There was I time when I was a big fan of Dragon Ball Z fighting games, the Budokai series in particular. Maybe it was the wonderfully simple controls that won me over. Maybe it the punchiness of the combat. Or, maybe it was just the sheer hype that Dragon Ball just cannot seem to help but radiate. Whatever the case, it was a blast. More recent games haven’t had that same X factor to them, but that might just change with Dragon Ball: Spark! Zero.

I mean, if the actual gameplay is even just half this hype, then I think we’ve got a winner here. This isn’t the 2D fighting style I enjoyed in the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai games, but this more animatic style from the Budokai Tenkaichi games might just be even better since 2D fighters are even more prolific now than they were 20 years ago. Even if this format is technically old, it’s a breath of fresh air in a sea of standard arcade fighting games.

The big news this time is transformations, in that there will be a lot of them. While the Goku and Vegeta’s full compliment of transformations were featured here, it’s looking like we’re going to get to play around with most of them, even the Great Ape (which I don’t think has ever been available before)! If we can just jump from form to form as we want (maybe with some actual impact on things like speed or power), then I think this is absolutely going to be a blast!

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What do you think though? Is this looking like fun to you? Were you a fan of any of the older Dragon Ball games?

Image is an official promotional screenshot from Bandai Namco