Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review – Strategic Musical

Mario and Rabbids. Two different brands from two very different companies. Who would have thought that they could work together. 2017 saw the release of the crossover Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a turn-based adventure game in the style of XCOM. And it was a hit. It’s still one of the most popular games on the Switch and I have to say that I fell in love with the first one too. Developers from Ubisoft after 5 years come up with a sequel in which they tried to do something more ambitious than in the first part. But did they succeed?

• Platform: Nintendo Switch
• Publication date: 20.10.2022
• Developer: Ubisoft Milan, Ubisoft Paris
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Genre: Adventure, turn-based strategy
• Czech localization: Not
• Multiplayer: Not
• Data to download: 5.8 GB
• Game time: 20:00 (main story)
• Price: €59.99 (Nintendo Store)

Different approach, same pleasure

The news is called “Sparks of Hope”, and this time the entire galaxy is in danger of destruction. A dark entity named Kursa rages in it, which, in addition to various creatures, also captured Bowser’s entire army. Even old rivals like Mario and Bowser will join forces this time and set out to save the galaxy with the bunnies and other friends.

Of course, don’t expect much in terms of plot, there isn’t much of it, it’s relatively simple and straightforward. However, you can at least count on nice cutscenes and playful dialogue. In addition, compared to the first part, two characters are fully voiced, and the rest are at least partially, which is a nice change.

Sparks of Hope is conceived a little differently than its predecessor in terms of gameplay, even in non-combat parts. The sequel offers a more open world where you will visit several planets with beautiful and very diverse environments. While the path was very linear in the first game, there are plenty of side quests and activities waiting for you here. I must say that after a while they begin to repeat themselves and their implementation is no longer so fun. Although at least some funny dialogues are waiting for you, but this is not enough for me to try to complete all the side quests. On the other hand, I have to appreciate the fact that only going down the main lane is not a problem, grinding is definitely not a necessity and doesn’t add much to you.

Full freedom

However, in addition to communicating with local residents and solving puzzles, the battles themselves await you. They are still turn-based, but this time around you can move freely, giving you even more options to plan and combine your heroes’ attacks. You can only deploy three of them in combat, and in addition to their weapon or special ability, they also have Sparks. Title the creatures that you gradually release for use in battles. Thanks to them, you can access, for example, various elements such as fire or water, and thus use the possibilities of super efficiency, as you know, for example, from Pokemon.

The battles are quite challenging, have a solid pace and, most importantly, they are just plain fun. However, some criticisms can be found here. The first one is smaller, it refers to short animations that are triggered after using the ability. They become quite annoying after a while and I would like to be able to turn them off. The second is due to the fact that there are too many random small battles in the game that you start by bumping into the enemy. They are mostly very light and I would rather have one full battle instead of three. At the very least, the relatively high variability of the enemies saves, and especially the “big” battles themselves, including excellent and very unique boss fights.

I also really liked the level system. The level is the same for all your heroes and if you want to change someone in the team, then this is not a problem at all. Each character has the same amount of points that you can invest in upgrading abilities. Then the purchase of weapons disappeared, which for me is a good decision, and now you can buy different items and skins only with the collected coins. By the way, the game sometimes directly forces you to use a certain hero in order to really test them all. It doesn’t happen very often, so it seems like the game doesn’t take away your freedom of choice, but rather allows you to try something new again.

Audiovisual gem

I also have to say that the game looks very nice, maybe even better than the already pretty first part. Sparks of Hope shows that a beautiful game can be made even on the Switch, if you choose the right style. The hardware sometimes bugs out of its last strength and some frame drops cannot be avoided, but otherwise the game runs at a stable 30 FPS, which is not a problem for this genre. I’ve had more issues with loading happening too frequently and disrupting the smoothness of the experience significantly. However, it is clear to me that the hardware is really to blame for this, not the developers.

Even better than the visual aspect, the music. A quality soundtrack isn’t a given, but I still had some pretty high expectations when it was announced that the trio of Grant Kirkhope, Gareth Cocker and Joko Shimomura would take care of it. Having played it, I must say that it is, without exaggeration, one of the best video game soundtracks of recent times. Each of the composers brought something of their own here and they complement each other perfectly. Kirkhope, who also took care of the music for the first part, does a great job with the more playful pieces. Cocker, who you may know mostly as the composer for both parts of Ori, is best at playing slower music. Shimomura then applies his experience with Japanese brands. Even the song that plays in the tutorial is so epic that it feels like you’re playing a remake of Final Fantasy VII.

However, I definitely don’t want it to look like Sparks of Hope is all about graphics and great music, not at all. If you’re a fan of turn-based combat and want to try something a little different from what you know from XCOM, there are about 20 hours of great fun waiting for you, which you can also supplement with side quests. The new gameplay concept may not suit everyone, but if you liked the first part, then the second part will definitely not disappoint you.