Spark the Electric Jester 3

Spark the Electric Jester 3 is the third and potentially the last installment in the Spark the Electric Jester series. It will keep the core gameplay from its predecessor while expanding upon it with new mechanics. It also has a demo that was released June 23rd 2021.

Plot
By the end of Spark 2, Fark had defeated Freom and learned two things. 1. He’s Freom’s creation, and 2. there’s another menace to the world named “Clarity”. Clarity was an A.I. built by Dr. Armstrong whose true purpose remains completely unknown to everyone except to those who are “at the top”. Clarity was also stated to be spreading itself through out the world's internet.

Sometime later after arriving back to civilization, Fark took things into his own hands. With Dr. Armstrong and Flint’s help, he set up the organization known as the F.F. (Fark Force). The F.F. is a massive organization and with it and Fark’s leadership, it quickly took power over the whole world in order to stop the spread of Clarity. Their methods include shutting down all global communications as well as the internet and building up their military presence.

None of this was taken well with the world’s citizens, many of which (including Spark) who are dissatisfied with the consequences of the F.F.’s actions have started to doubt their true intentions, and some are convinced that the F.F. is merely a tool to consolidate power.

After learning of Fark’s true origins, Spark has “gone rebel” and is now on a quest to take down the F.F. and uncover the real truth behind Clarity.

Gameplay
Spark the Electric Jester 3 is very much an evolution of Spark the Electric Jester 2. But since Spark is returning as the protagonist, it also goes back to the original game.

The game introduces the platforming and combat difficulties. For Platforming difficulty, there are only three difficulties. Casual, Easy and Normal. In Casual, Spark is a little slower and smoother. This difficulty is recommended for people who are new to 3D platformers or fast haven't played a game of this type. In Easier, it's much different from the normal mode but it has changes to avoid frustration. For example, landing on rails is made easier but it also might be more difficult to get out of a rail. In Normal. It's the original intended difficulty. But it might feel a little too twitchy for some players. The combat difficulty on the other hand features Casual Jester, Standard Jester, Electric Jester, Hardcore Jester and Challenge Jester which function similarly to the difficulty options in Spark 2 when it comes to health (and parry in challenge modes).

Spark can utilize a wall-run as a move, which is started by holding the dash button and aiming at a wall. The run can be canceled, and will automatically be canceled after a short period of running, but can be extended by jumping to another wall.

The new addition to the series is Rail grinding. It works very much as the player might expect, the player jumps on a rail and then the player can grind it. Spark can maintain balance on a rail by himself, but what player needs to worry about is when to crouch, while holding (X on the XBOX one controller), Spark can crouch on the rails which allows to build up tons of speed while going downhill, but however, Spark will lose speed if the player is crouching uphill. The Jester Dash button also allows to jump over to nearby rails, but to change direction, Spark has to point the analog stick towards the desired rail and then press (B). The target will appear which indicates the rail the player jumps on to after pressing the button. When pointing to a direction, Spark can also jump to a rail from above and below as well.

The combat has been greatly improved from Spark 2, now Spark can send the enemies up in the air and keep them there. There's also a combo meter, with a higher combo resulting in higher base damage. To increase it, you have to use different attacks in a combo, as using the same exact attack over and over will result in a combo bar depleting over the time. The parry has been changed to be more akin to how Fark Parried in Spark 1. It is mostly geared towards the combat but there are attacks that cannot be parried like the yellow warnings and the green warnings/grabs.

The game also features fall damage.

To get extra moves, extra powers, Jester Powers, and upgrades, the player will have to check out "Shopalo's Goods". Shopalo will sell you items that can change the way the player plays the game for bits. Those range from extra moves which give Spark more combat moves, extra powers which give Spark the special moves that he can perform by spending the required amount of energy (with exception of the Radar Scout), Jester powers and upgrades (with one of those being a jester swipe which allows Spark to jester dash on a line of bits and the charged shot which returns from Spark 1, but now functions as the projectile attacks that can be charged up).

The only Jester Power up that will be present in the game is the Reaper Jester. But it seems possible that there might be something else to replace the jester powers.

Stages

 * Area 01: Terminal Village
 * Alpine Carrera
 * Doublemoon Villa
 * High-Rise Tracks
 * Cold-dry Desert
 * A.M Village
 * Boss: Saw-Man
 * Area 02: Drinyon Desert
 * Lost Riviera
 * Lost Ravine
 * Canyon Zero
 * Unknown exploration medal Side Stage
 * Unknown combat arena Side Stage
 * Unknown time limit Side Stage
 * Area 03: Protest Prison
 * District 5
 * Unknown Side Stage
 * Area 04: Protest City
 * Downtown Dissent
 * Unknown exploration medal side stage
 * Unknown Racing stage
 * Area 05: ?
 * Area 06: Stratoria Interstellar
 * Unknown car stage
 * Unknown Rocket stage
 * Unknown space stage


 * Area 07: ?

Trivia

 * Dr. Armstrong, Flint and Clarity return, being the only characters introduced in the previous game to do so.
 * The intro stage and some of the side stages reuse the gameplay of XF DRIVE.