A charming though uneven experience that captures a lot of the feel of the original Sonic titles and creates some genuinely exciting snapshots of gameplay. It's a little too faithful to the old style for my taste, however, particularly in its level design and use of screen real estate.
I did have some preconceptions about the game going in, but much to my suprise the opening monologue from our titular hero managed an impressive feat for the indie mascot platformer and it actually made me interested in the character and setting. Not in some deep or emotional way, but in a, "Ah, okay, this was made by someone real who cares about this and is having a lot of fun."
And by extension, it made we want to dig right in even if I'm frankly not the biggest fan of 2D Sonic games and picked it up out of a sense of curiosity after one friend's journey with the series.
The art style was also a bit of an unexpected hit. I'm not one to be nostalgic for the 8/16-bit era platformers that aren't called "Super Mario World" so it didn't hit immediately, but quite a few of the zones, backdrops, and sprites are quite well done and look great in motion. I'm also particularly fond of the animated cutscenes. While Pizza Tower is the newer release, I can't help but compare because the animation style is very clearly of a "cheap digital paint tool" style, but they also feel like the person making them has used that tool for a while.
It's a bit unfortunate to me, then, that this was not the title to convince that I'll ever be a big fan of how Sonic-style Platformers play. There were a few levels in the mid to late part of the game where I felt like I was starting to get it and it made a decent enough flow. Otherwise, some of my lingering issues with the genre were present here—and they certainly weren't helped by a handful of sections that used some naturally frustrating platforming tropes without the finesse to make it work.
For one, I'll never understand how a game designed around speed and flow does everything it can to make a player trip and stumble on their first playthrough. There's a physical limit to what a human can react to, and for visuals it's around 0.2 seconds.
To put it another way: if an unexpected object crosses the screen in 1 second, it will be 1/5th of the way across the screen before your brain registers its existence. The brain then has to decide the correct response. Now throw in a small multiple sources of surprise and potential conflicting response options, and the time needed to actually engage with the controls, and a half to full second to respond becomes likely.
Of course, people who play a lot of 2D platformers can short circuit most of the decision making with their reflexes and heuristics, but even then: if your player sprite is 1/6-1/5th from their edge of the screen, and the object is moving faster than than 1-screen-width-per-second, then that decision making time starts to evaporate quickly. And so playing the game well becomes impossible without trial and error.
Which you won't do, because the punishment for blunders is not severe enough to make you run it again and try to be better. You will just keep blundering along.
I should reiterate that this is a problem I have with a lot of retro sidescrollers. So don't take that as a slight against Spark alone. If you enjoy 2D sonic, you will have little issue here. I just think these games would be objectively better if they zoomed the visible space out a bit, ran at a minimum of 90fps, and had a bit more responsive camera look-ahead (it's never cool when your sprite sits at the bottom of the screen when you have to fall).
Sparks only sin here is emulating its heroes too closely.
Oh, and the time-gated platform sections. I will never like those.
The last thing I think I feel compelled to mention is the swappable, kirby-esque powers. I thought a lot of them were pretty fun, but unfortunately some of them were too fun and holding onto those ones when you're stumbling around is difficult. There was a sword that came with an acceleration buff and a wind hat that gave a passive double jump and float and had an ability that let you rocket yourself in any of the four cardinal directions.
Those two combined made the levels fluid and fun to the point where the game felt sluggish as soon as they were gone (after a good 6 stages with them).
In any case, the game is good, but it sits comfortably in its niche and isn't looking to move out aside from dipping its toes into its next door neighbor's pool. If you find the original Sonic games fun, this will be too. It's not my favorite cup of tea, but I hear the third game of the series is like Sonic Adventure, so I will be returning for that.
I did have some preconceptions about the game going in, but much to my suprise the opening monologue from our titular hero managed an impressive feat for the indie mascot platformer and it actually made me interested in the character and setting. Not in some deep or emotional way, but in a, "Ah, okay, this was made by someone real who cares about this and is having a lot of fun."
And by extension, it made we want to dig right in even if I'm frankly not the biggest fan of 2D Sonic games and picked it up out of a sense of curiosity after one friend's journey with the series.
The art style was also a bit of an unexpected hit. I'm not one to be nostalgic for the 8/16-bit era platformers that aren't called "Super Mario World" so it didn't hit immediately, but quite a few of the zones, backdrops, and sprites are quite well done and look great in motion. I'm also particularly fond of the animated cutscenes. While Pizza Tower is the newer release, I can't help but compare because the animation style is very clearly of a "cheap digital paint tool" style, but they also feel like the person making them has used that tool for a while.
It's a bit unfortunate to me, then, that this was not the title to convince that I'll ever be a big fan of how Sonic-style Platformers play. There were a few levels in the mid to late part of the game where I felt like I was starting to get it and it made a decent enough flow. Otherwise, some of my lingering issues with the genre were present here—and they certainly weren't helped by a handful of sections that used some naturally frustrating platforming tropes without the finesse to make it work.
For one, I'll never understand how a game designed around speed and flow does everything it can to make a player trip and stumble on their first playthrough. There's a physical limit to what a human can react to, and for visuals it's around 0.2 seconds.
To put it another way: if an unexpected object crosses the screen in 1 second, it will be 1/5th of the way across the screen before your brain registers its existence. The brain then has to decide the correct response. Now throw in a small multiple sources of surprise and potential conflicting response options, and the time needed to actually engage with the controls, and a half to full second to respond becomes likely.
Of course, people who play a lot of 2D platformers can short circuit most of the decision making with their reflexes and heuristics, but even then: if your player sprite is 1/6-1/5th from their edge of the screen, and the object is moving faster than than 1-screen-width-per-second, then that decision making time starts to evaporate quickly. And so playing the game well becomes impossible without trial and error.
Which you won't do, because the punishment for blunders is not severe enough to make you run it again and try to be better. You will just keep blundering along.
I should reiterate that this is a problem I have with a lot of retro sidescrollers. So don't take that as a slight against Spark alone. If you enjoy 2D sonic, you will have little issue here. I just think these games would be objectively better if they zoomed the visible space out a bit, ran at a minimum of 90fps, and had a bit more responsive camera look-ahead (it's never cool when your sprite sits at the bottom of the screen when you have to fall).
Sparks only sin here is emulating its heroes too closely.
Oh, and the time-gated platform sections. I will never like those.
The last thing I think I feel compelled to mention is the swappable, kirby-esque powers. I thought a lot of them were pretty fun, but unfortunately some of them were too fun and holding onto those ones when you're stumbling around is difficult. There was a sword that came with an acceleration buff and a wind hat that gave a passive double jump and float and had an ability that let you rocket yourself in any of the four cardinal directions.
Those two combined made the levels fluid and fun to the point where the game felt sluggish as soon as they were gone (after a good 6 stages with them).
In any case, the game is good, but it sits comfortably in its niche and isn't looking to move out aside from dipping its toes into its next door neighbor's pool. If you find the original Sonic games fun, this will be too. It's not my favorite cup of tea, but I hear the third game of the series is like Sonic Adventure, so I will be returning for that.