100%Nintendo Switch

BELLISSIMO GIOCO, E UN PO PIÙ BELLO DEL UNO.

80%Nintendo Switch

The first game was a nice surprise. Who would have bet on a cheap X-COM-like featuring Rabbids, set in Mario Universe but driven by Ubisoft? Probably no one except a few drunk Nintendo executives, and yet the game was more than just decent. Business being business, a sequel was predictable, and Ubisoft being Ubisoft, we could expect, well... Ubisoft adjustments.

This is at first what Sparks of Hope looks like : Ubisoft being Ubisoft and adding Ubisoft stuff everywhere : open-world, poor story, dozens of side-quests, permanent menuing and... yes, don't worry: of course there's a map filled with markers. As a result, first hours can feel a little boring. The original Mario + Rabbids was pure fun and didn't need so many artifices to be very enjoyable.

Luckily for us, if Ubi's Ubi, Nintendo's Nintendo: you can't do whatever you want with their IPs and for once, that's good news. The core gameplay remains and finally takes over the rest, with just enough complexity and a good amount of new features. It's just a little hard to focus on it at first, since the game constantly asks you to go there, see that, speak to that guy etc. The basic arena sequence from the previous game was more inviting IMO, but as for the battles themselves, they're just as cool, maybe even cooler since this second game is better balanced and leaves a real place for player's improvment. In M+R1, some bosses or even single levels could, at some point, feel like huge difficulty walls, since you had fewer and weaker characters for most part of the game. Losing a party member early on the field meant the battle was lost, no matter how hard you tried. This one is more about patience, there are fewer big main story battles, but they're longer, smarter, and your team's strong and diverse enough to allow you to adapt instead of commanding you to restart to try a different strategy. And if Sparks of Hope's not really about grinding (main quest will always stick to your current level), there are enough short optional arenas to learn new tactics or improve your basics. Not that I'm saying that Ubi were right to add all their Ubi-crap but... well, they weren't totally wrong, for once.

90%Nintendo Switch

Great environments for each planet and world building. Artwork and voice acting really makes the game pop. Storyline is interwoven into the gameplay. Comedy as per usual in the series is great. A variety of different gameplay within the game itself - collect coins, solve puzzles, battles etc. and even the battles have different types. Wide variety of characters/abilities/sparks to change up how to play.

Whilst there are some good battle set-ups and the there are different battle types, most non-boss battles despite the numerous different enemies and characters, work in exactly the same way. i.e. dash the enemies if close enough, if not, either block or reduce damage, or hit from a distance. Heal if required. Rinse and repeat. The battles therefore end up feeling a little too easy/repetitive at times. There is the option to raise game level difficulty but I still feel that the base normal level should encourage players to think more and have to play a little more outside the box. In order to raise the difficulty, I made self-imposed rules to not use team wide healing (in exchange for coins). This also allowed playing different characters often instead of the same few every time. I also did not use any items in any battle. Was hoping for more battles like the boss where you had to break the floors and get the boss to fall. i.e. some more varied battle situations with more ingenuity in terms of beating the stage would have been better.

A side note: This game at times gave me motion sickness. I never get motion/travel sickness "in real life", and I've only ever encountered one other game that did so. If you're particularly prone to feeling motion sick, perhaps avoid this game. However, one solution that I found worked well for me was playing on handheld.

Other side notes:
* There were a couple of freezes that required a game restart.
* Save/loading times can be long.
* Lots of saves throughout the game which slows things down. For example, saves occur every time you open and close a menu. Great for ensuring progress is not lost, but frustrating otherwise when you have a load time every time you open any screen.

95%Nintendo Switch

9.5/10: Had some flaws, and my main criticisms are about broken AI making battles easy and some mobs being terribly balanced. I loved everything else, from the progression, to battle system, to characters and the skill tree. It was especially fun to find combos of different abilities that work the best. Vampastra OP with Luigi btw.

80%Nintendo Switch

For every Ubisoft attempt at making the Rabbids appealing, I -- out of spite -- will buy a ticket to a Despicable Me movie and never show up. Every toy company who wants to make money aims to create a broad mascot that speaks funny so children laugh. Somehow the Minions gibberish-talked their way to billions, but we only have room in our society for one group of weirdo puppets that squint at the camera for comedic relief.

