I thought it was okay. After the second zone, I found myself wanting to get to the end as soon as I could because I felt I was mindlessly playing through the levels at that point. I stopped caring about getting medals and exploration coins when I noticed many levels seemed like enemies, collectibles, and platforms were just vomited out all over the place. Combat became irritating over time. And the last level definitely overstayed it's welcome, even if it does warn you beforehand.

I played Spark 1 and have only played Sonic Adventure DX. When I think about it now, it's disappointing that the many abilities from Spark 1 didn't make a return here, with this game's combat and all.

For a game like this, I would recommend trying the demo first and waiting for a sale if you decide to get it. This didn't do it for me, but if other people liked it then I'm happy for them.

I might be new to this series, but I've played all of the games in this series at this point in time. However, after I've gathered my thoughts about the series, this game is definitely the worst in it. Spark 3, in a vacuum, is a good game. It has some exceptionally good levels, but when you reach a bad level they are *really* bad. A lot of other reviews compare this to Sonic, but there's not really a comparison that you can make for that. Despite everyone praising this as a speed platformer, around 40% of the levels in the game are fighting stages. When you reach the halfway point of the game you'll notice a lot more sections where you run into unskippable fights(and even vehicles) that just breaks the flow of the game and it becomes a detriment to it.
Despite how negatively I feel towards the game now, I still enjoyed much of it. It's just that the second half of the game completely ruins everything fun about it because of questionable design choices and how its story leaves a sour taste in your mouth if you were invested in this series since the first game. To make matters worse about Spark 3, it's also really disappointing that much of the story for this is lore-dumped on you and you have these really long, lopsided cutscenes that make it a lot harder to process what is going on. The story is even full of holes in the writing because it actively contradicts some things that were established within Spark 2.
Gameplay wise, Spark 3 is a major improvement compared to its predecessors, but its dev got way too ambitious with the game to where it affects overall enjoyment. A lot of things are really out there in its design and some mechanics in the game are only used once. There are vehicles, an upgradeable combat system where you do more damage the more you fill your combo meter, and there's even new powers that consume your energy to give specific gameplay advantages. There's so much difference between this game and the previous one to where you can even argue that Spark 3 is a hack and slash rather than a speed platformer with how much fighting you will end up doing here.
Anyways, people that say that this is a "better Sonic game than official Sonic games" only prove that they have either not played much Sonic or haven't played enough of this game.
I can't recommend it to fans of speed platformers because there's way too many areas where you have to stop and fight enemies to be able to progress, I can't recommend it to people that came expecting "Sonic but better" because this game is nothing like Sonic, and I can't even recommend it to Spark fans because it feels like it's lost its identity compared to the previous games with how experimental it gets.
DLC 2 released and, for some reason, LakeFeperd thought it was a good idea to add in an endless fighting arena to this game when no one asked for more hack and slash elements for a speed platformer.

I really loved it at the beginning, but it became a mess in the end.

The running part is good, but it feels empty, which is fine if you are in part where you have to run fast anyway.
However, when you jump straight up (i.e. after a bumper) or slow down in general, you really want more detail and not just cubes, cylinders or if you are lucky hexagons.

The cart driving or flying were an okay change of pace, could have skipped the fighting entirely and focus on this more.

But yeah, combat. The most annoying part for me. I just don't understand why it's even there. I saw a clip where you can have infinite combos DMC style, but it's not fun, mostly because there is no visuals and the VFX alone is not enough, especially if it looks atrocious.
The enemies are also not fun. Red -> block, yellow -> dash away (sometimes you get surprised by green, but happens rarely) and in between you mash the attack buttons, because the enemies have way too much health, considering they don't do much, even on the hardest difficulty that is unlocked on the first play through.

The ending level is a total train wreck. Compared to all other levels, even with the warning it just doesn't end.
On top of that, I had ugly moving textures and a completely empty city at the end. Felt like the material was world aligned, but bugs out, because you are so far away from the world origin.
Some of the visuals were trippy, but in a bad way. Some moving materials were stretched due to the geometry, some VFX was just a mesh and a moving texture. No sparks or any other second layer.
Since I hate fighting in general, there was too many enemies there, too. I started laughing thinking "of course there is another one, and another one, and another phase, and another one". It just couldn't end.

