Dragon Ball Sparking Zero's Jun Furutani assures players that canonically strong characters will outpower weaker ones (Exclusive)

While previewing Dragon Ball Sparking Zero, I had a chance to sit down with Jun Furutani, producer of the upcoming anime fighter. After spending hours going through the cast, and looking at the various modes, one thing really sparked my curiosity: balance. Dragon Ball FighterZ has no choice but to try and at least pretend there’s a balance between the characters. Otherwise, it’s not going to be a fun fighting game. That’s where Sparking Zero gets to differentiate itself.

However, in our chat, Jun Furutani made sure we were aware that the strongest characters in the franchise are incredibly powerful. Sure, they’re not going to one-shot characters like Mr. Satan or the Frieza Soldier, but you’ll see (and feel) a difference in Dragon Ball Sparking Zero.

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Dragon Ball Sparking Zero Producer Jun Furutani confirms canonically strong characters aren’t balanced against weaker characters

Your favorite overpowered heroes (and villains) remain that way. (Image via Bandai Namco)

While chatting with Jun Furutani of Dragon Ball Sparking Zero, I brought up something that many people think about when Dragon Ball comes up: power levels. The deeper you get into this series, the more powerful some characters get. There are always people that get left behind — Yamcha — or characters that simply don’t have what it takes to break through to the Saiyan power levels.

Then you have to consider players can pick earlier versions of characters in the franchise, such as Dragon Ball Kid Goku, or the first form of Frieza instead of Perfect Frieza. As Jun Furutani said, you’ll definitely notice a difference, even between forms of a character in Dragon Ball Sparking Zero:

“So, I don't know if you had a chance to play all the different versions of Goku, but if you were to compare early Dragon Ball Z Goku to Dragon Ball Super Goku, the power balance, there is definitely a difference in his power level.”

One thing that could potentially frustrate players is that some of their favorite characters are going to be on the weaker side of things. For example, my favorite character is Mr. Satan - despite being the savior of the universe, he can’t stand toe-to-toe with someone like Whis, as Furutani-san pointed out:

“Yeah, we're talking about Goku right now, but there're characters like Beerus and Whis that come out in Super, and those characters are as strong as they should be, canonically speaking, but if you were to play Mr. Satan, or his daughter, Videl, who had a hard time in the original work, you would also have a hard time trying to work with them in this game.”

If you’re playing as Krillin, Mr. Satan, Videl, or any of the characters that aren’t quite as powerful as the high-end Super characters, don’t despair; you can still win! It’s just going to be a little harder.

You can also make restrictions in tournaments and online matches to make sure people don’t just pick Ultra Instinct -Sign- Goku in modes like the World Tournament. In this, you can at least try and have a fighting chance.

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Jun Furutani opens up about What-Ifs, Tournaments, and more

The tournaments of Dragon Ball Sparking Zero promise to be an incredible amount of fun. (Image via Bandai Namco)

While we, unfortunately, had a very limited time with Jun Furutani to talk about Dragon Ball Sparking Zero, we reached out after the event to see if we could get a few more questions answered. Thankfully, he had the time for us! Among the topics we broached were a lack of What Ifs (that we saw), the tournament mode, and the Story Mode, compared to previous games. Here’s what he had to say about the upcoming Dragon Ball game!

Q. Having an online tournament feature sounds like it could be a pretty fun way to host your own Budokai Tenkaichi from home. Has there been any discussion around official tournaments, perhaps designed around the various tournament arcs the franchise is known for?

Jun Furutani: We offer the tournament mode called “World Tournament” Mode, and you can create or join a tournament online with rivals around the world or even play offline in a tournament created for you. We know the tournament mode is something that the franchise fans are familiar with and have loved playing in the franchise. In Sparking! ZERO, each tournament has its own unique rules, including stage settings, victory conditions, and even restrictions on the characters that can be use, so hope users would find as many various ways as possible to enjoy the mode!

Q. One of the more popular features among die-hard fans of the series are What-Ifs - similar to what was featured in the earlier Dragon Ball Z Sparking games. If this was/wasn’t in the build, what led to that decision, and could they be added later?

Jun Furutani: To ensure that everyone who has enjoyed the past titles will enjoy this title as well, we retained elements that make Dragon Ball battles enjoyable, such as high-speed battles. The battle system is indeed a continuation of the one-on-one 3D battle formula pioneered by the “Budokai Tenkaichi” series. We also have some missions that can be achieved during the fights and hope they will enjoy the sense of nostalgia when playing the game.

Q. Another fun feature of some of the previous Dragon Ball Sparking/Meteor games was the open world exploration. There were always fun surprises and challenges hidden - was this a mode the developers didn’t want to include or did development simply go in a different direction?

Jun Furutani: To ensure that everyone who has enjoyed the past titles will enjoy this title as well, we retained elements that make Dragon Ball battles enjoyable, such as high-speed battles. The battle system is indeed a continuation of the one-on-one 3D battle formula pioneered by the “Budokai Tenkaichi” series. We also have some missions that can be achieved during the fights and hope they will enjoy the sense of nostalgia when playing the game.

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The game launches on October 11, 2024, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows platforms. We recently spent a few hours playing it, and you can learn more about it in our in-depth Dragon Ball Sparking Zero preview.