F.A.Q

My Sparking Zero Roster Prediction

At the time of writing this, we are mere HOURS away from a new gameplay reveal for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero being released to the public. It’s going to be 13 minutes long, meaning we’ll most likely be seeing a plethora of new characters, so I wanted to share my personal predictions on who the roster will contain and some of my reasoning behind these choices. I started making this roster a while ago but only finished it a couple days ago, I got a little lazy… If they were in a previous game, I likely won’t talk about them, but there are some exceptions to this. That being said, I wanna tackle probably some of the biggest questions first:

That’s a lot of OG characters!

Yep! There’s a lot of space between Piccolo and the Saiyan Saga. and there are not that many characters in the Saiyan Saga, so it makes sense to add some OG rep in between. I’ll be heavily disappointed if they only give us Kid Goku to represent early DB, it’s literally where the franchise started and I hate how little it gets represented in newer games. They seem to be fixing that with Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot and Dragon Ball: The Breakers though, so my hopes are high for lots of early DB rep.

No GT/Z Movies?

Yeah, I really don’t think we’ll be getting any of that at launch unfortunately. The roster we got at the end of the rivals trailer seems to be ordered vaguely based on Saga, starting with characters introduced in the kid Goku era like Krillin and Tien in the top left and ending with DBS Broly in the bottom right. With how the already revealed characters are placed, I just can’t see room for them on the base roster.

No Super Hero?

No again, and that’s mostly because the roster seemingly ends at Broly and Bergamo.

With that out of the way, let me give some justification for specific characters being on here, starting with:

Bulma

I know she’s a weird choice, but she’d be a great fit imo. She was making laser guns as a kid so her attacks could be themed around that, she could fly with a jetpack, maybe she could even have a barrier special move. She has a lot of outfits from that era that could be used as costumes as well. There’s just a lot of potential for her in this game and I think it’d be a shame if she wasn’t here, though I’d 100% understand if she wasn’t.

Chi-Chi

I don’t have to justify her much, she was in BT3 after all, but I specifically want the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai version of her character instead of the kid design. Her kid design is just… weird, and I think you could do more interesting things with an older version of the character. Super Dragon Ball Z proved she can fit right into a cast on a fighting game perfectly fine using the Bansho Fan, there’s no reason to not be following that formula in the modern era of DB games. This version of the character also appeared in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot and Dragon Ball: The Breakers so it’s not impossible. Her alternate costumes could even be her appearances from different eras of Dragon Ball, just put her in the game!!

DBS Bardock and Gine

I shouldn’t have to justify Bardock much, he appeared in DBS Broly so he could absolutely get in and this would be the perfect time to put his Super variation on a fighting game roster. The character I probably have to justify more is Gine and, if I’m being honest, she’s mostly just to fill space on the roster, BUT Fasha probably won’t be in this game and I think having Gine be her spiritual successor on the roster would be cute. Also, they have Great Ape forms because BT3 gave every tailed saiyan a Great Ape form.

Tarble

Ok he’s absolutely just a slot filler but Vegeta DOES mention having a brother in Super so it’s not impossible??? He also has a Great Ape form for the same reason as Bardock and Gine. You could realistically substitute him with more OG characters though, maybe Launch and Eighter or something. 

Raspberry

Could be literally any Frieza Soldier, I just like him the most. It’s not a Budokai Tenkaichi game without a random Frieza grunt on the roster.

DBS 18 and DBZ 17

“C’mon man, they could totally just be costumes.” True, but this is the Budokai Tenkaichi series we’re talking about here. Not to mention they could absolutely have different movesets from their already existing counterparts on the roster. And it DOES fill out the roster quite nicely.

Anilaza

On top of being one of the more recognizable characters from the T.O.P, he was treated like an absolute menace in the show that, if I recall correctly,  every remaining member of Team U7 had to gang up on to defeat. He’d also be another giant character which we know are returning, and those are fun to have on the roster.

Future Mai

She’s not just a slot filler, she actually did shit in the Future Trunks saga. She helped organize the resistance and even tried to snipe Black with an energy bullet, which would be an awesome ultimate attack. She should ABSOLUTELY be in this game.

Ribrianne/Kakunsa/Roasie and

Basil/Lavendar

I started making my list before Kakunsa was revealed, so go me, but my reasoning is that Ribrianne was absolutely going to make it in with how popular she is. She’s even in Xenoverse, so there’s a precedent for her being in games, and you can’t have her without having her teammates in a game like Sparking Zero. Bergamo is confirmed so Basil and Lavendar are here mostly so the whole Trio can be here. 

