The New Classics #59: Sparklite

 

The Backstory: I bought Sparklite for exactly 16 euros, which is the cheapest price I’ve ever paid for a physical Switch game. Why do I mention this, you may ask? Well, to highlight the fact that I didn’t expect much from Sparklite, despite its honourable 75 score on Metacritic. 

 

 

The Game: From gazing at gameplay screenshots, I knew about the vibrant colours and the gorgeous environments already; what I didn’t, and couldn’t know about, were the tight controls and stellar physics. This is 2D Zelda on steroids: the MC slashes stuff with that abandon I’ve always wanted, yet never quite got, from prime-and-proper Link. There is some great dynamism at work there, so much so that you get the impression the MC is flying rather than running — and yet you’re in full control, with none of the floatiness that can pop up when handling a speedy sprite. And mind you, you’ll need all the speed and the full control you can muster, because some foes out there are real b*tches with tricky patterns.

 

 

While Sparklite looks and feels like a crossover between 2D Zelda and 16-bit Seiken Densetsu, it actually plays like a Rogue-lite. Here’s the gameplay loop in one sentence: you explore procedurally generated zones to collect the titular sparklite, a type of gem that allows you to purchase all sorts of upgrades, in order to get stronger, go further and gather more sparklite. That’s a very self-contained loop, quite phone-gamey in its simplicity; but such loops usually go straight to my gamer’s heart, and this one was no exception. 

 

 

The Verdict: I played for roughly 30 minutes: enough to gain some nifty upgrades and realise that Sparklite is probably a short and sweet game — and that I want much more of it!