Sparklite is a charming indie Link to the Past-esque game with minor roguelite elements.
The soundtrack, environments, and enemy design are all delightful. Exploration is fun and it has a nice assortment of your action adventure puzzles hiding powerups. It's a very pleasant game, for the most part.
As far as combat goes, you mainly whack mutated creatures with a three hit wrench combo and sometimes shoot them with a crossbow in the name of saving the world from pollution. You get the energy to use said crossbow (and other gadgets) by hitting enemies with your wrench. There's also consumable items, but they're a bit awkward to use in battle generally. They fall out of your pockets if you get die, though, so there's not much reason to hold onto them. The controls are a bit stiff, but not too bad. The auto-aim is a bit wonky. Despite these minor issues, It's enjoyable enough.
The game loop is generally supposed to involve you collecting a bunch of sparklite and then using it to upgrade yourself and the floating village that serves as your home base before going back out into the world. Each time you die, there's a "fracture" and the world rearranges itself. You know, the standard roguelite stuff. Honestly, the roguelite elements didn't feel that necessary to the game's design. It just serves to make the progression a bit grindy and encourage backtracking to grind out some resources if you get stuck when the enemies jump in difficulty between zones. I'd rather have just had a linear experience with powerups becoming available at the appropriate parts of the game.
Except, I didn't grind because I didn't die between beating the second boss and finishing the game. I grabbed some really good defensive upgrades early on that gave me a lot of room for error. Flat damage reduction is always such a good way to break a games balance if the devs didn't fully think it through. Enemies were tanky as hell without having much in the way of offensive upgrades, but I also had a ton of energy recharge items from not dying. I made my way through the back half by spamming my crossbow with reckless abandon and hitting up energy recharge items if I couldn't get close enough to fill up the old fashioned way. Since I never died in zones 2, 3, or 4, I was holding onto a couple dozen of most of the consumables by the final zone, which just let me power through it. I don't think I had the intended experience. I beat the game in 5 hours, and according to howlongtobeat.com 7 hours 45 minutes is the expected time for rushing the main story.
The experience of fighting the last boss was really ruined by a just terrible visual design choice. There's a portion that has you fighting enemies recolored to red on a red background while they shoot red projectiles at you. I honestly have no clue how an otherwise visually pleasing game ended up doing such a terrible thing.
I also ran into a control decision that, combined with the visual issues, had me actually yell at a video game for the first time in a very long while. You have a slight "refractory period" after dashing. You hold down a button to use your consumables, which takes a second. If you start holding the button during the "refractory period", you'll just never start using the item. Learning this via repetition while trying to heal during a stressful, fully red fight was just a bit too much for me today. I did finish the boss on my first try, largely due to the aforementioned stockpile of consumables, but it didn't feel like much of a victory.
Anyway, personal issues and final boss aside, I enjoyed my time with Sparklite. Despite being a bit short and maybe a bit easy, I think it's a charming enough for anyone looking for a fix of Link to the Past style gameplay.
The soundtrack, environments, and enemy design are all delightful. Exploration is fun and it has a nice assortment of your action adventure puzzles hiding powerups. It's a very pleasant game, for the most part.
As far as combat goes, you mainly whack mutated creatures with a three hit wrench combo and sometimes shoot them with a crossbow in the name of saving the world from pollution. You get the energy to use said crossbow (and other gadgets) by hitting enemies with your wrench. There's also consumable items, but they're a bit awkward to use in battle generally. They fall out of your pockets if you get die, though, so there's not much reason to hold onto them. The controls are a bit stiff, but not too bad. The auto-aim is a bit wonky. Despite these minor issues, It's enjoyable enough.
The game loop is generally supposed to involve you collecting a bunch of sparklite and then using it to upgrade yourself and the floating village that serves as your home base before going back out into the world. Each time you die, there's a "fracture" and the world rearranges itself. You know, the standard roguelite stuff. Honestly, the roguelite elements didn't feel that necessary to the game's design. It just serves to make the progression a bit grindy and encourage backtracking to grind out some resources if you get stuck when the enemies jump in difficulty between zones. I'd rather have just had a linear experience with powerups becoming available at the appropriate parts of the game.
Except, I didn't grind because I didn't die between beating the second boss and finishing the game. I grabbed some really good defensive upgrades early on that gave me a lot of room for error. Flat damage reduction is always such a good way to break a games balance if the devs didn't fully think it through. Enemies were tanky as hell without having much in the way of offensive upgrades, but I also had a ton of energy recharge items from not dying. I made my way through the back half by spamming my crossbow with reckless abandon and hitting up energy recharge items if I couldn't get close enough to fill up the old fashioned way. Since I never died in zones 2, 3, or 4, I was holding onto a couple dozen of most of the consumables by the final zone, which just let me power through it. I don't think I had the intended experience. I beat the game in 5 hours, and according to howlongtobeat.com 7 hours 45 minutes is the expected time for rushing the main story.
The experience of fighting the last boss was really ruined by a just terrible visual design choice. There's a portion that has you fighting enemies recolored to red on a red background while they shoot red projectiles at you. I honestly have no clue how an otherwise visually pleasing game ended up doing such a terrible thing.
I also ran into a control decision that, combined with the visual issues, had me actually yell at a video game for the first time in a very long while. You have a slight "refractory period" after dashing. You hold down a button to use your consumables, which takes a second. If you start holding the button during the "refractory period", you'll just never start using the item. Learning this via repetition while trying to heal during a stressful, fully red fight was just a bit too much for me today. I did finish the boss on my first try, largely due to the aforementioned stockpile of consumables, but it didn't feel like much of a victory.
Anyway, personal issues and final boss aside, I enjoyed my time with Sparklite. Despite being a bit short and maybe a bit easy, I think it's a charming enough for anyone looking for a fix of Link to the Past style gameplay.