
To the surprise of pretty much everyone, the original Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle became one of the best tactics games on the Nintendo Switch. We loved its tight, puzzle-like missions and vibrant world that somehow presented Ubisoft’s Rabbids as less-than-annoying – even, dare we say, sometimes endearing. The sequel followed suit, impressing critics and fans alike with a handful of great planets to explore, though we preferred the tight gameplay of the first over the creative freedom of Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.
One area where Kingdom Battle excelled was its Donkey Kong Adventure DLC. Completely separate from the campaign, it saw Rabbid Peach teaming up with Donkey and Cranky Kong to take on a Rabbid threat, resplendent with an overwhelming amount of nostalgic Donkey Kong Country references. To say we have high hopes for Sparks of Hope’s DLC is an understatement, and unfortunately, the first major DLC – following the season pass-exclusive update The Tower of Doooom – fails to reach the same heights despite being a fun little addition to the base game.

Titled The Last Spark Hunter, this DLC takes place just before Mario and friends descend on Cursa’s stronghold for the final battle, and adds an extra explorable world called Melody Gardens. Unfortunately, it is completely separate from the main adventure, meaning your builds and loadouts for all nine heroes do not carry over from the base game to the DLC.
It took us a few moments upon starting the DLC to remember how we liked our characters, fiddling about in the skill trees and Spark loadout menus. Fortunately, all Sparks were unlocked from the get-go and our heroes could level past the base game’s cap of 30, so there was progress to be made in Melody Gardens, but it still irked us we had to fiddle about in menus instead of our progress carrying over.
The setup here is exactly the same as the base game’s worlds: A Spark Hunter has descended onto a planet covered in Cursa’s darkmess. Mario and his team of heroes need to defeat the Spark Hunter and clear out the evil goo by taking part in plenty of battles with varying requirements for victory and solving simple puzzles throughout the overworld. There’s a Rabbid Warden to assist and learn about – this time around, it’s the tuning-fork-wielding Allegra – and the evil Spark Hunter Kanya to overcome.

It is, quite literally, more of the same, though it does add five extra Sparks to play around with and a new Golem enemy type, which requires you to dash or stomp them once defeated or else they’ll regenerate. The Golems add quite a bit of nuance to the battles, as you can’t hunker down and expect to come out on top when taking these on.
We found most of the battles quite challenging on the Average difficulty, even failing a couple as we re-learned the optimal strategies for victory. Yes, Luigi’s Steely Stare is still overpowered, and Peach’s Team Barrier goes a long way toward keeping the heroes alive. We enjoyed each and every encounter; much like the base game, the tactics battles here are delightful challenges. The Last Spark Hunter introduces Mecha King Bomb-Omb as a recurring boss, and the fights against this explosive robo-royal stood out as highlights where we barely scraped by using all the tools in our arsenal to achieve satisfying victories.

