Dragon Ballfans are hoping thatSparking Zerois finally going to bring back Budokai Tenkaichi’s iconic loading screen minigames which have sadly been missing from the series for some time.
We’ve not seen all that much of Sparking Zero yet, but it certainly looks like it’s trying to be everything that Budokai Tenkaichi fans have been asking for over the past decade.Not only has it already been confirmed to have a “historic” roster size, but we’ve also seen the return of fan-favourite gameplay mechanics likebeam clashesandmultiple character variants. Heck,even Hercule’s infamous special move looks to be making a comeback.
Although it already seems like Sparking Zero is aiming to be the ultimate Dragon Ball game, there are a few things that we don’t know if it’s going to include, such as what-if characters like Super Saiyan 3 Broly and Vegeta. The biggest question mark that fans have right now is whether or not the belovedloading screen minigames that first appeared in Budokai and Budokai Tenkaichiwill be making a return.
For those that don’t remember, most Dragon Ball games in the past few console generations included a minigame during loading screens that players could mess around with while they waited for a match, like mashing buttons to make Vegeta do push-ups, pressing button combinations that appear on screen, and even just rolling a set of Dragon Balls around.
Despite being a big hit with fans and an iconic feature of earlier Dragon Ball games, they’ve been completely absent from recent titles like Kakarot,FighterZ, andXenoVerse. Considering Sparking: Zero takes so much inspiration from Budokai Tenkaichi and is essentially the fourth game in the series,fans like Redditor deyde_costass are hoping that they’ll be brought back to the series.
Bandai Namco actually patented loading screen minigames for some time, although that patent expired back in 2015. Even if the patent was still active, it’d still seemingly be possible in Sparking Zero since Bandai is publishing it.
As great as most Dragon Ball fans agree that sounds, there are a few factors to consider. Sparking Zero is a current-gen title, which means that loading times are likely to be very short, which makes it seem a little less likely that they’ll make a return. However, as pointed out by Redditor XX-Burner, they could just include an option to press a button to continue and let anyone playing the minigame go for as long as they want.
We’ve not seen enough of Sparking Zero yet to know what the loading screen times are going to be like and if they’ll bother to make a minigame for them, but it’s such an iconic part of the series that it’d be a big missed opportunity if they didn’t.