The game at its core does have a great combat system though that builds off the first one with better movement and BEST OF ALL -- gone is the requirement of needing at least one Rabbid in your party. Now, if only there was a worthwhile story that took advantage of the Mushroom Kingdom like the Mario & Luigi games do. I guess you are limited with what you can do with goofy rabbits that all have Homer Simpson style five o'clock shadows. There is something about a curse in the universe and evidently Rosaline is trapped too so she needs saving.

There is a 'main quest' that is pretty standard for each planet you visit, but Ubisoft is the scorpion riding on the frog across the river. They don't quite fill a map with markers and "things to explore", but the side quests are plentiful and essentially uninteresting skip-able icons you see on the map. I get it at this point. They can't help it, its in their nature. Worth mentioning again is the fun turn based battle system. Things get more tactical each time you engage an enemy as you plot out how you want to approach each turn and dash/stomp your way toward each baddie in the most efficient way you can. Nice and relatively short experience all things considered.

100%Nintendo Switch

Perfeito, desafiador e viciante.

90%Nintendo Switch

Normally I review games and the DLC as one package to be able to give a full review of the game as a whole with all its content. For this game, I will make an exception and I will review the Tower of Doom DLC separately for reasons that will become clear if you look at my review of that game.

Pros:
Sparks of Hope builds off of the TRPG system created in Kingdom Battle and enhances it by giving the player much more freedom on the gameplay side. Characters are free from a grid which allows you to adapt more to the situation at hand. You can also freely pick which characters you are allowed to use, which always seemed like an arbitrary restriction in the original. Characters now only have one unique ability, but that's because sparks allow characters to gain any number of abilities, which can be swapped out or changed at the start of a battle. Finding synergies between various characters and sparks and building the ultimate team is a fun experience.

The locations you travel to in Sparks of Hope are much more varied than the ones in Kingdom Battle. Instead of being semi-generic biomes, they're all separate worlds with their unique themes and ideas. The same goes for the story as well. Instead of facing a possessed Bowser, you face an entity called Cursa.

The Last Spark Hunter and Phantom Show fit nicely into the game's timeline and work as a nice extra boost of content for the game. They introduce new Sparks some of which are unique. Rayman works very differently compared to every other character which makes that DLC feel more fresh and interesting.

Neutral:
The story behind Cursa is suddenly revealed in one late-game exposition dump. I do wish it was foreshadowed a little more than it was, but it worked well enough for the story, so I don't mind it that much. The OST is also decent, but nothing outstanding, especially by RPG standards.

You can adjust the gameplay difficulty whenever you want. However, I wish you could tweak it yourself because I found the regular option too easy, but the hard difficulty was just annoying because it made every enemy a damage sponge and hit like a truck. Being able to adjust specific values would've allowed me to customize the difficulty to my skill level.

Cons:
The punishment for playing poorly doesn't exist in this game compared to Kingdom Battle because you are no longer graded for your battles and the only punishment that exists is the damage you took, which is nullified by the fact that you can completely heal your full party for a pitiful amount of coins, at the start of every battle. The grading was brought back in the last DLC, but that makes my question why it wasn't in the full game.

95%Nintendo Switch

Solid game. Improved on the first one.

70%Nintendo Switch

Decent strategy rpg

50%Nintendo Switch

Kingdom Battle was like lightning in a bottle--a game that defied its heavy corporate branding to deliver a colorful, entertaining adventure. Sparks of Hope, to its credit, tries to do something different with the formula, but it lost a lot of the soul from the first game. The humor doesn't land quite as well, the mechanics are too easy to cheese, and the lifeless open worlds are an absolute slog. A handful of the maps still give you some unique objectives and obstacles to play around with, but there are just as many uninspired battles with copy-pasted layouts and repetitive win conditions.

100%Nintendo Switch

Amazing main story, last spark hunter was also perfect. Rayman was overpowered and only being limited to two other characters was sad. Tower of doom was a cool concept with randomized stuff, and a nice challenge but overall kind of repetitive. I'll probably come back and play more of it when I feel the time is right. overall though loved the gameplay, all the challenges and side quests, sparks were fun to mess around with, all the characters were interesting and had a purpose in different scenarios. One of the few 100%'s that I enjoyed the whole time and didn't have to force myself to complete.

