This is solid DLC for a solid game! It's effectively just a sixth planet to add onto the main game's five, but what's here is probably some of the best combat and exploration in the entire package. The structure is exactly the same - find planet coins by completing quests, rescue sparks, fight in various battles - but as something intended to be played after completion of the main game, it's allowed to get a little spicier in places, which helps to stave off some of the repetition that comes with their penchant for reusing sidequest ideas.
In terms of exploration, it feels like this DLC goes for the same thing that God of War 2018 did (of all things), what with its combination of linear sections spread across a wide open hub area. To get you back in the swing of things (assuming you took a break after the main game), the DLC starts off mostly focused on getting you from battle to cutscene to battle for the first half or so. The hub area, once you reach it, is traversed entirely by boat and the linear sections mostly take place on little islands, which is part of what inspired the comparison in the first place! The story here isn't anything particularly different from what was there previously and the dialogue still tends to be more miss than hit, but the beauty of the space you inhabit helps to compensate. Due to the influence of the Darkmess, the Melodic Gardens combines naturalistic forest beauty with quiet tension, taking your expectations of a bright, noisy wonderland and flipping it on its head. In fact, I'm surprised how many reviews seemingly missed the intention behind the Gardens' relative silence!
The Last Spark Hunter picks up where the main game left off mechanically and though it doesn't directly import your save (your skins carry over, which is nice, I guess), it starts you at the previous max level of 30 regardless and raises the bar to 40. Not only does this let you resume using your previous strategies, it also lets you further maximize the devastation your characters can inflict (my Rabbid Mario/Rabbid Rosalina/Edge team still feels busted as heck!) and keep the base game's mostly well-balanced difficulty intact. It's a shame there aren't any new playable characters or abilities here and none of the new Sparks are particularly notable, but the two new enemy types are solid additions.
The Golem is a bulky melee fighter that respawns after death unless you dash its core, encouraging you to be aggressive and make use of dashing if you somehow haven't been doing so by now. Seriously, building characters (Edge especially) around frequent dashing turns this into a whole different and much more fun game! The Fieldbreakers are polar opposites and much more challenging to deal with; they prefer to shoot lob shots from afar and spew damaging goop everywhere, which can tick away significant chunks of health every time you move or dash through it. In tandem, the two can command you to dash or fail, all the while punishing you for doing so, creating a synergistic combo that a lot of the base game enemies never had. Though it's unfortunate that these are the only new additions and a lot of repetition still rears its head, the mission design does a great job of offering the depth you're probably looking for.
All new objectives are introduced here, such as having to open cages containing Rabbids, carrying Melospheres safely back to the starting point while watching their tiny amount of health, or having to get to the end of a stage while an invincible King Bob-omb chases you. The king makes for a quality boss fight every time he appears, challenging you to manage his smaller bombs to use as a way of breaking his shield or pushing switches spread around a disadvantageous (to you) circular map to make him vulnerable. The hardest map, a level 40 survival challenge, pelts you with an unbelievable number of foes while giving you a small space to work with, resulting in the most butt-clenching mission of the entire game. In general, I think the map design of this DLC does a really good job of creating scenarios that apply pressure on the player and test your ability to survive through more creative means than just relying on cover. There wasn't a single mission I found to be boring here and while I never really got stuck, I had to think harder than at any point prior, which did even more than I expected to alleviate the burnout I felt after getting through the very tedious and rote 5th planet in the base game.
The Last Spark Hunter is a straightforward DLC, but it's exactly the kind of thing anyone who enjoyed Sparks of Hope should check out. It feels a lot like the expansion packs of yore in that it gives you more of the thing you liked with no "catch" beyond a slightly trickier level of difficulty. From the sounds of it (I haven't played the original Mario + Rabbids), this isn't nearly as ambitious as the Donkey Kong DLC that game had, but I still very much appreciate the effort made in putting this out. They mention multiple times that this takes place after the 5th planet but before the final battle, so it almost feels like they're saying that this was originally meant to be the 5th planet and this DLC is something of an apology tour they had to squeeze in where they finally made good on their promise instead of scrapping the whole thing. Since that's the read I'm going with, I'm gonna go ahead and say that the apology is accepted!
