The Switch 2’s first few months have been, it would perhaps be fair to say, solid but perhaps unspectacular – but the Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero port is a great indicator of what’s to come.
Nintendo’s second hybrid handheld has had some great exclusives in Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, but without a new Zelda or 3D Mario platformer in the first few months like its predecessor had, we’ve been waiting on third-party ports to plug the gaps.
Some have been great (Cyberpunk 2077, WWE 2K25), some have been good (Civilization 7), some have been fine (EA FC 26), and some have been poor (Elden Ring’s preview build looked particularly ropey, but the delay should give it more of a chance to shine next year).
Thankfully, Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero (the exclamation point is intentional, though it pains me) is another great port for the Switch 2, and an ideal pickup for anyone with a passing interest in the franchise.
Power level 810
Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but I was a little worried about Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero on Switch 2 (and the original Switch) because, as we got closer to launch, it felt like we didn’t see a great deal of it.
While I’ve not played it on the original Switch, I can say it’s fantastic to have on the Switch 2. The game is, sadly, restricted to 30 FPS, but it does stick to that (the PS5 version often dropped from its 60 FPS target), and it’s running at a dynamic resolution of 810p in docked and handheld.
That’s three-quarters of the way to 1080p, but in all honesty, it looks to be slightly upscaled to me, and in motion, I’m having zero complaints. The screenshots in this article were taken in handheld mode, by the way.
It’s content-complete, outside of DLC, so there’s more than 180 characters, a whole host of arenas to fight in, and the option to customize your own anime battles.
A great place to play
So, why would you buy this over the PS5, Xbox, or even PC versions? In all honesty, if you’re happy playing Sparking! Zero there, then you don’t need to run out and buy the Switch 2 version.
Still, when Switch 1 got Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, I put an impressive number of hours into that game, and it became my favorite way to play. After all, fights are relatively short, but there’s a huge number of them, and grinding to unlock characters and the like was much more palatable on the handheld.
The same can be said of Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, which remains one of my favorite third-party Switch 2 ports yet, alongside the likes of Civilization 7 and Two Point Museum.
Sure, it’s only 30 FPS, but I’ll take that for a decade’s worth of characters and storylines on a device I can fit in a jacket pocket.
Last Updated On: Nov 17, 2025 6:02 pm CET