You don’t have to take Mario into combat at all this time if you don’t want to, but his uncharacteristically badass dual pistols are fantastic for spreading hurt to multiple targets, and his ability to bounce off of enemies’ heads is a fun nod to his goomba-stomping roots. None of these character-specific abilities are required outside of a handful of missions where your squad is chosen for you, so you have enormous freedom to experiment and discover who you like best. Rabbid Peach, meanwhile, can heal her teammates when she lands. Luigi, for instance, is the only hero who can do two team jumps in one turn, and he can unlock an ability to earn an additional dash attack with each one. There are dash attacks, team jumps, Spark powers, and good old-fashioned weapon attacks, and every character works a little differently – especially after a few upgrades. Wringing out every bit of potential from each of your three characters every turn takes practice and an understanding of Sparks of Hope’s rules. There’s also an extremely handy line that shows you the movement range of your other characters, which is invaluable for figuring out where to position them for jumps as you switch between teammates. Wasting precious time here can be the difference between landing safely or falling off a cliff and taking damage, so you have to be careful about where you plan to land. That move now adds a clever touch of real-time movement to this turn-based game: heroes will hover for a few seconds, during which you have to steer them. You’re still confined to a radius based on each character’s movement stats, but there are plenty of ways to chain actions together to extend it – most notably the team jump, where one character can bounce off of another to cross the usually small maps in one turn. I’m sure there’s still a grid underneath the maps somewhere, but Sparks of Hope does a fantastic job of hiding it and making movement in tactical battles look and feel smooth as Mario and friends run around. Battles themselves feel different right away.

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