Spark the Electric Jester 3

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 1

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

Spark the Electric Jester is a series of 3D Platformers that have been releasing on PC since 2017, with the third installment in the series releasing in 2022 on PC and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2024. And I think it would be putting it mildly to say that this game is inspired by the 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games – it is blatantly copying Sonic in everything from the way it plays and moves to the way it looks, even down to the way “act” titles slide onto the screen.

The game’s levels consist mostly of corridor-like obstacle courses to be rushed through at high speeds, complete with speed gates, trampoline pads, grind rails, and enemies that can be directly targeted with a mid-air spin-dash-like move. I don’t know if this goes so far as to flirt with copyright issues, but it doesn’t feel too far from that.

Having said that, I always say there’s nothing wrong with a copycat so long as it’s a good copycat, and to its credit, Spark the Electric Jester 3 is an excellent copycat of the 3D Sonic formula, with movement and jumping feeling great, and even with added maneuverability thanks to a double-jump and mid-air dash.

What’s more, this game adds extra elements of its own that work quite well – there are challenge levels where specific goals need to be met, usually by making use of a specific move. There’s also an upgradeable move set, with players getting even more speed and maneuverability by spending in-game currency.

On the other hand, there are other added elements that don’t work quite so well here. The game includes boss battles with a button-mashy combat system that just doesn’t feel all that great. There’s also more than a little frustration caused by the need to babysit the camera.

In addition, when we turn to the presentation, the game suffers a serious lack of personality, and what little personality is here is something that was clearly taken from the Sonic franchise. The positive to this is that the game’s 3D visuals do still have Sonic’s signature colorful look to them that works quite well, and the energetic synthesized soundtrack is also very Sonic-esque. But everything about the game has the feel of a knockoff product, especially the uninspired character designs. And then on top of this, Spark the Electric Jester 3 also suffers from performance issues on Nintendo Switch, with the framerate suffering noticeably at points. There are also regular load times, not just when loading stages, but also on the game’s world map screen.

Overall, despite these issues, Spark the Electric Jester 3 is still a solid 3D Sonic-style game, even if it can’t compete with the blue hedgehog himself. But Sonic fans willing to put aside that comparison and enjoy this game for what it is will find a superb 3D Platformer that has many of the same qualities they love from Sega’s mascot franchise.

tl;dr – Spark the Electric Jester 3 is a 3D Platformer that’s blatantly copying the formula of 3D games in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, but it largely does a good job of it, even if the game absolutely feels like an unoriginal knockoff and a few of its original ideas fall flat. It also suffers from performance issues on Nintendo Switch. Yet despite all of this, the core is a very good 3D Platformer, and even if it doesn’t beat Sonic at his own game, Sonic fans are still going to thoroughly enjoy this.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2024 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: The “Wow, this game was way better than I expected!” Award

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Spark the Electric Jester is such a prime candidate for a Nintendo Switch 2 Difference article that I’m kinda’ surprised I haven’t gotten to it until now, but better late than never. And when it comes to games that really needed the power of the Nintendo Switch 2, a game I would describe as “a mostly solid 3D Sonic-alike that suffers from massive slowdown issues on Nintendo Switch” definitely seems high on the list. Now, as of this writing, the game doesn’t have any sort of patch or upgrade on Nintendo Switch 2, but it was my hope that even the vanilla Nintendo Switch game would see a bump on better hardware.

And… yeah. That’s pretty much exactly what happened here. Now, let me keep expectations in check here – this game seems to have a 30FPS framerate cap, and without a patch or upgrade the Nintendo Switch 2 can’t do anything about that. However, on Nintendo Switch 2 this game runs at a stable 30FPS, and for a game that sometimes seemed to drop to under half that amount on the original Nintendo Switch, that’s a massive improvement.

Other than that, there’s one other improvement here, and that’s the loading times, though those were already pretty speedy on Nintendo Switch – on that platform, it took me 13 seconds to load to the main menu, 5 seconds to load a game save, and 9 seconds to load up a level. On Nintendo Switch 2, those times are reduced to 7 seconds, 5 seconds, and 5 seconds.

But let’s be real, the big story here is the framerates, and stabilizing those framerates at 30FPS makes this game immensely more playable on Nintendo Switch 2, enough to bump this up in my estimation. And hey, if anyone from Feperd Games or FreakZone games sees this and decides to put out a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition or patch that brings the game up to 60FPS and improves the resolution, I may very well bump it up yet again in my estimation – a game like this could absolutely use it! However, even with just what’s here, this is a huge improvement over the way the game plays on Nintendo Switch.

tl;dr – Spark the Electric Jester 3 is a 3D Platformer that’s blatantly copying the formula of 3D games in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, but it largely does a good job of it, even if the game absolutely feels like an unoriginal knockoff and a few of its original ideas fall flat. thankfully, the poor performance the game has on Nintendo Switch is alleviated on Nintendo Switch 2, and overall the core of this game is a very good 3D Platformer. And even if it doesn’t beat Sonic at his own game, Sonic fans are still going to thoroughly enjoy this.

Grade: B+

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