Rate top gamesSparklite
About
Sparklite is a roguelite brawler-adventure. Using an arsenal of gadgets, guns, and gear, you will battle foes in top-down action combat, solve puzzles and explore dangerous corners of the world. Having crash-landed your first job will be to search for missing gyrocopter parts before you take on the task of saving the Sparklite.
Everything in the world is tied together by Sparklite... it's the life force of the planet and the inhabitants have learned how to channel it for their own gain. It can be harnessed sustainably, which gives it low power that lasts forever, or it can be consumed immediately for a huge surge of power but then it is destroyed.
The "Baron" has devised a plot to mine the world’s Sparklite core. He mines Sparklite and burns it to fuel his powerful war machines. The resulting pollution is corrupting the world. Animals have turned into violent monsters and the environment is slowly rotting away. Thankfully the world has a natural defense - its Sparklite core. Periodically, the core causes a disruption which rearranges the layout of the world, setting back the Baron’s efforts. If the Baron can obtain the core, he’ll gain the power to create a new world where he has ultimate power.
Our hero, Ada, must travel to each zone of the world to shut down the Sparklite digsites, lowering the Baron’s defenses so that she can stop him before it’s too late...
System requirements for Nintendo Switch
System requirements for PC
- OS: Windows 7 or later
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Onboard Intel Processor
- Storage: 3 GB available space
- Sound Card: Onboard soundcard
System requirements for PlayStation 4
System requirements for Xbox One
System requirements for iOS
Sparklite reviews and comments
Sparklite begins with a crash to an unknown world where you discover mysterious artifacts. The story quickly becomes secondary, however. The gameplay and bosses are much more satisfying than the overplayed tale of a powerful artifact, evil, and destiny. If you die, you are brought up to an air-fortress to recoup and upgrade, and the world is shuffled around. There are a handful of rooms that make up the world below, but they immediately begin repeating on your second visit. Upgrades are only ever acquired upon returning to the fortress above, so you will have to die, occasionally on purpose, to progress. You can also force the world to refresh all its loot and enemies by sitting through a loading screen, trivializing any resource management the game has. You can get as many of the consumables as you want, even if some are questionably useful.
The upgrade system itself is fairly unique, but under-utilized. You Tetris your abilities (“patches”) onto a 3x3 board, fitting all that you can. It forces you to make sacrifices and think about what abilities you will use most. However, the patches are all squares/rectangles, and the board eventually gets to be so big it trivializes any decisions you could have made.
Upon finding and defeating one of the five bosses (which are actually pretty well designed), you’re teleported to the fortress to begin again. This brings me to what I WISH the game was.
Sparklite would have had my full backing if it leaned into its rogue-LIKE systems more. Allowing upgrades to be found and equipped on the fly, forcing all 5 bosses to be defeated for a successful run, more variety to rooms, more interesting upgrades, and better consumable economy (without the room-loading exploits).
I still recommend Sparklite at a discount. Its base price of $25 is too much, but the $6 I paid was well worth it. It isn’t a very good rogue-like, but it’s a fine bosser and adventure title to spend a rainy day on.