70%Nintendo Switch

I think this game is fun and charming.

60%Nintendo Switch

Kinda fun, but underwhelming when compared to the first game. The exploration was better even if it was more linear, and the pragmatic tactical battles were funnier in Kingdom Battle.

Still, it's nice to see developers trying to change the formula of a franchise. That being said, by changing the formula, I think Ubisoft tried to make Mario+Rabbids' structure more "Ubisoft", and that's unfortunate...

80%Nintendo Switch

I review games with all games starting at 5/10 (Average) and then deduct/add for negatives and positives:

Overall Thoughts:

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (MRSH) is a quality title published by Ubisoft, much like the first game it's an XCOM-like game where you control units in fixed battles, for the majority of the game play. Different from the previous game, the world while still requiring a little bit of puzzle solving is more explorable with extra side quests and places to explore and loot.

Graphically the game looks great with the hardware it's on, the lines are crisp and the effects are pretty. This I feel is probably the best style for the Switch to do well in, it suits most games like Mario, Zelda and Pokémon I wish they focused on smaller environments more like in this game to provide better performance while still executing a timeless style.

The music isn't quite the mario style of music, but it works well with the rest of the game even if there does seem to be a few drops where no music plays.

The story is what you'd expect from a Mario game, bad guy, go defeat by working together, back to the castle for supper, it's nothing wild but the devs had some silly fun with the characters and it's charming.

Recommend:

Yes, if you liked the previous game, this one develops on ideas the first had while making movement in combat much more accessible and fun.

Positives:

+Great take on the turn-based combat game
+Good cohesive art and music for Mario games
+Fun dialogue and silly stories
+Lots of places to explore and side quests

+4

Negatives:

-Glitch that forced me to reset/close the game after a character was stuck and didn't finish an animation

-1

8/10

50%Nintendo Switch

Quite easy even on hardest difficulty and story is bad

65%Nintendo Switch

I can't even say that it's bad - I enjoy it on a moment to moment basis. But something is just missing from the experience. I preferred the combat in the first game - which felt more like a puzzle with an ideal solution - to the more general 'tactics-lite' combat here. The open spaces do it no favors and the voice acting was a mistake. It's fun, and light, but ultimately a much less satisfying experience for me specifically because of the changes to the formula.
It's very possible that it's a matter of personal preference, as the reception seems to be mostly positive in general - but for me I just could not force myself to continue through something I wasn't invested in. Made it I would guess halfway through before deciding I've had my fill.

90%Nintendo Switch

Not finished yet, but having a blast with this game. It is more fluied than Kingdome Battle, more content and stuff to do outside of battles. The whole battle system is changed from being able to walk some squares to me having more freedome to walk in a limited space. More character customization, more extra missions. I loved Kingdome Battle but definitely like this approach even more.

80%Nintendo Switch

This game is the Thousand Year Door to Kingdom Battle's Paper Mario. Truly, a sequel in all ways a sequel should be. It improves in all ways a sequel should, throwing out what didn't work about the old, while bringing in enough that is new. I can't sing it's praises enough.

80%Nintendo Switch

It's a solid game with some silly but funny jokes , cool tactical gameplay and a regular story.

That the Rabbids Had voiceover sometimes totally threw me off, the whole aspect of jokes where delivered over mimic and gestures before and it worked well, with the voices they somehow feel more intelligent Wich breaks the whole concept.

But that's just me I guess.

I recommend the game if you like silly jokes , tactical fights and in General Mario and or the Rabbids.

90%Nintendo Switch

Really solid! Entertaining, nice builds. Maybe on the later half a bit repetitive and long, but overall enjoyed it. No fluff.

80%Nintendo Switch

Gameplay is very good however I prefer the first one.

The voice acting is awful and I skipped the entire story because of how bad the voice acting is

100%Nintendo Switch

A brilliant game and full with fun.

80%Nintendo Switch

Too long.

75%Nintendo Switch

Sparks of hope is a sequel that’s fairly ambitious and aims to make several improvements to the first game, but doesn’t fully stick its landing. I did have a pretty good time playing it though.