Especially with this tweet from the dev that I smiled at first, my final impression of the game will be a rather negative one.

"If you wanna know why #SparkTEJ 3 is coming early. It's because I rather release my games when they are ready instead of holding on to a finished game for the sake of making more money.

I disagree. Spark is not finished, there is still very rough corners and polish work to do. No serious game dev company is holding their games. The teams behind bigger games are polishing their games until the last day that the publisher allows. Every dev loves to polish their babies to give the player the greatest experience ever, until the publisher decides to stop the funding. In the end, it's quite the opposite. Developers want to drag out a release as long as they can.

I don't know how so many are looking past the combat. It does have a nice aesthetic and a fine sense of speed, but any extended combat is dealbreaking. Overly abundant and slow draining health bars where all you do is mash one of two buttons and sometimes parry.

zooming through levels is fun, movement is solid (just a tad bit clunky at timess) and the feeling of speed is pretty cool, sadly everything else is very meh.

Combat is very uninspired, no cool attacks, in no way it can justify how tanky some of the enemies are. Level design (unless you just speeding through them, that's how I ended up playing the game) is very uneven. Majority I'd say are decent, with nice flow, just a joy to play, but there are some unpolished ones, or unnecessarily cluttered and convoluted (especially towards the end). Also, the gimmicky ones (with vehicles) are just not fun to play. In addition, whenever I wanted to engage with a level and find some more collectibles or just try to explore it a little bit more, I just couldn't help but feel bored, and I was just unable to force myself to do anything extra.
Story is a part of the game that I simply won't speak about, cause whenever I tried to pay attention I couldn't get over how poorly, and 'I'm 13 and this is deep'-like it's written. I'd also add that it's this kind of story that very heavily leans on knowing THE LORE, and on 'plot twists' that are supposed to be those clever, MIND-BENDING reveals, but it just doesn't work at all.

There are things to like here, but I just can't recommend it as a whole. If you just want to enjoy the sonic 3D inspired zoomies I'd say it's worth it... I guess.

Didn't mind 2. This one has way more combat that slows it down, more cluttered and awkward level design, and more annoying interactions that slow you down or kill you.
And for those reasons I'm out.

Lacks the ability to rebind keys on PC?

Spark 3 attempts to capture the magic of Sonic Adventure 2 - for both good and bad. It's fun, but I can't recommend it due to the story essentially killing any excitement I may have had for a possible Spark 4. (I'll save the part about the story for the end.)

In terms of gameplay, the action is snappy and quick, though combat tends to fall apart when you're fighting mooks instead of bosses. The animations give you a better sense of speed than SA2, and whereas SA2 didn't have anything akin to the SA1 spamdash (which I personally thought was one of the best tools in the series), Spark 3 has ways to build up speed quickly such as a boost similar to Sonic Rush's. Rails are a good mix between SA2 and Unleashed's, where you grind automatically without worrying about momentum, but can do certain things to move faster. Multiple playable characters are also a pretty nice touch.

The level design is varied - some are linear, dash panel-laden straight shots to the goal like in SA2, some take a more open-ended approach like SA1 and Sonic Generations, and some are wide open spaces for you to go nuts in (though you still have to clear the mission for them before time runs out). Some levels miss the mark, but there's others that are a blast to get through.

Since I'm saving story stuff for the end, I might as well talk about the post-launch content now. Once you finish the game, you unlock a set of bonus levels - the entirety of Spark 2's campaign, except for the bosses. Some of these work pretty well in Spark 3's engine - others, not so much. One level ends with you falling down the side of a pillar - this is a major issue in Spark 3 as falling for too long can kill you. And not in the "fall damage" way, I mean "a long enough fall will just straight up make you die before you can even hit the ground." You have to land on platforms to get through it here, which wasn't how the level was intended to be played, and can be the roadblock to a perfect rank. Once you clear these bonus levels, you unlock an endless mode where you have to fight off waves of enemies before time runs out - however, I've mentioned before that combat falls flat outside of boss fights.

