With a spotlight shining upon him in a crowded LA auditorium, game developer Davide Soliani starts to sob uncontrollably. After years sworn to secrecy, Davide’s dream game is finally being unveiled to the public – and by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, no less. It’s a genuinely heartfelt and disarmingly human moment, a rarity amid the overly slick presentations that dominate E3, gaming’s annual hype event.
Soliani’s game was 2017’s Mario and Rabbids, an unlikely crossover between Ubisoft’s Minion-like mascots and the iconic red-and-blue-garbed plumber. It’s hard to imagine anyone else having such an emotional reaction to this colourful kids’ caper, an enjoyable (if bare-bones) turn-based strategy game. Nevertheless, it became a huge hit. Five years and 7.5 million sales later, Ubisoft is borrowing the keys to the Mushroom Kingdom once again for Sparks of Hope.
While its predecessor was a good proof of concept, it was hard to shake the feeling you were playing a Ninty knock-off – a Mario adventure bought from Wish.com. Sure, the turn-based battles were engrossing enough, but guiding Nintendo’s mascots around felt stiff and jarring; the between-battle gameplay felt like a bizarre Mario fan mod. Sparks of Hope has grander ambitions: strategic, colourful combat is still the main attraction here, there’s far more game either side of it.
Every time your spaceship lands on each new planet, you’ll find an explorable hub world that you can sprint around, solving puzzles, picking up side quests and spotting a wealth of nostalgia-baiting Mario references. However, controlling these iconic Mario characters still invites unflattering comparison with Nintendo’s own Mario games, in which the characters always move in such an innately satisfying, playful way.
As your ragtag band of mismatched Rabbids and Nintendo characters roam clumsily across six themed worlds, you can’t help but notice the absence of Nintendo’s deft touch. Running into those iconic gold coins, you’re instantly rewarded with the telltale Mario sound effects – but the joy’s missing. Movement is sluggish. Mario can’t jump. The thrill of leaping into a coin is instead replaced by a hollow-feeling, Nintendo branded collect-a-thon.
Yet, where Sparks of Hope fails as a Mario outing, it succeeds as a turn-based battler. Showdowns now see players moving their team of colourful characters around a fully 3D space, allowing a greater range of control and tactics than the previous grid-based approach. Dashing from cover to cover and defeating your increasingly crafty opponents is a surprisingly grown-up tactical affair. The narrative tying it all together is, however, less so. Ubisoft’s attempt at producing a family-friendly adventure that won’t make adults balk slips right off the tonal tightrope. From cringeworthy jokes to a derivative and simplistic story, this very much feels like a world made for a younger audience, housing a game made for an older one.
Thanks to diverse enemies, distinct-feeling playable characters and constantly changing mission parameters, even 15 hours in, battles never bore. It’s a shame that you’re forced to spend so much time outside these spectacular skirmishes. The lack of gameplay cohesion and Nintendo quality is hard to shake, and Ubisoft’s recreation of Mario feels less Charles Martinet and more Chris Pratt.
There is a genuinely brilliant strategy game lurking under all this flimsy Nintendo wrapping. For younger audiences, these complaints probably won’t matter, but for the fully-grown Nintendo faithful, Sparks of Hope’s paper-thin narrative, juvenile jokes and disappointing hub worlds are hard to ignore, despite the fantastic fights.
Mario and Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is out 20 October; £49.99