In terms of exploration, it feels like this DLC goes for the same thing that God of War 2018 did (of all things), what with its combination of linear sections spread across a wide open hub area. To get you back in the swing of things (assuming you took a break after the main game), the DLC starts off mostly focused on getting you from battle to cutscene to battle for the first half or so. The hub area, once you reach it, is traversed entirely by boat and the linear sections mostly take place on little islands, which is part of what inspired the comparison in the first place! The story here isn't anything particularly different from what was there previously and the dialogue still tends to be more miss than hit, but the beauty of the space you inhabit helps to compensate. Due to the influence of the Darkmess, the Melodic Gardens combines naturalistic forest beauty with quiet tension, taking your expectations of a bright, noisy wonderland and flipping it on its head. In fact, I'm surprised how many reviews seemingly missed the intention behind the Gardens' relative silence!
The Last Spark Hunter picks up where the main game left off mechanically and though it doesn't directly import your save (your skins carry over, which is nice, I guess), it starts you at the previous max level of 30 regardless and raises the bar to 40. Not only does this let you resume using your previous strategies, it also lets you further maximize the devastation your characters can inflict (my Rabbid Mario/Rabbid Rosalina/Edge team still feels busted as heck!) and keep the base game's mostly well-balanced difficulty intact. It's a shame there aren't any new playable characters or abilities here and none of the new Sparks are particularly notable, but the two new enemy types are solid additions.
The Golem is a bulky melee fighter that respawns after death unless you dash its core, encouraging you to be aggressive and make use of dashing if you somehow haven't been doing so by now. Seriously, building characters (Edge especially) around frequent dashing turns this into a whole different and much more fun game! The Fieldbreakers are polar opposites and much more challenging to deal with; they prefer to shoot lob shots from afar and spew damaging goop everywhere, which can tick away significant chunks of health every time you move or dash through it. In tandem, the two can command you to dash or fail, all the while punishing you for doing so, creating a synergistic combo that a lot of the base game enemies never had. Though it's unfortunate that these are the only new additions and a lot of repetition still rears its head, the mission design does a great job of offering the depth you're probably looking for.
All new objectives are introduced here, such as having to open cages containing Rabbids, carrying Melospheres safely back to the starting point while watching their tiny amount of health, or having to get to the end of a stage while an invincible King Bob-omb chases you. The king makes for a quality boss fight every time he appears, challenging you to manage his smaller bombs to use as a way of breaking his shield or pushing switches spread around a disadvantageous (to you) circular map to make him vulnerable. The hardest map, a level 40 survival challenge, pelts you with an unbelievable number of foes while giving you a small space to work with, resulting in the most butt-clenching mission of the entire game. In general, I think the map design of this DLC does a really good job of creating scenarios that apply pressure on the player and test your ability to survive through more creative means than just relying on cover. There wasn't a single mission I found to be boring here and while I never really got stuck, I had to think harder than at any point prior, which did even more than I expected to alleviate the burnout I felt after getting through the very tedious and rote 5th planet in the base game.
The Last Spark Hunter is a straightforward DLC, but it's exactly the kind of thing anyone who enjoyed Sparks of Hope should check out. It feels a lot like the expansion packs of yore in that it gives you more of the thing you liked with no "catch" beyond a slightly trickier level of difficulty. From the sounds of it (I haven't played the original Mario + Rabbids), this isn't nearly as ambitious as the Donkey Kong DLC that game had, but I still very much appreciate the effort made in putting this out. They mention multiple times that this takes place after the 5th planet but before the final battle, so it almost feels like they're saying that this was originally meant to be the 5th planet and this DLC is something of an apology tour they had to squeeze in where they finally made good on their promise instead of scrapping the whole thing. Since that's the read I'm going with, I'm gonna go ahead and say that the apology is accepted!