The most famous rivalry in anime has to be between Dragon Ball’s Goku and Vegeta, and so with Bandai Namco’s highly anticipated Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero now in early access, fans can explore this ongoing clash of personalities like never before: in a five on five battle featuring the strongest versions of each character.
During their early access launch showcase on Monday, Bandai Namco was first to feature the battle all of us were inevitably going to explore at some point as they showed us what this game looks like in full force by pitting 5 Gokus against 5 Vegetas.
Though massive rosters are commonplace when it comes to Dragon Ball games, Sparking Zero raises the bar as it’s launching with over 180 playable characters to begin with. As is also commonly the case with gaming entries for this property, many roster slots are filled with variations or evolutions of the same character.
The most prominent examples of this are found in Dragon Ball’s two most iconic characters, Goku and Vegeta, of whom there are 17 of the former and 14 of the latter not counting fusions or the likes of Goku Black or Baby Vegeta.
For their very first (of a handful) of exhibitions through which they show off the amazing graphics and updated features that characterize Sparking Zero gameplay, the players in the showcase pit Z-Mid, Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan 3, Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, and Super Saiyan 4 Goku against an almost identical (trade SS3 for Majin) Vegeta team.
You’ll notice the conspicuous absence of even more powerful forms (Ultra Instinct Goku and standard Super Saiyan God versions of both fighters), but that’s likely in the service of making sure we kick things off with the forms that kicked off this rivalry with their first battle on Earth.
This kind of clash has happened many times in games over the last few decades, but never on this scale and never with this much power in players’ hands. Every hit, every beam, every interaction with the surrounding environment resonates with more Dragon Ball realism than ever before, potentially offering users a more immersive, hands on Dragon Ball experience than has ever been offered before.
The all Goku vs. all Vegeta bout is just the first in a long line of epic showdowns featured throughout the live stream, and so you’ll want to scrub through and check out some of the others afterwards. You can watch the aforementioned bout starting around the 8 minute mark in the video below.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO is slated to release on October 11th for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Interested in more Sparking news? Be sure to check out the details of the game’s recently revealed season pass and various versions.