Digital Foundry examines Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope

The team at Digital Foundry has been busy as of late examining the new gaming releases and their latest project sees them taking at look at Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, which launches today. The team do not seem quite as impressed as they were with the original Mario + Rabbids game, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, which launched in 2017, from a technical perspective at least. The game runs at 900p when played in docked and drops down to sub-HD 600p for handheld mode. The frame rate is supposed to be 30fps but in certain scenarios Digital Foundry says that the game “chugs.” Hopefully these issue can be fixed with a software update. While the overall gameplay in Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope has been wholly improved upon, Digital Foundry isn’t so sure about the technical issues which are prevalent in the sequel. The team concludes by pointing out that “Sparks of Hope occupies just 5.8GB as a digital download which is probably a cut too far given its size and scope – a couple of extra gigabytes could have largely eliminated these occasional problems.” Here’s some excerpts from their article:

“In terms of the technical basics, there’s not much movement from the first game: you’re getting a 900p docked presentation, dropping down to 600p in portable mode. In both cases, there’s no image reconstruction or TAA in place, with the developers sticking with what presents like a fairly basic post-process anti-aliasing solution. Despite the relatively basic techniques in play, image quality is decent for the most part. The resolutions are sensible for a Switch game and the low-density art style upscales without much artifacting, though edge aliasing is a bit of an issue. But more advanced Switch software has embraced sophisticated image treatment tech to boost image quality and lower rendering load and none of that seems to be active here. 

And that’s really too bad, because Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope could definitely use some extra performance. The game targets 30fps and does manage to hit that target most of the time, without frame-pacing issues. There’s no motion blur or anything to make it feel smoother but in general play the game is usually a pretty solid 30fps. However, there are plenty of scenarios where frame-rates can momentarily suffer. Navigating the various worlds can chug at times, causing dips to the mid-20s, even with little of consequence happening on-screen. Cutscenes are pretty messy, often hanging in the 20s for long period, and sometimes suffering from frame-time spikes. Kingdom Battle could drop frames in similar scenarios also, though it was typically much better behaved.”

“On the other hand, I loved the way Kingdom Battle looked. In 2017 it was perhaps the best-looking game available on Switch, with stunning environments and beautiful art. I was hoping for a reprise of the same style, expanded with new technology. Instead, Sparks of Hope takes a left turn for a different graphical look that makes significant compromises on environmental density. The new game still looks reasonable, but I wish that the style of the original title had been more closely matched here. Ultimately though, Sparks of Hope is a bigger, broader, and better adventure than the original game. It’s not the same kind of system-exclusive technical stunner, but its gameplay and design are much improved.”

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