We got ourselves a fancy new Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero trailer last week when the Majin Buu Saga Trailer dropped, and while there was a ton of enticing new content on the surface, there’s more to be found with a closer look.
Enter Kadazee and his new video breaking down eight incredible details included in the latest Sparking Zero trailer. One of these was a visual update following some negative fan feedback from a previous trailer, but developers at Bandai Namco sort of cut corners to implement it.
Dragon Ball has amassed tons of iconic moments over the decades, most of which are recreated throughout Sparking Zero’s intricate story modes. When you have as much history and as many fans as this property does, it’s rare that any details go by without notice or scrutiny.
Goku’s iconic Super Saiyan 3 transformation happens during the Buu saga, and we knew that because it popped up in a previous trailer. Fans expressed some disdain for the animation, however, citing Goku’s musculature to be noticeably off compared to the source material.
This may seem like a minute detail (and you could still argue that it is) but the various Super Saiyan transformations are actually extremely detailed. Eye color, hair style, eyebrow status, and muscle size are kind of non-negotiable, definitive parts of these transformations, and deviating from them is a dangerous business.
This is written right into the lore, for instance, such as during the Cell saga wherein the Saiyans note how the new SS2 form is especially bulky and thus makes them move slower. There’s some strategy behind not leveling up to SS2 while fighting with Cell, simply because sacrificing agility and speed does not seem worth it.
In the early Sparking Zero trailer fans noticed that Super Saiyan 3 Goku was a little less buff than he should be. Developers heard the complaints and actually increased Goku’s muscle mass for the same cinematic scene showed in the Majin Buu trailer… but only for a few seconds.
The change does not apply to SS3 Goku’s in-game model, and we can even see him shrink back to his scrawnier SS3 form during the final few frames of the scene in the updated trailer.
This kind of approach comes off as a little disappointing, but surely understandable as the difference between changing a few moments of cinematic animation and an entire character model is tons of time and money.
Kadazee shows us this change along with a handful of other interesting details Bandai included with SS3 Goku (such as unique animations when fighting Buu) in the full video below. He goes through seven other important details surrounding the likes of Evil Buu, Great Saiyaman Goku, and more that you may have missed on your first watch through.
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is set to release on October 11, 2024 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and those who pre-order the Deluxe or higher editions will get three days of early access.