I just realized I had this whole article drafted a few months ago, just sitting in my OneDrive folder. I thought, why not post it? So, I finished editing it, and voilà. Before you ask, no, I never got around to finishing the game. Without further delay, enjoy reading my Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope Gameplay Review!

Who knew the sequel to Mario with gun violence could win best strategy game of the year? I am pleasantly surprised because I do enjoy the game. I haven’t finished the game yet, so I thought instead of doing a full review, I would just review the game’s gameplay and strategy.

If you’ve never played either of the Mario + Rabbids games, I’ll give you a brief explanation. Basically, Ubisoft (a French game company, best known for Just Dance and Assassin’s Creed) had a meeting that I imagine went like this: The accountant runs in and yells “Just Dance isn’t making enough money! What do we do?!” and the boss responds, “Have you seen how much money Nintendo makes off of Mario? We need something like that.” One of the marketers chimes in: “Yo, Rabbids are cool.” And one of the programmers says: “We should do Mario and Rabbids,” and the marketer is like: “Yeah, Mario and Rabbids with gun violence.” The boss is like: “Perfect! See if you guys can make this happen.” And then a little while later, we all are playing Mario and Rabbids on our switch.

…or at least that’s how I like to think about it. In reality, Just Dance is making more than enough money, and the guy who came up the idea for the game, Davide Soliani, was actually a huge fan of Shigeru Miyamoto and really wanted to impress him with a great game pitch. It’s a whole story. If I were to explain it, this article would be twice as long, so I’m not going to tell the story myself, but if you are interested in knowing, I suggest you look into it. There is a very interesting article on it at: The pitch that convinced Miyamoto to back Mario Rabbids | Eurogamer.net

Mario and Rabbids games are about the Mario Characters teaming up with Rabbids (which are silly, and sometimes stubborn, rabbit-like creatures) dressed up as the Mario Characters to save the day.

Both games are level based. You select characters from your team to play each level with, and then complete the level by either defeating enemies, reaching a certain point, or possibly even completing a different goal, depending on the level. The levels are turn based, so each turn each character can shoot, move around the battlefield, and use a special ability, as well as other things. Then it’s the enemy turn, and the enemies move and attack. Play rotates back and forth like that until you complete the level or you are defeated.

Each character has their own abilities and weapon. They each have skill trees and you can slowly upgrade throughout the games. You can play as Mario characters, or Rabbids (dressed up as Mario characters) while Beep-o, a robot with some uncanny voice acting, “helps” by giving you tutorials.

The biggest differences in the second game, talking specifically about the gameplay (levels) differences and not the fact that the whole story is different, are a) the addition of Sparks and b) the removal of the grid-based system. Starting with Sparks; Sparks are Rabbid-Lumas that have special abilities. Throughout the game, you collect Sparks to help you. Each Spark has a different ability. You can assign Sparks to your party members and they can use the Spark’s ability during battle. Secondly, the previous installment keeps track of the distance you could move in a single turn by putting a grid on a battlefield. You would be able to move a certain amount of squares each turn. In Sparks of Hope though, the grid is removed and instead you can move anywhere within a certain radius of your character.

I really like how they don’t give you too much of an explanation on the plot of the game until you have completed the first few levels. I have only played the first area, but I can tell you, my biggest issue is Beep-o’s voice acting. For one, I just don’t like the voice. Beep-o is also the only character with full voice acting so it feels out of place. I guess it didn’t win best voice acting though.

Overall, I think the game is really fun and I would definitely recommend it if you want to play a strategy game. The game is slightly repetitive, but in a good way. It’s very fun and colorful. It feels like a Mario game even though it isn’t even made by Nintendo. So, in conclusion, for the gameplay itself, I think this game is great!