The Best Platformer You’ve Never Heard of — Spark the Electric Jester 3 Review
Spark the Electric Jester 3. Ever heard of it? No? Well, hop in here and come get to know one of the best platformers ever made.
Spark the Electric Jester 3 is an incredibly solid hidden gem of an indie game, and may well be one of the best platformers ever made. The stages are incredibly well-designed. The music is bumpin’. Spark is really fun to control, and the sense of speed you get zipping through environments is excellent. The combat and narrative might leave a little to be desired on occasion, but this is exactly the game I was looking to play when I first discovered it. I could not be happier and definitely recommend it.
I found out this game through a little curiosity and a Google search… “Has anyone developed an indie competitor to the Sonic Adventure games?” Of all the responses I saw, it was overwhelmingly, “Spark the Electric Jester 3”. Everywhere I looked, there was somebody praising this game, because it answered that question. So I threw it down on my wishlist. That was a year or two ago… I really should not have waited. It’s everything they say and more. It’s very impressive. Despite the high praise in those posts, I have yet to see it mentioned anywhere else. It’s a shame that it remains so unknown, so I hope with this review a few of you readers will pick it up.
Since we can’t avoid comparisons, I’ll say that the Sonic Adventure games have a certain… “Sauce” to them. You got a corny story, some speedy platforming, and some boss fights. Throw in a dash of coolness factor with good controls and you essentially have it. Spark 3 has that “Sauce” but perhaps in a different brand. Here there are excellent speed platforming levels, boss fights, and even a corny story. There are some pretty cool set pieces and Spark controls like a dream. What I would say makes this sauce unique, however, is a better, frenetic combat system, and bigger, more expansive stages to explore.
In saying that, I hope you understand that what I’m really getting at is that I can’t stress enough that Spark 3 isn’t just a cheap imitation of the games it takes inspiration from. The simple fact is that Spark the Electric Jester 3 punches well above its weight to sit alongside some of the best entries in the entire genre, while retaining its own unique identity.
This may be a bit difficult for some people to come to grips with, but I wholeheartedly back it. Some Steam reviews mention the character designs being weird, and at my first glance I’d agree with that too. But the Dreamcast era style to them is really quite charming once you get used to them. Other reviews mention some lackluster sections that break up the gameplay a bit, or are picky about enemy placements in stages, but those are the minority. Some lament the story, and it’s not amazing, but it is easy enough to follow, and has a great English translation (the creator is from Brazil). So let’s cast aside all that chaff and focus on the obvious. This is a game whose reviews put it in the Overwhelmingly Positive (95%+) range on Steam. All I, (and 95% of other Steam players) are asking is for you to keep an open mind and speed through the first few levels of the DEMO to see for yourself. It’ll click for you then, and that’ll likely lead to a decision, hopefully an eager purchase.
It’s not very often that I get to play games with speed running focused elements, and I’m not really one to obsess over “best time” and all that (except you, NEON WHITE), so something I really appreciated was the dual scoring system on most levels that would reward you based on score, and speed. There are also Explore Medals to find in stages, further coaxing you into searching every nook and cranny of an area. I found it really engaging to play through stages at least twice, once through for all the explore medals and the score objectives, the second time through I would use my knowledge to try and blast through stages as fast as possible for the speed objectives. You’d think this would get boring, but there is a lot of variety in the theming, design, and gameplay elements for each stage to make them all feel unique.
Running through stages multiple times allowed me to not only appreciate them better, but I was raking in a bunch of bits, the games’ currency, that I used on upgrades and additional powers for Spark. Some of these are combat focused, and will allow you to output more damage, others help with exploring, like a floatier jump. Lastly, there are a few that assist with your stage objectives, like a huge speed boost. You can also get some more characters to play as in this way. There’s a nice variety of these purchasable powers, and it really pays off to switch them out depending on the activity you’re doing. My one gripe is that there isn’t a simple way to access changing them around besides loading up the shop every time, which for me just took a touch of time too long. So I found myself with a mix of my favorite four, always equipped. I would have liked to interact with this system more, in a simpler way of course, but this doesn’t detract from my overall recommendation of the game.
As I close this out, a few additional thoughts have come to mind as I’ve been listening to the soundtrack. Which, on its own, is incredible, and tracks like ‘Credits’, ‘Protest City’ and some of the Boss tracks are perfect for the game and even for casual listening. I cannot stress enough that everything in this game oozes with passion, all elements punching above their weight, coming together to make a borderline perfect package of a game. I just can’t believe Spark 3 isn’t more widely known or popular.
Overall, I can’t help but recommend Spark the Electric Jester 3. It really is one of the best indie platformers out there, and is great enough to go head-to-head with other popular games in the genre. If you’re at all interested, I’m begging you to pick it up and play it. Try the demo, even. If you haven’t heard of it before this review, and have a casual interest in platformers and or games with a certain Blue Blur, I think you’ll find plenty of enjoyment in this actual hidden gem of a game.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.