The year of Luigi.
The cringer and creeper, chattering Mario’s name as he quakes and trembles in various ghost houses.
But there is another Luigi.
The Luigi of the hard stare in Mario Kart.
The Luigi who barges you off the road and wants you to know it was personal.
And now: Luigi the sniper.
Death from a distance.
A cool heart and a steady gaze.
Luigi winning the game and bringing us all home.
Toad going for overwatch.
This Luigi business didn’t click for me until I got stuck into the sequel: Sparks of Hope.
Then it clicked instantly.
Luigi as a sniper!
Luigi with an attack that does more damage the further away from his target he gets.
Luigi sniping across the map, wracking up 2000 points of damage.
Luigi watching as his enemies shatter into candied star bits.
Luigi bringing us all home.
Anyway, that rhythm: you arrive and have to sort things out for the locals.
This part of the game is pretty nice, I reckon.
In one I climbed a snowy mountain to release the power of the sun.
In another I ventured through a forest and got thoroughly muddled.
But this game lives on the battlefield, and it’s on the battlefield that Sparks really flies.
Sparks are funny little floating pillow people who you collect as you move through the game.
Sparks are super useful and it’s a lot of fun finding the right synergies.
One might add electrical or flame or some other elemental damage to your main attack.
Another might do an elemental area attack or make you invisible to enemies for a turn.
This last part gets at something that really comes to the fore in Sparks of Hope.
Real talk: when I play XCOM I always play it as a form of American Football.
But Sparks of Hope is lighter on its feet than that, and more wonderfully chaotic.
Then there are baddies who thump the ground and send your guys rocketing around to land in unusual spots.
(Characters also auto-level off the battlefield.)
And quite a lot of it too.
