this person doing at this point in time?

[00:22:22] So that's pretty cool.

[00:22:23] And then alternatively, you know what the main kind of focus is for the Budokai Tenkaichi

[00:22:28] games is fighting either through PVP or couch couch co-op.

[00:22:33] So those are that is what Dragon Ball sparking zero is.

[00:22:37] And we can go ahead and just jump into the gameplay mechanics at this point.

[00:22:41] Let's do it.

[00:22:42] Yeah, let's do it.

[00:22:43] Let's do it.

[00:22:44] I'll probably insert a little bit of a music break right before this, but we'll get into

[00:22:47] the gameplay.

[00:22:47] The music is so good.

[00:22:49] The music is so good.

[00:22:50] I got an entire section dedicated to the music, but it's definitely one of the highlights

[00:22:56] for me of this overall experience.

[00:22:58] So yeah, really, really happy with that.

[00:23:00] Before we get into here, my mistake jumping into this was I immediately jumped into like

[00:23:03] ranked.

[00:23:05] Oh, no.

[00:23:06] Mistakes.

[00:23:07] I was like, I got it.

[00:23:08] I'll be fine.

[00:23:08] I'll jump back in.

[00:23:09] Oh, it's fine.

[00:23:09] It's fine.

[00:23:09] I remember.

[00:23:10] This is perfect.

[00:23:11] It was like cut to the Yamcha meme where he's like on the ground afterward.

[00:23:14] And I was like, that was just smoked.

[00:23:16] Just smoldering in the ground.

[00:23:18] Dead as a doornail.

[00:23:19] Yeah, people got really sweaty with this game so quickly.

[00:23:23] Very fast.

[00:23:23] So quickly.

[00:23:24] And I don't...

[00:23:25] This is an interesting thing that we can bring up because I don't play PvP games.

[00:23:29] Like, honestly, Will had to force me to play Black Ops 6 multiplayer.

[00:23:34] And that was surprisingly fun.

[00:23:35] But it was also an open beta.

[00:23:37] And so not as many sweaty people were in the game at that point.

[00:23:40] Oh, they're there now.

[00:23:41] They're there now.

[00:23:43] And I 100% refuse to play it now because I know I'm just going to get absolutely just

[00:23:47] obliterated in the lobby.

[00:23:48] But it's interesting to kind of think about and talk about like when we look at multiplayer

[00:23:53] PvP games in the modern era and how quickly people either get good or start cheating at

[00:24:00] them.

[00:24:00] Like, what do you guys think?

[00:24:01] Do you think that...

[00:24:01] Yeah.

[00:24:02] Is there anything to be said in the modern era for allowing new players to come in and fight

[00:24:06] people online?

[00:24:07] Is there any way to get around that?

[00:24:09] I don't know.

[00:24:10] It's hard because exactly what you're saying.

[00:24:11] I mean, you can have separate modes, right?

[00:24:13] There is regular PvP online and there is ranked.

[00:24:16] But there's something about these kinds of games, especially with Dragon Ball Z.

[00:24:20] And I think, again, a lot of people going into this has probably had a lot of nostalgia,

[00:24:24] grew up with their friends, competing with their friends.

[00:24:26] So there's like that natural competitiveness when it comes to these games and being sweaty.

[00:24:30] But even this game, unlike Fighters, which Fighters was built as a competitive fighter, this was

[00:24:35] intentionally built as just a fun arena fighter for Dragon Ball Z.

[00:24:38] Like, there's characters that are intentionally overpowered.

[00:24:41] There's characters that are intentionally bad based off of their canon.

[00:24:44] And that's just like how it ends up being.

[00:24:46] But I don't know.

[00:24:47] Because even in going to like normal PvP, I do the whole cut scene where you're getting

[00:24:52] into like the online mode.

[00:24:53] I see Gojita and I'm like, oh, okay.

[00:24:54] Well, I'm cooked.

[00:24:56] I'm cooked.

[00:24:57] And I'm done.

[00:24:58] There's no real easy way for sure.

[00:25:00] So it's hard.

[00:25:00] And I think that probably puts off a lot of players too for the online because of that

[00:25:05] kind of environment.

[00:25:06] But yeah, I don't know of a strategy of how they get past that.

[00:25:09] Because again, this game, I feel like is just naturally competitive.

[00:25:11] And people just like get super sweaty with this.

[00:25:14] Yeah.

[00:25:15] Because I don't think the game traditionally does any kind of like skill-based matchmaking.

[00:25:19] Like, you know, if I come in and just try to match whoever has the best connection

[00:25:22] to you.

[00:25:23] Yeah.

[00:25:24] So they should.

[00:25:24] That would be the only way I can think of to make it.

[00:25:26] So I was like, hey, you've never played a match before.

[00:25:28] Here's someone else who's never played a match before.

[00:25:30] Yep.

[00:25:31] So that's like the closest you can get to it.

[00:25:32] But kind of like how we're going to talk about here with the training later on is like

[00:25:36] the game really does suggest very heavily that you go into training mode.

[00:25:40] Like even if you're just doing a single player and you're doing episode battles, which is

[00:25:43] just the PVE.

[00:25:44] They're like, you need to do a little bit of training before you get out of here.

[00:25:47] I mean, even if you've played these games before, like for one, it's been years since

[00:25:51] we've had this style of game.

[00:25:53] And plus there's a lot of new kind of like with all the counters and everything like that.

[00:25:56] There's so many new Sonic Sway.

[00:25:58] Yeah, exactly.

[00:25:58] Where it's just like super badass.

[00:26:00] It's super cool.

[00:26:01] But it's just like now there's a whole new slew of things to learn.

[00:26:04] And that's what I did first.

[00:26:05] I initially just jumped into training.

[00:26:06] I was like, let me do the training and let me check that out before I do anything.

[00:26:09] Did you guys, because at the beginning you can choose classic controls or the modern

[00:26:14] controls and the classic controls obviously reflect kind of a little bit of what the older

[00:26:19] Tenkaichi button layouts were.

[00:26:20] Did you do that or did you do more of the modern controls, which I think they do recommend?

[00:26:25] Yeah.

[00:26:26] I just did the standard.

[00:26:26] Yeah.

[00:26:27] I just did the modern.

[00:26:27] Whatever came pre-built because it was like I'd never even memorized what the classic controls

[00:26:31] were.

[00:26:32] So I just decided to run it.

[00:26:33] Yeah.

[00:26:33] Yeah.

[00:26:34] So I did the same thing, but it's cool that it's there too.

[00:26:36] Because like, again, people are still playing Tenkaichi 2 and things like that.

[00:26:39] So it's like if people are still actively playing that and they want that style.

[00:26:42] I mean, this whole game seems like it's an homage to fans of this series.

[00:26:46] So it's cool that it's there in the first place.

[00:26:48] And people online will swear by it.

[00:26:49] They'll be like, well, you're not playing the classic controls.

[00:26:52] Well, you're not real.

[00:26:53] You're not a true fan.

[00:26:54] Easy mode.

[00:26:54] Standard trash.

[00:26:56] Standard trash.

[00:26:58] Yeah.

[00:26:59] It's really interesting.

[00:27:00] So, you know, I think we're going to go into player retention kind of towards the latter

[00:27:05] half because I want to get into like what makes this game cool in the front half just

[00:27:09] to get people interested.

[00:27:10] Just get them into it.

[00:27:10] I do think that just overall, just general thoughts.

[00:27:14] This is a really fun game.

[00:27:15] Absolutely.

[00:27:16] Is it a $70 price tag game if you've never played a Dragon Ball Budokai Tenkaichi game

[00:27:21] before?

[00:27:22] I don't know about that.

[00:27:23] I think like this very much is playing towards the Dragon Ball audience and there's enough

[00:27:27] of an audience out there for them to definitely make a profit.

[00:27:30] Like I'm pretty sure this sold over a million units.

[00:27:32] I think they hit like the metrics that they wanted to and especially it has like one of

[00:27:35] the highest player counts of a Dragon Ball game period.

[00:27:38] I mean, there's more gamers today than there ever have been, but there is legitimately some

[00:27:42] cool stuff in here that I would recommend for folks who are fans of like arena fighting

[00:27:45] games.

[00:27:46] If you like the Naruto Ninja Storm style games or everything like that, you know, the Cyber

[00:27:51] Connect 2, you know, lineage that they have over there.

[00:27:54] This is 100% a strong recommend for me.

[00:27:57] You know, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero is a little bit unique because as we've said before, it's

[00:28:01] been many, many years since the last Budokai game has come out from this team, Spike Chunsoft.

[00:28:07] So they have implemented a couple of new things into new mechanics that into Sparking Zero that

[00:28:14] haven't been classically in the games before.

[00:28:16] And I think I in please, you know, definitely correct me if I'm wrong or try to try to,

[00:28:20] you know, play devil's advocate here.

[00:28:22] But I think that they did a really good job of making this game feel more like Dragon

[00:28:26] Ball than any other game I've played before.

[00:28:29] Like it's a really specific feeling in my headspace to know like what Dragon Ball is.

[00:28:33] And I would say Sparking Zero nailed it as much as they could when it came to the fighting

[00:28:37] elements.

[00:28:38] So, you know, a couple of the things that they implemented here that was new to it was

[00:28:41] that, you know, they have a skill count.

[00:28:43] So there's a little blue bar that's at the bottom of your screen.

[00:28:46] So essentially the number rises from one to a certain, I don't know if it caps out or

[00:28:51] anything, but it's like, yeah, one to six as you execute moves during battle.

[00:28:56] And then you can spend that the number of points that you have on doing super abilities as you

[00:29:02] kind of go up and it rises over time as well.

[00:29:04] It's not just from fighting, but if you do, you know, if you throw the hands, you know,

[00:29:08] you'll definitely get that number higher quicker.

[00:29:11] They also have a short dash here, which allows you to move really, really fast.

[00:29:14] So if you have distance between you and your opponent, you can do a short dash to either

[00:29:18] go behind them or go try to try to corner them on the side.

[00:29:21] So that's really cool.

[00:29:22] That also costs a little bit of key.

[00:29:24] It opens up more possibilities such as dodging an opponent's attack or, you know, doing a

[00:29:29] chart to keep last that sort of thing.

[00:29:31] Or you can do a dragon dash as well, which is really cool.

[00:29:34] The dragon dash is so fun.

[00:29:35] That's like you talked about spectacle and everything like that and how this feels more

[00:29:39] dragon ball.

[00:29:40] Like even though again, some of these mechanics were in Tenkaichi, just how they're presented

[00:29:44] like the dragon dash and everything like that just makes you feel like strong.

[00:29:47] It makes you feel bad.

[00:29:48] Exactly.

[00:29:48] Exactly.

[00:29:49] When you pull off these moves in a fighting game, you think you're like the best ever, especially

[00:29:53] even if it's just against a CPU.

[00:29:56] Like if you're pulling them off against the character you're fighting against, it's awesome.

[00:29:58] Even if you're fighting another person, it's even better.

[00:30:01] You know, so you have the short dash there that allows a lot of different mobility when

[00:30:06] you're in the ass.

[00:30:06] You also have a revenge counter.

[00:30:07] Now, this one is really, really neat.

[00:30:09] I have been revenge countered so many times.

[00:30:12] I can't even count.

[00:30:13] So many times.

[00:30:13] But I've used it to my avail plenty of times as well.

[00:30:16] So one of the things about Budokai is that when you're facing high level players who really

[00:30:22] know their combos, you can get combo locked super easily.

[00:30:26] Super easy.

[00:30:26] And a revenge counter is a way that you can break that combo lock fairly easily.

[00:30:31] It does take some timing.

[00:30:32] It does take some precision.

[00:30:33] But it's essentially a technique that allows you to strike back while absorbing an opponent's

[00:30:37] blow.

