DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO | Understanding The HUD

DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO does a very poor job of explaining all the different features of your HUD and what's going on on screen. The game expects you to figure it out as you go, and it can be very overwhelming when you're just starting out. If you don’t know what all those icons on your screen are, you are in the right place.

Skill Points

Skill points are the big numbers that appear for both you and your opponent right underneath the health bar on the left and right sides of the screen. This little meter will fill up slowly over time, and it will fill up even faster depending on how much damage you deal, so you definitely want to stay on the offensive to get more skill points.

Now, why are these skill points so important? Well, they're used for a lot of different things: defensive abilities, transformations, fusions, and your sparking ability. The skill point number is something you want to glance at frequently. You always want to have a mental note of how many skill points you have at a given time, because some abilities require one skill point, some require two, and you aren't going to be able to activate them unless you have that many skill points.

Transformations

This symbol appears on your screen from time to time with certain characters, and there’s a number that's associated with it.

What this little number on your screen does is show how many transformations you can currently make. If you hold up on the D-pad, it will open up your Transformations menu, and here it will show you how many skill points it costs to transform or fuse. If it has a number one beside it, it's going to cost one skill point to transform. If it has a two or a three, that’s how many skill points it will cost to change into those transformations.

Now, with the transformations in this game, let’s say, for example, you go Super Saiyan—you can always revert to your base form if you choose to do so. However, if you decide to fuse, that is permanent. So, if you're in the middle of a battle and you decide to fuse, that fusion is going to last for the entirety of the match.

Team Swapping

The Team Swapping symbol explains when your team swap is on cooldown. When the symbol is fully recharged, it means you're allowed to switch to a different team member. When it's grayed out, it means it's on cooldown, and you cannot switch to a different team member. This prevents you from spamming different characters over and over again.

Buff Symbols

You may see some buff symbols that pop up underneath your health bar during matches. I never knew what any of these did. I’d be playing as Goku, for example, activate one of my abilities, and suddenly I’d see a bunch of buffs under my health bar. If you don’t know what an ability does, you can pause the game and go to the Explanation of Controls menu, which will give you details on your different abilities.

As you're playing with different characters and trying to learn all their movesets, make sure to check this menu often, as each character has different abilities.

Ki Bar

Ki Bar is the little yellow boxes that appear underneath your health bar. This is your Ki Bar, and it's pretty essential to every match. You're going to want to keep an eye on your Ki meter throughout the match. The more Ki you have, the more abilities you can use. You use Ki for blast attacks, power-up moves, dodging, teleporting, flying, and basically everything.

Keep an eye on this because if you're low on Ki and charge straight into a fight without enough, you won’t be able to block, dodge, or use any abilities, putting you at a big disadvantage. So, any chance you get to charge up your Ki, take it.

If you're underwater, charging your Ki takes way longer than if you're above water. I know there are a couple of different maps where you can go underwater, and while it's pretty cool and cinematic, it puts you at a disadvantage—especially if your opponent is above water. So, if you’re underwater, get out before you charge up.

Health Bar

The final thing I want to talk about is the little boxes at the top of your health bar. If you're a veteran player, you probably know what this means, but for new players, these boxes determine how many bars of health you have left.

You’ll start off with full bars, which means full boxes. As your health depletes, the boxes disappear one by one. If you only have one box left, you're getting close to being knocked out. The same goes for your opponent. This is a great way to gauge how much health both you and your opponents have at any given time.

Also, check out my review of DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO, and stay tuned for more guides.