Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope

[Dcubed]

51 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

RIP Fire Emblem Engage.

Engage is much more different from Three Houses than Sparks of Hope is from Kingdom Battle.  It's not even from the same developer.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Dcubed

[Ashley]

@Ronnie did you have problems with sparks that spawn an enemy (or ally I guess) when they go through pipes? Always seems to get stuck on the other end. It doesn't freeze, they just stay in an idle animation that it never comes out of. 

Finally updated the game (been ignoring it for ages) so maybe that's fixed it but just quit a mission twice for this very reason and it's annoying. 

[Ronnie]

51 minutes ago, Ashley said:

@Ronnie did you have problems with sparks that spawn an enemy (or ally I guess) when they go through pipes? Always seems to get stuck on the other end. It doesn't freeze, they just stay in an idle animation that it never comes out of. 

Finally updated the game (been ignoring it for ages) so maybe that's fixed it but just quit a mission twice for this very reason and it's annoying. 

I’m not sure about pipes but I’ve had allies seem to idle the battle indefinitely a couple of times. Had to quit out. Happened again so restarted the game and it was fine after that. Really annoying though. 

[Ashley]

Just now, Ronnie said:

I’m not sure about pipes but I’ve had allies seem to idle the battle indefinitely a couple of times. Had to quit out. Happened again so restarted the game and it was fine after that. Really annoying though. 

I can't 100% remember the previous time but both of these were pipes (the same pipe in fact) but two different characters; one was something I spawned and the other was Bowser's special mechakoopa things. 

[Ashley]

Finally finished this yesterday (or at least the story). Had done most things up until the last full world but I wanted to get this finished before going on my travels. Ended up completing 81% and putting in 45 hours, which I think is the most I've spent on a game in ages.

The final battle was an interesting change, although I wouldn't say particularly challenging. Although I did find out at that point that Rabbid Rosalina can actually do a fair bit of damage. Hadn't really used her up until that point.

As I mentioned before I found the open world parts to be tricky to navigate around at times and in some ways it was an iterative sequel rather than anything substantially different, but the sparks did add a good twist to it. I would recommend this over the original, but unless you loved it I wouldn't recommend both.

Looking forward to seeing what they do with the DLC.

[Ashley]

 

[MindFreak]

A demo has gone live, lets you play the Prologue and most of the first planet:

Also English version of the above trailer:

 

 

[darksnowman]

4 hours ago, MindFreak said:

A demo has gone live, lets you play the Prologue and most of the first planet

Thanks for the heads up. I've sent it to my Switch. Looking forward to giving it a go!

[darksnowman]

Tried the demo; went and bought the (base) game.  The production values and personality are still there, but it's the free movement that sold it to me. Felt great—it just clicked with me immediately. There doesn't seem to be any bonus from finishing the demo so I'll just crack on with the full game. 

[MindFreak]

Played the demo yesterday, really enjoyed it. And luckily, a store just put it on sale for as cheap as about £20 (directly converted) so ordered it, going to pick it up tomorrow. I'll be playing Figment 2 this weekend for review purposes but after that, I think I'll dive into this. Looking forward to it.

[MindFreak]

Just beat the boss on Planet 3 the other day (I think it was the boss at least) . I enjoy the battles, the exploration parts are so-so, but overall, I feel the game is missing something, something intangible like charm or soul. The story is too serious for the setting, the Rabbids are just here, no real humour, low-key cutscenes and such. It just doesn't feel that polished...

It doesn't help that it's a bit on the easy side. I play on Normal and it's a bit of a breeze with no real need to plan my way to victory. I have restarted a couple of battles and changed teams for some battles but ultimately, I just go in and shoot as many enemies as I can. 

The boss fights... Yeah, they are okay but it was only after the fight in Planet 3 that I learned that it was a boss and I was then free to go to a new planet. 

Overall, the game is enjoyable and I will continue my playthrough but it's just not as good as the first game which really captivated me.

[Ronnie]

There's definitely something intangible missing from the spirit of the game, it could just be because the concept isn't fresh anymore.

Looking back, I also wasn't a fan of the way they changed the battle system. The game is easier than the first because they allowed for free movement, so you could position everyone wherever you want to extend range with no consequences. People talk about the lack of grid, but there's still a grid, it's just invisible. It's the free-roam that's the game changer, and not in a good way imo.

[darksnowman]

13 hours ago, MindFreak said:

Just beat the boss on Planet 3 the other day (I think it was the boss at least) . I enjoy the battles, the exploration parts are so-so, but overall, I feel the game is missing something, something intangible like charm or soul. The story is too serious for the setting, the Rabbids are just here, no real humour, low-key cutscenes and such. It just doesn't feel that polished...

It doesn't help that it's a bit on the easy side. I play on Normal and it's a bit of a breeze with no real need to plan my way to victory. I have restarted a couple of battles and changed teams for some battles but ultimately, I just go in and shoot as many enemies as I can. 

