This review contains spoilers
I'm not sure if you guys could tell, but I'm fairly certain this game is inspired heavily by Super Mario Bros!
Ok in all honesty, this is a really good Sonic rip-off, and fittingly has a great soundtrack too. I like mascot platformers, and Spark fits the part well. The power-ups Spark can get are a lot of fun, and all look great, offering both combat and traversal options, some of which might be a bit too overpowered, especially when you consider the fact LOSING a power-up is almost impossible. Some hits do knock them out of you (and what, if anything is different about these rare hits from the other 98% where you don't lose your power I don't know), but you can just grab it again straight away. Even dying doesn't make you lose your upgrades, instead just resetting you back to whatever you had at the last checkpoint. So the name is kind of funny since after getting your first power, you may never play as Spark with electric powers ever again.
The game has some great pixel art for its stages. But I do think the stages themselves felt a bit lacking in layout. This kind of ties in to the overpowered options for traversing the stages, but a lot of the game just felt like it was on auto-pilot. Sometimes literally as a lot of stages have mechanics that just seem to exist to move you forwards in pseudo-cutscenes, and a lot of sections just seem to be long stretches of road with loops and no obstacles. A lot of the levels reminded me of Stardust Speedway from Sonic, just a mess of paths. It's a shame because the game does have some great themes for its levels, but it often feels like they're just a backdrop rather than implemented into the actual level design.
Another issue I had with level design is that they have a lot of paths, but no reason to go off the most straightforward one. Best case scenario is that you'll find a power-up in a harder to reach path, but why bother? As I said, losing power-ups is so hard that by the time you've got the 2 you want, you'll never need to look for another one again.
While the pixel art is great, there's a handful of fully animated cutscenes and they look like they were drawn in MS paint.
After beating the game you unlock an "extra story" (read: exact same game but with a different character). That character being Fark, Spark's robotic clone.
Fark plays a little differently to Spark – mostly because he can’t use the power-ups at all. Instead he has his own moveset that can’t be replaced. He also only has 4 health, which is compensated by his parry ability (something I’m pretty sure Spark doesn’t have in any of his powers).
The lack of ability changing for Fark means you can’t rely on as many overpowered traversal abilities to speed through levels. He still has a decent kit, including built-in double jump, air dash and wall running. But you’ll find yourself needing to actually platform through the levels more often instead of essentially just skipping them. This did make me appreciate the level design a little more, even if some of my complaints, such as many of them feeling like just reskinned Star Dust Speedways, still apply.
Fark’s playthrough also adds a couple more bosses to the end of existing bosses, and maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like it puts late game enemies into levels earlier.
What I liked most about Fark though is his specific meter, which can be filled by hitting enemies or getting a perfect parry, while it loses progress if you get it. If you get this meter to half way, you can fully heal and activate a brief moment of invincibility. However if you fill the bar the full way you get to become "Super Fark" (gee I wonder where that comes from). Super Fark isn't as powerful as the invincible form, but it doesn't have the drawback of being time-limited. It does however require you to keep a full bar, so if you get hit, you lose the form, but you'll only need to do one more parry, or a few hits to fill it back up. The tough part is deciding if you want to risk filling this bar at the cost of not healing (you can still heal via the health pick-ups in levels, it's mostly a decision for boss fights).
Also there was a third way to fill up this super bar that I didn't mention - the boxes that contained Spark's power-ups now contain an item that fills Fark's bar about 1/8th of the way. What this means is these paths that lead to the power-ups in Spark's story, which were largely ignorable by him, have purpose for Fark.
It's kind of crazy how much Spark focuses on a more powerful and fast playthrough that let's you play in a variety of ways but doesn't take much advantage of any specific mechanic, while Fark's playthrough is a much more focused, slow (but not too slow) playthrough that rewards good timing and makes you fully experience the levels.
Fark could really stand as his own game, so the fact he's just a bonus extra playthrough is pretty crazy. In any case, both Spark and Fark have strengths and I think you need to play both to get full appreciation of what this offers.