[00:30:38] And that enables a high speed attack and defense as seen in the original story.

[00:30:43] So a lot of the times in the original story, the characters are like punching each other.

[00:30:46] You'll see Goku and Frieza smush their fist into each other's faces.

[00:30:50] It's really cool.

[00:30:51] This is what that's invoking.

[00:30:53] So it allows you to kind of hit and then immediately strike back and then maybe start a

[00:30:56] counter offensive of your own.

[00:30:58] There's also like super perception, which is a really cool move.

[00:31:01] I think they call it what do they call it will is like soup like the super wave or something

[00:31:04] like that.

[00:31:05] But it's essentially where you press L1 and O and it's a counter that lets you counter

[00:31:09] attack in anticipation for various attacks.

[00:31:11] So even if someone's throwing a key wave at you, you can dodge someone's like attack moves

[00:31:16] and then finally hit them back.

[00:31:19] Yeah.

[00:31:19] So yeah, that was a really good one.

[00:31:20] I hope I'm getting that right.

[00:31:21] And then there's the vanishing, the vanishing attacks, which is like the thing if you're

[00:31:25] on Instagram, TikTok, whatever the case may be, and the algorithm picked up that

[00:31:29] you were interested in sparking zero, you're seeing people do this all over the place.

[00:31:34] So in the games or rather the anime, Goku learns this ability to do instant transmission

[00:31:40] at the end of the Frieza saga because he gets stuck on this planet with aliens.

[00:31:44] They teach him how to do it.

[00:31:46] And so he's able to teleport back to Earth eventually.

[00:31:48] But it's this thing that the characters all learn from Goku where they're fighting and

[00:31:53] they're able to like do the and they like will like vanish and appear behind the person

[00:31:58] and be like, oh, you're already dead and punch them.

[00:32:00] And yeah, it's really fun.

[00:32:02] So that's what this is.

[00:32:03] And it's essentially just timing frame perfect L1 blocks.

[00:32:07] Dude, if you can do a frame perfect L1 block, you can vanish behind a person.

[00:32:11] And then but the problem is, is that you can vanish behind the person, do the thing.

[00:32:15] They can do the same thing to you.

[00:32:17] But the only difference is, is that it uses key.

[00:32:20] Yeah.

[00:32:20] So if some, if you're of both equal skill and you're vanishing behind each other, you're

[00:32:24] just doing vanish, vanish, vanish until one or the other person either mistimes their

[00:32:29] vanish or runs out of key, which is pretty cool.

[00:32:32] And it's just like you were saying, like I've seen so many videos and it's wild too, because

[00:32:36] like seeing this until you've like played the game, you sing it.

[00:32:39] It doesn't seem like it's that impressive, right?

[00:32:40] Yeah.

[00:32:41] But when you see players that are just like, like teleporting behind each other over and over

[00:32:44] and over again, you're like, oh man, that's it's so hard to do.

[00:32:47] I think it's crazy impressive because I've only, because Will and I, I, you know, we're

[00:32:52] probably going to bring this up at some point.

[00:32:53] We had a Dragon Ball Z Sparking Zero lobby and I definitely crashed out or a Sparking Zero

[00:32:57] party rather.

[00:32:58] I crashed out in front of him and all his friends and stuff.

[00:33:00] It was great.

[00:33:01] Oh no.

[00:33:01] It was fun.

[00:33:02] It was fun.

[00:33:02] I threw his controller across the room.

[00:33:03] It was awesome.

[00:33:05] And it was.

[00:33:06] Go hop in the hyperbolic time chamber.

[00:33:08] He's like, I gotta go train.

[00:33:09] Yeah.

[00:33:09] Yeah.

[00:33:10] Literally.

[00:33:10] Literally.

[00:33:11] I was like, I gotta get better.

[00:33:12] I can't let this defeat define me like Vegeta.

[00:33:16] But yeah, no, it was seeing anybody do it.

[00:33:19] I'm like, you have, you have gotten like, you're literally either just like right in

[00:33:24] your screen and like looking at all those frames.

[00:33:26] You are locked in.

[00:33:27] Locked in.

[00:33:28] But like as a 30 year old man, you know, my hand eye coordination, it's faded.

[00:33:32] It's, I've had to accept it's faded.

[00:33:33] I've never, I was never as good as I thought I was first of all.

[00:33:36] And I'm still not as good as I was back in the day.

[00:33:39] So it's one of those things where if I can do it, I'm like, Ooh, yeah, I really did that

[00:33:42] thing.

[00:33:43] That's great.

[00:33:44] But now I'm just kind of like, eh.

[00:33:45] It was one of the things for me where like, I feel like a lot of people had this where

[00:33:49] like maybe you were the best in your friend group.

[00:33:52] Right.

[00:33:52] And I was like, okay, cool.

[00:33:53] So Sparking Zero humbled me a lot because I was like, I jumped into it and I was like,

[00:33:58] Oh no.

[00:33:59] And it's even funnier because like, um, and this is the thing that's obviously just for,

[00:34:03] for listeners out there, Dragon Ball is super iconic in Latin American countries specifically.

[00:34:09] It's iconic everywhere, but particularly with like the South American and Latin American

[00:34:13] communities in general, like they love Goku.

[00:34:16] And it was funny looking at like the national or like the global leaderboard rankings.

[00:34:20] It was like, I can't remember the specific username, but it was like XXX Goku from Mexico

[00:34:27] XXX or something like that right at the top of the rankings.

[00:34:30] And then we're talking two days after the thing came out.

[00:34:33] So it's just like people, people really go hard for, for this type of game and all of

[00:34:37] the fun stuff they have there.

[00:34:38] So it's really funny to see that.

[00:34:40] Um, the last thing that they implemented in this is a customization.

[00:34:43] So there is a customization menu that as you earn, you earn Zenni, which is the money

[00:34:48] in the Dragon Ball universe, uh, for fighting through the campaign.

[00:34:51] Or I think you get a little bit of Zenni from doing PVP as well.

[00:34:54] Correct me if I'm wrong.

[00:34:55] Yeah, you do.

[00:34:55] You get about a thousand Zenni, I think like per match.

[00:34:57] Yeah.

[00:34:58] So, so you earn that and what you can do is you can go to the customization lobby.

[00:35:01] You can unlock characters from that menu.

[00:35:03] It's like Bulma being like, oh, let's go shopping.

[00:35:05] Oh my gosh.

[00:35:06] The Bulma is wild because if you sit in that menu for longer than five seconds, she's

[00:35:10] like, oh, I also like to take my time when I'm shopping just over and over and over again.

[00:35:15] I'm like, whoa, can you calm down Bulma?

[00:35:15] Oh my God.

[00:35:16] It's definitely a call back to the older games too because they also, they all had those

[00:35:19] like annoying menu screens where they just chatter and chatter and chatter.

[00:35:23] Yeah.

[00:35:23] Oh my gosh, Bulma, please stop.

[00:35:25] Please.

[00:35:26] You almost as rich as me.

[00:35:27] Wow.

[00:35:28] The second I buy something, it's like $30,000.

[00:35:30] I'm like, shut up.

[00:35:31] Please stop.

[00:35:33] But yeah.

[00:35:33] So, and then they also have a menu where you can pick new outfits and modify the characters

[00:35:38] that you play as.

[00:35:39] Or I think you can create your own character to fight in PVP.

[00:35:43] I don't think you can do a character creator in PVP.

[00:35:45] No.

[00:35:46] You just modify the characters that exist.

[00:35:47] You modify.

[00:35:48] Right.

[00:35:49] Okay.

[00:35:49] Cool.

[00:35:49] So they have a couple of things.

[00:35:50] They have the capsules which have had in like pretty much all the fighting games, especially

[00:35:53] for the Budokai and the Tenkaichi series.

[00:35:55] So you can actually update whatever character you want.

[00:35:58] Say I have like future trunks.

[00:35:59] I want to put a bunch of mods on him.

[00:36:01] Yep.

[00:36:01] I start the match with full key.

[00:36:02] I have more health.

[00:36:03] I have more key.

[00:36:04] Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.

[00:36:05] And as you go online, you can actually toggle on something to where you want people to have

[00:36:10] those customizable characters.

[00:36:11] So everyone's broken.

[00:36:12] Or if you just want to play pure.

[00:36:14] No.

[00:36:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:36:15] No, there's no way in hell.

[00:36:17] No, we're showing.

[00:36:18] I'm getting destroyed by just base characters.

[00:36:21] Okay.

[00:36:21] I can't.

[00:36:21] I'm saying.

[00:36:22] Oh, I want a mastered ultra instant Goku with full key and extra health.

[00:36:27] And no, hell no, I'm not doing that to myself.

[00:36:29] And again, that's the problem.

[00:36:31] When you have characters that are, again, canonically power leveled online, you just

[00:36:35] see a lot of Goku's, a lot of UI Goku's, a lot of Super Saiyan 4 Goku's.

[00:36:39] And I'm just like, I just want to play shrunks.

[00:36:41] Yeah.

[00:36:41] A lot of Vegito's.

[00:36:42] A lot of the, I think Vegito was like the meta.

[00:36:45] Super Saiyan God Vegito with the meta for a long time.

[00:36:48] And I've also seen some fully leveled Brawly's as well.

[00:36:51] People have gotten, Brawly is a harder, more technical character to get good with, but he

[00:36:54] hits like a dump truck.

[00:36:55] I don't know if you guys saw this, but for a while, Yaichirobi was in the meta because

[00:36:59] he was really good.

[00:37:00] And they had to nerf him.

[00:37:01] They had to nerf him.

[00:37:02] That's insane.

[00:37:03] They should have kept it.

[00:37:04] They should have given him much more.

[00:37:06] I don't know if y'all came across that.

[00:37:06] No, if you actually fought one before, you know why they nerfed it.

[00:37:09] The Sensu Bean was trash.

[00:37:10] Oh, really?

[00:37:11] Don't get me wrong.

[00:37:12] He, you know, is whatever.

[00:37:14] He's Yaichirobi.

[00:37:14] He's not the strongest character.

[00:37:15] But he had like three or four health bars, which is not bad.

[00:37:18] A lot of people had more health bars than him.

[00:37:20] But he had the Sensu Bean where he would pop a bean and then he would get full health.

[00:37:24] That's crazy, actually.

[00:37:26] You had to either kill him straight up, like immediately.

[00:37:29] Otherwise, you're just, you know, you're selfish.

[00:37:31] You're pushing a rock up a hill.

[00:37:32] If you ever let him, like if there's ever distance between you and you let him just like

[00:37:35] get enough that bar up to get a Sensu Bean, you're chocked because he just has essentially

[00:37:39] infinite health.

[00:37:40] He could just get his health back over and over again.

[00:37:41] Straight up every time.

[00:37:42] That's crazy.

[00:37:43] That is actually insane.

[00:37:44] It's just hilarious that they had any character.

[00:37:47] They haven't missed any of the characters.

[00:37:49] But Yaichirobi, they had a nerf because he was too broken.

[00:37:52] Yeah.

[00:37:52] So Yaichirobi, he was like, if people are like, oh, if you're playing Yaichirobi, you're

[00:37:55] really good.

[00:37:56] No, he was cheesy because he had that Sensu Bean.

[00:37:58] If you play Chiaotzu, you're a real god.

[00:38:00] You're a real one.

[00:38:01] You're a real one.

[00:38:02] When you come across the lone Chiaotzu.

[00:38:04] If you're running Mr. Satan and you're running lobbies.

[00:38:06] Nah, Mr. Satan's also cheesy.

[00:38:07] Is he?

[00:38:07] I have no respect for Mr. Satan around here.

[00:38:09] That damn bomb, that bomb rush attack that he has, that shit, it knocks you down as a

[00:38:14] hard knockdown.

