Sparkle Unleashed Review

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• Developer: Grip Games
• Publisher: Grip Games
• Genre: Shooter
• Release Date: 10.04.2015
• Platforms: Xbox, Playstation, PC
• Game Supplied by: Xbox

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So another action puzzle game makes its way onto Xbox One. More and more popular family friendly games are making their way amongst the big AAA titles and although you’re not going to get the same level of quality from these bargain basement titles, there is still hours of fun to be had.

“Sparkle Unleashed is a marble shooter match-three action puzzle game, where the player must line up and shoot colorful marbles to make matches of three or more like colors. Once matched, the marbles will disappear, taking the player a step forward in clearing the level.

Features:

• Ultra-polished match-three marble shooter gameplay
• Chained Orbs, Rock Orbs and more exciting challenges
• An arsenal of 18 potent powerups to choose from
• Immersive soundtrack by award-winning composer Jonathan Geer
• 108 challenging levels, Survival mode, and two more difficulty settings”

So the scene is set a colorful aura of marbles in a bright and simple backdrop of meandering paths the marbles follow to reach the end and deny you the satisfaction of destroying all the marbles. So its a simple game…… NO!

If you have played any games like this before be it on your mobile, PC or console then you will know that for the first ten levels or so the game is just setting the scene and gently bringing you into the game dynamics.

Stages, each takes a day and can be broken up into multiple waves or marbles to eliminate. Each stage varies from a simple winding path whereby once a lower path is in your view you must clear them to shoot ones behind them, but as you unlock more stages the paths become more elaborate such as tunnels and cross overs and blind patches.

Objects such as stone also appear that can only be destroyed by your fireball or matching colours next to it, Chains lock marbles and require you to match them so the chains unlock before then matching again to destroy them.

Speeds will vary as well so use your upgrades wisely try to save them as long as you can if you’re not in difficulty or use them early to help clear the screen.

4 to get to the first brazier to receive a magic key this gradually increases to 5 and so forth.

This unlock power ups. A couple are given to you from the off: Frost that slows the paths making marbles move slower for a limited period of time and Fireball, a couple of shots that will destroy whatever they hit (including adjacent colours of the same marbles) but the unlocks offer more powerful and diverse options:

Pushes orbs backwards, Spectral butterflies charge to crush orbs, Shatters all orbs of given colour, A great blast of 9 sparks, to name but a few.

Thats the game really and you can go for hours working your way through all 108 levels

Its a combination of skill and speed that will get you through the levels, add in some great planning (which is a little limited due to varied colour marbles) and this has some technically sound gameplay.

The soundtrack, composed by Jonathan Geer is really nice, not too simple and not too obtrusive but to be honest I’ much rather have it off, (sorry Jonathan) add my own running music in and give it some extra spice!

Summary

Sparkle Unleashed is simple, bright , colourful and progressively difficult. For this type of action puzzle game they have done a fantastic job making a simple game more dynamic as the levels progress.

Never going to be your most popular game but might just get the family playing as well and force you into buying them a Xbox One.