It’s only been a few hours since Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero launched into Early Access for those who pre-ordered the Deluxe and Ultimate editions of Spike Chunsoft’s new fighting game, but players are already being absolutely destroyed by the AI opponents.
Across social media, the immediate reaction to Sparking Zero was clear – beyond its massive roster and fan service, it’s just tough. One player on Twitter shared a clip of a fight against the “Ultra” difficulty CPU Vegeta, in which he performs a sickening series of attacks in an impressive combo, before partially untransforming himself to become less powerful, though he continues to attack immediately afterwards. This series of disrespectful moves was so insulting that the player in question clearly had to stop for a while to digest what had just happened, and I honestly don’t blame them.
Put your CPU in ultra mode and they’ll beat your ass pic.twitter.com/flU8HkUhuoOctober 7, 2024
Similar conflicts have been observed in Story Mode, where many players hit a brick wall when they come face to face with Great Ape Vegeta. One player on Reddit sums up the fight as “some BS,” noting: “Literally in the first millisecond, no let me be precise, in the first pixel of the fight he fires the Galick Gun and then spams it if you actually start winning.”
They’re not alone, another player thinks the “game is too difficult” overall, with the story mode “impossible”. From CPUs dealing “18 quintillion damage with a standard punch” to the player themselves taking so little damage that they “might as well be standing there with spitballs of hay,” they conclude that the experience is “absolutely ridiculous.”
While I can certainly imagine that these difficult battles might be intimidating for newcomers, they could actually be a draw for seasoned fans of the Budokai Tenkaichi games. Either way, it’s still early in the game – there’s no doubt that fighting game fans will come up with plenty of strategies and approaches to Sparking Zero’s battles as time goes on.
Be sure to take a look at our Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero review to see if it really has what it takes to be one of the best fighting games of the year.
