Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope review – a Nintendo Switch exclusive with the alluring charm of a GBA classic
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I don’t approve of this sentence, but I’m going to say it anyway: Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope it is handsome. I have said it there. It feels a bit messy to describe the game, any game, in such simple terms, but it’s what keeps spinning in my head when I try to sum it up. I’d draw the line by calling it nice, but come to think of it, it’s actually quite nice. It’s charming and nice. It’s the kind of game you’d be happy to show your grandma, but then you smile when Peach shoots an enemy with a shotgun and grandma asks if that bear-like thing is okay. It’s not okay, granny. After Peach downloaded herself, Rabbid Luigi appeared and unleashed a trio of toxic shockwaves. Maybe I have the game all wrong.
Mario + Rabbids essentially showed us what a world of Rabid Mario characters would look like and how it would behave (two bs! Though Rabid Mario Characters is a spin-off I’d play). The game saw these often hilarious alternate creatures fighting alongside OG Mario, Peach, Luigi and the rest, firing unique weapons and teaming up to pull off special attacks. All of this is true in Sparks of Hope, except now the peace that comes at the end of the first game is shaken by a new enemy: Cursa. This being is blasting worlds with darkness (looks a lot like ink) and draining sparks of energy from him. Like Mario + Rabbids, Sparks are the rabbid version of Lumas, the lovable creatures from Mario Galaxy. In Sparks of Hope they provide Spark powers, which help you offensively and defensively during battles.
Part tactical turn-based combat, part semi-open world adventure, my love of Sparks of Hope got the better of me. Its characters, a mix of Mario stalwarts and an odd mix of rabbids (the stuff that came out of Ubisoft’s Rayman series) are all charming; the world design feels like a mix of kids’ TV shows and Nintendo vibes; and the learning curve is seamless, nailing the intro and then introducing more challenges with no sudden spikes. But there is a harshness to the proceedings, as if suspended in the air like the pungent flavor of an orange. It’s sharp, but quite nice. Sure, a rabbid will joke around in a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in a Lego game, but moments later, your team becomes the absolute master of a bunch of enemies who think they’re shit.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle set things up in 2017, but despite some clever game design choices, the overall experience was still more or less in line with what you’d expect from a turn-based tactics game in the classic Mario mold. X COM. There was a movement grid, character movement lines, and the entire game world was designed to allow for tactical-based combat. Sparks of Hope takes the light-hearted fun of that game, features game worlds designed to be explored rather than fought in, and brings all the combat into the arenas, a bit like what happens when you fight in the original Final Fantasy 7. choose to go into battle, but occasionally while exploring an enemy bumps into you and propels you into action, but you can choose to run away from the fight if you wish.
This change in the way explorable worlds are designed is, to my gold coins, a coup. Sparks of Hope is instantly more welcoming to newcomers to the genre, and the changes don’t stop there. The combat itself is much more fluid than before. Each character in your party (the number and options change as you progress through the game) is free to move within a given area as much as he wants until he fires his primary weapon or runs out of action points. Enemy targeting is still handled by selecting the enemy you want to target, and you’ll need to pay attention to the cover you drop your characters in before enemies take their turn, but it all feels less rigid, which is never a term that should be associated with a Mario game. It’s great.
Don’t take this the wrong way, as I mean that with the highest of praise, but this finely tuned sequel evokes memories of old GBA spin-offs. I really got to see the main components here working on the old Nintendo handheld. It just feels like a portable game for reasons that are hard to define. The game isn’t small, but its worlds aren’t overwhelming to explore, each home to battles that can be tackled in small compartments of time. Exploration is encouraged, but not overwhelming. There are side quests and things to find, but you’re not wandering around a desert hoping to find something important while your free time to play a video game runs out.
Ease of play was clearly a priority for the developers. All characters level up together, so you can have favorites but experiment with others at any time without having to deal with minor stats. There is an upgrade tree for each character, but this can be automated if you wish, allowing you to focus on combat. And like I said before, if you’re struggling to complete a certain combat mission, you can pretend you’ve eaten a Starman and make your team invincible before you start. I really enjoyed the combat and the way you have to take on each different enemy, but if you’re more into the exploration/discovery side of the game, you have the option to focus on that.
If there’s one small annoyance to be found, it’s that some of the battles take a bit longer than I’d like, and failing right at the end is a pretty bitter pill to swallow. On the third major planet, the difficulty started to drop, at which point I retreated to earlier areas to tackle the many optional side quests and additional content to numerically increase character stats. There is a very easy difficulty option if you really do get stuck between a rabbid and an ice palace, but I didn’t need to use it despite the odd moment during which I questioned my ability, existence, and whether I prefer the rabbid versions of these classic characters to the originals. And I do, actually, at least for some of them.
Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope delivered the most fun I’ve had in a Mario game or a Ubisoft game since Mario Odyssey, and it’s a game I’ll keep coming back to in a perhaps misguided attempt to polish the whole side up. missions. This really feels like the best of both worlds experience, and is a triple jump-sized jump over the original (which was by no means a bad game). I’m already looking forward to seeing what gets added after launch and what the dev team decides to do to shake things up in a third entry. A lovely game, nice it will be, I’m sure.
Review code provided by Ubisoft.
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