Cool Sonic-Like Games You Should Check Out 

Fun fact, I beta tested every Spark game and I DO appear in the credits of each one. I been trying to help Lake (the dev) get more exposure by handling review codes and stuff since I do think more Sonic fans should try this out. So yeah, thank you for talking about these.

Spark 3 is a must-play, especially with the new DLC that adds back all the stages from Spark 2. Great fun.

YES! Spread the Freedom Planet love! The game series and it's developers (Galaxy Trails) deserves it.

It's frustrating that unlike most indies inspired by retro games, Sonic-inspired games often get dismissed or mocked because it's "cool" to hate on Sonic. IMO, Freedom Planet deserves as much praise as Shovel Knight for not just imitating 16-bit platformers, but improving upon them. It doesn't settle for recycling gimmicks and mechanics, it reconsiders what makes sense for the game and modernizes them without losing any of the appeal. It's a true spiritual successor. Another upcoming game inspired by both Sonic and Megaman that I'm excited for is Starbuster. Every gif I see just makes me drool.

idk why I never considered the term "Sonic-like" to describe this genre, but yeah, this is kinda a genre itself

One thing all these Sonic-style fan games really nail is that feeling of FREEDOM that most Sonic games kinda struggle with. In most Sonic games Sonic feels clunky in one way or another, like his acceleration or air movement, turning speed, etc. but all of these fan games feel/look so _smooth!_

I bought Frontiers and Spark 3 the same day. Both are eerily similar to eachother, but I think Spark's gameplay is way better. Especially compared to the cyberspace levels, good God.

Spark the Electric Jester 3 is a masterclass in 3-D platforming and level design, with a perfect mix of momentum based speed.

I've played both Spark 2 and 3, I jumped ahead in the video to see your thoughts on 3. Spark 3 is absolutely incredible, it's honestly better than any official 3D Sonic I've played, but I need to clarify something. The steering changes faster in Spark 2, than Spark 3. It controls better in 3, but the thing is the paths in later stages in 2 means you can just go flying off paths you used to be able to easily stay on via running full speed. Only pushing the stick about 70% lets you turn fast enough to stay on the paths. I think what's happening is instead of having a separate "rolling" state, Lake has you enter Spark's equivalent to rolling once you hit a certain speed, and hold the stick at 100%. It's really not a big deal, but you do need to know about it for the throwback levels in 3. As Fark's turning in 2 is _much_ faster and more twitchy than Spark's in 3. Also the fall damage makes certain levels more interesting, since Fark's lack of it was accounted for. If you liked Spark 2 and 3, I heavily recommend Sonic Robo Blast 2. I can't remember if you did a video on that one yet or not, but it's worth taking a look at, and adjusting to the learning curve with the physics.

Panic Porcupine is obviously mini Sonic from Sonic CD Metallic Madness applied in a full game. Very cool, never heard of it.

Hella underrated channel covering *very* underrated games. One thing I love about this odd little "sub-subgenre" is that we have a sort of spiritual successor to each era of Sonic. Freedom Planet pays heavy homage to the classic games (even Knux Chaotix), and Spark 2 and 3 play like the Adventure duology. There is not yet a dedicated Boost Era successor, but...let's just say I myself as a developer, am working on rectifying that. Personally I think Spark 3 deserves SO much more attention and praise. And the production values on Freedom Planet are utterly out of this world, pun not intended.

Spark and Freedom Planet are great series, and Fancy Pants is a classic so for sure check those out. Gotta try a lot of the other ones on here still, some look really cool. It’s really cool to see more Speed Platformers coming out. I’ve always liked this style of platforming compared to a lot of other takes personally so in the past it’s been pretty disappointing that it was pretty much just Sonic, at least until like the mid-2010s. Glad that’s changing.

Toree is a good one as well who's also and unlockable character in lunistice. Indie gaming is the saving grace of the industry imo.

