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Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review (Switch)


Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review - Screenshot 1/5
Taken on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

Mario Kingdom Battle + Rabbids appeared like a fever dream in 2017. Nintendo lent Ubisoft its poster child franchise? A Rabbid dressed as Princess Peach? Mario holding a gun? Madness. Even more surprising, it turned out to be a Great strategy game – one of best on Switch. Next part, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, has seen the general sense of surprise associated with the first being replaced by one of expectations. There’s no doubt that Ubisoft can make a good strategy game with the Mario license, and – perhaps more surprisingly – some critics have complained about putting the little Rabbids in the mix. into the Mushroom Kingdom. Five years later, the question is whether Ubisoft can improve on the formula born of the game’s most unexpected crossover.

The answer is as complex as the dense Rabbids. Much has changed since Beep-O and the Rabbids found themselves traveling across dimensions to the Mushroom Kingdom. While both are strategy games with light RPG elements, Sparks of Hope plays quite differently from its predecessor, to the point where it feels almost like another game. Gone are the maze maps interspersed with battles and block-based puzzles to solve. Instead, Sparks of Hope introduces five vibrant worlds that the Rabbids have colonized, challenging, quirky characters, and little secrets to uncover by solving simple, unrestricted puzzles. term in many block-based categories. Classic colored coin challenge, reminiscent secret stages Captain Toad: Treasure Trackerand more make for welcome additions.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review - Screenshot 2/5
Taken on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

Mario and friends visit each of these worlds on a mission to stop the mysterious space tentacle monster Cursa, who has infected the galaxy with Darkmess – yes, mess Not ness – it’s a liquid that warms our heroes to another dimension to fight when touched. Idyllic beaches, icy palaces and fairy-tale autumn forests need to be cleaned from Cursa’s Darkmess. This shift to more open languages ​​is a welcome one; we find every centimeter of dense worlds an interesting thing to explore.

Once in this Darkmess dimension, Mario, Luigi, and Peach once again team up with their Rabbid partners (and three new heroes) to dash, jump, and blow up Rabbid-themed enemies and enemies. some enemies possess the Mushroom Kingdom, but where in the original the battles are played almost like a puzzle, with tight, grid-based movement and opponents placed in specific positions for you to overcome. Over in a certain number of turns, Sparks of Hope plays much more loosely in both the motion and the options available to you.

Heroes now move freely around the map, limited only by their range and until they fire their weapon. Moving your party of three into position to initiate a team jump sequence becomes essential to gaining the upper hand, although most characters can only jump once per turn. Otherwise, you can move as much as you like to perform freestyle actions, such as throwing bombs-ombs at enemies, before repositioning for an attack. This freedom of movement adds a fluidity not commonly found in most strategy games, challenging you to see how devastating you can be to space villains every turn in the arenas. both large and small.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review - Screenshot 3/5
Taken on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Unattached)

To help facilitate this devastation, each of the nine heroes now has a weapon unique to them. Mario can attack two enemies at once with his two explosions. Rabbid Luigi throws a flying saucer that can rip apart multiple targets. The newcomer to Edge throws a giant sword that doesn’t seem strange Cloud of Conflictof the wardrobe, hit twice in one line. All heroes also have a unique ability, although this time not all are created equal. Rabbid Peach’s Heal for example feels pale in comparison to Peach’s powerful Team Barrier. Sparks of Hope also introduces the equippable Rabbid Lumas known as – you guessed it – Sparks, which have a host of powerful effects that remove some of the need for defensive stuff.

Even on the highest difficulty, Sparks can make encounters small. Each hero equips two at a time. Enemies are strong or weak against certain Super Effects that Spark can spread after hero attacks, such as the Splash Effect that causes Cursa’s Stooges and Wildclaws to pop out of bounds or Effects Ooze deals bonus damage at the beginning of the enemy’s turn.

Super Effect Sparks have their uses but it’s some Gadget Sparks that really shine. Grab the Glitter Spark, drawing enemies from across the arena towards the user. Its use frees up all three party members to unleash Sparks and abilities within their spheres of influence to wipe out another tough battle of entrenched enemies in no time. It surprised us with how this combination worked in many of the winning conditions that came our way. Reach a certain point in the map, survive a wave of enemies for six turns, destroy a certain number of Darkmess wards, and confront the boss with special mechanics? No problem. All fall to our mighty Glitter Spark strategy.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review - Screenshot 4/5
Taken on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Unattached)

While discovering creative combinations or quick strategies to clear the battle made us feel like the smartest Rabbid in the colony, we lament the lack of challenge. Even without a certain abuse of Sparks, rich battles rarely require us to find a clever way to overcome unpredictable odds. Instead, any ingenuity on our part hastened the inevitable result – victory. Not once has our three-man team been wiped out, and we’ve only lost a single hero in some of the more protracted boss battles. Yes, even with increased enemy damage and health on the highest difficulty.

However, each time we rescue a new Spark from Cursa’s minions, or level up enough to unlock a great ability, such as Mario’s Jump or add fire to Bowser’s Rabbid Hunter, we would love to see how we can use them against a respectable team of enemies. This diversity of species ensures we’re eager to move on to obliterating the next world of Darkmess, while also tackling creative trivia for some eccentric Rabbids on their way to saving the galaxy.

With nine heroes to assign to skills and 30 unlockable Sparks to equip, the confusing menus hampered the experimentation somewhat. Annoying loading screens when opening and closing menus, and a few overwhelming buttons when switching between skill trees and loading Spark, made us stick with three or four of our favorite heroes later in the game. play. Even if it’s obvious that Rabbid Rosalina’s Ennui ability to freeze enemies would come in handy in a particular battle, we chose not to use her because we were so tired of fiddling around with the menus. One way to save loads or swap characters without having to pause would go far.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review - Screenshot 5/5
Taken on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Unattached)

Exciting cutscenes that bring out the cast’s personalities – especially the Rabbids – help keep the adventure enjoyable despite our menu-based complaints and a great soundtrack of the legendary composers behind Banjo-Kazooie, Super Mario RPGand Ori and the Blind Forest did so well. We’ve made sure to look at the options for increasing the music volume, and so should you. We also recommend turning down the voice volume as they gave the Beep-O a classy, ​​slightly shrill voice that made us nervous from the first cutscene onward. We missed his cute little beeps and squeals from the Battle of the Kingdoms after hearing him recount the 30 hours we spent cleaning up Cursa’s interplanetary mess.

Inference

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope’s battles are unbalanced between the multitude of options available and difficulty – in stark contrast to Kingdom Battle’s challenging, curated battles. This is not to say that it is not an interesting strategy game; the battles are not an evolution of what has come before and are more of a dramatic change in freedom and creativity which, unfortunately, can sometimes trivialize the efforts of Cursa aims to take over the galaxy. Adding a few notches on the difficulty gauge might force us to experiment and dig deeper to find winning strategies. However, Sparks of Hope shines in most respects outside of these Darkmess battles. There are lots of fun mini puzzles, quests, and memorable locales, but this makes this Rabbid-themed adventure a must-play for Mario and strategy game enthusiasts.

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