The characters and the mashup remain some of the most fun parts of the game. Even the new characters (edge, bowser, rabbid Rosalina) work well, and the combat abilities of all the characters have been thoughtfully reworked. Speaking of combat, the fully 3d motion makes it feel less like a tactical game, and it is nice to be able to mix up the movement and jumping phases, everything feels much more fluid. The sparks, one of the main new additions to the game, makes each character very customizable, however, some of them can trivialize various classes of battles. The progression system is otherwise fairly well calibrated. However, I found the enemy variety lacking, and that brought down my enjoyment of the combat when compared to kingdom battle.

The story is out there, but serviceable, and pretty humorous in parts. The music is good. The game definitely looks great for the switch, and I only noticed a few performance hiccups.

If you’ve played and enjoyed Kingdom battle, I think this is definitely worth trying.

80%Nintendo Switch

Actual Score: 8.5

70%Nintendo Switch

I really enjoyed Kingdom Battle. It was a surprise when first revealed but it turned out to be a fun all-ages take on tactical gameplay despite some strange design choices. Its Donkey Kong dlc was fantastic and one of the best expansions in recent memory. As such, I was excited to see a sequel was in development when it was first announced. Unfortunately, Sparks of Hope takes a few steps forward and a few steps back resting in an experience that is on par with its predecessor.

Many reacted positively to the more “free form movement of the characters. While this is fun at first, it’s somewhat of an illusion as characters basically work an invisible grid now. Furthermore, the other mid-turn shenanigans you can perform due to the new movement system makes the game easier to cheese, something that can be either a positive or negative based on the player.

The biggest improvement is in how each character has a unique weapon type now that usually fits their particular archetype. Luigi has a long range bow that does more damage the further he is from his target. This fits since he has a low health pool and high movement, allowing him to find a good vantage point to snipe from. Peach, on the other hand, has a parasol shotgun that works best when up close personal, something her barrier ability facilitates quite well since it allows her and her allies to tank a hit during the enemy phase. Combine these more unique roles with the 30 unlockable sparks which give elemental bonuses, force movement, or even summon minions to help out your squad, and you have a whole lot more variety and experimentation than you did in Kingdom Battle.

The activities outside of battle have also been expanded and reworked to be more open. While I found the puzzles here much more enjoyable than KB’s, the addition of roaming enemies who will chase you down for a random battle grow old quickly if you aren’t actively avoiding them. The field abilities are limited but do expand your tools for explorations. Overall, I found these areas an improvement but Ubisoft’s love of content for content’s sake becomes visible in them.

Combat itself hasn’t changed much outside of the movement and character changes. While enemy variety appears to have been improved, it does feel like the game had fewer bosses. The ones we do get are fine but not as memorable as the first game’s. The final boss is also a complete pushover.

While most of my thoughts are positive, Sparks of Hope still feels like it’s lacking something. This could be due to the lackluster story even with the many lore entries the game provides. The game has a fantastic soundtrack. I’m not sure whose idea it was to team up Kirkhope, Shimomura, and Coker, but that employee needs a raise. You wouldn’t think these three could provide a cohesive soundtrack, but they do that and more.

Final Score: 7.5

70%Nintendo Switch

Combat is great, fluid and fun. The story and "hub world" in between the story is boring.

40%Nintendo Switch

This Game has to be one of my biggest disapointments of 2022 (or, to be really honest, ever). The First Mario+Rabbids is one of my all-time favorite Game experiences. Combining the Crisp and precise gameplay and visuals of a Mario game, which isn't usually the highlight of a Rabbids game, and the zany and absurd (and grotesque) humor of the Rabbids franchise, helping a Mario game that is usually devoid of any longlasting humor, allowed for the creation of one of the most pleasent surprises in gaming history. Needless to say, I was way hyped when Sparks of hope was announced