Thank you so much for this video. I’ve been wanting to find more Sonic-like games, but everywhere I’d look, I’d only hear about Freedom Planet & Spark. Which I’ve played. I’m likely going to end up buying every game in this video, thank you

it's awesome to see a video like this mentioning lesser-discussed games like defunct and cloudbuilt, plus some i didn't even know of myself! if i remember any other sonic-like games i've played or seen i'll share them as well :)

You HAVE to play Spark 3, it plays sooo good that I didn't want to stop, it has really big levels with multiple paths and actual good combat with things like combos or unlockable moves. Also I didn't expect Fancy Pants in this video, cool to see someone talking about its momentum mechanics, they're never mentioned.

FINALLY SOMEONE IS TALKING ABOUT CLOUD BUILT IN 2022

I myself am working on a Sonic fangame where it's basically Sonic crossed with Touhou, but instead of bombs, you have the Sonic characters' signature moves (Sonic's Double Spin attack, Tails's Tail swipe tgat turns bullets into rings, and Knuckles has a 3-punch combo that reflects projectiles and finishes with a Hadouken) This was actually inspired by a video convincing people to play Sonic 3 for score

Been looking for the name of spark 3 forever (randomly saw a speedrun vid and thought I needed to get it). This whole list of sonic like games is amazing and the vid itself well done.

Definitly saw some games for my wishlist here. Thanks amigo 😉

Cloudbuilt looked really cool from what you showed so I picked it up during the steam winter sale, and I gotta say thanks for the reccomendation. Absolutely incredible game.

i quite literally just bought sparks and freedom planet the moment you uploaded this lmao. love all your vids 👍

Nice recommendations! I've already played the majority of these games and i agree they feel quite Sonic like! I would also like to add to the list the Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends games as well. They feel pretty fast, you can run on walls and there's even momentum there as well. Also you even encounter some robot enemies sometimes as well. I would also recomend the Klonoa series if you like Sonic's asthetics. The 2nd game even has some snowboarding sequences as well. It doesn't have similar level design and physics to Sonic but it's still a good platformer.

I once saw a random recommended video of cloud build like 3 months ago and I was looking for it the whole day I thought it was a fever dream thank you so much for including it in this list it looks amazing

This was a really fun video. Kinda hoping you're able to make a series out of this, assuming there's more "sonic likes" out there. There's gotta be at least a few for one more video. Kinda like Iron Pinapple's "games like Dark Soul's" series.

All throughout this video my mind kept wondering if you'd be into obscure enough games to bring up Cloudbuilt, was a little disappointed when I got to the outro and was about to leave a recommendation in the comments when I just hear the name get dropped at the end, I'm so glad to hear it's managed to stick in atleast someone else's mind like it did for me, such a criminally underrated game.

wow, perfect timing. i was looking at both _freedom planet_ and _spark_ with the steam sale going on, bought _spark 2_ and _3_ same day as _frontiers._ may have to grab _freedom planet_ before the sale's over but the real reason i'm commenting is frigging _cloud built._ this looks wild, thank you for bringing this to my attention

Brock Crocodile is a game I saw on Twitter back when it was first conceptualized. It looked cool but I never heard any updates on it so I completely forgot about it. I do however love Freedom Planet and Spark.

Thanks for sharing these!

found spark 3 recently, picked it up and I can't stop coming back to it

Thank you for making this. I'm not a RU-vidr, but if I was, I would be screaming about the sonic-like from the rooftops. The only time people even bring up these games is to dunk on Sonic Team and if Sonic Team no longer can deliver on what makes Sonic so fun and distinctive to play, than surely SOMEONE has to.

One of the things I appreciate about the 3D spark games is that unlike 3D Sonic, the camera doesn't pull back and just make loops a spectacle. The camera stays behind him the entire time and it's kinda cool to experience a loop that way. That's something I wanted from 3D Sonic games that they've never done.

Man, have you heard of David Get Keen? It controls a little bit like Sonic Adventure 2, except your movement options are completely broken and allow you to effectively fly across the stages. The stages themselves have a ton of variety to them, with varying objectives and challenges, like getting all coffee beans in an open environment (kinda like the treasure hunting stages in SA2), or doing cool tricks in a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater kind of arena. There are linear stages as well if that's your preference. I really recommend you check this game out. The difficulty is very easy and accessible, but once you decide to S rank any of the stages, you suddenly have one of the most brutal games to be ever created. And I don't think it's in an unfair way!