Catopesra

He’s one of the goofiest characters in DBS and I think would make a great humor-focused character. I’ve seen people want Monaka in the game as a gag character, but gag characters still have to do something in fights and we’ve never seen him do anything in a fight. The point is that he doesn’t fight, so his inclusion wouldn’t make much sense.

Supreme Kai

He’s gonna have a role in Daima, and you could give him some interesting moves based on his power to create things, so he gets a spot.

Babidi and Dr. Gero

Babidi has a really unique playstyle in BT3 where landing his grab drains your energy and powers up his ultimate attack, and I think that’s cool enough for him to take a slot in the Buu Saga that really wasn’t being used. Dr. Gero is on here for the same reason, as there aren’t any other characters on the roster with android energy absorption bulbs on their hands, unless I’m forgetting something about a DBS character I included.

2 Piccolos?? 2 Bergamos??

Giant forms :) Piccolo’s isn’t totally necessary but Bergamo’s 100% is.

No Cabba?

Yeah I- I forgor. Just completely spaced on his existence. But I didn't wanna redo parts of the roster. Realistically DBS 18, Jaco, and Mai or Anilaza would get dropped for him and his forms. Just ignore it just don't think about it :)

2 Kelfas?

Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan 2. They don’t really look that visually distinct from each other on my roster though, so I just wanted to point that out.

No Whis?

I’m a strong advocate that Whis shouldn’t be a playable character in fighting games because part of being an angel is that you aren’t allowed to fight in battles. If he’s on the roster then whatever but I do not want to see him on there.

Vegito Blue in the Buu Saga?

I’m operating under the logic that when DBS Goku and Vegeta fuse into Vegito, they’d fuse into the same Vegito from the Buu Saga, and if you use the Buu Arc versions of Goku and Vegeta then Vegito Blue wouldn’t be usable. I was also struggling to fill slots in the Buu Saga and putting him there gave me an extra slot for a Super character.

And that’s really everything I can think to talk about. I’m scrambling to get this out at 2 am right now so I may have forgotten to mention something important, but oh well. It’s been a long time since I’ve been as excited for a game as I have been with Sparking Zero. Everything we’ve seen so far looks absolutely fantastic and is building up to make this the best Dragon Ball fighting game ever made in my opinion.

Pretty sure I'm almost through Pokemon Scarlet's story modes. At this point I'm not sure if I'll do a full on review of it like I plan to with Sonic Frontiers but what I can say right now is that the game is very enjoyable even despite its issues, but that doesn't change the fact that it needed more time in development.

RIP Akira Toriyama (1955-2024)

Ok, I've FINALLY finished playing through Pokemon Scarlet's post game. It's a superb game in my opinion, and I think I will be writing a full length review on it after I make one for Sonic Frontiers. Now that I've finished Pokemon I can sit down for a second playthrough of Frontiers to get my thoughts in order on how I feel about the game. It'll probably still take a little bit to get out but I'll get it done!

I should talk about Ranma more tbh, I think it's a great manga and I really like how it seemingly unapologetically tears down gender norms through Ranma's character even if that wasn't Takahashi's intention with the character. I could write a whole essay on it tbh

Yesterday was Ranma's 35th anniversary but that's not going to stop me

I was gonna make a post about my personal ranking of every main Z Fighter (as well as a couple extra characters) as of Chapter 103, and it's almost done, but I'm not really feeling it anymore. I think I'll come back to it at another time and start something new instead

Somethings never change <3

New DBS manga arc just got announced, I know I said I'd do a Sonic Frontiers review (and I still plan on it) but I'm gonna try and talk about that tomorrow instead. I'd speculate on the arc now but I just got off of my shift and am very tired lol

Always snicker a bit when people complain that there are filler characters in Fusions who share names with characters in other offshoots (Kalif/Caulifla, Shalot/Shallot, etc).

I literally have the same first name (exact spelling!) as a coworker right now. Which is very close in pronunciation to two other coworkers’ names. At my last job, there was one point where seven of us had names that were similar enough that it made using the radio a huge cluster. From grade school through college, I’ve always been in at least one class per year with someone else sharing my name, spelled the same or otherwise.

People can have the same name.

FIGHT ME.