This game was reviewed using Version 1.6.8. Your experience on other versions may vary.

A fun, well-polished action roguelite that's good for introducing someone to roguelite games. Genre veterans may probably be put off by its relative simplicity and short length (10-12 hours); but to me, that makes it a good choice for someone who wants to ease themselves into the genre, or someone put off by the higher complexity and difficulty of other roguelites--so long as you can work past the final boss's sharp difficulty spike, that is. If that sounds like the kind of experience you're looking for, consider picking it up next time it goes on sale.

Sparklite is an action roguelite about an inventor named Ada tasked with protecting the Sparklite, the life force of the planet, from a mining corporation that seeks to claim its power for themselves. Your goal is to travel across a constantly-changing landscape in order to take down the Baron and his four officers, the Titans, each residing in one of the five different areas you can explore. The world is procedurally generated, and getting knocked out by losing all your HP will send you back to your base and rearrange the tiles that make up the map. You'll drop any consumables you picked up along the way, but money and upgrades will be brought back to base with you so you can make yourself stronger for the next run. These upgrades come in the form of little chips you install into your weapon to provide various bonuses like raw stat boosts (damage, defense, HP, etc), small tweaks to the gameplay (e.g. move faster while charging a heavy attack), or even map chips that reveal chunks of the map as soon as you start a run. Every defeat will let you come back just a little bit stronger, so keep exploring, keep upgrading, and keep fighting to stop the Baron before it's too late.

As far as roguelites go, Sparklite isn't the most robust; and I'd argue that it's better suited for a more casual audience due to its relative simplicity when compared to other popular roguelites. For one, the map is rather small and there isn't a ton of tile variety between runs, so exploring--especially in the earlier areas--can start to get repetitive after a while. Combat mechanics are simple: your moveset consists of a light attack, a heavy attack, and a short-range dodge, and that's about it. You can unlock gadgets to try and mix things up, but only the first two ever felt useful to me outside of a couple puzzles that required them: a crossbow that shoots as fast as you can press the action button, and a slow-moving flying explosive that lets you break obstacles without expending consumable bombs. Aside from that, you have two utility gadgets that only get you access to a couple extra treasures each run, and two more ranged weapons with long charge times that make them feel ill-suited for most combat when compared to your faster-paced crossbow.

It's also not a very difficult game--the only times I felt like I really struggled were in the first hour and the abnormally tough final boss. The former was just inexperience with the mechanics combined with the fact that everything deals high damage starting out; but once I got a couple health/armor upgrades under my belt, things were mostly smooth sailing. I was still getting knocked out once in a while, but it wasn't nearly as often and was usually due to dumb decisions on my part more than anything. All except the first boss went down in just one try, originally by the skin of my teeth thanks to dumb luck, and later by stacking the deck in my favor with lots of upgrades and consumables. The final boss was a surprising step up in terms of difficulty, starting with a 1-on-1 battle against the Baron followed by a 5-wave gauntlet of enemies while dodging AoE attacks littering the arena. The presentation was amazing, yet I'm a little torn on the final boss fight itself: it felt like the first proper challenge of the entire playthrough, but it also felt out of place in an otherwise easy game, which could put off players that prefer that lower difficulty. It doesn't help that it also felt more like a war of attrition than a real test of my skills and knowledge of game mechanics; and I was really hoping I'd get another round with the Baron and not just a bunch of recolored enemies I'd already fought before.

Lastly, it's pretty short (for a roguelite, anyway), taking me only 10 hours to 100% complete. Underwhelming gadgets and final boss complaints aside, I did like this game in the end, in some ways because of its more simplistic nature. The mechanics are straightforward and easy to learn, the lower difficulty (aside from the final boss) made it oddly relaxing to play, it isn't overloaded with complex systems that demand I study a wiki to fully understand, and its short length was far less daunting to my amateur completionist brain than the other roguelites in my backlog that can take up to triple-digit hours to complete. All in all, Sparklite feels like a good introductory roguelite to me, something you'd give to a player who wants to dip their toes into the genre before deciding if they want to commit to more lengthy and complex titles. It's $25 price tag is arguably steep given how much you'll get out of it, but it goes on sale regularly, so consider picking it up when it does if this sounds like the kind of roguelite experience you want.

