The fights themselves are shaping up to be surprisingly addictive, considering how simple they are. Like the previous Tenkaichi, they unfold from a third-person perspective (two-player battles get a split screen), and they're all about the aerial fisticuffs and gigantic fireballs - both of which are super-easy to pull off by just mashing buttons. Even the really big moves, like the Kamehameha energy blast or the stage-destroying Spirit Bomb, are simple to pull off - and if you're not sure how, the pause menu can tell you.
Super-moves or no, each battle tends to devolve into patterns of punching, charging your ki energy and letting loose with massive, searing energy blasts. It's repetitive, but it's so fast and visceral that it took us a long time to notice.
It helps that the story mode doesn't hold you too strictly to canon. Each character has all their ridiculous Super Saiyan/giant ape/whatever transformations available right off the bat, and can activate them in the middle of a match once they've powered up enough, enabling you to unleash massive ass-kickings.
Cool stuff you can do mid-match doesn't stop with transformations, either. During the new Tag Battles, for instance, you can switch to a second character, and if you've chosen a certain character combination - like Goku and Vegeta, say - you'll be able to pull off a Fusion move and create a whole new fighter.
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is one of the best-selling games in Bandai Namco history: "A nice surprise in a year that's been kind of rough overall," says analyst
Final Fantasy 7 fans have been begging for Tifa to be added to Tekken 8, so they're taking the news of FF16 star Clive being added as well as you'd expect: "IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HER"
