You must play Spark Era if you’ve ever seen a Star Wars dogfight and bemoaned the fact that you can’t climb inside the cockpit and blast your enemies to pieces with a hail of laser fire.
It’s a brand-new mobile battle royale shooter that grants the wishes of Star Wars enthusiasts to the fullest. Even though it doesn’t have the licence (and doesn’t need one), the franchise spirit is evident throughout.
You are greeted by a grandiose music that sounds like it belongs in a movie the instant you start it up. A short while later, you’re involved in violent dogfights, barrel rolling to evade enemy fire, returning it, and employing strategically advantageous talents.
Well, maybe not so quickly. The tutorial for Spark Era is practically nonexistent and omits most of the fundamental concepts, which is by far our largest criticism. Fortunately, learning to play it is not too difficult.
What must you do?
At its core, Spark Era is a battle royale shooter, but it substitutes dogfights in space for on-foot combat. You may choose between the solo or team modes as you compete in a dwindling arena to be the final person remaining.
The start is when things are the most frenetic. You and your opponents race towards supply drops that are, well, dumped into arbitrary locations on the arena in order to improve your ships and weapons.
Picking up items can be a little tricky because you have to halt nearly completely and get very close to them in order to loot them, but it also offers a wonderful balance of risk and reward because you put yourself in danger while having the potential to get access to strong weaponry.
The rest of the game is spent pursuing enemies, either individually or as a squad, and trying to arm yourself at supply drops. Spark Era is really useful in this aspect because it displays yellow symbols next to drops you haven’t yet visited.
Additionally, there are brief boosts laying about that can raise your defence, attack, and healing. These are particularly pleasant since, despite their physical separation, your team seems to share any that are picked up by any member.
Last but not least, the weapons themselves stand out from one another. You have three options: stay back and snipe your foes, engage them head-on with machine or laser fire, or obliterate everyone with explosive rockets.
How Does the Spark Era Operate?
Your ship’s speed is controlled by a virtual joystick on the left, which is also next to a secondary fire button and is flanked by useful left and right barrel roll buttons. You have main fire, skill, reload, and boost on the right.
Boost is very useful since it provides you a little speed boost. This enables you to rapidly escape a sticky situation or sprint towards a pick-up to take the upper hand over your adversary.
There are several other talents available to you, such as heal, paralysis, teleport, and invincibility. Each offers a fleeting advantage that may entirely change the way you play, transforming you into a predator that paralyses adversaries or a ninja that moves rapidly in and out.
Particularly the controls are excellent, and it is obvious that a lot of thought has gone into them. You may direct all of your attention into firing by using the joystick to establish a certain speed that your spacecraft will retain until you adjust it once more.
After that, you may shoot by pressing the secondary fire button on the left after utilising the right side of the screen to aim. It functions well on mobile devices and does not require you to frequently make fiddly or claw-like moves like in games like Call of Duty Mobile.
Does Pay-to-Win Exist?
Due to the fact that Spark Era is a free-to-play competitive shooter, pay-to-win concerns are unavoidable. We’re happy to say that, based on what we’ve played thus far, you shouldn’t be concerned at all.
The only item you can buy with the one money, which you may buy or earn by playing, is new ships. These are available in Common, Epic, and Legendary variants, although other than the choice of weapon, the only distinction between them is appearance.
There isn’t much that separates legendary and common ships when we compare their stats. We did notice a tiny improvement in health and shield metrics, but nothing that really stands out as a benefit.
It’s also important to remember that in the battlefield, you have access to any weapons, even legendary variations. When you’re rushing to a supply drop in the early stages of the game, the default weaponry on ships are only crucial at that point.
Should You buy it then?
We wholeheartedly suggest Spark Era to everyone who appreciates a good dogfight or battle royale shooter since it is a tonne of fun. It has good visuals, well-tuned controls, a good amount of playstyle customization, and combat that is action-packed.
Due to the lack of a tutorial, there is a little barrier to entry, although it can be readily overcome by playing. Other than that and the rare crash or technical jitteriness, Spark Era doesn’t really have any flaws.
To quell any pay-to-win criticism, even the microtransactions are primarily aesthetic. You might claim that it’s faintly present because the pricier ships’ stats have been slightly improved, but it’s so slight as to be undetectable.
So, like we mentioned in the introduction, go and get it right away on iOS or Android if you want to fulfil your Star Wars dogfighting fantasy.