[00:38:15] And then it allows him to charge just enough to get it off again.

[00:38:18] So unless you know how to do like the reverse perception moves for rush attacks and things

[00:38:23] like that, he'll stun lock you and it's over.

[00:38:26] Yo, god.

[00:38:27] This is incredible.

[00:38:28] This is incredible.

[00:38:28] I love it.

[00:38:29] This is one of my favorite things about it too because like you have these super, like

[00:38:32] so Mr. Satan is iconic for new listeners or people who are not as familiar with Dragon

[00:38:37] Ball because he's like the character that stole, he's like stolen valor, the character from

[00:38:44] like the Z fighters.

[00:38:45] Like they killed Cell and it was after Cell, he pretended in the like the tournament of

[00:38:50] Cell because Cell televised.

[00:38:51] He was like, I need everybody in earth to come try and run the fate over here.

[00:38:54] Right.

[00:38:54] You know, he's waiting for two weeks for them to come get their shit together.

[00:38:57] And then like the Z fighters like annihilated themselves in order to finally beat Cell.

[00:39:02] And then Mr. Satan like took credit for it and he's like, I'm the best.

[00:39:06] And then Boo came along and they, like the world expected Mr. Satan to fight Boo and that

[00:39:10] was a really funny situation too.

[00:39:12] And then it's just, it's so funny to see how ironic some of these characters are and

[00:39:17] how they like turn out to be when like you put them in a PVP setting like this.

[00:39:20] Oh yeah.

[00:39:20] It's so fun.

[00:39:21] It's so fun.

[00:39:22] Did you guys have like specific characters that you played a lot or like leaning towards?

[00:39:26] Gotta love my boy Bardock.

[00:39:27] Gotta run Bardock.

[00:39:28] Yeah.

[00:39:28] I gotta run Trunks super slaying with the sword.

[00:39:31] Yep.

[00:39:31] Oof.

[00:39:32] Yeah.

[00:39:32] The sword is so sick.

[00:39:34] Super Trunks and Super Vegeta when they went into the hyperbolic chamber and they got

[00:39:38] super beefy.

[00:39:39] They're just roided out.

[00:39:40] They're just roided out.

[00:39:41] And I'm like, those are like my favorite.

[00:39:43] Yes.

[00:39:44] The trend father and son.

[00:39:47] There's actually nothing in the hyperbolic time chamber, but they're just, there's just

[00:39:50] steroids in there.

[00:39:51] They're just roided out.

[00:39:51] There's steroids and lots of chicken.

[00:39:53] They're just eating chicken the entire time.

[00:39:55] Trunks and Trangita.

[00:39:56] Super Saiyan Trangita.

[00:39:58] Yeah.

[00:39:58] It's great.

[00:39:59] I really liked those.

[00:40:01] And then I really, really enjoyed, I mean, I'm, I'm a cheesy bastard.

[00:40:05] I'm not, I'm not exempt from this conversation.

[00:40:07] We're talking about the cheesy people online.

[00:40:09] Like I love playing as like the ultra instinct, super instinct Goku.

[00:40:14] And then, uh, disgusting.

[00:40:15] And then there was one, oh, who else did I fight you with?

[00:40:18] Well, oh, I actually really, really enjoyed.

[00:40:20] So also spoiler alert, um, my girlfriend's son, Gabe, um, I'm not doxing him or anything,

[00:40:26] but you know, special shout out to Gabe.

[00:40:27] He's a young guy.

[00:40:28] He's nine years old.

[00:40:29] He really, really loved playing this game with me.

[00:40:31] And we would do a lot of PVP battles together.

[00:40:33] And I got, I, I made him really frustrated cause I was beating him with like super Saiyan

[00:40:37] three trunks a lot.

[00:40:39] You were holding back at all.

[00:40:40] You were just like, oh yeah, you're going to learn.

[00:40:41] No, no.

[00:40:42] You're going to get his work.

[00:40:42] He's got to, he's got to get his own wins.

[00:40:44] He's got to learn to get his own wins.

[00:40:46] I said, this is the same thing with Will.

[00:40:48] Whenever Caro gets old enough to play video games, he is not holding back.

[00:40:51] That's what we do.

[00:40:52] They, they learn by, they learn by defeat.

[00:40:54] That's how you got to do it.

[00:40:55] Exactly.

[00:40:55] And he's gotten wildly close to beating me a couple of times.

[00:40:58] I had to like lean forward and lock in.

[00:41:00] I was like, oh, this is not, you're not getting the dub today, young man.

[00:41:04] Oh no.

[00:41:04] But no, it was really, really fun playing with him.

[00:41:06] But yeah, it was like playing as super Saiyan three, um, go tanks was probably my favorite

[00:41:12] character.

[00:41:13] That's like not like a character.

[00:41:15] It's like Jiren or, uh, also top, like the God of destruction, like top.

[00:41:19] Toppo.

[00:41:20] Yeah.

[00:41:21] That insanity.

[00:41:22] His character is wild.

[00:41:24] I love, I, from, from Tenkaichi, uh, two and three, Tapion.

[00:41:27] Tapion.

[00:41:28] There's just the, the dudes with the swords.

[00:41:30] I love Future Trunks as well.

[00:41:31] The swords are so fun.

[00:41:33] I love Tapion.

[00:41:34] Uh, we've been playing a lot of just like base Vegeta and doing things like that too.

[00:41:38] Uh, but man, I, Tapion, Tapion and Future Trunks is the two that I was running with for

[00:41:43] a while.

[00:41:44] Oh, is he?

[00:41:44] Another one that got me too.

[00:41:45] Is he like from the same, is he the same race as a Supreme Kai?

[00:41:49] Is that what he is?

[00:41:50] He's like from the demon realm or whatever.

[00:41:53] Okay.

[00:41:53] Yeah.

[00:41:54] Shout out, shout out to Daima for giving us that.

[00:41:56] Shout out to Daima.

[00:41:57] Yes, sir.

[00:41:57] We didn't bring that up yet, but I think you told me this earlier, Will, but the planned

[00:42:01] DLC for Sparking Zero is the Daima content that they're releasing.

[00:42:05] Because they have, they have Daima Goku in there if you pre-ordered and then they have Daima

[00:42:10] Vegeta coming alongside the superhero content.

[00:42:13] Oh gosh, what's the other guy's name?

[00:42:14] The other Supreme Kai.

[00:42:15] They had him and the other guy.

[00:42:17] Uh...

[00:42:17] Oh, the brother?

[00:42:18] Yeah.

[00:42:19] The brother who's like advising the demon emperor.

[00:42:22] Yeah.

[00:42:22] And then they have superheroes, superheroes characters coming as well.

[00:42:25] Yep, yep.

[00:42:26] Yeah.

[00:42:26] Just give me Gamma 2.

[00:42:27] Yeah, I was like Gamma 1, Gamma 2.

[00:42:28] We're gonna get Gohan.

[00:42:29] We're gonna get Wernicke Glow.

[00:42:31] And you know, shout out to obviously Bandai and Spike Chunsoft for doing all this work to

[00:42:36] pull it together.

[00:42:37] Because like no other game I think has pulled in as many canon and non-canon characters into

[00:42:43] one title.

[00:42:44] Like this is the biggest, this is the Super Smash Bros.

[00:42:47] Ultimate of Dragon Ball games.

[00:42:49] Which is really, really cool.

[00:42:50] The fact that they're able to get there and pull all these characters in.

[00:42:53] But yeah, you know, like to superheroes.

[00:42:55] And also a special shout out to Crunchyroll.

[00:42:56] Because if you have a Crunchyroll subscription, you can go back and watch all of the old DBZ

[00:43:02] movies.

[00:43:02] Most of them are subtitled.

[00:43:04] Yes.

[00:43:04] Because a lot of them didn't.

[00:43:05] Like for, I think they dubbed them at one point.

[00:43:07] But for whatever reason, Sony probably just doesn't have the copyright for like the dub

[00:43:12] versions.

[00:43:12] Yeah.

[00:43:12] Yeah.

[00:43:13] It's probably lost the time unless you have the old VHS tapes for them.

[00:43:15] But they have the sub versions.

[00:43:17] And then they have all of the new dub versions of the most recent movies.

[00:43:20] So you can watch Dragon.

[00:43:21] You can watch superheroes.

[00:43:23] You can watch Brawley.

[00:43:24] And you can watch, I think, like Final Fusion, which is, or no, Resurrection, which is where

[00:43:29] they brought Frieza back to life.

[00:43:30] They're all there.

[00:43:31] Yeah.

[00:43:31] I'm planning to, when I go back and watch through Z, which I'm going to do soon here, I'm going

[00:43:36] to watch the movies in the order they come in.

[00:43:39] Oh, heck, that's awesome.

[00:43:40] You've got to do Tree of Might.

[00:43:41] That's the one right there.

[00:43:43] Tree of Might is so good.

[00:43:44] Which one is that, Will?

[00:43:45] It's what, Turles.

[00:43:45] Yep.

[00:43:46] Turles.

[00:43:46] See, I missed out on all this stuff.

[00:43:48] Turles is the goat.

[00:43:49] That's another Goku clone.

[00:43:50] Yeah.

[00:43:50] Goku clone before Goku Black.

[00:43:52] Yeah.

[00:43:52] Yeah.

[00:43:53] I went and I watched all of the Brawley, the older Brawley movies when he was like a maniac

[00:43:59] psycho.

[00:44:00] Like Bio-Bio-Bio Brawley.

[00:44:01] Yeah.

[00:44:01] Bio-Bio Brawley was really good.

[00:44:02] That's awesome.

[00:44:02] The very first Brawley movie where they go to the planet and it's like, I think like

[00:44:06] the Dragon Ball Super Brawley was a retelling of the first Brawley movie because it had Paragus

[00:44:11] and that was really, really cool because like at the end of it, he like fucking crushes

[00:44:15] his dad in the sphere and throws him into the sun.

[00:44:18] It's incredible.

[00:44:19] What a good movie.

[00:44:21] But yeah, strongly recommend folks go to that.

[00:44:23] So if they want to get content or if they want more Dragon Ball content after playing this

[00:44:26] game.

[00:44:26] It's out there.

[00:44:27] There's so much of it.

[00:44:28] There's a ton.

[00:44:29] Also, Glorio.

[00:44:30] Glorio is the other character from Daima.

[00:44:33] So Vegito Mini and Gloria are the two characters they've announced for Sparking Zero.

[00:44:37] Okay.

[00:44:38] Awesome.

[00:44:38] Yeah.

[00:44:38] I'm pulling it up right now.

[00:44:39] Yes.

[00:44:40] Yeah.

[00:44:40] He's the cool little demon guy with the white hair.

[00:44:42] Okay.

[00:44:42] Yeah.

[00:44:42] That's really cool.

[00:44:43] I've committed to like stop watching Daima until it's all out because I can't do this

[00:44:47] week to week shit.

[00:44:48] Like I just can't do it.

[00:44:49] My heart can't take it.

[00:44:51] So I was like, I'm waiting.

[00:44:52] I got to binge it all at one time.

[00:44:54] Yeah.

[00:44:55] Let's go ahead and listen to some more music from Sparking Zero and then we're going to

[00:44:58] jump into all of the game modes that's available for folks.

[00:45:59] Okay.

[00:46:00] So we're here.

[00:46:02] We're talking about game modes.

[00:46:04] We've already kind of like described like the differences of what you can do in this game.

[00:46:10] Literally, it's just are you going to play the storyline or are you going to do PvP battle?

[00:46:14] There are some wrinkles in there.

[00:46:15] So there's episode battle and custom battle.

[00:46:17] Custom battle is a really interesting one because it allows you to pick the time and

[00:46:22] place that you want to play, but you can like do interesting things.

