One of my own most anticipated titles still slated to come in 2024 is Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero, a true sequel to the Budokai Tenkaichi series that has been largely dormant ever since Budokai Tenkaichi came out way back in 2007 on the PlayStation 2. There’s a lot we already know about the game, much of which is covered in my Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero preview, but I got an opportunity to speak with Producer Jun Furutani to see if he can provide a little more insight into the development of Sparking Zero, what their plans are for the future with regards to the game, and much more, all of which you can read all about below.

IGN: Can you talk a little bit about what it’s like creating a story mode for something like Dragon Ball, that’s so long and has so many sequels, movies, battles, and character plot lines. How do you decide what to focus on, what to cut, and what to lightly gloss over.

Jun Furutani, Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero Producer: Yeah. So a good way to think about it – this is about the bottom line, [which] is that this game’s a battle game. So in the episode battles that you played earlier, we wanted to focus on which battles highlighted the characters the best in the story.

And obviously, the side story stuff you [can] kind of see in the cut scenes. So I think a better way of thinking about it is more than fully enjoying the story, we want the players to fully enjoy the best battles in the Dragon Ball franchise.

And additionally, you played the episode battles earlier. We didn’t really go into the branching maps, but we wanted to also focus on battles that could potentially branch out into different things. What if this guy defeated him, instead of losing to him? Like those kinds of battles. So yeah, that is something that we put extra focus on the branching fights.

So I actually wanted to touch upon those branches. Can you go into a little detail about how significant those branches actually go? How much of a different game am I playing if I follow one of those branches versus someone who just followed the canonical story of Dragon Ball?

Furutani: So it’s a really hard question to answer because depending on which branch we’re talking about, it could skew very in a completely different direction. But some branches might just go back to the actual canonical route again.

For example, the example he used is very early if you were to play the Goku episode battles, when you fight Raditz, there’s some smaller branches that have been there, but it takes you back to the canonical route. And obviously after Raditz is Vegeta and after Vegeta is Frieza.

So yeah. Some of them are just blips, I guess some of them kind of take you in a more different, very drastically different direction.

So I know you probably can’t say, but I got to ask, through these what-if scenarios, is there any chance that we could see any new fusions born in this game?

Furutani: Very cool question, hard question to answer. We want leave the ifs a little hidden for until the game is out.

Got it.

Furutani: We’ll leave it at that for now.

So I think that one of the things that Tenkaichi fans appreciate most about the series, are all the little touches and keen attention to detail. Like some matches have unique dialogue when you start a match between two certain characters, or the fact that Mr. Satan can’t fly, so uses a Jetpack in Tenkaichi 3. Are there any small touches meant specifically for big fans of Dragon Ball, that you’re particularly proud of in this game?

Furutani: Yeah. So one of the things that they paid close attention to is, how the characters actually move and the expressions that they have. And going deeper into it, you saw the various different versions of Goku that were in the game. And depending on which Goku from which Dragon Ball that you’re playing, the way his clothes ripped will be completely different. So I don’t know, Frieza I guess, there’s a very distinct way when Goku fights Frieza, there was a very distinct way of how his clothes ripped and something more recent like Super, there’s a very different way that his clothes ripped there.

So very subtle touches like that, is something that they pay close attention to, but wanted to keep it as true to the original work as possible. The other thing is like hair styles as well, subtle differences that the true Dragon Ball fans will notice.

You mentioned that depending on the character combinations, they have different conversations [but also] if you were to throw certain characters with certain characters, there’s a special action that happens in the game.

Can you talk to me a little bit about the encyclopedia mode and just what made you want to include this in the game and what’s something that you’re particularly fond of with regards to it?

Furutani: Yeah, so the encyclopedia mode, I guess it may not have been called in encyclopedia mode in the past, but there was a mode where Chi Chi introduces the characters in the previous version.

But again, we wanted to kind of power that up as you saw earlier with Videl and Bulma as well. So yeah, it’s something we felt that it was something the players enjoyed back then and obviously would continue to enjoy with the newest Sparking! ZERO.

So yeah, that’s something that we wanted to implement into the game.

I know you guys announced you’re announcing the giant roster of 150 plus characters, but obviously this is an age where there’s DLC to keep games going on. Do you have any DLC plans for Sparking! ZERO, are they’re going to be character packs, additional story content, or anything else on the horizon?

Furutani: So in regards to the characters, they have plans to release three DLC packs [covering characters from] Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, and from DAIMA.