Hoo boy, now for the story. Let's start with a recap. In Spark 1, Spark, a Formie (an alien race living on Earth's now-terraformed moon) fought against Freom, a villain trying to lead a robot uprising, with Fark helping but eventually defecting to help Spark. In Spark 2, the scientist who created Freom, Dr. Armstrong, is kidnapped before he can help Fark figure out who he truly is - it's revealed that Armstrong created Freom to act as a bodyguard for a robot factory, as well as the factory's AI, Clarity. Clarity was made to protect life on the moon, but believes both Formies and robots need to all be assimilated into her systems to do so. Freom decides to destroy all Formies and leave the moon, to create a robot utopia on another planet, but first, he has to deal with the one person opposing his plan, wanting to stop Clarity while keeping both robots and Formies alive. This person is Freom's son, Unit-02 - a robot now known as Fark. Fark kills Freom and, with cooperation from the government and Dr. Armstrong, starts the Fark Force, a task force dedicated to eradicating Clarity once and for all.

The story begins after Spark gets fed up with the Fark Force's work interfering with his daily life, leaving him broke due to being unable to withdraw any money thanks to communications being down. He decides to take matters into his own hands, and along the way, meets Float, a character from Spark 2 who is also gunning for the Fark Force. Once Spark arrives at Fark Force HQ, the story takes a nosedive.

Spark reaches Fark, who reveals that he's currently in a simulation - this all already happened in the real world, and Clarity quickly assimilated Fark since Float was one of her agents. Her plan went off without a hitch, as she quickly started assimilating people into her systems, including Spark, who's been reliving his adventure over and over again - a reference to the player's ability to replay levels for better times or secrets. Spark is soon corrupted by Clarity's influence getting to him as he falls to despair, and Fark fights him to snap him out of it. Spark gains some control over Clarity's systems, and with it, is able to merge with Fark to create "Sfarx." The two use Spark's newfound power to fight Clarity in her own core, defeating her and giving Spark full control. Spark nearly decides to sacrifice himself to shut it down, believing it to all be his fault, but Fark convinces him otherwise. Spark agrees to keep the system up and just erase Clarity's influence, so those assimilated can remain alive while Fark searches for survivors to let them know the Clarity threat is over.

This is not my favorite ending - I feel like it tries a bit too hard to be dark and serious, and ends up being demotivating. The Sonic series often offers multiple endings, some more rewarding than others, and Freedom Planet 2 does something similar as well. However, Spark 3 has only the one ending - no amount of collectibles you find or times you beat will change that. Sonic Adventure 2 handled this much better - it's got a serious storyline with loss in the end, but the hope in it comes from the loss being a sacrifice, averting disaster. In Spark 3, the disaster still happened no matter what, but hey, there's a few people left!

That ending is why I can't say I recommend this one. It's fun to play, but gets bleak at the end.

I wish Sonic-inspired indie platformers stopped implementing combat. Just be a fast platformer, please.
This game somehow feels off compared even to Spark 2, I can't pinpoint it accurately why, but throughout my whole playtime it felt almost worse than the previous game. Whatever gameplay improvements were there were so minimal it would've worked as a DLC instead.

Fall damage in this kind of game is just plain wrong, the car stages aren't super fun, boss battles are once again either a joke or infuriating, medal requirements seem a tad high, achievements are borked (I got the one for clearing the game halfway into it somehow).

I feel like a fool for having paid almost full price for this just days before it went on sale. Maybe I'd not feel this cheaped out if I did get on sale, but I don't know, the frustration is really high.

Compared to the previous Spark games, this one is overreliant on gimmicks for its stage design. Story is just dumped in very long cutscenes of basically black screens and is not very interesting. Although combat is pretty much optional at most points of the game, this entry of the series has the lowest variety of moves for combos since there's only 3 forms to use for the whole game and 2 forms unlocked when you beat the game when previous games had like 10. All aspects of the game were watered down and the new features like the vehicles and grind rails overstayed their welcome and added nothing to the game.