Sparkle 2 Review

Back in June 2015, indie developer 10tons arrived on Xbox One with a marble shooter that oozed quality. Sparkle Unleashed may have been the first ‘match three shooter’ to join the Xbox One library, but it was nothing short of awesome.

Now though, 10tons are back, and this time they come bearing gifts in the form of Sparkle 2.

You may think that Sparkle 2 is just jumping on the glory train that Unleashed brought about, and looking in from the outside, you’d be about right. But there is enough new and fresh gameplay incorporated inside this second Xbox One Sparkle title to ensure that veterans of the genre and complete newcomers alike will be kept busy for some time yet.

Sparkle 2 is without question a quality match three shooter. Taking charge of a static rotating orb slinger, your quest in life is to do nothing other than clear each and every level of the numerous marbles that come flying onto your screen as they get pushed along at some pace by those evil ‘pushers’. You do this by matching colours (as you would expect), and whilst the early levels will see only a few coloured spheres arriving on screen, this quickly picks up pace with the introduction of further hues, ensuring that you’ll need to be pretty spot on with your marble shooting in order to get a clearance before the marbles reach their end goal. Initially you’ll find the shooter takes some getting used to with little help in terms of shot alignment meaning a fair few of your early shots will go astray. Five minutes down the line though and you’ll find yourself powering those balls into prime spots with ease, quickly switching colours with the help of the B button should you need a more strategic approach.

The whole game focuses around matching colours, gaining enchantments, collecting special power ups and ultimately unlocking enough runes in order to end each level. But that’s not to say 10tons haven’t at least tried to inject some form of narrative into the background. With a few screens detailing the back story and your overall quest for key retrieval, a map screen tries in vain to promote the story as best it can. If truth be told though, I care very little for what is being forced upon me and quickly skip the scenes in order to get back into the action at the quickest opportunity.

And that’s all because the action which has been included is pretty damn spot on. With cleverly designed levels being thrust upon you at a reasonable rate, much of the strategic side of the game revolves around picking the best power ups for the job at hand. Slowly drip fed your way, the early levels will see you limited to the choice of placing one of four enchantments onto your orb slinger in the hope they will help you progress. Making the orbs that you unleash fly faster, or creating an easier but longer game are just two of the early options available, but continue through the stages and you’ll also begin to unlock further powers that change the game up massively. With the chance to have up to four enchantments in place before you manage to finish all the stages, some of which allow for much more hardcore powers to roll into play, what you end up with in Sparkle 2 is something infinitely different from that which you begin.

Once you’re done with the initial playthrough of all 90 odd levels, then you may think that is about it for all things sparkly. You’d be wrong though as Sparkle 2 urges you to jump straight back into the exact same levels but with a much more intense feel. The ‘normal’ difficulty level will keep you busy for around four hours or so and whilst testing your marble shooting skills, should still be a bit of a breeze to complete. Move on up to the ‘hard’ and ‘nightmare’ levels of difficulty however and you’ll still be attempting to complete all the levels some time down the road yet.

Whilst the campaign is the bread and butter of Sparkle 2, the inclusion of three further game modes enhance things brilliantly. The ‘Survival’ mode throws you into each and every stage with one goal in mind…last for as long as you can! With anything up to five stars being dished out dependant on how long you last, you’ll need to battle through the early levels to garner enough stars in order to unlock further challenges. It’s a great way of keeping the player firmly attached to Sparkle 2 once the main story mode is done and dusted, bringing all the usual gameplay tricks but testing even the most skilled player at all times.

Further to that, the ‘Challenges’ on offer give the player the choice of stage and ask them a simple question. Can you complete it on multiple difficulty levels in order to unlock the next? You may find the answer to the first few stages is a resounding ‘Yes’, but some of the later stages that require completion on the most trying of difficulties will most definitely have you questioning that answer, and indeed your sanity, numerous times.

‘Cataclysm’ mode is the final piece in the glorious jigsaw but this should really be left well in the realms of the hardcore. With a super fast pace about it, much of the gameplay found in ‘Cataclysm’ revolves around firing off marbles as fast as possible, praying that they land in a decent spot, earning you enough power ups to allow for a bit of a fluke win. The pace is frantic, perhaps too frantic to actually be enjoyable, but when you do finally manage to restore order to each cataclysmic stage, you’ll be able to sit back with a smug look on your face, safe in the knowledge that you really are the sharpest of shooters.

Sparkle 2 is a joy to play and compliments its Xbox One sibling, Sparkle Unleashed, extremely well. They may be two different games with slightly similar outlooks on life, but the core mechanics are altered enough to ensure that veterans of Unleashed won’t just be going through the motions with Sparkle 2. Throw the superbly addictive backing music that ramps up as the marbles get closer to their own goal, increasing your blood pressure even more, and you’ll realise how stunningly well implemented near on everything in Sparkle 2 is.

Aside from the lack of online leaderboards (tracking my quickest times against friends would have been superb), I’ve got nothing but good to say about Sparkle 2. 10tons have quite simply delivered once more with another crisp, clean, stunning looking match three shooter that will, with the added inclusion of colourblind mode, even appeal to those who struggle to differentiate between colours.

Go shoot some balls!