The sequel falls short of matching Kingdom Battle’s brilliant visuals.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battlewas a genuine delight when it launched some five years ago.
This Switch-exclusive title combined X-COM style tactical gameplay with beautiful graphics and animation.
It’s all about the gameplay enhancements with this one, which are substantial.
Sparks of Hope radically reworks the first title’s combat.
Gone are the movement grids, which have been replaced with a fully analogue traversal system.
It’s less contemplative, and feels like a more natural fit for a console controller.
In general Sparks of Hope feels much more engaging than the first outing.
The player experience outside of combat is overhauled as well.
But it seems like a worthwhile tradeoff for its flexible, Mario Odyssey-style structure.
Visually speaking, Sparks of Hope initially seems to share a lot of DNA with its predecessor.
Simple, low-density textures combine with capable rendering tech to create a pleasing, cartoony visual signature.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle packed a ton of polygonal detail into just about every asset onscreen.
Sparks of Hope tends to use a much more angular look.
Most of the environmental assets have been rendered with fewer polygons.
Objects like rocks that used to be loaded with geometry are reduced to a series of simple flat faces.
Texture art can look very different as well.
The key thing here is that the new visual style works well on its own terms.
Take the water, for instance.
Sparks of Hope has flat, relatively opaque water with cartoon-style ripples.
It looks perfectly fine and blends well with geometry.
I think the game’s expanded scope probably pushed the developer in this direction.
But now those factors are harder to control.
Taken in isolation, Sparks of Hope is still a visually pleasing game.
Despite the relatively basic techniques in play, image quality is decent for the most part.
The game targets 30fps and does manage to hit that target most of the time, without frame-pacing issues.
However, there are plenty of scenarios where frame-rates can momentarily suffer.
Kingdom Battle could drop frames in similar scenarios also, though it was typically much better behaved.
Combat is problematic as well.
The typical culprits cause issues: big alpha effects and zoom-ins for certain abilities.
The silver lining is that Sparks of Hope is mostly turn-based.
I definitely found the deviations frustrating but they didn’t detract too much from my enjoyment of the game.
As a final complaint, I did notice a handful of issues with compressed seeming texture art at times.
I’m of two minds about Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.
It has hugely broadened scope, more interesting levels, and a modernised game structure.
If the first game wasSuper Mario 3D World, this is Super Mario Odyssey.
On the other hand, I loved the way Kingdom Battle looked.
In 2017 it was perhaps the best-looking game available on Switch, with stunning environments and beautiful art.
I was hoping for a reprise of the same style, expanded with new technology.
Ultimately though, Sparks of Hope is a bigger, broader, and better adventure than the original game.
It’s not the same kind of system-exclusive technical stunner, but its gameplay and design are much improved.
