Dragon Ball Fan Spends 7 Years Animating Raging Blast 3 Gameplay Concept

23.12.2023 - 20:11 / thegamer.com / Spike Chunsoft

A Dragon Ball Z fan has spent seven years animating a gameplay concept for Raging Blast 3, which combines elements from several different Dragon Ball games and looks shockingly close to the real thing.

Although Dragon Ball fans might not have had a new release in 2023, it's still been a huge year for the series. Not only did Dragon Ball FighterZ finally gets its first instance of rollback netcode a few months ago, but a brand new Budokai Tenkaichi game was also revealed after more than a decade since the last entry in the series.

Well, that's only partly true. Although we've not had a proper Budokai Tenkaichi game in quite some time, Spike Chunsoft did carry the series on with two Raging Blast games, which act as spiritual sequels with many of the same gameplay mechanics and features. Although the return of Budokai Tenkaichi is reason to celebrate, an incredibly dedicated fan has animated a gameplay concept that's so impressive that it almost has me wishing we had a new Raging Blast instead.

The video in question comes from Dragon Ball YouTuber Treevax, who first introduced the idea of a Raging Blast 3 conceptualisation seven years ago. It seems that they've quietly been working on a gameplay concept since then, as yesterday they dropped a seriously impressive animated video that shows off what a potential Raging Blast sequel could look like.

Alongside sharing the video, Treevax revealed on Twitter that it's taken them seven years to create, which is a monumental effort. Hopefully Sparking: Zero lives up to their expectations.

Treevax's video, called a "Gameplay Simulation", is a frame-by-frame animation based on the Dragon Ball Raging Blast 3 specification book that was created with Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Pro. In the video, we not only get to see a massive potential roster that Sparking: Zero can only hope to live up to, but animated gameplay that looks even better than what we got for Raging Blast 2.

The animation shows off Goku fighting against Broly and looks shockingly authentic to how Raging Blast actually plays. It also shows off a number of concepts from other Dragon Ball games, like Ultimate Tenkaichi's more cinematic finishers and environmental damage, Budokai's button-pressing Fusion scenes, and even a touch of Burst Limit with the Senzu Bean support.

Although it seems unlikely we'll ever get Raging Blast 3 since Sparking: Zero seems to be trying to be the ultimate Dragon Ball Budokai Tenkaichi-esque title, this sneak peek of what could (and perhaps should) have been is a treat for fans.