[00:46:26] Like you can play like the canonical fight between Goku and Frieza when Goku finally goes

[00:46:33] Super Saiyan for the first time, but you can do that playing as like Gohan and it's Gohan

[00:46:37] going Super Saiyan for the first time.

[00:46:38] So they do really interesting like weird like what if moments here and that's what I think

[00:46:43] you kind of nailed it on the head is that they kind of they're trying to do that here.

[00:46:47] I don't like doing that sort of thing because I don't like messing with the cannon.

[00:46:52] But something needs to keep my timeline.

[00:46:53] Yeah, I know.

[00:46:54] Keep it pure.

[00:46:55] The sacred timeline.

[00:46:56] We have to keep it intact and whole.

[00:46:58] But something that I will say that I thought was a really, really cool addition to the episode

[00:47:03] battle is when they have the sparking episodes.

[00:47:06] So the episode battle, as I said before, they allow you to play as I think eight different

[00:47:11] characters.

[00:47:11] So Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo.

[00:47:13] Future Trunks, Frieza, Goku Black, and Jiren.

[00:47:16] So you're playing all of those characters in the order that they appear in the show and

[00:47:20] like whatever happens in their timeline of events in the major fights that they have.

[00:47:24] But what's interesting here is that like each of the different episode battles in the campaign

[00:47:29] as you go through, they have moments that if you are able to successfully fulfill a condition

[00:47:36] that is predetermined in the fight that you have, it'll give you an alternate path that

[00:47:41] you can go on, which is an what if episode of like, for example, like what if I guess

[00:47:46] Goku beat Vegeta when he turned into Majin Vegeta before he like decimates everybody.

[00:47:51] Right.

[00:47:51] And like what happens there.

[00:47:52] Sometimes they're super fulfilling and sometimes they're not.

[00:47:55] Sometimes it's just like, oh, well, you beat Cell super early on.

[00:47:58] So he doesn't come perfect.

[00:47:59] So there's no turn around.

[00:48:00] That was it.

[00:48:01] Yeah.

[00:48:01] So there's a lot of that there.

[00:48:04] But still, I mean, there's interesting stuff.

[00:48:06] I will.

[00:48:07] I think you told me something interesting about what happens to Vegeta in a what if sparking

[00:48:10] episode.

[00:48:11] Do you remember what happened there?

[00:48:12] Yeah.

[00:48:12] So the what if sparking is probably one of the best ones I've done so far.

[00:48:15] I haven't beaten all of them.

[00:48:17] Haven't done Jiren's.

[00:48:17] But it's so much similar to how when Cell is fighting Gohan and Gohan, if anyone who

[00:48:22] knows, spoilers, if you haven't watched.

[00:48:24] Yeah.

[00:48:24] Spoilers first.

[00:48:25] It's your fault.

[00:48:26] Even though all of these games cover the exact three arcs over and over and over again.

[00:48:33] But Gohan to beat Cell does the father son Kamehameha.

[00:48:36] Everyone knows.

[00:48:37] Everyone loves it.

[00:48:38] It's in every single game since the beginning of time incarnate.

[00:48:41] But yeah, Gohan doing the one arm Kamehameha, his father behind him as like a ghost image

[00:48:45] and then did defeat Cell.

[00:48:46] Well, playing through the Vegeta side, just like Nick was saying, as far as beating Cell

[00:48:52] early with Vegeta, you can actually get to the point where you're fighting Cell as Vegeta.

[00:48:57] You go to beat him.

[00:48:58] You're kind of getting held back and then Trunks jumps off to the side and then you do

[00:49:03] a father son final flash.

[00:49:04] Oh, so good.

[00:49:05] And that's how you defeat Cell.

[00:49:06] That's so good.

[00:49:06] So it's awesome.

[00:49:08] Yeah, that's really, really cool.

[00:49:09] And so like taking moments like that, I think that's where they could really truly leverage

[00:49:14] the nostalgia and like the instilled fan base that they have of like, we all know how the

[00:49:19] story happens.

[00:49:19] So if you can play with a cannon in a way that's like kind of fulfilling and honoring

[00:49:23] the legacy of some of these characters, you get really cool stuff out of that.

[00:49:26] And I think they really nailed that here.

[00:49:28] You know, besides the ones where it's just like, oh, well, Frieza got killed super early.

[00:49:32] So Krillin didn't die type things.

[00:49:34] So you have some of that.

[00:49:36] But yeah, so that's essentially what episode battle is.

[00:49:39] And you choose all those different characters to play as.

[00:49:41] You also, you know, have the battle mode.

[00:49:44] And so there's a difference in so the battle mode is where you can choose lobbies and then

[00:49:48] you can also do like split spring split screen co-op and you play with your friends either

[00:49:52] locally or like remotely do all that.

[00:49:55] They have ranked, which I guess I'm assuming Jared got absolutely bodied in, which is a separate

[00:49:59] in itself.

[00:50:00] Yeah, I'm never talking.

[00:50:01] I'm too scared.

[00:50:02] I don't know.

[00:50:03] I'm a, I love the pain apparently because the same thing when Tekken 8 came out, I

[00:50:08] was like, you know, I've never played Tekken, but let me just jump right into right.

[00:50:11] Right into right.

[00:50:12] Oh no.

[00:50:13] Oh no.

[00:50:14] Yeah.

[00:50:14] Button mash to victory, baby.

[00:50:15] People learn their lightnings within like 30 minutes of the game coming out.

[00:50:19] It's insane.

[00:50:20] It's like you were saying.

[00:50:20] It's like with the kids, I'll just get beaten down and that's how I'll learn and that's

[00:50:23] how I will actually get better.

[00:50:25] Has that happened?

[00:50:26] I mean, not necessarily, but.

[00:50:27] Well, it's the thing too is that like, that's an interesting conversation to have about this game.

[00:50:31] Yeah.

[00:50:31] Is that like one of the things that obviously, as Will had said previously, is that one

[00:50:36] of the most important things is doing the training mode with Piccolo and Gohan.

[00:50:40] They go in like, it's so important.

[00:50:42] I can't stress this enough.

[00:50:43] Go through line by line every single mechanic of that training mode.

[00:50:48] And even when you're done, if you know that you can't do a frame perfect to like super perception.

[00:50:52] Go practice it.

[00:50:53] Go practice it over and over and over again to learn the timing of how your controller pairs

[00:50:58] with your PS5 or your Xbox, whatever the case may be, to learn what you can do to like get

[00:51:03] that timing down exactly.

[00:51:05] Because as you said, you know, when you're in ranked match or tournament mode, like the

[00:51:09] people that are there, it's like insane and like already really good.

[00:51:12] And even beyond that, like if you want to play through and finish the storyline, like

[00:51:16] I literally like there, it's really hard.

[00:51:19] There are moments like when I fought, like, I think it's like a few, few Zamasu, like

[00:51:25] super saying God views Zamasu, like that's an incredibly hard fight to get all of like

[00:51:29] the, you know, conditions fulfilled so you can get all the nodes opened up.

[00:51:33] So yeah, definitely make sure you do the training mode as you're going through there.

[00:51:37] So you're not exempt.

[00:51:38] I thought I was exempt too.

[00:51:39] And I was like, let me go.

[00:51:40] I mean, and even like you were saying, Nick, not even necessarily to just learn the mechanics,

[00:51:45] but because a lot of those like dodges and parries are so frame perfect, just practicing

[00:51:51] timing on those things and doing them over and over again.

[00:51:53] You can like recognize when they have, because that's the thing too, is recognizing when those

[00:51:57] things are happening to you and be able to frame perfect all of those as well.

[00:52:00] Yeah.

[00:52:01] Yeah.

[00:52:01] It's really, really cool.

[00:52:02] And it's like, it's, it's an interesting thing about the battling.

[00:52:04] And I started following a couple of accounts where people who were doing like Instagram

[00:52:08] reels on how you can get better and Dragon Ball Sparking Zero and like learning that, like,

[00:52:13] you know, the, doing the training mode is going to teach you the bear conditions, but there

[00:52:18] are like hidden, there's like hidden stuff that you can learn within the mechanics

[00:52:22] that will allow you to actually be competitive in a PVP co-op situation.

[00:52:26] Like the combos, for example, you know, you can mash square four times for the combos,

[00:52:31] but if you push up on that final square, you can kick somebody up or kick somebody down and

[00:52:35] then do the Dragon Dash, whatever the case may be.

[00:52:38] And this is stuff that like, you don't learn unless you're like kind of tapped into the community

[00:52:43] or tapped into like whatever people are running for like metas and learning to do that.

[00:52:47] So it's like, depending on whether or not you want to get good, there is a, there is a way

[00:52:51] that you can learn to do it.

[00:52:53] The game isn't really going to teach you like you can, the game will teach you exactly what

[00:52:57] you need to know.

[00:52:57] But if you want to like be super competitive, you kind of have to tap in and see what other

[00:53:01] people are saying.

[00:53:02] Yeah.

[00:53:03] But I think there is a space, especially like locally with friends and everything to have

[00:53:07] a more casual experience.

[00:53:09] And just to kind of sit back in.

[00:53:11] You guys on here said that you played a little bit of the split screen.

[00:53:14] How was that?

[00:53:15] Really good.

[00:53:16] It's fun.

[00:53:17] It's really, really fun.

[00:53:18] The only issue, and I don't know if this is something they can fix later on or not, but

[00:53:22] there's apparently some kind of a, I don't know if defect is the right way to put it,

[00:53:27] but it's just like a limitation to where you can't play every map.

[00:53:30] If you're doing split screen, you can only do the hyperbole time.

[00:53:33] Interesting.

[00:53:33] Which sucks.

[00:53:34] Which is horrible.

[00:53:34] Because they have so many good maps.

[00:53:35] Because the structure is so cool.

[00:53:37] Yeah.

[00:53:37] Like I want to, I want to fucking blow up the arena while I'm fighting against Vegeta versus

[00:53:41] a Trincy Goku.

[00:53:41] I want to destroy Namek.

[00:53:43] Yeah.

[00:53:43] You know?

[00:53:43] Yeah.

[00:53:43] I want to blow up Namek.

[00:53:44] I want to see the pillars of fire come out of the planet.

[00:53:47] It's great.

[00:53:48] That's so interesting.

[00:53:49] Like I said, maybe it's a limitation thing why they couldn't do more maps.

[00:53:53] But I do remember the old Tenkai games also being split screen in their local multiplayer.

[00:53:58] I guess I'll just use the Ninja Storm games where it's just one screen.

[00:54:02] You have both characters there.

[00:54:03] But because these maps are fairly large, I think they probably want you to be able to

[00:54:06] visually see your character at all times as well.

[00:54:09] That's why they have the split screen instead of just like a normal arena fighter.

[00:54:12] Because you can send somebody flying like half a mile across the way.

[00:54:16] So you don't want to have to like zoom out to ants, right?

[00:54:18] Yeah.

[00:54:19] It'll be like Smash Bros where people are too far away and everyone's like this big.

[00:54:22] Yeah.

[00:54:22] That's a shame that it's only Hyperbolic Time Shaper because like you were saying, the

[00:54:25] maps are so good and the destructibility with the maps.

[00:54:28] Like just you're doing like a Dragon Dash.

[00:54:29] You just go through a building.

[00:54:31] It's so fun.

[00:54:32] It's so satisfying.

[00:54:33] It's the coolest thing, you know, when you're playing in the episode battle modes and like

[00:54:36] you charge up like a super Kamehameha and you like blast them through a building.

[00:54:41] Like it's great.

[00:54:42] So yeah, a lot of cool feelings there.

[00:54:44] But yeah, I'm hoping that maybe they're working on it or just maybe there's just like

[00:54:47] some type of hardware limitations where they can't do every map.