Ok in all honesty, this is a really good Sonic rip-off, and fittingly has a great soundtrack too. I like mascot platformers, and Spark fits the part well. The power-ups Spark can get are a lot of fun, and all look great, offering both combat and traversal options, some of which might be a bit too overpowered, especially when you consider the fact LOSING a power-up is almost impossible. Some hits do knock them out of you (and what, if anything is different about these rare hits from the other 98% where you don't lose your power I don't know), but you can just grab it again straight away. Even dying doesn't make you lose your upgrades, instead just resetting you back to whatever you had at the last checkpoint. So the name is kind of funny since after getting your first power, you may never play as Spark with electric powers ever again.
The game has some great pixel art for its stages. But I do think the stages themselves felt a bit lacking in layout. This kind of ties in to the overpowered options for traversing the stages, but a lot of the game just felt like it was on auto-pilot. Sometimes literally as a lot of stages have mechanics that just seem to exist to move you forwards in pseudo-cutscenes, and a lot of sections just seem to be long stretches of road with loops and no obstacles. A lot of the levels reminded me of Stardust Speedway from Sonic, just a mess of paths. It's a shame because the game does have some great themes for its levels, but it often feels like they're just a backdrop rather than implemented into the actual level design.
Another issue I had with level design is that they have a lot of paths, but no reason to go off the most straightforward one. Best case scenario is that you'll find a power-up in a harder to reach path, but why bother? As I said, losing power-ups is so hard that by the time you've got the 2 you want, you'll never need to look for another one again.
While the pixel art is great, there's a handful of fully animated cutscenes and they look like they were drawn in MS paint.
After beating the game you unlock an "extra story" (read: exact same game but with a different character). That character being Fark, Spark's robotic clone.
Fark plays a little differently to Spark – mostly because he can’t use the power-ups at all. Instead he has his own moveset that can’t be replaced. He also only has 4 health, which is compensated by his parry ability (something I’m pretty sure Spark doesn’t have in any of his powers).
The lack of ability changing for Fark means you can’t rely on as many overpowered traversal abilities to speed through levels. He still has a decent kit, including built-in double jump, air dash and wall running. But you’ll find yourself needing to actually platform through the levels more often instead of essentially just skipping them. This did make me appreciate the level design a little more, even if some of my complaints, such as many of them feeling like just reskinned Star Dust Speedways, still apply.
Fark’s playthrough also adds a couple more bosses to the end of existing bosses, and maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like it puts late game enemies into levels earlier.
What I liked most about Fark though is his specific meter, which can be filled by hitting enemies or getting a perfect parry, while it loses progress if you get it. If you get this meter to half way, you can fully heal and activate a brief moment of invincibility. However if you fill the bar the full way you get to become "Super Fark" (gee I wonder where that comes from). Super Fark isn't as powerful as the invincible form, but it doesn't have the drawback of being time-limited. It does however require you to keep a full bar, so if you get hit, you lose the form, but you'll only need to do one more parry, or a few hits to fill it back up. The tough part is deciding if you want to risk filling this bar at the cost of not healing (you can still heal via the health pick-ups in levels, it's mostly a decision for boss fights).
Also there was a third way to fill up this super bar that I didn't mention - the boxes that contained Spark's power-ups now contain an item that fills Fark's bar about 1/8th of the way. What this means is these paths that lead to the power-ups in Spark's story, which were largely ignorable by him, have purpose for Fark.
It's kind of crazy how much Spark focuses on a more powerful and fast playthrough that let's you play in a variety of ways but doesn't take much advantage of any specific mechanic, while Fark's playthrough is a much more focused, slow (but not too slow) playthrough that rewards good timing and makes you fully experience the levels.
Fark could really stand as his own game, so the fact he's just a bonus extra playthrough is pretty crazy. In any case, both Spark and Fark have strengths and I think you need to play both to get full appreciation of what this offers.