Sonic Utopia

released on Oct 23, 2016

Sonic Utopia is an experiment that not only tries to expand on Sonic gameplay in an intuitive way in 3D, but also aims to capture the best of Sonic's style and tie it together in a cohesive experience. Nearly everything in this demo, from art to sound to the gameplay engine, was made from scratch.


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Sonic fangames would be a decade ahead if this game's engine became open source I'm telling you.

Y'all remember when people spoke about this one like it was the second coming of christ? It's a pretty okay tech demo, not awful or anything, it has some really cool concepts, but a tech demo is all it is, and all it'll probably ever be

A tempos eu queria jogar esse jogo e finalmente consegui (no celular)
Diferente do primeiro port/tentativa de Sonic Utopia, está versão lançada em 2023 é excelente e idêntico ao original lançado no PC
O jogo é belíssimo visualmente falando, juntamente aos gráficos mesmo o jogo tendo quase 10 anos de idade
Seria um sonho se esse jogo lançasse por completo, infelizmente apenas está disponível essa Tech Demo que já faz um ótimo trabalho

I sure do wonder what this fangames opinion on people of color are.

This Tech Demo is kinda fun.

You heard me right. Tech Demo. KINDA fun.

This is not the Second Coming of the Messiah, like half of the fandom used to make it out to be, nor are the developers hidden geniuses that SEGA themselves would bow down to, if only this game were completed. Well - that's not even mentioning the controversies surrounding said developers, but that's a tale for another day.

This game is riddled with extremely surface-level flaws. The map is just one big flat block of grass with the only unique surfaces essentially being stylised blocks placed on top of the flat land, like a level builder in a LEGO game. There's no cohesiveness to the environment, and while yes, the game does an excellent job of providing you everything you need to build up a good flow and navigate the senseless environment fairly easily, that's literally all it has to offer. It has a grand total of one, maybe two secrets, neither of-which hold much of interest, and as much as I like this game conceptually, it does not play well enough to justify its flaws.

My understanding of the goals of this game has fluctuated over time, through various interactions with different people, but I do respect it as what it ultimately is - an interpretation of a different direction through-which Sonic could have evolved out of his classic years. Still, this is just a flimsy tech demo, and from what I've heard of the minimal updates over the last six(?) years, the game is not headed back towards mind-blowing status any time soon.

I wish I could offer something of more substance, but I genuinely don't know what else to say, other than "it's okay, I guess." It's enjoyable, in the same way just about any other fan-game with the slightest hint of effort put into it could be enjoyed. It's just a shame this project is so caked in toxicity from every angle, that it'll never be anything more than that.