[00:54:49] But hopefully they're continuing to support the game and slowly over time that might

[00:54:53] be available to new players as they come in.

[00:54:56] Did either of you play any of the tournament modes?

[00:54:59] I did once and I got beat in my first match.

[00:55:01] So I was like, I'm good.

[00:55:02] I didn't stay to like watch how it happened.

[00:55:04] Did you guys try that at all?

[00:55:06] No, I didn't.

[00:55:06] I didn't dove in the tournament.

[00:55:08] Ranked was too.

[00:55:09] It was hard enough.

[00:55:10] It was really being beat down and ranked.

[00:55:13] No, I didn't do that myself.

[00:55:14] Although I need to because there's a couple of unlock conditions for characters to go through.

[00:55:18] Really?

[00:55:18] I think at least one of each of the tournaments that are available.

[00:55:21] So I feel like you can run the tournaments though, just PvE as well, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:55:25] Interesting.

[00:55:25] Okay, I didn't know that.

[00:55:26] So that way you can just go run it with PCs.

[00:55:28] I mean, even like back in the day when they had the world tournament, you could do that

[00:55:31] from like the Budokai games and I think the Budokai Tenkaichi as well.

[00:55:34] Got it.

[00:55:34] Where you're just like me versus a bunch of PCUs.

[00:55:38] Eventually you work your way up.

[00:55:40] Is the tournament mode in this, you get put in with a bunch of other people online that

[00:55:45] are also in a tournament and that's kind of cool actually.

[00:55:47] I didn't know that's how it worked.

[00:55:48] That's what happened to me.

[00:55:49] I didn't realize that you can build your own tournament lobby and I didn't know that you

[00:55:52] could restrict it to the CPUs.

[00:55:54] That's a critique that I do want to make of this game is that they have a really big

[00:55:57] problem with the menu system.

[00:55:59] They only have a few modes at its core but when it comes to like joining a lobby or figuring

[00:56:05] out how to do PVP on your own, there is like no, you really have to figure out how to do

[00:56:10] it.

[00:56:11] Even with the online fights, like ranked is fine and ranked you'll just jump into a match

[00:56:15] but if you're doing not ranked, you pretty much get put into a lobby with people and

[00:56:19] you pretty much wait your turn to like be next up to fight and I don't like that

[00:56:23] as much.

[00:56:23] It's not fun because you can watch them fight and you can see, oh, like how good is this

[00:56:27] person before you are next up to bat but at the same time, it's just like why not just

[00:56:30] match me?

[00:56:31] I just don't know why it wasn't an addition.

[00:56:33] Sure, have that where you can jump into a lobby of people but something similar to ranked

[00:56:36] where you just get someone else is online looking for a fight and you just get locked

[00:56:40] in with them and then you fight.

[00:56:41] I don't know why that wasn't similar as in ranked.

[00:56:44] Exactly because it's like I think the idea behind it was that, oh, all of the friends are

[00:56:47] going to be playing together.

[00:56:48] Give them like a six-player lobby and then they can all just go fight and then chat with

[00:56:53] each other, roast each other as they get beat down or whatever.

[00:56:57] The case may be but yeah, in the world of TCG Pocket, you know, like where you can instantly

[00:57:01] matchmake anybody that you want to, come on Bandai, you can do this.

[00:57:05] Why would you say that?

[00:57:07] So much TCG Pocket.

[00:57:08] So much Pocket.

[00:57:09] You got to get your code.

[00:57:10] I got my 45 wins already, boys.

[00:57:12] Did you?

[00:57:14] Oh, hell yeah.

[00:57:15] Okay, let's go.

[00:57:15] Absolutely ridiculous.

[00:57:16] Yeah, let's go.

[00:57:17] Yeah, we're fucking goaded over here.

[00:57:19] It's so good.

[00:57:21] Going back to Dragon Ball, let's go ahead and jump into the music and the sound design in

[00:57:25] this game.

[00:57:25] Again, something that I said, you know, critiques aside, is genuinely probably the best part about

[00:57:30] this.

[00:57:31] Yeah.

[00:57:31] It sounds like Dragon Ball from the sound effects of the characters, you know, doing their vanishing

[00:57:36] moves or the sound effects of like loading up a Kamehameha as Goku.

[00:57:42] Like it just feels that way.

[00:57:44] And I think like it just, it really, really is immersive at its core.

[00:57:48] Not only that, you also have all of the original, most of the original cast that's in there.

[00:57:53] I imagine because it's been so much time since, you know, both Super and Z that like some of

[00:57:58] the folks have like either moved on or they're not interested or their voices aren't there

[00:58:00] anymore.

[00:58:01] Well, also like Frieza's voice actor changed between like original Z to like into Super

[00:58:05] and things like that too.

[00:58:06] So like voice actor is just changing too.

[00:58:08] Yeah.

[00:58:08] And shout out to that voice actor because he sounds just like Frieza from the original saga.

[00:58:13] And I am pretty sure that he was the one responsible for getting a lot of the characters, like building

[00:58:19] the character roster and things like that for Sparking Zero as well too.

[00:58:22] So yeah, he was responsible.

[00:58:23] So I was following him on Twitter and that's what he was saying.

[00:58:25] He's like really proud that he helped build a lot of the characters and get these characters

[00:58:29] into Sparking Zero, which is cool.

[00:58:31] Yeah.

[00:58:32] Super, super big shout out.

[00:58:33] I think we have the original voice of Lord Frieza was Damon Mills, but I can't find because

[00:58:39] it was a young blonde dude who plays him now.

[00:58:42] And so he's actually all over social media.

[00:58:44] So I've seen some different voices of him like interacting in the community as like Frieza

[00:58:49] being like, I will destroy you, which is really fun.

[00:58:52] But yeah, definitely I'll go ahead and try and see if I can't get his name in the edit

[00:58:56] and plug him in there just to give him a special shout out.

[00:58:58] But yeah, the music is catchy.

[00:59:00] The music, it's so good.

[00:59:05] And nostalgic.

[00:59:07] Yeah.

[00:59:07] Classic Dragon Ball at every moment and like even the hype moments.

[00:59:11] Yeah.

[00:59:12] Again, Sean Schemmel does great work as the one true Goku.

[00:59:16] Unfortunately, you know, I think one thing that we can say also, first of all, I should

[00:59:21] have said this up in the show.

[00:59:22] Rest in peace to Akira Toriyama.

[00:59:23] Yeah.

[00:59:24] You know, this game feels like an homage to all of the great work he did.

[00:59:28] And as well as Daima also feels like an homage to classic Dragon Ball back in the day.

[00:59:32] So that's that definitely, you know, shout out to Akira Toriyama.

[00:59:35] Yeah.

[00:59:35] I mean, that was that was the reason why I checked out Dragon Ball because after Toriyama

[00:59:39] was passing, I was like, you know what?

[00:59:40] I've been wanting to do this for a long time.

[00:59:42] I watched bits of it as a kid, but I never front to back watch Dragon Ball.

[00:59:45] So I was like, let me just go through this.

[00:59:46] And it was a perfect time.

[00:59:47] And it was beautiful because it was such a good show.

[00:59:50] Yeah.

[00:59:50] Yeah.

[00:59:50] It was really good.

[00:59:51] And I did want to put a little note here because I was looking through like the voice

[00:59:55] cast for all of the characters that were in Sparking Zero and super big shout out to Christopher

[01:00:00] Sabat.

[01:00:00] He plays Vegeta, Piccolo, Yamcha, Zarbon, Jace, Berter.

[01:00:06] All of these characters have wildly different voice impressions, but people that we can hear

[01:00:11] in our minds whenever we say those names, you know, for the true Dragon Ball fans, he's

[01:00:16] incredible.

[01:00:16] And then also crazy to see this.

[01:00:18] I was running down and I saw Matt Mercer's face.

[01:00:20] Yep.

[01:00:20] He plays Hit, which actually makes perfect sense because I wouldn't have pegged that

[01:00:24] previously.

[01:00:25] But the fact that he's Hit is like, it's great.

[01:00:27] It's insane.

[01:00:27] That man is everywhere.

[01:00:29] He shows up in everything.

[01:00:30] All over the place.

[01:00:30] He's working too hard.

[01:00:32] Like give him a break.

[01:00:33] Give him a break.

[01:00:34] But I guess he's loving it.

[01:00:35] Give him a break.

[01:00:35] He's living in the dream.

[01:00:36] So any other standout performances, anything about the music or voice acting that really

[01:00:40] stood out to either of you?

[01:00:42] For me, the voice acting especially.

[01:00:44] I just love that when you go into like your card that you can kind of tweak around for people

[01:00:49] to see online and things like that.

[01:00:50] Or even especially if you're going into just playing PVE, for example, against the computer,

[01:00:55] you can actually change what the songs are playing.

[01:00:58] Yes.

[01:00:58] Some of the songs are slapping.

[01:01:00] I mean, the Tournament of Power.

[01:01:01] Oh my God.

[01:01:02] The Tournament of Power song is just, it's so good.

[01:01:04] You got to throw that one on there.

[01:01:05] I'll be in the middle of like Goku and Frieza, you know, fighting on Namek and then playing

[01:01:09] the Tournament of Power soundtrack.

[01:01:10] Like, look, it's still good.

[01:01:11] It still hits.

[01:01:12] Oh, it's so good.

[01:01:13] The music is all incredible.

[01:01:14] And honestly, all of the voice acting, I mean, of course, with 182 characters, everyone's

[01:01:18] not firing on all cylinders.

[01:01:20] Sure.

[01:01:20] But a lot of the people that at least I care about and I'm listening to, they all sound

[01:01:25] great.

[01:01:25] I mean, of course, the main cast, like, you know, your standard Z fighters, they're all

[01:01:28] really good.

[01:01:28] But the big one too, like I mentioned Turles earlier from Tree of Might, like he sounds awesome.

[01:01:34] Yeah.

[01:01:34] Really?

[01:01:34] When you're sitting there, you do his super and he's like, I will destroy you.

[01:01:38] And then he lights you up and like kind of if you've ever seen Tree of Might, he has

[01:01:41] that one move where he has Goku like pinned to the ground and lights him up with a bunch

[01:01:45] of ki blast.

[01:01:46] This one, he does like a similar move, but then he just puts like a column of ki blast

[01:01:50] and just like shreds you to pieces.

[01:01:52] Yeah.

[01:01:52] He sounds great.

[01:01:53] He sounds super intimidating.

[01:01:54] Yeah.

[01:01:55] It all sounds great.

[01:01:56] I think that like the biggest thing is just like the sound effects, like the sounds of

[01:02:00] like going Super Saiyan or like buildings breaking or like the energy blast,

[01:02:04] Kamehameha, all that sounds so like visceral.

[01:02:07] It sounds so crisp too.

[01:02:08] And it's, it just makes you feel like you're like, you're doing those damages.

[01:02:11] You're like making the destruction and everything like that.

[01:02:13] It's so fun.

[01:02:14] If you're not yelling when you're throwing out your 100th Kamehameha of the day, then

[01:02:19] you're not doing it right.

[01:02:20] Cause I'm still sitting there playing like the middle of the night, baby's asleep and

[01:02:23] I'm like under my breath.

[01:02:27] I heard it a lot because in that first Vegeta fight with Goku, when you fight a great Vegeta,

[01:02:32] I was just spamming Kamehameha over and over and over.

[01:02:35] Over and over.

[01:02:35] Oh yeah.

[01:02:36] Because he's also spamming, Galick Gun.

[01:02:38] I'm like, stop it.

[01:02:39] Dude, all the time.

[01:02:39] I was like, you know what?

[01:02:40] I will destroy you.

[01:02:41] I didn't want to do this, but I'll spam too.

[01:02:42] I didn't want to have to do it, but I'll do it too.

[01:02:45] Tip for tip.

[01:02:45] Tip for tip.