Melody Gardens itself, however, we found lacking compared to the five worlds from the base game. It's quite beautiful with forests filled with vibrant fauna and crystal blue waters covered in pastel pink algae, but instead of being a sprawling area to explore like Terra Flora or Pristine Peaks, Melody Gardens was instead broken up into smaller, denser sections, including a middle section that required a clunky boat to navigate. This specific area lacked a definitive feature, like a giant mountain, to orient us as we explored its beaches and rocky overhangs, leading to us getting lost and circling about a bit more than we’d like.
Bizarrely, as an area based on melodies, it also has very little in the way of music. Allega whispered in the background about the impending doom of the planet, and a few puzzles required us to play musical fauna, but overall it made for a quiet adventure. Thus, if we were to rank Melody Gardens with the other five worlds, we’d place it somewhere near the bottom.
Conclusion
If you’re itching for more Sparks of Hope gameplay, The Last Spark Hunter DLC will give you exactly that. However, if you were like us and quite satisfied with the length of the original adventure, this is a completely skippable DLC as it exists separately from the base game, having no impact on gameplay or the planet-hopping narrative despite being rooted in it. Even for newcomers, it’s an odd decision to place it outside of the base game instead of an epilogue or stand-alone adventure. Ubisoft’s Rayman will star in the final DLC that might warrant more of an incentive to Ubisoft’s bizarre Mario and Rabbids mashup, but until then, it's safe to leave Cursa’s minions well enough alone unless you’re really into more tactical Rabbid antics.
Comments 19
Not a big fan of DLC that exists completely outside of the main game. Especially in a case like this where it seems unnecessary.
By most measures, this is a good game and the DLC is more of the same. Not sure why... but I just never had any interest in this. Maybe too many other great games that overshadowed it? I enjoyed the first one, but I didn't like it enough to invest in a sequel. The supposed underwhelming sales numbers showed others may have thought similar.
While I overall enjoyed Sparks of Hope, I found that there was already too much "filler" content in the original campaign and it was getting tedious by the end. More of the same doesn't sound particularly enticing.
Removed - inappropriate; user is banned
I just 100% this DLC and completely agree. Unlike the unique Donkey Kong DLC from the first game, this DLC contains nothing unique. It's really just more of the same from the base game, except not as good. Found the gardens to be pretty shallow and controlling the boat was not fun. Combat was challenging, but my god do some of these characters still need nerfing (looking at you rabbid Mario). But I did have fun, just not nearly as fun at the first games DLC. He's hoping the Rayman DLC does something interesting!
Really enjoyed the first game and the DK DLC, but for some reason I've been struggling to complete this game. Mostly I think the map is terrible and I get frustrated going from point to point in the overworld. Ive only just finished the train boss after getting it day one.
Its an amazing game.
I really want to love this game but it just hasn’t clicked with me. I loved the first. I find the constant saving between menus a bit annoying as well!
I really need to Start playing this.
And also to finish the donkey Kong DLC... and to finish a game in my switch case to make room for this.
Kingdom Battle was the surprise success that it was because it was clearly a project driven by genuine passion. This sequel was a massive disappointment specifically because it phoned in its effort. The battle maps could typically be beaten in a single round and most lacked the creativity and depth of the original, the humor fell flat, character abilities were so unbalanced that I rarely used anyone outside of Luigi (range, oversight), Peach (shield), and Rabbid Peach (healer), and the upgrade pathing for everyone was pretty much impossible to fully complete. But perhaps the biggest letdown was the shift in focus away from Mario and his friends to the Rabbids and their "universe"; their presence in the game felt more like tacked-on brand recognition than the genuine, lovingly crafted fan service of Kingdom Battle. Huge missed opportunity as well that Ubisoft didn't explore other Nintendo "worlds" such as Zelda and Metroid.
Overall Sparks of Hope isn't a bad game, but sadly it's a lot more mediocre than it could have been.
@Cashews oh hey you just reminded me that I should finished rayman raving rabbids and rabbids go home! Thanks for the reminder! 😄
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I should finish the first one. Just have found I don't care much for any "story" related to the Mario characters anymore so makes it harder to get back into.
Been meaning to finish Sparks of Hope. I guess it'll have to wait until the Rayman DLC comes out though. Between Midnight Suns and 2 Fire Emblem games (Engage and now GBA on NSO) my tactics/strategy itch is already being scratched pretty well.
I was really hoping Sparks of Hope would have grabbed me like the first game did. At a glance I thought the changes to combat would be brilliant and totally game changing, but the openness and freedom seems to have hurt the focus and balancing, which I am now realizing was so critical to Kingdom Battle's staying power for me.
Even in games I love, it takes a lot to pull my attention back for the DLC when it releases so many months after the game launched.
I just have too much else to play and too little time
Oh dear, Melody Gardens lacks melodies...
Surely, when you call it that you would think they would nail the sound, but no...
What a crying shame..
This game really feels like the Fire Emblem Engage of Mario/Rabbids. The sequel just didn’t catch on as much compared to prior game.
I got the Gold Edition for cheap so more content for free is fine by me.
Especially when the base game is so good anyway.
Bonus is still a bonus.
Can definitely see where the reviewer is coming from, but I'll probably enjoy the DLC just like I'm overall enjoying the base game (haven't finished that yet) so I'm personally still looking forward to it!
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