I’m not very far into Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope yet, but the moment I started it was immediately clear that this is a very different game from Kingdom Battle. It’s still a turn-based strategy game starring Mario’s friends and the Ubisoft Rabbids, but I’m shocked at how far U𒉰bisoft Milan and Paris have deviated from the formula established by the first one. It’s not something we see very often in sequels, especially when the predecessor is already so modern. I’m not ready to say which one I like better, but I have to give the developers credit for avoiding the most common pitfall of making a sequel that’s just mor♛e of the original.
Ubisoft went back to the drawing board for Sparks of Hope in both big and small ways. The first thing I noticed (because it’s the first thing that happens) is the changes to combat. Instead of directing each character to move within a grid, now your 🅠whole team can move freely anywhere within their range. Not only does this open up combat for more strategic depth, it also creates the opportunity for action th🔴at happens in real-time.
In Kingdom Battle (and in most tactics games) you can only move each character once. If you wanted to do a team jump and launch Mario off of Luigi's head to get to high ground, you’d have to move Luigi into Mario’s range first. That’s still the process in Sparks of Hope, but now moving Luigi doesn’t use up his turn. You can move characters around however much you want to interact with enemies, objectives, and other characters. This sounds like a small difference, but it changes everything about the way you approach battles.
And because you can move freely, there are things you can do during your turn that happen in real time. When you flip over and bob-omb and pick it up, the fuse starts to burn immediately. If you don’t throw it fast enough the bomb will go off in your hand, causing you to take damage during your own turn. You also can’t just team jump♒ from one location to another before. Instead, you have a limited amount of airtime you can use to travel, and when you run out you’ll land wherever you are, even if it isn’t where you meant to go. You’re forced to make a lot of decisions with imperfect information, which the original game never would have asked you to do. Battles are a lot more real time and ac☂tion-oriented, or in other words, they’re a lot more Mario.
The new weapon diversity also makes each character’s role feel more fleshed out. Where in the original you could just pick your two favorites to party with Mario, Sparks of Hope encourages you to choose the bes♑t heroes for the situation at the start of every battle. This is particularly crucial for boss fights, which have occasionally obliterated me before I figured out a better team composition to use. It makes it feel like you always have your entire team, ra๊ther than just the best three fighting for you.
Beyond combat, Sparks of 🐷Hope has completely reinvented the way you explore worlds. Instead of linear zones you work your way through one battle at a time, eac♋h location is its own little miniature world that you’re free to explore, hunt for secrets, and do side quests in. Mario Galaxy is the biggest inspiration for the story, but Mario Odyssey clearly influenced the level design.
I expected to see new characters, new mechanics, and changes to things like weapons and skill trees, but I didn’t expect Sꦛparks of Hope to change nearly this much. These days sequels tend to just be more of the same. Just this year we’ve seen three sequels - Horizon Forbidden West, A Plague Tale: Requiem, and Overwatch 2 - that just feel like more of the original. When God of War Ragnarok comes out next month, I expect it to be this kind of sequel too. But 🗹Sparks of Hope isn’t just glorified DLC for Kingdom Battle, it’s an entirely different game.
Even though we’ve left Mushroom Kingdom to explore unknown worlds, the new emphasis on action and platforming in battle makes it feel a lot closer to a Mario game, leading me to wonder if this was always the original vision for the series. There are some changes that feel like a loss, such as the removal of secondary weapons and the simplified skill trees, but it’s a give and take, and it's worth the sacrifice because it means I’m going to be a lot more surprised by what Sparks of Hope does have. It’s rare to see a sequel depart from the original so much. I’d like to see more studios be this bold.