Sparkle 2 is the successor game to Sparkle Unleashed and has often been called a copy of the 'Zuma' games or 'Luxor'. Sparkle 2 originally released in 2013 on PC and was in 2014 ported to the PS4 and PS3. It later on also got versions for Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and in 2020 was even ported to the PS5. Upon watching videos on Youtube of all 3 versions I couldn't spot any differences between them whatsoever, which isn't too surprising, given that it can't really be a hardware demanding game. The PS4 and PS3 versions of Sparkle 2 were also PS Plus games in September 2018, so it might be part of a lot of players Playstation libraries.
Sparkle 2 is a Puzzle Game of sorts, in which you shoot coloured balls onto other coloured balls, named orbs. If at least 3 orbs of the same colour are matched right next to each other, than they build a combination. The orbs disappear and the player gets rewarded with points. The catch of every level is that the balls are slowly moving towards one or multiple holes in the ground. The player has to prevent the orbs from getting into the holes to clear the level. Some combinations will also reward powerup orbs, that players can collect for temporary bonus abilities, like colour switches.
Sparkle 2 has a campaign mode named 'The Quest', in which players traverse a map in the search of magical keys. There are animated pictures cutscenes, which tell a very basic story. It's nice that there is something like a story campaign, but nobody is going to play this game because of the lore. During the Quest players can unlock and select from different Bonus Effects, which can make orbs move slower or reward more points. There are also two additional difficulty settings for the campaign, in case one doesn't feel challenged enough by a normal playthrough. They massively increase the gameplay speed and while I thought the gamepad controls were generally fine, they didn't feel precise enough for the highest difficulty. The game can certainly be beaten this way as well, but I didn't feel motivated enough to play through it again.
Additionally there are also two other game modes in the form of a Challenge mode and a Survival mode. In Survival mode one has to "survive" the match as long as possible, before some of the orbs drop into one of the holes. In Challenge mode you have to complete matches on all 3 difficulty levels. Otherwise, it is pretty similar to regular Quest matches.
In general Sparkle 2 is very similar to its predecessor game Sparkle Unleashed. Both games have a Quest campaign and a Survival mode, but the Challenge mode was a new addition to Sparkle 2. The biggest difference between both games however got to be the positioning of the cursor. In Sparkle Unleashed the Cursor was moving around at the bottom of the screen and could only shoot vertically. In Sparkle 2 however the Cursor has a fixed position (usually somewhere around the middle of the screen), but can now rotate its aiming in any direction. Otherwise, Sparkle 2 and Sparkle Unleashed look nearly identical. Zuma's Revenge additionally had some Boss matches, which the Sparkle games on the other end unfortunately lack.
This would have brought a bit of variation to Sparkle 2, which the game unfortunately lacks. The Quest has 91 stages, but all level variations get repeated at least once or twice. Generally the game is unfortunately too repetitive. I did enjoy the gameplay of building combinations just in time before the train of orbs arrives near a hole. Nonetheless, every stage played somewhat similar and after around 10 levels in a row, I always got too exhausted and needed to take a break of Sparkle 2. Other games may also have similar gameplay throughout their playtime, but in Sparkle 2 it can really start to feel monotonous after a while.
Result:
Sparkle 2 is a fun game for a while, but after a couple of hours you will have seen everything the game has to offer. Fans of the Zuma games should definitely consider checking it out, even though it doesn't really add much new and it is probably not going to hold anybody else's breath. Fans of this gameplay should still get what they are looking for and the additional difficulty settings might be enough replay value to justify the purchase.
6.5/10
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