Sadly, this wasnt quite the case. While it was clear the first game was a passion project for the mario world, this game feels like (i know it's a run-of-the-mill statement) a bloated, corperate driven, Ubisoft-big-empty-world. The very linear map of the game before, that was only supposed to lead you from battle to joke to puzzle, back to the highlight, the battles, is now a large, run around planet, for you to also get from battle to joke to puzzle. But here come the problems. Most of the world is empty. you spend a lot of time just, running through a field to some rabbid, who know has text floating over his head, that either says where to go, what enemy to defeat, or how to solve a puzzle. Ok, I think, then to one of the battles. There are now wild roaming enemies in the overworld that you can engage, or run away from. More combat is a good thing, right?
Here comes the problem with the combat. The small encounters are too small. The fun of the game is about resource management and time management. How can I best use my skills, while still getting the battle done before I die, or use too many turns. But, because the small battles are small, and repeatable, they can usually be beaten in one turn (if you use a good team). And, because of this, there isn't the ranking system from the last game. It doesnt matter if you use 20 turns, and 2 of your three characters die, if you win, the game counts it as a win, and doesn't look back. I was a little disappointed at first, because I enjoyed trying my best and really having to think and plan out my attack routes to best use all my damage. So, I thought, if the game is hard, and the chances of dying are higher, it'll still make me think, right? well, playing on the highest difficulty, the game gave me a little challenge, and I did have to restart some of the longer fights, but in most cases, I could beat it on my first try. The penalty of keeping lost health after a battle, and having to spend coins to get it back, wasn't much of a problem, since I never was in danger of not having enough money. And, because all characters get XP when you complete a battle, not just the ones you use, there's no reason to try and play different characters in different battles if you have a favorite team.
Well, if I loved the game, and wanted to spend more time with it, maybe it would be worth it to try and not loose a character in a fight, or experiment with teams? Well, the humor that caught me so much the first time around is absolutely void in this game. There is no funny. truly. The many times the game made me cringe far outweigh the two or three times it made me laugh. The biggest (and by far worst change) is That there's actual voice actingThe greatest offender by far is Beep-O. The last game's straight man, this time around is a british-accented know-it-all that downplays everyone else, only to be wrong in the end and look foolish. And that is the kind of humor that is pervasive in this game. Haha, look at how dumb the rabbids are, or how dumb beep-O is, or how dumb the characters of the areas are. isn't it funny how pathetic they are? It's not. it's not funny at all. Its annoying and tiresome. The worlds are populated with plackerts that talk about the wardens of each of the five worlds, that talk about their stories, and these make up the majority of the world-joke-interactions. The structure of them is hardly even setup-punchline, it usually is just, sad retellings.
The character based plackerts highlight another problem with the writing, namely the story. If you ever wanted a bland, evil purple nameless villain without a real backstory, motivation or method besides being evil and slime, this is it. Cursa as a villain is completely uninteresting, as are the other characters that are introduced. The side villians get no explanation or background, and the wardens are supposed to be pitiful, so why care?
Ok I can't write any more rip. then sped up. The worlds are completely unorigional. Based on the four seasons? really? The music isnt bad, but not one melody stuck with me. Theres no replay value, as no post-game content, and if you skipped any missions, they dont scale in difficulty, so you just breeze through them. The base game is good, the gameplay is really engaging, deep and gives you lots of options, but when the rest of the game just makes me want to quit on the spot, and not pick it up after...

70%Nintendo Switch

Overall solid game, and the gameplay was really fun. It was definitely the highlight, and I like the way the levels were designed. I like the first game better tho. I didn't really like how the weapons (or at least that I know of) had to be purchased on the shop by doing sidequests, and I usually don't do sidequests so I was stuck with the weapons from the beginning for the whole game. I still really like the customization when it comes to the Sparks tho. The story is aight, but I like the more Mario-esque story of the first game. Voice-acting is a bit odd at parts, but I'm glad they have it. Overall, I did enjoy the gameplay and battles in the game, even if I do like the freshness of the first game more.

70%Nintendo Switch

Not much to complain about this but nothing to rave about.

The game is competently made and all but I never found myself excited to progress.

The react mechanic was fun to use. Did not play the first entry.

90%Nintendo Switch

I really enjoyed my first Mario and Rabbids game. The strategy and various puzzles allowed for a good balance in the game. I wasn't a huge fan of the execution of the hidden side quests/memories. There were 2-4 that I never would have found. Also, the game has a number of bugs where it will hardlock under certain circumstances. Even with all of that, I still enjoyed it enough to 100% and don't regret it. Great game for any and all Mario fans.