[01:02:45] Honestly, that was, you know, a really something that we didn't lock in on, but Will showed

[01:02:50] me kind of like a way to cheese your way through some of the harder fights in Sparking Zero.

[01:02:56] If you're facing like great eight Vegeta or you're facing Fuse Zamasu is like literally

[01:03:00] just get distanced a lot.

[01:03:01] A lot of these CPUs and spam ultimates.

[01:03:04] Just spam ultimates at them.

[01:03:05] What are they going to do?

[01:03:06] Yeah.

[01:03:06] What are they going to do?

[01:03:06] Just die.

[01:03:07] Just die.

[01:03:08] Many of the characters have abilities and moves because on top of just obviously your normal

[01:03:12] Kamehameha blast like that, you'll have like techniques that you could use.

[01:03:15] And some of them have techniques where you could just get your ultimate like immediately

[01:03:19] or just like it's great sparking and everything.

[01:03:21] So you just spam that over and over again and you're good.

[01:03:24] Yeah, that's really, really cool.

[01:03:25] So yeah, definitely a huge shout out to the folks who were running the sound design over

[01:03:29] there.

[01:03:29] This just was 10 out of 10, you know, no notes.

[01:03:32] This is really, really good.

[01:03:34] And I strongly recommend everybody kind of check this out for that alone.

[01:03:37] If you are a Dragon Ball fan, you'll you'll feel the nostalgia rush into your veins.

[01:03:41] Yeah.

[01:03:42] I wanted to jump into the episode battle story thoughts.

[01:03:45] I know that I've only played through Goku.

[01:03:47] I've dabbled with the Vegeta.

[01:03:49] I did maybe like two episodes of the Vegeta timeline.

[01:03:51] I know, Will, you've done quite a few.

[01:03:53] Jared, did you you said you only did Goku as well, right?

[01:03:55] Yeah, I finished Goku and then I jumped straight to Goku Black.

[01:03:59] Let me just try this out.

[01:04:00] Let me try this out.

[01:04:01] And that's what I've been playing through.

[01:04:02] Goku Black has been difficult because fighting like Will said, fighting Trunks, Goku and Vegeta

[01:04:07] all at the same time is hard.

[01:04:08] It's insane.

[01:04:10] Yeah.

[01:04:10] Doing these back to back battles when you only have like one set health bar, like you

[01:04:14] have to be really, really tactical with how you perform your moves or how much in their

[01:04:19] faces you get.

[01:04:20] One thing that I did want to call out was some of the side playable characters that I didn't

[01:04:25] expect to play as in the main storyline.

[01:04:26] So you got Krillin, Tien, Android 16, 17 and 18.

[01:04:30] Yep.

[01:04:31] You have Vegito, which is cool.

[01:04:32] I guess expected, right?

[01:04:33] Sure.

[01:04:33] Like Vegito happens during the Buu timeline.

[01:04:36] And then Cooler, King Cold, Zarbon, Thedoria, Zamasu and Fused Zamasu.

[01:04:41] So of course you can play as all of these characters in a PvP match, but playing through

[01:04:45] them or them being playable characters in the episode battle is really, really neat and being

[01:04:49] able to have that.

[01:04:50] How did you guys feel about, because there's a mechanic that was introduced where during the

[01:04:54] cut scenes, you can shift to a first person view of whatever character you're doing?

[01:04:59] How did you guys feel about that?

[01:05:01] It's hit or miss.

[01:05:02] Did you ever do it?

[01:05:03] It hits.

[01:05:04] There's a thing.

[01:05:05] It's hit or miss.

[01:05:05] But when it hits, it definitely hits.

[01:05:07] Like when you're playing as Gohan and you're doing the father-son Kamehameha to Cell,

[01:05:13] you can switch.

[01:05:14] So it's like a first person mode of you like blasting out the shot.

[01:05:17] Or even in that same arc when you're Goku and you're trying to teleport Cell away and you're

[01:05:22] looking back and you're looking at all your friends that you're about to leave.

[01:05:24] Going into that in first person is cool.

[01:05:26] But like you said, it is definitely hit or miss.

[01:05:29] Yeah.

[01:05:29] Yeah.

[01:05:30] I don't know.

[01:05:30] Sometimes you're just like looking at feet.

[01:05:32] You're just like looking down.

[01:05:33] I'm just like, okay, I get it.

[01:05:35] But it's like, let me move the camera around even though it's not just my head.

[01:05:38] There was some cool ones though that weren't as spectacle as that.

[01:05:42] Like when I was playing through Goku Blacks and in that scene right before Vegeta and

[01:05:47] Goku Fuse to fight Fuse Zamasu, you can, in that cut scene on Goku's, they're having

[01:05:52] a conversation about fusing Vegeta.

[01:05:54] It's like trepidation.

[01:05:54] It's like, oh, I don't want to have to do this again.

[01:05:56] But when you're Goku Black, you could see them.

[01:05:58] Even Zamasu is like, they're like whispering and talking about something over there.

[01:06:00] And you see them like arguing from the first person view as Goku Black.

[01:06:03] And it was cool to get like that context too.

[01:06:06] Yeah.

[01:06:06] That's actually really, really cool.

[01:06:08] I had no idea though.

[01:06:09] Yeah.

[01:06:09] I mean, I knew that the first person view was, and I might've tried it once or twice,

[01:06:12] but I was like, this is cheeks.

[01:06:13] I don't like it.

[01:06:13] I don't like it.

[01:06:14] This isn't close enough to what I want from Dragon Ball.

[01:06:17] So it's definitely, yeah.

[01:06:18] Stuck to third person over the shoulder camera there doing that.

[01:06:22] It's funny too.

[01:06:22] I even liked it at the very beginning of the Saiyan saga, like when Raditz gets blasted.

[01:06:26] Oh yeah.

[01:06:26] If you get blasted too while you're Goku.

[01:06:28] You're first person.

[01:06:28] You can still do the first person's like overhearing Raditz talk about the Saiyans that are

[01:06:31] coming, but like your eyes are like all fuzzy and hazy because you're dying.

[01:06:36] So like it's pretty neat.

[01:06:37] Yeah.

[01:06:37] That is really, really cool.

[01:06:39] So you have all of that there.

[01:06:41] Yeah.

[01:06:41] So, so the episode story battles, again, this is really cool.

[01:06:44] You have a lot of options to go through.

[01:06:45] I'm really curious to see what Piccolo's battle is all like, especially later on in like the,

[01:06:51] the boo saga as well as the tournament of power.

[01:06:54] I think he had a really cool thing and hopefully they go deeper.

[01:06:57] They add on DLC, whether it's for your paid DLC where, you know, you maybe potentially get

[01:07:02] a superhero moment.

[01:07:03] That would be cool.

[01:07:04] That would be a cool story.

[01:07:05] Orange Piccolo.

[01:07:06] Yes, sir.

[01:07:07] That would be so, so sick.

[01:07:08] I would love that.

[01:07:09] And then again, you know, playing as a future trunks and jumping in between the timelines.

[01:07:13] I'd be really curious to see how they handle going from future Z trunks to future like

[01:07:18] super Dragon Ball super trunks.

[01:07:20] Because they're two different people.

[01:07:22] They're not the same person in how they go back and forth.

[01:07:24] So yeah, definitely cool stuff there.

[01:07:27] Last thing to note on, I mean, I don't want to end on a bummer note, but it was really interesting

[01:07:30] because you brought this up when we were preparing for the show when talking about player retention.

[01:07:34] Yeah.

[01:07:35] This game I'm looking at, I have like a screenshot from Steam DB and it had an all-time player

[01:07:41] count of 122,000 players, you know, when it first launched.

[01:07:47] And this is coming from thegamer.com.

[01:07:49] And it's just saying like, well, such a, and then as it's going now, it looks like the

[01:07:53] players right now are barely peaking over, you know, five, the right under 6,000 concurrent

[01:07:58] players online.

[01:08:00] Which I mean, you know, 6,000, I mean, it's a single player game.

[01:08:03] Yeah, exactly.

[01:08:03] They expect the numbers to drop.

[01:08:04] I just don't know if they expected the numbers to drop that dramatically.

[01:08:07] And they're saying like, well, a drop-off might be expected.

[01:08:10] You know, the multiplayer game losing such a significant portion of its player base over

[01:08:13] a short period is a concern.

[01:08:15] Sparking Zero coincidentally has now failed to beat Street Fighter 6 daily concurrent players

[01:08:20] since Saturday, October 27th.

[01:08:23] Now, Street Fighter 6 is arguably like one of the best fighting games of all time.

[01:08:27] Like people who love the fighting game community loves that game.

[01:08:30] They, you know, ride or die for that game.

[01:08:32] So I don't know if Sparking Zero has hit that level of tech.

[01:08:36] Yeah.

[01:08:36] But I did want to like put a note here in talking about what happened in the month of October

[01:08:42] because October, fucking insane year.

[01:08:45] Okay.

[01:08:45] You see October 4th, the Until Dawn remake, which is just like whatever, right?

[01:08:49] You have that.

[01:08:50] October 8th, Silent Hill 2.

[01:08:53] October 8th, Diablo 4, Vessel of Hatred.

[01:08:56] Three days later, October 11th, Metaphor Re-Fantasio.

[01:09:00] Yeah.

[01:09:01] And then on the same day, Dragon Ball Z, Sparking Zero, October 11th.

[01:09:07] Yeah.

[01:09:07] So you have that.

[01:09:07] And then like later that month, you got Neva coming out on all platforms on October 15th.

[01:09:11] Yeah.

[01:09:12] And then a few other things from Mario Party Jamboree, you know, Alan Wake 2, DLC.

[01:09:16] And, you know, you have just a lot of games.

[01:09:19] You see the Sonic X Shadows, Cross Shadow Generations.

[01:09:23] Yeah.

[01:09:23] Black Ops 6 comes out on October 25th.

[01:09:26] So you think about that online element of people, you know, getting their distraction into the Pokemon TCG Pocket October 30th.

[01:09:33] Let's go.

[01:09:33] So let's go.

[01:09:34] You see where the real fan base actually went.

[01:09:37] He's playing fucking Pokemon right now.

[01:09:39] Yeah, exactly.

[01:09:40] And I wanted to bring this up too, you know, less to have a negative light shine on it and more just like get context.

[01:09:46] I saw a lot of conversation around this of being like the game failed.

[01:09:49] And I don't think that's necessarily the case at all.

[01:09:51] For one, I do think a lot of the competitiveness and ranked stuff around online may put some people off first and foremost.

[01:10:00] But, again, like Nick said, it's a story-driven game.

[01:10:04] It's a single-player game.

[01:10:05] Many people that aren't super competitive like that had just played the story and they were done with it.

[01:10:09] And they were done with the experience.

[01:10:10] And that's fine.

[01:10:11] A lot of the hardcore players and everything will continue to, you know, provide the online pools and competitive and ranked and everything like that.

[01:10:19] But most people that just, you know, casual, that love Dragon Ball Z, played the story and then were done with it.

[01:10:23] And I don't necessarily think that's a failure at all.

[01:10:26] Yeah.

[01:10:26] I can only agree with you there.

[01:10:28] I think the issue that you run into is that if you want to build and sustain a player base, I feel like in 2024 when people have really figured out how to do multiplayer online community matchmaking or having people exist in an ecosystem online the same way that Destiny has, the same way that Fortnite and Apex and all of these other live service games have, is that you have to kind of come to the table with something different.

[01:10:51] And I'm not saying that you do what Xenoverse did because Xenoverse is as successful as it is for a very good reason.

[01:10:57] It's not at that level.

[01:10:59] It's not a Roblox.

[01:10:59] It's not a Minecraft sort of experience.

[01:11:01] Dragon Ball is a very unique, singular experience that's very much dedicated to millennials.

