Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope review – Ubisoft’s crossover strategy
Gaming’s most unlikely mash-up, between the worlds of Super Mario and XCOM style strategy, works even better than before in this new sequel.
Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope is a very strange game. Not only does it feature Mario dual-wielding a pair of guns and Princess Peach secreting a shotgun in her umbrella but the game itself is a turn-based strategy heavily inspired by XCOM. How director Davide Soliani talked Nintendo into making such a game we don’t know (although we did try to ask him) but he’s clearly onto something, as 10 million sales later the sequel to Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is better than ever.
Turn-based strategy games used to be perceived as so nerdy that even other games fans looked down at them, but in the last 10 years they’ve enjoyed a surge in popularity that has evolved beyond just indie titles. That doesn’t mean a Nintendo take on the formula was inevitable though and indeed this isn’t really their game, as it is developed and published by Ubisoft.
Ordinarily, Nintendo would never give another company this level of control over their most prized characters, but from the first moments its clear why they’ve made an exception in this case. Technically, Sparks Of Hope may be third party but, surprisingly, it manages to match Nintendo’s best titles in terms of presentation and imagination, and even exceed some of their lesser ones.
The only problem with Mario + Rabbids is that there are Rabbids in it, the obnoxious proto-Minions who originally started as foils for Rayman (who will be appearing in this game as post-launch DLC). What’s impressive about Sparks Of Hope though is that it makes a real effort to improve on every aspect of the original, including making the Rabbids themselves more palatable
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