Had no idea the GT devs were making an original game that rocks

SONIC GT REVIEW!! PLEEEEEEAAASE!! That is my FAVOURITE Sonic fan game, and everything you talk about in the Sonic series about the mechanics and physics and level design is all there! I want SO BADLY for you to cover it. There's not a lot of good reviews on it that go in extreme depth. BTW, I already had my eye on Spark 3, but now from this video, I'm sold. I'm definitely getting this game. It looks too fun, and everything I've wanted in a 3d sonic game...besides GT. And I'm even glad you mentioned Project Rascal, cause I was already gonna get that too

Great video, thanks for not using these games as a club to bash Sonic Team with. Way too many people muddy up online discourse doing that stuff and I appreciate your positivity

Very nice video. Contains a lot of promising games.

Solar Ash looks like a really fun time too, I plan on checking it out when it releases on Steam soon. As for Spark 3, it's by far my favorite but I'm more willing to try Freedom Planet now

One you kinda missed is Toree 1 and 2 . It's very cheap and doesn't last long but it's definitely cool and very much inspired by the 3d sonic games.

Hell yeah man pointed out fancy pants I played the old flash games and the latest game and running down feels so exhilarating

I'm not one to comment on videos. But I just want to say that I love the story of the Freedom Planet games. It's one of those stories that doesn't seem like much, but when you start digging into the world and its characters, you discover that there's much more to it than meets the eye. I would love for you to make a video talking about the history of these games, similar to the ones you do with the Sonic stories.

Great definitely want to play more Sonic-like games!

That's insane, I was playing Spark 1 for the first time yesterday.

Toree 3D and it’s sequel are very Sonic inspired little indie games as well. Especially the second one which has a lot of Sonic Adventure 2 references. Overall they are fun little games with a horror twist.

In terms of Sonic-inspired games, I recommend Jazz Jackrabbit 2. I Would actually love to see you cover the series.

There's this one game I've been following since 2017 called open surge, it originally started out as a sonic fan game but had the characters swapped out for original ones. The idea seems sort of like it's the "Super Tux" of sonic games in a FOSS culture. It seems to have been updated in a lot of ways since the original 2.0 update and I'm really happy to see the developer is still active.

Really cool video! One thing I'd argue is that Fancy Pants Adventure is more like Rayman, especially the Origins/Legends duology.

Project rescale looks amazing can’t wait for it

Glad to see Lunistice in here. 100%’d that a little bit ago, and man, what a fantastic game it was.

YES! Spark 3 is beautiful. Go play it. Lunistice is sooo good. It requires some precision platforming though so be aware. Fantastic video Pariah. Thanks for uploading Edit: I came back 2 days later to add this: there is Sonic look-alikes on the same first Sonic console, Genesis! It's called Socket. Check it out!

Thank you for this video!

good stuff, wouldn't mind seeing more

Happy to see Dekay's game appear in a video ☺

Crumble is an amazing momentum based sonic-like game, it's everything I wished for the werehog gameplay

Yesssss freedom planet and spark are both amazing games!

I did play Super Fancy Pants Adventure (or something like it) back when I was playing a bunch of Flash Games. I never thought to ever consider it to be a Sonic-Like game until I saw this video. Also, thanks for mentioning all the Sonic-Like games like Freedom Planet and Spark the Electric Jester. Games like these deserve more attention. All things start with the idea, then you need the direction, talent, resources, and time. Sonic games usually struggle with the lack of direction, time, and probably talent. And I said probably talent cause I am not sure whether Sonic's shortcoming has to do with the lack of talent or it was the result of lack of time and mismanagement from SEGA. Now I can't help but feel that Sonic is kinda lacking a sense of direction which can be a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that every Sonic entry can be unique. The bad thing is that they probably don't really have a clear idea of what Sonic games should be. Also, it can divide the fan base which is not a good thing. Now in Sonic Frontiers, it came to my attention that Sonic kinda has the health pool (sort of) and actual combat mechanic. Either this is a coincidence or perhaps Sonic Team is actually taking notes from Freedom Planet and Spark the Electric Jester. Just my thought. Now I will admit that Sonic Frontiers isn't the first Sonic Game with combat mechanics and health. The first one was Sonic Unleashed. Lastly, I will mention a certain game called Ratched and Clank Rift Apart. And while this isn't a Sonic-Like game (not by a long shot) it does have certain elements such as grind rails and high-speed travel thanks to rockets boots. Also, you can slingshot yourself to fly through the levels. Nothing much but I felt I should mention it anyway.