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[b][u]This game was reviewed using Version 1.6.8. Your experience on other versions may vary.[/u][/b] [h3][b][u]Short Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] A fun, well-polished action roguelite that's good for introducing someone to roguelite games. Genre veterans may probably be put off by its relative simplicity and short length (10-12 hours); but to me, that makes it a good choice for someone who wants to ease themselves into the genre, or someone put off by the higher complexity and difficulty of other roguelites--so long as you can work past the final boss's sharp difficulty spike, that is. If that sounds like the kind of experience you're looking for, consider picking it up next time it goes on sale. [h3][b][u]Long Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] [i]Sparklite[/i] is an action roguelite about an inventor named Ada tasked with protecting the Sparklite, the life force of the planet, from a mining corporation that seeks to claim its power for themselves. Your goal is to travel across a constantly-changing landscape in order to take down the Baron and his four officers, the Titans, each residing in one of the five different areas you can explore. The world is procedurally generated, and getting knocked out by losing all your HP will send you back to your base and rearrange the tiles that make up the map. You'll drop any consumables you picked up along the way, but money and upgrades will be brought back to base with you so you can make yourself stronger for the next run. These upgrades come in the form of little chips you install into your weapon to provide various bonuses like raw stat boosts (damage, defense, HP, etc), small tweaks to the gameplay (e.g. move faster while charging a heavy attack), or even map chips that reveal chunks of the map as soon as you start a run. Every defeat will let you come back just a little bit stronger, so keep exploring, keep upgrading, and keep fighting to stop the Baron before it's too late. [b]As far as roguelites go, [i]Sparklite[/i] isn't the most robust; and I'd argue that it's better suited for a more casual audience due to its relative simplicity when compared to other popular roguelites.[/b] For one, the map is rather small and there isn't a ton of tile variety between runs, so exploring--especially in the earlier areas--can start to get repetitive after a while. Combat mechanics are simple: your moveset consists of a light attack, a heavy attack, and a short-range dodge, and that's about it. You can unlock gadgets to try and mix things up, but only the first two ever felt useful to me outside of a couple puzzles that required them: a crossbow that shoots as fast as you can press the action button, and a slow-moving flying explosive that lets you break obstacles without expending consumable bombs. Aside from that, you have two utility gadgets that only get you access to a couple extra treasures each run, and two more ranged weapons with long charge times that make them feel ill-suited for most combat when compared to your faster-paced crossbow. [b]It's also not a very difficult game[/b]--the only times I felt like I really struggled were in the first hour and the abnormally tough final boss. The former was just inexperience with the mechanics combined with the fact that everything deals high damage starting out; but once I got a couple health/armor upgrades under my belt, things were mostly smooth sailing. I was still getting knocked out once in a while, but it wasn't nearly as often and was usually due to dumb decisions on my part more than anything. All except the first boss went down in just one try, originally by the skin of my teeth thanks to dumb luck, and later by stacking the deck in my favor with lots of upgrades and consumables. The final boss was a surprising step up in terms of difficulty, [spoiler]starting with a 1-on-1 battle against the Baron followed by a 5-wave gauntlet of enemies while dodging AoE attacks littering the arena[/spoiler]. The presentation was amazing, yet [b]I'm a little torn on the final boss fight itself: it felt like the first proper challenge of the entire playthrough, but it also felt out of place in an otherwise easy game, which could put off players that prefer that lower difficulty[/b]. It doesn't help that it also felt more like a war of attrition than a real test of my skills and knowledge of game mechanics; [spoiler]and I was really hoping I'd get another round with the Baron and not just a bunch of recolored enemies I'd already fought before[/spoiler]. Lastly, [b]it's pretty short (for a roguelite, anyway), taking me only 10 hours to 100% complete[/b]. Underwhelming gadgets and final boss complaints aside, I did like this game in the end, in some ways because of its more simplistic nature. The mechanics are straightforward and easy to learn, the lower difficulty (aside from the final boss) made it oddly relaxing to play, it isn't overloaded with complex systems that demand I study a wiki to fully understand, and its short length was far less daunting to my amateur completionist brain than the other roguelites in my backlog that can take up to triple-digit hours to complete. [b][u]All in all, [i]Sparklite[/i] feels like a good introductory roguelite to me, something you'd give to a player who wants to dip their toes into the genre before deciding if they want to commit to more lengthy and complex titles.[/u][/b] It's $25 price tag is arguably steep given how much you'll get out of it, but it goes on sale regularly, so consider picking it up when it does if this sounds like the kind of roguelite experience you want. [quote]For more game reviews, check out my [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42524563/]Curator page[/url]![/quote]