[01:11:08] And I would say that, like, it really was until recently I got, you know, my girlfriend's nine-year-old son to be even remotely interested in Dragon Ball.

[01:11:16] He was of the opinion that, what was it?

[01:11:19] Demon Slayer was better than Dragon Ball.

[01:11:21] And I just, I said, absolutely not.

[01:11:22] I said, absolutely not.

[01:11:24] We can't have this.

[01:11:25] We can't have this.

[01:11:26] He said, Dragon Ball sucks.

[01:11:27] And then I put him on this game and he can't stop playing it, which is amazing.

[01:11:30] Is it?

[01:11:30] But, oh, you play Dragon Ball?

[01:11:32] Ew.

[01:11:33] I can't take that.

[01:11:35] My heart can't take it.

[01:11:36] But yeah, it is to be said that, like, the marketing of Dragon Ball, like, even, like, I had the Gen Z friends that I do have.

[01:11:42] Yeah.

[01:11:43] They're, like, wholly uninterested because they didn't have that formative experience of growing up with it.

[01:11:48] And I think that we are, like, you get the Gen X and then us.

[01:11:52] Do you think if, because Daima has obviously come back and we got some new Dragon Ball.

[01:11:58] Do you think if Dragon Ball continued to have a more consistent reoccurring anime presence that that would be a little different?

[01:12:04] Because the Super arc has ended a long time ago.

[01:12:07] And that's what's weird, too, is, like, the manga has continued through Super.

[01:12:10] Like, there's more arcs in the manga that haven't been adapted to anime.

[01:12:13] And then we just now got Daima.

[01:12:14] So do you think if there was a stronger anime presence, more, you know, younger generations, Gen Z and everything like that would be more into Dragon Ball?

[01:12:22] Yeah.

[01:12:22] I 100% do.

[01:12:24] I think that if Dragon Ball can figure out a way to put out movies that are at the level of quality that Brawley was and that of superheroes was.

[01:12:34] Because I went to superheroes with Will more as a lark than anything else.

[01:12:38] I didn't expect to get, like, a fucking star-studded experience and then, like, us having a standing ovation of that movie at the end in, like, the audience in the theater.

[01:12:46] Oh, that's so cool.

[01:12:47] It was such a special moment.

[01:12:50] And I'm like, if they can figure out how to do that.

[01:12:52] And I think, like, the thing with Daima, which is cool, is that it's short, right?

[01:12:55] Yeah.

[01:12:55] It's going to be a short homage.

[01:12:56] And I think it's kind of aimed at getting younger kids in, which is smart for the brand itself.

[01:13:01] Like I said, very focused on, like, how OG Dragon Ball was.

[01:13:03] Almost like, not a reboot, but, like, that kind of focus on the characters.

[01:13:07] Yeah.

[01:13:08] Kind of like, I think you want, the thing with Daima is that you want to get everybody in.

[01:13:12] You want to get something that's fun for the kids because you see Goku as a little kid and they can be like Goku.

[01:13:16] But then maybe at the end, you know, have them power up and be adults again and have a serious fight there.

[01:13:21] That could be fun.

[01:13:21] Bring it back Super Saiyan 4.

[01:13:22] Yeah.

[01:13:23] I was like, what?

[01:13:24] Just casually.

[01:13:25] Just casually Super Saiyan 4.

[01:13:26] No big deal, right?

[01:13:27] But I think, like, yeah, if they're able to figure out how to get writing.

[01:13:31] Because Toriyama, I don't even, he had creative input in Super, but I don't even think he wrote it.

[01:13:36] There was another writer or creator that was come up and under the tutelage of Toriyama that created Super.

[01:13:42] Yeah.

[01:13:43] So I think that, like, if you can find a way to make Dragon Ball relevant again in a way that people don't think it's, like, beyond more of the cheesy kids, you know, powering up as Super Saiyans on the playground.

[01:13:55] And, like, okay, if you can separate that and make it kind of, like, transcend mediums, you can definitely find an audience.

[01:14:01] I just think it's 100% an uphill battle because, you know, Gen Z and Gen Alpha has already made up their minds.

[01:14:07] So you'd have to do something significantly different today than, you know, what Dragon Ball has been in the past, which, like, would upset us.

[01:14:14] It would legitimately upset us.

[01:14:16] Yeah.

[01:14:16] And in a similar, like, situation, I'm curious of how, like, with Bleach, because obviously Bleach has recently come back.

[01:14:22] And I'm curious of how many people have jumped onto Bleach's new watchers in this show.

[01:14:28] So, obviously, Bleach has been gone for a long time.

[01:14:30] It's been years since Bleach has been around.

[01:14:32] So it's, like, I'm curious to see how that is, too.

[01:14:35] Very similar situation.

[01:14:36] Yeah.

[01:14:36] I'm glad you brought that up, too, Jared, because I was thinking about the new Trigun show and kind of how that would be me at least thinking probably no to your question.

[01:14:47] Yeah, no, they did a great job.

[01:14:48] But I was, like, for your question as far as, like, is this going to, like, bring back kind of lifeblood in Dragon Ball?

[01:14:52] Well, the only reason I'm leaning no is because I loved the original Trigun.

[01:14:56] Trigun was amazing.

[01:14:57] And then they did a very different Trigun compared to how it first came out with Stampede.

[01:15:01] And it's still great.

[01:15:03] But I did not see as much discourse in, like, the, you know, the anime community.

[01:15:08] I didn't see people, like, blow up.

[01:15:09] It was never a water cooler anime.

[01:15:10] Yeah.

[01:15:11] And then same thing you brought up about Bleach.

[01:15:13] I liked old school Bleach.

[01:15:14] Can't say I loved it, but I definitely liked old school Bleach.

[01:15:17] But I love Thousand Year Blood War.

[01:15:18] Like, it's awesome.

[01:15:19] I haven't even finished it yet, but everything I've seen so far, I just loved it.

[01:15:22] The animation looks great.

[01:15:23] Characters are voiced well.

[01:15:25] Things are looking awesome.

[01:15:26] Still, do not hear a ton about it, right?

[01:15:29] Aside from, like, the people that are, like, dedicated to it.

[01:15:31] Like, they love Bleach.

[01:15:31] Yeah, unless you already like Bleach.

[01:15:33] I've never heard someone be like, I never watched Bleach before.

[01:15:34] I never cared about Bleach, but I love Thousand Year Blood War.

[01:15:37] Like, they don't exist.

[01:15:37] They're not real people.

[01:15:38] Yeah.

[01:15:39] So, they have a new game coming out.

[01:15:41] We'll see if the new game shows a, you know, uptick of people.

[01:15:45] Then maybe that can kind of get closer to that question that you had.

[01:15:48] Like, you know, is Thousand Year Blood War a good, you know, revitalization of the Bleach

[01:15:53] genre?

[01:15:53] The Bleach, you know, gaming and everything like that, too.

[01:15:56] So, I kind of have to wait and see that.

[01:15:56] Because even if, you know, you hate to admit it, that shows like Demon Slayer and things

[01:16:00] like that are more popular.

[01:16:03] Like, they end up getting more popularity.

[01:16:05] You know?

[01:16:06] I mean, Demon Slayer is very visually pretty.

[01:16:08] There's not a lot of character.

[01:16:11] There's not a lot of substance.

[01:16:12] There's not a lot of substance.

[01:16:13] But it's so pretty.

[01:16:14] But they got their fun little games.

[01:16:15] And same thing with JJK.

[01:16:16] You know, JJK is a great anime.

[01:16:18] And then it has like its little, you know, clash game.

[01:16:20] So, you know, it's got its stuff.

[01:16:21] I wish they would make like games that are...

[01:16:24] That's the thing, though.

[01:16:25] Is that that's so unique to Dragon Ball versus some of these newer animes.

[01:16:28] That Dragon Ball has like really...

[01:16:30] Like, this game is very good.

[01:16:32] Yeah.

[01:16:32] When we talk about like how competent of an arena fighter it is.

[01:16:35] And I like...

[01:16:36] I desperately wish that games like Jutsu Kaisen or Demon Slayer would have games of this

[01:16:41] level of quality be made.

[01:16:43] I just...

[01:16:43] It's interesting, though, because like as much cultural impact and as much waves as they

[01:16:46] make in the anime space, I still think that publishers and developers are unwilling to

[01:16:52] like risk a good amount of money to make a high quality AAA experience for those titles,

[01:16:58] which is...

[01:16:59] They just want to make butt matches for kids.

[01:17:00] Yeah.

[01:17:00] That is such an interesting idea, though, too.

[01:17:02] Like you were saying, like these anime are kind of the front runners right now.

[01:17:06] They're the most popular.

[01:17:07] JJK, Demon Slayer, things like that.

[01:17:09] And we see on the game side that that quality doesn't usually reflect it.

[01:17:14] Usually when we see anime arena fighters come out, we're like, oh, yeah, like Black Clover

[01:17:17] had one and just like...

[01:17:18] Like things like that where it's just like...

[01:17:19] Yeah.

[01:17:19] You see these anime fighters come out and you kind of know the quality.

[01:17:22] Like Heroes Justice.

[01:17:22] Yeah, exactly.

[01:17:24] God.

[01:17:25] Yeah.

[01:17:25] Jeez, yeah.

[01:17:25] Was that My Heroes Academia?

[01:17:27] Was that the game for that?

[01:17:28] Yeah.

[01:17:28] Oh, my God.

[01:17:29] Yeah.

[01:17:29] Yeah.

[01:17:29] No.

[01:17:29] And they've had so many chances, too.

[01:17:32] That game, that anime has made billions of dollars.

[01:17:35] I'm sure of it.

[01:17:36] Just sheerly from the merch and like they can't make a single good game for that show.

[01:17:41] And they're all like the same cut and dry anime fighters, which is not necessarily a

[01:17:45] bad thing.

[01:17:45] Like the Storm games did it well.

[01:17:47] It's just like...

[01:17:47] Yeah.

[01:17:48] That's just the same.

[01:17:49] And there's nothing necessarily different in that.

[01:17:51] But it's interesting that they don't put as much time and quality into the game side

[01:17:54] with how successful they are.

[01:17:56] Yeah.

[01:17:57] Yeah.

[01:17:57] It's interesting to think about.

[01:17:58] But let's go ahead and get into our final thoughts for Dragon Ball Z Sparking Zero.

[01:18:03] Again, Jared, as our guest for the show, if you have somebody out there who likes Dragon

[01:18:07] Ball or is vaguely interested in it, what would be your final thoughts to share with them

[01:18:11] to potentially get them into this game?

[01:18:13] First of all, even if you like Dragon Ball a little bit, go play Sparking Zero, man.

[01:18:18] What are you doing?

[01:18:19] Straight up.

[01:18:19] Stop what you're doing.

[01:18:20] Go play Sparking Zero.

[01:18:21] I understand that the $70 price point is steep for some people.

[01:18:25] It is steep for sure.

[01:18:27] But even if you're only interested...

[01:18:30] Yeah, exactly.

[01:18:31] Holidays are coming up.

[01:18:31] Get it on sale.

[01:18:32] Black Friday's coming up.

[01:18:33] But there is substance here.

[01:18:35] There's a lot of things to do.

[01:18:36] Even if you just focus on the single player aspect, there's a lot of, like we said,

[01:18:40] those episode battles and things.

[01:18:42] There's a lot of side what-ifs that you can get to that you have to follow specific criteria.

[01:18:47] If you want to dip into the PvP, that's there for you too.

[01:18:50] So there's a lot of substance for you for that $70 price point.

[01:18:53] Again, like Nick said, just wait until Black Friday and you'll probably get it for sale.

[01:18:57] Exactly.

[01:18:58] But it's good.

[01:18:59] It is a love letter to Dragon Ball.