I needed this list.

Haha, i just got defunct on the last minute as it was on sale after you mentioned it, so thanks!

3:54 I never knew you could use the beam like that. That’s pretty cool.

spark spark spark spark holy fucking finally

man i havent heard of Defunct in *years*, a weird blast to the past that i wasnt ready for lol

Never heard of spark and freedom planet but they look super cool and good

Someone probably already brought it up, but Super Sammy Roll is pure time trial and momentum, with some still fairly involved platforming. You have a bounce like SA2 and, uniquely, a horizontal grapple mechanic that you can use to enter wall jumps or (more interestingly) jump out of to extend airtime and momentum.

Also, Zineth and Crumble are another really good sonic-like games to add to this list.

You might want to check out Rad Venture too. Same as Rascal it's still a bit rough around the edges but clearly the devs look like they know what they're doing. It's basically Sonic + Rayman 2 (in the speed department it's more towards Rayman though) and looks really neat :) Edit : Just to be "complete" it's a bit like Lunistice in that it's a 3D platformer with some inspirations from Sonic, not really a momentum-based platformer ;)

I feel like with Spark 2 the soundtrack was better than 3, other than that 3 is better in every way. The only downside to the second game's stages being in the third is that there aren't any boss battles in the additional content, which, save for the subpar combat, were pretty solid bosses, so it would be nice to get them in 3's more fleshed out combat system.

I've played freedpm planet, and am thinking on playing freedom planet 2. And thanks to this video, I'll consider defunct and panic porcupine, cuz they look pretty nice 😃 Yeah, I like speedrun games

dunno if anyone has said it yet but fech the ferret is a blast to play. it leans into the momentum physics 3D platformer playstyle but also has it spiced up with rythm based minigames called Aras

2 Games that picked my interest is "Freedom Planet" and "Spark the Electric Jester" I should buy and play them some other time!!

I only know about Spark because of the "Ultimate Final Boss" theme, which was used in MaGMML2. Absolute banger. :D

Please look into a game called Exo One; you don’t play as a character exactly, you control gravity’s effect on a spherical alien craft. It’s all about the speed and momentum physics as you pull the gravity trigger as the ball is rolling down one of the endless slopes and hills of vast alien landscapes and letting go of gravity’s grip at the bottom so your momentum can fling you up the next slope and into the air. You can break the sound barrier several times over and get insane altitude. I got next evolution of 3D Sonic vibes from it right away and think a simple palette and asset swap could get you very close to an amazing Sonic game.

Ok, spark 3 is a must play for me now. Not sure how I've missed these up until now. A game Sonic fans usually like, and one I'd recommend, is Ristar. It's rarely talked about, but both the Genesis and GG titles are great. The Genesis one is an all-time classic imo

Don't tell them I have my own Sonic-esque platformer planned-

Spark was such an amazing games. Sadly I don’t have a pc. I used a secondary school computer to play this once I found out about it in 2017. Miss this gem.

Another game I would add is Toree 3D. For 1 dollar you get a short but also very charming and polished speed based platform that has some clear inspirations from Sonic; it even has a sequel in Toree 2, and a free bonus game in Toree Genesis made to celebrate Sonic's 31st birthday, that has 3 levels whose themes and music are both heavily inspired by the Hedgehog games, and you can also transform into Super Toree!

14:49 You also have a roll attack, the slide and roll have ever so slightly different physics too.