70%Nintendo Switch

Glaring performance issues aside, Sparks of Hope is a typical Nintendo sequel…a complete departure from its predecessor. The structural overhaul and revamped battle systems give the player far more freedom than the first game, but some of the (curated) chaos is lost as a result. Still, its good where it needs to be and never overstays its welcome (especially since I played to 100% completion).

80%Nintendo Switch

Good game, I really like the costumization and party building. Maps are really cool and also there are a lot of side-missions to play.

100%Nintendo Switch

Fantastic game. Only real bummer was that a certain spoiler character wasn’t playable. One of my new favorite Switch games.

90%Nintendo Switch

The original idea for Mario + Rabbids was though to be a catastrophic nightmare turned into a home run with its first outing in 2017's Kingdom Battle. The same team has returned with a more refined version of its strategy RPG in Sparks of Hope, which is easily one of the best Mario spinoffs you can play on Switch. Kingdom Battle was pretty strict in its gameplay: linear paths, singular levels at a time, and grid based strategy combat. Throwing all of that out of the window, Sparks of Hope favors a looser design across the board by delivering open zone exploration right from go. What was once incremental puzzle/battle/puzzle repeat format has now become large themed zones not unlike Mario Odyssey levels. You can't jump, but you can traverse the environment to find secrets, take on roaming enemy encounters, and help NPCs with their problems. I loved peering around every corner in these areas, which had maze-like twists and turns that really showed off the strength of the level design. There are primary objectives, but many optional battles and puzzles help add variety into each of the main levels. It's a shame the story and writing aren't really enticing enough to pull you from story beat to beat, but instead the giant setpieces that each main objective presents.

The combat has been given a massive overhaul. First is the namesake's Sparks, Luma-Rabbid hybrids which grant one of your party members a unique skill in battle, anything from elemental damage, summons, or healing abilities. With Star Bits you collect from completing objectives or killing enemies, you can upgrade your Sparks to be even more powerful, and any character can use any Spark, allowing for a fully customizable loadout where you can build a party that suits any strategy you'd like. Every one of the nine party members (of which you use three at a time) also has a skill tree which modifies and enhances existing abilities like Mario & Luigi's counterattack Hero Sight, Rabbid Rosalina's stasis-like Ennui, or Rabbid Luigi's Weaken debuff. You are also able to reset your skills at any time and spec out each character however you see fit. It's an astoundingly simple, but robust system that made planning for the battles as enjoyable as fighting them. In battle, gone are the grids and tiles in favor of a more open design. Like the previous game, you can shoot, dash into enemies, super jump off of party members, and use environmental elements like pipes and jump pads to fling yourself around the map. Half of the strategy is just finding the optimal way to get where you need to go, while taking down as many enemies as you can. In the 30 hours I put into the game, the battles never grew stale thanks to the flexible movement, amount of differing objectives per mission (reach zone, defeat enemies, protect structure etc) and the pure joy of using all of the party members*.

Sparks of Hope in and out of battle is a gorgeous game. Ubisoft's animations should be praised as each of the characters, from party to NPC is wonderfully realized through expressive and goofy design. The worlds are similarly full of character and ideas, though the game starts to lose steam at its final two levels, which brings down the pace of the last quarter. These two levels (barrendale and the final boss) are comparatively not as visually interesting and at the point you reach them in the story, you've seen every type of mission to offer. That said, the music regardless is a good time, sporting an all-star team of Grant Kirkhope, Gareth Coker, and Yoko Shimamura. Nothing is supremely memorable, but sets the tones for the areas and battles well. Sparks of Hope is impressive in its presentation on Switch, but it does come at the cost of performance. Loading times are a little long, especially when coming in and out of menus before battles, and there were a few odd slowdown and technical hiccups when solving puzzles and dropping barriers in the overworlds. Nothing was a dealbreaker, but it's not a perfect run as of this moment.

Sparks of Hope is at its best when it is trying something you've never seen before. A giant train battle against a Wiggler, waves upon waves of enemies, and even the final boss fight are some of the standouts that showcase a battle system that engages and balances strategy with reward well. The game isn't flawless technically, and stumbles a bit towards the back end, but it's well worth giving a shot if you are a fan of Mario RPGs.

