24th August 2020, 9:38 PM
I had a much longer response written but unfortunately I defocused the text box, hit backspace and it was all sent into the ether. Oops!
PR3 was soured by three things: its movement, its artstyle, and the terrible negligence of its publisher, Sparkworkz. Others will tell you more about those flaws better than I could. However, I do think beneath the grime atop of it, there's a genuine attempt at improving the series' formula.
Overall, its greatest success was the level editor. Not only do you get excellent additions like custom layers, but the block editor was an absolutely game-changing addition; however it could be something of a double-edged sword. Consider that whenever you enter a level with custom blocks, you're trusting the author to meaningfully convey the meaning of each block when you take a cursory glance at them, which can lead to situations of trial and error. If you're curious on just what it can do, I recreated the first level of the NES game Kid Icarus with it. Awesome stuff.
Gameplay-wise it does have several merits. I vastly prefer the single-player time trial oriented campaign over the several hand-picked sets of levels that PR2 has. Time trials are something I've longed for PR2 to have: rewards for not just completing a level, but for mastering it! The reward of body parts from acquiring gold medals is simply excellent, and challenging friends' times with their ghosts was a great time too.
I do admire the selection of hats it introduces. The hats awarded from the campaign like the Miner Hat or the Aviator Hat feel like stuff that would fit right in with PR2's roster of headwear. Stuff like the Shark Hat, the Nurse Hat, among others are also excellent additions (that should be backported, honestly! Maybe I'll make that a project of mine).
So...yeah. Not too much else to say. Its a game with amazing amounts of potential squandered by a few gameplay quirks and the incompetence of Sparkworkz who left the game in limbo.
To quote their CEO: "[Jiggmin] definitely did something right with Platform Racing 1 and 2, and we wanted him to see his entire vision through with Platform Racing 3." They saw it through, certainly. However, they didn't see it much afterward unfortunately.
PR3 was soured by three things: its movement, its artstyle, and the terrible negligence of its publisher, Sparkworkz. Others will tell you more about those flaws better than I could. However, I do think beneath the grime atop of it, there's a genuine attempt at improving the series' formula.
Overall, its greatest success was the level editor. Not only do you get excellent additions like custom layers, but the block editor was an absolutely game-changing addition; however it could be something of a double-edged sword. Consider that whenever you enter a level with custom blocks, you're trusting the author to meaningfully convey the meaning of each block when you take a cursory glance at them, which can lead to situations of trial and error. If you're curious on just what it can do, I recreated the first level of the NES game Kid Icarus with it. Awesome stuff.
Gameplay-wise it does have several merits. I vastly prefer the single-player time trial oriented campaign over the several hand-picked sets of levels that PR2 has. Time trials are something I've longed for PR2 to have: rewards for not just completing a level, but for mastering it! The reward of body parts from acquiring gold medals is simply excellent, and challenging friends' times with their ghosts was a great time too.
I do admire the selection of hats it introduces. The hats awarded from the campaign like the Miner Hat or the Aviator Hat feel like stuff that would fit right in with PR2's roster of headwear. Stuff like the Shark Hat, the Nurse Hat, among others are also excellent additions (that should be backported, honestly! Maybe I'll make that a project of mine).
So...yeah. Not too much else to say. Its a game with amazing amounts of potential squandered by a few gameplay quirks and the incompetence of Sparkworkz who left the game in limbo.
To quote their CEO: "[Jiggmin] definitely did something right with Platform Racing 1 and 2, and we wanted him to see his entire vision through with Platform Racing 3." They saw it through, certainly. However, they didn't see it much afterward unfortunately.
![[Image: aGf8Xvh.png]](https://i.imgur.com/aGf8Xvh.png)
