also i am actually replaying the spark the electric jester series like i said i would! i think it might be fun to try to sell people on these games while i'm at it, so i'm gonna write a bit about the first game!
so, spark is not high art. i am not about to reveal a narrative analysis or a revolutionary game design concept that is likely to completely change your mind about whether you're interested in it or not. it's junk food. but it's really good junk food and it's got a couple of flavors that might not be readily apparent!
what you probably know just from looking at it is that this is a 2d sonic type game, with kirby elements and a bunch of powers you can equip to fight enemies with. if that + your dearest applecinnabun's recommendation is not enough to sway you though, here are some things you wouldn't know just by looking at it:
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tonally, this is a dragon ball z game. sure, it clearly takes mostly from sonic and kirby game design-wise, and sonic is definitely an influence in the character design and a little bit of the writing, but mostly? this is a silly dbz fan-project and it fucking rips. the final boss' name is freon. FREON. like the FREEZER STUFF
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it's soundtracked by a handful of some of the best musicians in the sonic fan community. even if you wouldn't label yourself a "sonic fan" you gotta admit that's a group of people with some extremely cool musicians
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if you've played sonic and other similar games, you probably rightfully think "why is there so much combat in this sonic-like. i will either just ignore the enemies or slow down and fight them and not have any fun doing it." spark actually has a couple decent gameplay answers to this.
for one, you got the drive-by smack. a lot of the powers are great at destroying enemies in one hit as you pass by them, without having to slow down, which is fun. for two, you got i-frames on your dash. just dash through stuff you don't want to fight! it's great! because most of the kirby powers can only dash on the ground, this leads to you making decisions like run up the quarter pipe -> see that there's an enemy on the landing to the right -> instead of just holding right and praying you get over it, you land to the left of it on purpose -> dash through, which is a gameplay sequence that feels way more like how you imagine sonic hedgeh should fight than anything in a mainline 2d sonic game.
it's good! consider playing it!