So there’s three packs total from those two [Dragon Ball] Super: Super Hero and DAIMA, split into three basically.

I know it’s thinking maybe too far ahead, but I just want to get your thought on it. But there’s a lot of cool characters in the Dragon Ball Super manga right now, that I think a lot of fans would love to see, like Granolah and Moro. Are those characters that are on your radar, or would you like to touch upon characters in the manga, that haven’t gotten to appear in the anime yet?

Furutani: At this point, the short answer is, it’s difficult for him to talk about these things. Yeah, yeah. Due to various situations. I’m sure you understand.

Sure, sure. So talk to me about the stages of Sparking! ZERO, do you know about how many will be in the game and are there any unique elements of them individually?

Furutani: As of right now, there’s 12 stages in the game, and that may or may not change in the future, but there’s tons of gimmicks per stage.

For example, if we’re fighting on planet Manu, if you were to use a strong move, going down from the sky and you happen to hit the planet, you will see a change into when Frieza is fighting Goku towards the end of that saga. Pretty sure you recognize what I’m talking about.

Another one that we could bring up is in the Tenkaichi stage where we have fans watching from the outside. In the very beginning, you could only really only fight in the area where you’re supposed to fight, but for example, if somebody were to use a skill that goes into the bleachers, the people who are watching will run away, and then it would kind of effectively expand the stage. So fighters are able to fight in a wider stage as well.

If you’re playing an android character, you could potentially get blasted away, kind of sneak up to your enemy, and do a sneak attack on them Yeah. Another thing, I think I kind of mentioned this to you when you were playing, but you’re able to lose sight of your enemy. You’re not always constantly locked onto them, and that’s kind of by design, but because if you do a big move and you blast them far away, you’re not going to be able to find them right away. Especially if you’re an, Android that has no ki power and you’re not able to detect them. So that’s in the game. That’s all in the game.

So if you’re playing as an Android character, you could potentially get blasted away, kind of sneak up to your enemy and do a sneak attack on [them], which is canonical. The Androids actually do that against Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z.

So yeah, that’s another thing that we want you to look out for. And obviously going back to your question, you were asking about stages, there’s tons of objects on the map, so you could kind of use them to kind of line of sight yourself away from your enemies as well.

So that’s something we want players to experiment with. And you kind of got a first-hand experience as well.

That’s so cool.

Furutani: Another thing he wants, or he wants our fans to try out is, you know how in Dragon Ball, whether when you’re using a skill, when you’re charging, you see all this dust fly up in the air and sometimes, the characters in the show come out of that dust and perform an attack.

That’s something that they’ve also on as well. So yeah, there’s ways to combat this dust from going up also, or you could purposely kind of get the dust to fly up more, so you create a wall that makes it harder for that enemy to see you.

So yeah, that’s something we want the players to check out as well.

Cross play is something that I don’t believe is currently planned for Sparking! ZERO. If it is, please correct me, but can you talk a little bit about what the challenges are with regards to including cross play in this game? And is it something that you hope to include post-launch?

Furutani: One of those touchy subjects, that’s very difficult for him to explain. The short professional answer is, yeah, there’s a difficult that we have to go through to get cross play to work.

So yeah, that’s where we stand right now. And as for your question about future, obviously we don’t know yet, but yeah.

Speaking of single player content, you have the episode battle, but what else is there for single players after they complete the campaign? Is there any kind of challenges or rewards awaiting those who want to keep playing Sparking! ZERO, after finishing the story, but maybe don’t want to go online and play other people?

Furutani: One of the features that a player, like you mentioned earlier, would probably partake in is the custom battles.

Obviously that’s the mode where people could go in, create their own custom battles and either share them or play them for themselves.

So yeah, what you could potentially do is make a really hard custom battle, and try to clear it for yourself. And after that you could share it. Or maybe if you want to try what other players are making as well, you could go search for what other players have made. They could use these tags that indicate what kind of battle it is. So you could search in the game by tags.

You make a really hard stage, clear it, and its kind of a way of showing off to other players. So I mean there’s thousands of, I mean not thousands, but it is pretty limitless in terms of what you could play after clearing the episode battles.

So the requirements for uploading a custom battle is that you need to be able to clear it, so you can’t just set impossible demands to the players if you can and upload it and be like, “Hey guys, try to clear it.” But flip side of that is like, okay, you make a really hard stage, you clear it, and it’s kind of a way of showing off to other players like, “Hey guys, check this out. I made this super crazy custom battle. I cleared it. What’s up?”

Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero is releasing on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on October 11.