*Edge, the new Rabbid character, is the unfortunate exception. Both for the story and in battle, I found Edge to be utterly useless and really didn't ever pay her much attention. The game could have been stronger without her inclusion, and I wish we retained a character like Yoshi or Donkey Kong instead, or a new face like Birdo, Wario, or Waluigi.

70%Nintendo Switch

Better than the original in most ways, especially the movement in combat. I still think the game's difficulty needs balancing, as it feels either way too easy or unfairly hard. The choice to fully voice act 2 characters and give 3 word VA sentences to all of the others is bizarre and at times distracting. The game also has many performance issues. It's worth finishing but 100%ing the game would probably be annoying

80%Nintendo Switch

Pros:
- New spark system adds lots of fun customisation
- New characters are good (bowser/rabid rosalina)
- Some nice openish worlds
- Interesting and engaging tactical combat

Cons:
- Framerate issues
- Bugs, couldnt 100% game because quest broke
- Underwhelming main plot
- Worse level design and bosses
- Lock of voice acting

90%Nintendo Switch

Builds a lot on the first game, and is improved as a result.

90%Nintendo Switch

I will do this later. good game improved on a lot from the first one (free movement, levels instead of buying weapons, the spark customization, made me want to use most of the characters) but damn does it run like trash. it also really needs a minimap. story was pretty good. controlls pretty clumsy, very apparent in the fish catching sidequests. wish there were challenges like the first game.

90%Nintendo Switch

Great gameplay. Better than the first one.

90%Nintendo Switch

About as good as the first game. In this one the combat was more fluid and you had more options. Good rpg elements (sparks, skills, team comps). Slightly buggy & exploration was hit or miss. Fun.

80%Nintendo Switch

84%

90%Nintendo Switch

pros
- excellent combat system; a mixture of real-time movement and turn based strategy. A ton of combinations of characters and sparks (abilities and passives) to experiment with, and satisfying skill tree progressions
- colorful visuals and expressive animations
- excellent music
- good amount of optional content, a good chunk of it is very worth the time
- fun variety of mission types, set pieces, and unique enemies/obstacles to overcome

cons
- performance issues
- Buggy and somewhat prone to crashing. Over my 36hr playthrough I crashed 5 times, two of those times were near the end of a boss battle

90%Nintendo Switch

Phenomonal follow-up to the original. Gameplay is expanded and unique providing a reason to still go back to the first game. The characters are expressive to provide so much joy throughout the entire playthrough. Story may feel lacking at times but the gameplay makes up for it tenfold. Loadout customization and difficulty options (highly recomend hard difficulty) are the cherries on top of a sweet treat of a game.

90%Nintendo Switch

8.5

80%Nintendo Switch

A solid 8. Improves on the previous game in every way.
My only complaints are:
-It drags on a bit too long near the end imo.
-The performance can be noticably poor, but I blame this in part on the weak hardware.

80%Nintendo Switch

17/20

80%Nintendo Switch

The gameplay is vastly improved from the first game thanks to the Sparks system, the creative battle objectives, and the level design of the hub worlds & the main story battles (the side battles' level design is average). The soundtrack is good but not memorable.

The biggest issue is the performance on the Switch. The game crashed one time during one of the final boss battles right after dealing the killing blow. I had to re-do the battle after starting the game again.

Overall, a good sequel to the first game that is hampered by the hardware.

80%Nintendo Switch

Better Than Expected! I have a lot of problems with the original and this game fixes all of them. Still a bit short but it was the definition of short and sweet, Cant wait for the DLC

90%No Platform Specified

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope takes the excellent tactical combat ideas of Kingdom Battle and runs absolutely wild with them. Its goofy characters still have the ability to bounce off of each other, but they’re now free of the rigid grid and wonderfully customizable thanks to the mix-and-match Sparks that give them new and reliably interesting powers. Between fights you get to catch your breath in the large and brilliantly colorful open worlds, solving its light puzzles and being puzzled yourself by its oddball story. It’s extremely gratifying to play an ambitious sequel that fixes all of the main issues I had with the original, and then some.