Why isn’t Dragon Ball Sparking: Zero called Budokai Tenkaichi 4?

After years of fans begging for a new game in the Budokai Tenkaichi series, Namco Bandai finally announced a new Dragon Ball Z 3D fighting game during The Game Awards 2023. Featuring the same 3D combat of the beloved PS2-era games, Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO was revealed to be in development.

But if it’s so familiar to Tenkaichi, why isn’t it called Budokai Tenkaichi 4? The game is even coming from the exact same developer, Spike Chunsoft, so is it not part of the same series? Is it something new? Well, the answer is actually not that complicated, but as usual it’s all about localization and the series legacy around the world.

Why isn’t Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO called Budokai Tenkaichi 4?

In short, Sparking! ZERO is actually a sort of Budokai Tenkaichi 4, but it’s being called as it is right now because it’s a sort of reboot of the entire series, and it’s using its original name from when it was released in Japan. The Budokai Tenkaichi series that fans of DBZ have come to know and love is actually a localization done to the series when it was first released in the west in 2005.

Originally titled Dragon Ball Z: Sparking during its original release in Japan, what would come to be known in the rest of the world “Budokai Tenkaichi” didn’t follow the same naming traditions as its international version. DBZ:BT 2 and 3 where actually known as Sparking Neo and Sparking Meteor in their home country, and as such, the developers and publishers have chosen to take that specific naming convention and make it official internationally to unify the series under a single banner.

However, the developers have already confirmed that Sparking! ZERO is actually the fourth official entry to the Sparking series, which means that had it been named as it previous iterations, it would have been called “Dragon Ball: Budokai Tenkaichi 4.”