Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero has seen massive success since it was released on October 11, 2024. In fact, it was reported that the game had sold over 3 million copies worldwide in just 24 hours on the first day.
As it turns out, Sean Schemmel, the voice actor for Goku, had a special experience when seeing the visuals and animation of the game alongside the fans. During a video posted on Dr. Applesauce’s YouTube channel, Schemmel explained that how he has to hold himself from geeking out while voicing Goku in projects like Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero.
“We started working on it early last year. I was in the studio every week, twice a week, all year,” begun Schemmel. “It was an extraordinary project. I had an emotional moment with the game because I don’t really get to see much of the game when we’re recording — we just have a long list of lines and descriptions of how we’re supposed to say them.”
As the game was being developed, Schemmel notes that he did eventually get to see snippets of pre-release footage after his voice acting sessions for it, but Schemmel seems to have the most fond memories of watching the trailers alongside the fans when they got released to the public.
“Every once in a while, I have like a weird epiphany moment about my role as Goku or my experience doing it,” continued Schemmel. “What I thought was great about the animation, I was watching this scene with me and Chris Sabat (voice for Vegeta) — it was a really intense Kamehameha type situation scene — and I remember thinking ‘This is finally the first time I’m watching my voice in this digital animation for the game.’ That’s how it feels when I’m working.”
Needless to say, this was a bit of a different experience for Schemmel. According to him, he usually watches prerendered animations so that he can better match his voice acting to those moments, but this didn’t happen for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero.
“It’s a very polished game for the first release,” stated Schemmel. “I’m so impressed with what they’ve done at Bandai Namco. For the first time, I was geeking out along with you instead of being Goku, kind of separate from it all.”
Of course, Schemmel then went on to explain why it’s important that he doesn’t have these geek out moments while he’s voicing Goku, even as a fan himself. Indeed, it would be easy to imagine how this would affect his voice work.
“Because when I’m doing the acting, I can’t really geek out with you since ‘geek out energy’ affects my acting negatively,” explained Schemmel. “I can’t be a fan when I’m being Goku. I just can’t. So for the first time, I remember thinking ‘I want all the movies to look like this.'”
Towards the end of the exchange, Schemmel admits that he hasn’t had a chance to play Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero yet, but thinks that it might be the best Dragon Ball game ever released. Ultimately, it does sound as though he intends to eventually sit down and try the game out.
Check it all out below: