To be completely honest, when I first fired up
Sparkle Unleashed, I wasn't sure what to expect in the way of my liking or disliking the game. It's a match-three type game, in the style of a marble shooter (think
Bejeweled for a similar game to draw the comparison), so having it on a console I was a bit weary. It's a style of game that I'm personally more familiar with on a computer or mobile device. How was it going to be on a console, using a controller (well joy-con's specifically in this instance)?
You're dropped into a mysterious world, which has been overcome by darkness. Now, you must travel through the land, finding braziers to re-light and fend off the darkness from the world. Stories in these types of games are a little difficult to sell and get into. It's hard to picture some gigantic entity, going around matching colors by flicking marbles to save the world. However, the presence of a story, while hard to properly picture, is always welcome. I'd rather play through a story of something that's hard to imagine instead of just firing up a game that says "Hey, match some colors just because they're right here in front of you."
So obviously the gameplay ends up being quite simple. A "track" is laid out before you, and golden pylons will push a series of colored marbles along it towards the ending point. You must eliminate every marble on each pylon by matching three of the same color together. It starts off pretty straightforward, but later levels bring in some extra challenge. There will be rocks that can only be eliminated if the marble touching it gets matched with, and chained ones that will essentially need to be matched twice.
What's really cool, and adds a bit more fun to this game is the power-ups. If you can chain together a series of matches, a random power up will appear on the screen that you have to shoot to pick up. These can be anything from a "gun" to directly shoot and eliminate a couple marbles, the ability to "freeze" the track and massively slow down the movement of the marbles, and quite a few more as you can see in the above chart. You start the game with a few of these unlocked, and each time you make it to a brazier in the world, you'll get the choice to unlock another one.
Now, you can make use of the Switch's touch screen, which is awesome because like I mentioned above, these style games are typically on phones or PC, so it gives you a chance to play it in a way you're familiar with. But, you can also use the joysticks and buttons. How well does that come out? Surprisingly well, actually. I find myself playing more often with the joysticks than I do the touch screen. Both options work perfectly fine, but I think the fact that the joystick approach worked a lot better than I had expected it too is what drew me into it.
While it might not be your typical "console" styled game,
Sparkle Unleashed is still a ton of fun for what it is. Its colorful, its smooth, the music is definitely enjoyable, and you can certainly expect a challenge from this game.
Rating : 7/10
Developed and Published By : 10tons LTD