[01:19:01] And even if you're not a huge Dragon Ball fan, I think it's probably one of the best

[01:19:05] and competent arena fighters, anime arena fighters that I've played.

[01:19:08] It's a lot of fun.

[01:19:09] It has a lot of depth with its combat and everything.

[01:19:12] And it has a huge roster of characters you can choose from.

[01:19:15] All that are, that do feel very different.

[01:19:17] We didn't really talk about it, but in some of the old Tenkaichi games,

[01:19:20] there's a lot of repeating characters, right?

[01:19:22] You'll get a lot of forms that are single character slots.

[01:19:25] And those didn't really change in terms of their, how they fought back in the day.

[01:19:29] But they did a really good job of making those characters still feel unique.

[01:19:32] Like Goku Super Saiyan 1 and Goku Super Saiyan 2 still feel like they have unique skill sets

[01:19:36] and everything.

[01:19:37] Which just means that you have 100, I don't know how many characters were,

[01:19:39] 180 characters that were in this game or something like that.

[01:19:42] Yeah, about 180.

[01:19:42] You have a ton of characters to choose from.

[01:19:43] So yeah, definitely.

[01:19:44] And again, if you're even remotely into Dragon Ball,

[01:19:46] you definitely need to play Sparky Zero because it's such a good time.

[01:19:49] Yeah.

[01:19:50] Will, how about yourself?

[01:19:51] What's your final thoughts for today?

[01:19:52] Definitely the same.

[01:19:54] Once again, if you have any inkling of, you know, Dragon Ball-like in your heart,

[01:19:58] not even love, just a little bit of like, this is definitely a game to hop into.

[01:20:01] Like I have not really felt this well as far as, you know,

[01:20:05] this good about a Dragon Ball game since way back in high school,

[01:20:10] playing in my friend PJ's house in Florida.

[01:20:12] We were sitting there doing Budokai 2 and 3.

[01:20:14] And, you know, you do the beam struggles, which I don't think we talk about a whole lot,

[01:20:17] but, you know, the beam struggles.

[01:20:18] If somebody does like, you know, two Kamehamehas or a Kamehameha and a Gallagun,

[01:20:22] they meet in the middle.

[01:20:23] Then you got to sit there.

[01:20:24] And back in the day, it's different now in Zero,

[01:20:26] but you had to like destroy your controller.

[01:20:28] Your palms.

[01:20:29] You had to do the stick drift and you'd spin the sticks over and over and over.

[01:20:32] And me and PJ would be sitting next to each other playing, you know,

[01:20:35] couch co-op and just like smacking each other's elbows,

[01:20:37] trying to like mess the other person up.

[01:20:39] So it evokes that feeling, even when you're playing online,

[01:20:42] like when me and Nick are playing, like we're having a good time,

[01:20:44] just kind of like chatting back and forth.

[01:20:45] It really gives you that like, oh man, I'm back in my bag as a kid,

[01:20:50] playing this super fun Dragon Ball game again.

[01:20:52] So definitely a high recommend from me.

[01:20:55] Even if you don't like Dragon Ball straight up,

[01:20:58] just like we've mentioned multiple times here at the core,

[01:21:00] this is a competent fighting game.

[01:21:02] So if you're looking for an arena fighter,

[01:21:04] if you've played, you know,

[01:21:05] like your smash bros or your things that aren't as like technically heavy,

[01:21:08] but you just want to have a little bit of fun, you know,

[01:21:10] watching people beat the hell out of each other and then turn for the whole

[01:21:13] family, then just, just go for it.

[01:21:15] This is an easy one to hop into.

[01:21:16] Yeah.

[01:21:17] A hundred percent.

[01:21:17] I only echo what you both have said,

[01:21:19] uh, black Friday right around the corner from when this episode is going to be

[01:21:23] releasing this coming Friday.

[01:21:25] So folks who are listening to this and they're thinking about it,

[01:21:28] you know,

[01:21:28] if your parents with kids or something like that,

[01:21:30] who are of age to be able to play something like this and have fun with it,

[01:21:34] this is a hundred percent,

[01:21:35] a thing that you can do to have fun,

[01:21:37] whether it's going to be couch co-op or if you want to get into it online.

[01:21:40] Yeah.

[01:21:40] There's a ton of stuff that we left out just for the sake of time,

[01:21:43] kind of like the struggles.

[01:21:44] There's more technical mechanics.

[01:21:45] You can even try chase down dragon balls,

[01:21:48] like by completing certain conditions or doing certain things,

[01:21:51] you're awarded dragon balls that will allow you to get certain cool things,

[01:21:55] uh, secrets that are unlocked in this game.

[01:21:57] So really cool layered hidden stuff that you have in this game.

[01:22:01] And again,

[01:22:01] you know,

[01:22:01] like this is purely like for the folks again,

[01:22:04] anybody listening to this who hasn't bought it,

[01:22:06] or maybe they're saving their money for,

[01:22:08] you know,

[01:22:08] end of the year sales.

[01:22:09] This is gonna come.

[01:22:10] I fully expected to come to PS plus game pass.

[01:22:14] So if you're willing to wait that year,

[01:22:15] this is something that you want to like maybe wishlist,

[01:22:17] keep an eye out for,

[01:22:19] um,

[01:22:19] look at it on for like steam sales.

[01:22:21] Cause steam is going to have a lot more sales more frequently than piece,

[01:22:24] uh,

[01:22:24] PlayStation or Xbox.

[01:22:25] So keep your eye out for it there.

[01:22:27] But this is a hundred percent.

[01:22:28] CD keys.

[01:22:29] Check CD keys.

[01:22:30] Yeah.

[01:22:31] So there's a ton of outlets that you can look for it there,

[01:22:33] but this is,

[01:22:34] this is a hundred percent,

[01:22:35] a must play,

[01:22:36] a must recommend from me and from,

[01:22:38] you know,

[01:22:38] our panel that we have on the show today.

[01:22:40] So get out there and if you enjoy it,

[01:22:41] you know,

[01:22:42] you'll definitely have a good time.

[01:22:44] Gentlemen,

[01:22:45] any final words,

[01:22:46] any,

[01:22:46] any parting thoughts,

[01:22:47] any comments that you have before we close out for today?

[01:22:50] Oh man.

[01:22:51] No,

[01:22:52] I think we,

[01:22:52] I think we killed it.

[01:22:53] I think we killed it.

[01:22:55] Literally this conversation has made me want to play it as well.

[01:22:58] So we need to play against each other too.

[01:23:00] Cause I want to fight you guys.

[01:23:02] Yeah.

[01:23:02] I saw,

[01:23:02] I see you online,

[01:23:04] Jared,

[01:23:04] but I think because of the time difference when you're playing,

[01:23:06] you're playing Fortnite and I just like,

[01:23:08] I,

[01:23:08] it's like,

[01:23:09] I'm sure he's in a battle Royale.

[01:23:10] I don't want to,

[01:23:10] I don't want to mess with him over there.

[01:23:12] I don't want to mess with you.

[01:23:13] Which is cool.

[01:23:13] So good.

[01:23:14] Well that folks,

[01:23:15] that's going to be it for tonight.

[01:23:16] I want to give a big thank you to our panel as well as all of our listeners for the show today.

[01:23:21] If you've enjoyed our content and you want to support us further,

[01:23:23] please feel free to leave us a rating review on your platform of choice,

[01:23:27] whether that's Spotify,

[01:23:28] Apple podcasts or good pause.

[01:23:29] We always appreciate that positive engagement.

[01:23:32] Jared,

[01:23:32] I wanted to give you this chance at the beginning of the show,

[01:23:35] but I forgot because we got talking too much.

[01:23:37] We just enjoy talking a lot.

[01:23:39] I wanted to give you a chance to tell people where they can find you and they can find play along pod.

[01:23:44] And like,

[01:23:45] what have you guys got going on right now?

[01:23:46] Anything interesting that they can listen to?

[01:23:48] Awesome.

[01:23:49] Yeah.

[01:23:49] So you can find play along pod anywhere you find your podcast,

[01:23:51] Spotify,

[01:23:52] Apple podcasts,

[01:23:53] things like that.

[01:23:53] As of recording,

[01:23:55] we're playing through hell blade too,

[01:23:56] which has been a wild time.

[01:23:59] Oh man,

[01:23:59] the game is just visually amazing.

[01:24:02] And the,

[01:24:02] the story and the,

[01:24:04] the,

[01:24:04] the voice acting and the mocap.

[01:24:06] It's so good.

[01:24:08] I don't want to give,

[01:24:09] give too much away,

[01:24:10] but Kai said that it's probably his favorite game he's ever played,

[01:24:12] which is insane.

[01:24:13] No way.

[01:24:13] That's awesome.

[01:24:14] That's awesome.

[01:24:15] Which is crazy.

[01:24:15] Another 2024 banger.

[01:24:17] Let's go.

[01:24:18] Yeah.

[01:24:18] I forgot.

[01:24:19] Yeah.

[01:24:19] I forgot the game came out this year as well too.

[01:24:21] So yeah,

[01:24:21] we're going through that,

[01:24:22] you know,

[01:24:22] wrapping up the year and everything excited for 2025 and everything.

[01:24:25] Got lots of plans in the future.

[01:24:27] Uh,

[01:24:28] me and Kai actually are going to be going to the game awards in person this year,

[01:24:32] which is a ton of fun.

[01:24:33] Oh man.

[01:24:34] Yeah.

[01:24:34] So,

[01:24:35] you know,

[01:24:35] love watching the game awards every year and everything.

[01:24:37] Jeff Keighley puts on a good show and it is the 10 year anniversary too,

[01:24:39] which is kind of cool.

[01:24:40] So it's going to be cool to be there in person for the 10 year anniversary.

[01:24:43] So that's going to be a ton of fun.

[01:24:44] Hey,

[01:24:44] if you're there and you want to come say hi,

[01:24:46] find us.

[01:24:47] We'll be there.

[01:24:48] I want to do it so bad,

[01:24:49] Jared.

[01:24:49] I want to,

[01:24:49] I want to go so bad,

[01:24:50] but we'll,

[01:24:51] we'll see.

[01:24:57] I got an extra room here.

[01:24:58] So I will,

[01:24:58] I will sleep the hell out of that couch.

[01:25:00] I will.

[01:25:02] Awesome.

[01:25:03] Oh man.

[01:25:03] But yeah,

[01:25:04] that's all,

[01:25:04] that's all for us.

[01:25:04] You can find us anywhere you find a podcast.

[01:25:06] Yeah.

[01:25:06] Fantastic.

[01:25:07] Well,

[01:25:07] if people want to run the ones up on you and sparking zero,

[01:25:11] where can they find you online?

[01:25:12] Or the hands.

[01:25:13] first off,

[01:25:13] we've got to find me on PlayStation.

[01:25:15] So,

[01:25:15] you know,

[01:25:16] hop on there.

[01:25:16] It's plasma mage,

[01:25:17] P L A S M A M A G E.

[01:25:19] That's the one you've got to look for.

[01:25:21] You'll be the,

[01:25:21] you know,

[01:25:22] person getting their asshole up to standing over you with chowtzu.

[01:25:29] So if you want to come talk some trash in the DMS though,

[01:25:32] and you,

[01:25:32] you know,

[01:25:32] you don't want to get beat up.

[01:25:33] You can find me on Twitter.

[01:25:34] It'll be a real King Zozo tie.

[01:25:36] That's R E A L K I N G Z O S O T A I.

[01:25:40] And with that,

[01:25:41] everybody,

[01:25:41] please keep gaming,

[01:25:43] keep charging those key blasts,

[01:25:45] take it easy and have a great Friday night.

[01:25:47] We'll see ya.

[01:25:47] Deuces.

[01:25:48] Peace out guys.