Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO is the most anticipated fighting game of this year. Its recent official release on October 11, 2024 had 3 million copies sold within the first 24 hours. The game had a peak player count of 122,000 players and, from this month only, had an average of 56,000 players playing. This game was made for fans of the old Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi games, with the game being planned and titled to be the 4th edition of the Budokai Tenkaichi games. 

This new edition tries to capture the nostalgia of the original series and has a roster of over 182 characters to play as. The characters have a good variety spanning from the anime to the Dragon Ball movies with both canon and non-canon playable characters. The game also has today’s better standards of graphics and has multiple different game modes. 

With the recent run of the new Dragon Ball Daima anime, the game offered a pre-order bonus with the game’s final character being a miniature version of Son Goku from the anime. The main features of the game that stand out from other fighting games include having the players able to do custom battle cutscenes and the story mode that has  alternate branches different from the anime. 

The game has been very successful since the demo of the early game was shown. There was no plan for it to be a  competitive game, but it now might become an e-sports competitive game. This could be true from the significant amount of attention from fans it has gotten and its consistent high player base.

Overall, this game was clearly extremely successful in bringing back the feeling of the old Budokai Tenkaichi game series!