The first patch for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is out and it has demolished Yajirobe players even more ruthlessly than that Saibaman wasted Yamcha. There is no coming back from this nerf, bean daddies. But at least the game runs better now due to some menu improvements and other bug fixes, even if a corrupted save issue is still plaguing a small group of players.
As previewed last week, the first update addresses a control scheme bug in online matches, changes the challenge of some episode matches on certain difficulty settings, and improves overall “operational” stability, i.e. the elaborate but slow game menus should run more smoothly. The changes went live on October 24.
The patch also nerfed Yajirobe, who had become a dominant force in online matches due to his quick-healing Senzu bean ability. It didn’t just increase the skill count needed for the ability from five to six, it also starts Yajirobe off in each match with zero beans instead of 2. Also he lost half a health bar. Rip bud.
Today’s patch was also accompanied by a preview of what the development team is working on next, and it includes some particularly nefarious issues around character resets and deleted data. “Also, we are aware of some remaining issues and are investigating: character rank reset to 0, connection errors & online matching issues, [and] corrupted save data,” the Dragon Ball account tweeted. “We apologize to all affected players and thank you for your patience.”
The corrupted save data issue is a weird one that we still don’t have any real clarity on in terms of what causes it or why, but the subreddit and Discord are littered with unfortunate souls who have seen dozens of hours of playtime on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S erased, and sometimes even completionist playthroughs of the arena fighter wiped. No one knows what’s causing the mysterious bug, although some believe it can be related to uninstalling and reinstalling the game or turning it off at unusual times. The only real safeguard against it is using manual cloud saves. PC players seem to be immune.
Even if Bandai Namco is able to locate the issue and patch it, it seems unlikely anyone impacted will get their old save data back, let alone all of their character unlocks and other game progress. But at least no one else will have to suffer a similar fate.
