Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Review – The Rabbids Talk Now And They’re Actually Pretty Funny

There are some things you don’t realize work well until to actually see them come together. That is very much the case with Mario and Rabbids. The original Mario + Rabbids game was a surprise gem for the first year of the Switch, a solid turned-based strategy that lovingly brought Mario into the zany world of the Rabbids in a way that felt natural and complimentary.  This in turn led to the second game Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. 

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope does everything that a good sequel should. It expands on the original game with new characters, new abilities, and more interesting locations. There are a couple of areas where I wish it’d expand a little more but for the most part if you enjoyed the first one you’ll like the second.

The Blackmess of Cursa

The game takes place more or less right where the last one left off. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and their rabbid counterparts (rabbids dressed up like the Mario characters because they’re huge fans) are chilling out in the Mushroom Kingdom, only for an evil witch named Cursa to attack, spreading a sickly substance called Blackmess and trying to capture beings called The Sparks. The Sparks are a fusion of rabbids and the lumas from Mario Galaxy and they have immense power. Mario and the gang set out to stop Cursa and her minions, the Spark Hunters. They are also joined by a former Spark hunter named Edge (she’s very edgy).

In typical Mario fashion, the plot isn’t anything super deep. There’s more to it than rescuing the princess, but it’s really just there to get you to the next part of the adventure. That’s ok though, Mario doesn’t need an in-depth plot but I will say the story allows for a lot of fun interactions between the characters as they comment on the story unfolding in front of them. 

That being said, these interactions do make me wish that the game was fully voiced. The lack of voice acting is especially noticeable as two characters, the AI guides Beep-O and Jeanie are actually fully voiced but everyone else only has a few lines every now and then, making the game seem inconsistent.

The Evolution Of The Rabbids

The definite highlight of the game surprisingly is The Rabbids. For the first time in history, the Rabbids speak.  I didn’t think the rabbids could have distinct personalities beyond screaming but here each one has widely different voices and attitudes, as well as come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Ever since they first hijacked Rayman’s games back on the Wii, these little bunnies have, to put it bluntly, been kind of annoying. They’ve often been called “the minions of gaming”, whose only joke is making obnoxious noises as toilet humor, but in this game, they’ve developed beyond that. I honestly really enjoyed the rabbits in this game and seeing what they brought to the table. The jokes even managed to make me laugh a few times, or a least crack a smile.

My favorites had to be Rabbid Mario with his faux Italian machoness, Rabbid Peach’s alpha b**** energy, and Edge, the new main character that isn’t based on any Mario leads. She has a cool badass persona (as you’d expect from that name) but there’s a little mystery beyond her that gets you interested in learning more.

There’s even a cute ghost rabbid called Midnite who kinda looks like she was inspired by a certain internet meme a couple of years back. She’s great. 

I’m really impressed with how different the rabbids were in this game and hope they maintain these developments for future titles both in the Mario crossovers and in other games.

To Far Away Planets

Sparks of Hope seeks to bring Mario and the Rabbids across the stars. The game features a number of fully explorable environments in the form of different planets you visit. The developers made some interesting worlds consisting of cold ice-topped mountains and the ruins of dusty greek temples. They all look good and are fun to walk around in, that being said they’re not super lively. 

The planets are very maze-like with multiple paths and enemies dotted around alongside a few generic NPS. Outside the main plot, what you can primarily do here is a number of sidequests. Some of these involve finding new items, and ring chase challenges, while others have to take part in a battle with specific goals or groups of characters. Some of the maps here can be interesting but for the most part, I didn’t really feel an incentive to give through all of them.

There are collectibles you can get such as skins for your guns, and more sparks. These may be fun if you’re a completionist but with how long battles can be and how many there are, a lot of it felt a bit bloated and not worth the trouble. For example, one of the collectibles from the sidequests is “Memories” where Beep-O recounts how the character acted in battle, but most of the descriptions are barebones. Overall, I really like the idea of the different worlds, I just wish they were a little more fleshed out. 

A Kingdom of Battles

You encounter enemies on the overworld and upon touching them, you initiate a turned-based strategy-style battle. A notable improvement from the past games is that the characters are no longer locked to a grid. They can run all around the map up to a certain range. This makes the battles flow a lot faster which in turn makes them feel more exciting. 

Like the original game though, if an enemy is within reach, you can blast them with your guns (cause Mario characters have guns now). Across the battlefield, there are a number of obstacles to take cover under and you’ll want to so that you don’t hit yourself. These objects however will take damage and can be eventually destroyed, a good way of making sure the player has to keep moving and can’t camp behind them forever.

Each character has a specific power, range, and speed as well as skills like counter moves, guard shields, and attack buffs which make them feel unique from one another. In terms of upgrades, characters level up at the end of each map and can further upgrade their skills via a series of skill trees. What’s interesting here is that each unit has a set number of skill points that can be put into different skills and later taken back to place into others. You’ll unlock more as the game goes on. 

While the original game was a unique change of pace for a Mario game, I found the sequel’s combat to be more enjoyable overall. Turn-based games always have the risk of their combat feeling like a chore after a while and though this wasn’t the case for the first game, being able to move in real-time gave a greater sense of freedom that made each battle move better and encouraged me to experiment more with the different mechanics. It glad that the sequel was willing to change things up and in doing managed to improve on the original.

Sparks (Of Hope) and Customization

The big new addition to the battle system is the sparks. Throughout the main story, you unlock different sparks and can equip them for each character.

They basically act as extra skills that can be used in battle. While each spark differs in power, the most prominent of them are the ones that change your weapon’s elemental status. For example, Aquanox, the water spark will give your weapon a water-based attack which will be extra damage to enemies weak to the element. Other sparks allow for different types of skills like an invulnerability skill or an area-of-effect acid attack. The sparks can be leveled up to be more effective using star bits that are dropped by enemies when you defeat them. 

Essentially these rabbid stars give your party more options for a strategy which in turn helps the battles feel fresher as you now have multiple characters and sparks to mix and match.

All of the characters level up together and you can choose which you want to use at the start of the battle. While they may make the game sound too easy, it actually encourages you to try and get a feel for each character. This allows you to really get a feel for what units and sparks work well together and how each of their attributes and moves can complement each other. I changed party several times throughout my playthrough but my favorite team mostly consisted of Edge, Rabbid Mario, and Peach whose parasol canon basically acts as a shotgun blast. 

Mario + Rabbids

While Mario + Rabbids proved that a crossover between these two franchises could work, the sequel feels like they perfected it. The developers at Ubisoft were able to bring the best of the Mario universe into this game and develop the rabbids alongside it for something that feels faithful to both series yet unique as its own rabid beast.

Having the rabbids talk and act more as individuals was a great improvement on their past iterations and lead to a lot of fun interacting with the Mario cast. Seeing this gang of unlikely heroes run through large new worlds and run freely across battle maps in real-time just added to the exciting chaos of the adventure. 

It’s far from the deepest strategy game in the world and the sidequests could be a little bland but it serves as a light-hearted accessible entry into the genre while a high amount of customization with characters and sparks to keep players occupied. Whether you’re a Mario fan, a Rabbids fan or just looking for a good strategy game, these sparks should bring you some hope. 

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope will be available on Nintendo Switch on the 19th of October.

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