I'll give you that the story had a case of mood swings. Between being upbeat, and being dark. I'll also give you that some cutscenes in the early part of the game were long, hopefully there is an update that will aim to axe some lines and even shorten an entire scene to aid in shortening the story.

However, the story, despite it's shortcomings, was quite good, with the dialogue being pretty natural, especially when the main cast is made up of children, and it does convey another story...the story of obsession.

I'll also give you that the Sonic 3 style story-telling is quite innovative. If only that game got an Android release!!

What exactly gives some random indie nobodies the right to claim to be making the "spiritual successor" to a successful old game?

Do they have any of the original team on-board? The original designer? The original programmer? No? Then STFU.

I can definitely agree there! Sonic 3 & Knuckles is one of my all time favorite games! It'd be great if it received the same kind of update that Sonic CD had not so long ago. Christian Whitehead really knows how to improve upon the source material without betraying the original experience.

I consider 75 minutes to be longer than what I would be considered reasonable for a sitting, so if a speedrun takes 75 minutes, the game can't realistically be beaten in one reasonable sitting.

To me though, that's nothing. My vacation days are composed of several of these and more. What do you consider reasonable though?

And that's especially since there's another fan-made indie game that's also claimed to be a "spiritual successor", that by most accounts was pretty good (issue with the lack of an "Act" structure notwithstanding).

I would argue that a game could still be a spiritual successor without having to be directly involved with the previous game. Many say that is a spiritual successor to [url=https://www.gog.com/game/quake_the_offering]Quake 1, but they were made by completely different developers.

30 to 45 minutes.

I believe it's actually recommended to take a break every hour if you are going to play for an extended period of time.

You can say "Hey this game is a lot like Quake, it takes inspiration from it", claiming to be the "spiritual successor" is something completely different, it's essentially saying that this game is the unofficial sequel to the original.

I'm sure the actual developers of Sonic, in Japan or wherever they are, would be none too happy about some people trying to cash in on something they had nothing to do with.

The pure arrogance of some indie devs, the balls they have to claim that they are even close to being on the same level as ultra-successful accomplished developers. Trying to piggyback on the hard work and creativity of others.

Personally, I disagree about this being a bad thing. Taking ideas that have been used in the past and polishing them can lead to some good games. Furthermore, sometimes you can get something interesting by combining aspects of 2 different genres; see Undertale for an example.

There are actually some games out there that I would actually like to see spiritual successors for. For example, Wizardry 4, which is a rather unusual take on the RPG concept; you are an evil mage who summons creatures to fight do-gooders. (That is an extremely simplistic description of the game.) Or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which is an interesting game where you play as one character, but when you die, you play as another, and if the second character catches up to the first, it's game over. (That game has the unusual trait that getting the good ending requires that you die.)

But have you played the rest of the Quake series? When John Romero left id Software, the Quake series turned into another Doom. Many were unhappy with that drastic change. But Painkiller had a more gothic setting with fast gameplay--that's why many do consider it a spiritual successor.

As for Spark, I've seen the video and it does seem to capture the speed and attitude of Sonic. Freedom Planet did something similar and I felt it was a good homage as well. I hope to see Spark on GOG someday.

Ok so here's the deal. The developer doesn't claim this game is an unofficial sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog. I just used the term "Spiritual Sequel" because I thought it might help bring notice to this game. Why did I choose to use such a term? Well, in my opinion Spark the Electric Jester shares many common elements with Sonic -- including its core game play and visual flair.

The developer actually described Spark the Electric Jester in the following way:

"Spark the electric jester is an action/platformer video game heavily based on classics from the 16-bit era, such as Mega Man X, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Kirby Super Star (Kirby’s Fun Pak in the EU)."

I've played in two demos released by Spark's developer so far and I've got to admit, that it's really promising title. It's not literally "Sonic-style game"*, since main character has noticeably different, slightly "combat-oriented" style of playing. At this point it's game with medium difficulty, quite responsive control, quite good working "system of powers" and really nice details (with power of ice you can run on water, since it's freezing under your character's feet). Can't say too much about the plot, since it's currently barely presented.

For me - it's really promising title. If basic premises won't be too drastically changed (probably they won't be) and developer will deal properly with interesting levels design and eliminating bugs and glitches, it should be nice and pleasant platform game. Have hope that it will be released on GOG too.


*although in comparison to Freedom Planet, I've got the impression that inspiration with Sonic is slightly stronger