I fell off it at the end of the second planet, I think. Can't quite put my finger on why because I was enjoying it. The personality of the Rabbids works for me—like Rabbid Peach going "let's start our healing journey" and whatever else.  Funny seeing the others do their thing on these planets too. Thought the exploration was good, the only thing I would like improved is the camera as it feels a bit too focused on showing me my characters rather than the general area...? So I'm not exactly sure why I dropped it. Yeah, it's technically a bit rough around the edges but I can get past that. Could be that the encounters aren't very satisfying? Kind of just want them over with so I can get back to looking around. Wonder if you reach a point where you automatically defeat low-level enemies without needing to enter battle.

[Ashley]

Interesting titbit suggesting either the new console is due by the end of 2024 (or so), or they just expected them to hold out for years. 

 

 

[Dcubed]

Quote

"Although, I think it was a different issue with Mario. We had already released a Mario Rabbids game [on Switch], so by doing another we had two similar experiences on one machine. On Nintendo, games like this never die. There are 25 Mario games on Switch. Nintendo [has advised] that it's better to do one iteration on each machine. We were a bit too early, we should have waited for [the next console]."

"Because you could play a great game. And we think it will last for ten years, because we will update it for the new machine that will come in the future."

 

Very interesting... We officially have our first announced game for Switch 2!

So much for me buying this on discount now lol!

Edited June 20, 2023 by Dcubed

[Ashley]

Or we have confirmation Switch 2 is backwards compatible. 

[MindFreak]

I still think they should have waited until January to release this. It was released in October which was super busy with a lot of (better) games. It might still have underperformed but at least it wouldn't be in direct competition with lots of games.

[Ashley]

The DLC drops later today! Might have to unpack my switch. 

[Helmsly]

Rayman DLC

 

[Ashley]

Ah so they're bringing back The Phantom? A breakout surprise from the first game. Their introducing is a really unique moment. 

[MindFreak]

So for the first time ever, Rayman and Mario could meet up in the same game and they decide to bring Rabbid Mario instead? Shame. 

[Ashley]

4 hours ago, MindFreak said:

So for the first time ever, Rayman and Mario could meet up in the same game and they decide to bring Rabbid Mario instead? Shame. 

It might be that you can choose whoever but the marketing focused on those 3 but I know in the past they have fixed the party so could go either way. 

[Julius]

So, this time last year Ubisoft all but branded the game a sales flop (at the time, Yves also blamed a number of flops on the developers): 

On 11/01/2023 at 7:45 PM, Julius said:

According to Ubisoft, the game has underperformed

VGC now understand that the title has sold nearly 3 million copies:

Quote

A year after being branded a flop, Ubisoft's Mario + Rabbids sequel, Sparks of Hope, has racked up nearly three million sales, VGC understands.

The sales momentum, which sources said was partly helped by discounting on the Nintendo eShop, means Sparks of Hope is performing roughly in line with the historical performance of the first game, which went on to reach 10 million players.

[...]

It's worth noting that Ubisoft would likely have expected the sequel to have performed even better, given Switch's significant growth since the original game was released in August 2017, and the significant install base of the original game.

Regardless, it changes the mood somewhat around a title that just a year ago was being branded a flop by the publisher.

Ubisoft declined to comment when approached in advance of publication of this story.

Ubisoft declining to comment is to be expected, but I also think it's a very embarrassing look. Hopefully those involved get to take a swing at something for Switch 2, be it another game in this series or something wholly original, but I'm not holding my breath. 

Edited January 16 by Julius

[Dcubed]

That’s not a good result.  It’s roughly about half of what Kingdom Battle sold in the same timeframe, had a much higher budget and a much longer dev cycle than its predecessor; and most of those sales came at heavy discount.

Raw sales numbers don’t tell the full story… It’s a similar situation as with FF15; sure, the raw sales numbers look good in isolation, but when you consider that most of those sales came at half price or less and that it had a ~10 year dev cycle?  Suddenly you realise that it wasn’t the success it appears to be on paper…

Edited January 15 by Dcubed

[Julius]

17 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

That’s not a good result.  It’s roughly about half of what Kingdom Battle sold, had a much higher budget and a much longer dev cycle than its predecessor; and most of those sales came at heavy discount.

Sure, I totally agree, and I said something similar when we talked about it underperforming last year. 

If we're going purely by sales volume? Great result. 3 million of any non-Nintendo-developed, relatively niche genre, console exclusive game sold is objectively good if we're only going to be talking units sold. 

If we're going by actual business expectations, factoring in revenue, profits, and the full nine yards? I'm seriously unsure why Ubisoft thought a higher budget game with a longer dev cycle which saw it's predecessor reap the benefits of featuring Mario right at the start of a new console's life and which very much also reaped the benefits of said heavy discounts would do anything but underperform. 

Keep your damn expectations in check, Yves.

It's ridiculous. I think you probably get at least 1.5x, if not 2x, those sales, with a smaller proportion sold at a discount, if you just wait the extra couple of years to launch with the Switch 2 – I get that there's more to how to optimise a release when you consider overhead and such to keep things toeing the line and to not elongate dev time thus stretching out costs, but they sent this thing out to die, and then had the gall to pin it on the developers. 

But, I mean, Ubisoft being a mess – what else is new?  

Edited January 15 by Julius