One EXTRENELY underrated 2d sonic-like game is AdventNeon, i really cant understand why this game is this little well known

There's also this obscure Sonic-like game made by the Sonic co-creator/director of BWW (I'm not saying his name...), and it's called Rodea The Sky Soldier, which is kinda more like NiGHTS

Frebbventure might be worth checking out. It has Sonic-esque speed and momentum, not loop physics, but still neat movement tech. Also combat inspired by Kirby.

I think you said you planned to cover some of these games after the 'Sonic was always good series', but have you considered doing some alongside it? As you're doing the Sonic games in chronological order (I think you're up to Secret Rings/ Unleashed now?), most of these indie games came after Lost World so by the time you get to them you'd only have Forces, Mania and Frontiers to cover (unless you're planning on also doing the Boom and mobile games). Also are you planning to do the fan games after all the main Sonic games as well? I'd really like to see what you'd have to say about Robo Blast 2; that game's been in development for so long and has such a big community that you could probably make a whole video series on that game by itself. Also for other Sonic-like games in development, there's also Lightspeed Lina. RU-vid won't let me post links, but there's a bunch of interesting footage showing the game off on Twitter.

I love Freedom Planet (both games released so far), but honestly the first Spark game has been a really boring and frustrating experience to me.

From what I remember, bowlbo (oneyng's game) is supposed to be kinda sonicky I think I remember fancy pants adventure on ps3 Honestly watching you review old Sonic knockoffs like mohawk and headphone jack would be great, or Sonic romhacks Also Toree and pizza tower might deserve to be on this list too

thank you for mentioning fancy pants

I love that project

Bro Defunct looks incredible.

Don't know if it's necessarily Sonic inspired, but I think a lot of Sonic fans would also like Dustforce! It's a speedrunning focused 2D platformer with a degree of physics at play, and each level is all about getting that perfect run. The ranking system is also pretty good, and it reminded me a bit of the ranking systems from older 3D Sonic games in what it asks of the player. It's not as obtuse as SA2's could sometimes be, but it's demanding enough to feel satisfying. The music is also really nice!

19:00 Lunistice also looks like a crash bandicoot game... seems pretty cool

Just to clarify about Cloudbuilt: the enhanced version of the game, Super Cloudbuilt, has been delisted from all stores, so if you want to play without pirating you'll have to wait for a rerelease. Also because that series wasn't popular, I'm having a tough time finding out what the actual enhancements made in Super Cloudbuilt were.

Soda Powered Penguin rush from end to start shouts Pizza Tower, think it deserves a mention max since it inspires primarily Wario Land 4

Lunistice reminds me of the Gex games crossed with Sonic

I tried really hard to get into Freedom Planet, but I just couldn't. I respect it for not being a blatant clone of Sonic, but the focus on combat is unfortunate because the combat is not great.

I’m kinda biased but, Freedom Planet is one of my favorite games to play, or at least indie ones.

a lot of these games sound fun

I want to got fast as usual!!! 😊💨 Project Rascal , Freedom Planet, Spark the Electric Jester, and Defunct are the ones that I look forward to!!! 💙💙🌀

spark 3 is really great and hard, final level had me so mad at first I gave a positive review while naggin about it. then 3 days later beat it and quickly changed it to something more fair cause with a clear head it was a blast.

Another good series of games I would suggest are toree 3d and toree 2. They're also very cheap I think they're about 99 cents each.

i actually recently just bought spark 1, 2, and 3 i have yet to play them yet but they seem really fun

Some of these look really cool! Loved Super Fancy Pants Adventure & I can't wait for Project Rascal! But what's up with Spark & Freedom Planet, I played both & I didn't really like them all that much, I've tried to get back to playing them, but they just don't feel good to me despite literally every other person saying otherwise.

Could I recommend "Frebb Venture"? It's one of my favourite SAGE games with some great comedic writing and fun boss fights. Doesn't really play like Sonic but I think people will enjoy it. It has some really fun movement options and lots of things to collect and unlock. I'm a beta tester for the project and am contractually obliged but happy to shill for Frebb

17:25 Also interesting. I've been into rythm games recently.