Sonic Dream Team is one of the best 3D Sonic games ever. The controls are silky smooth (with a controller) and the level design is really engaging. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes platformers. I do have two major gripes with this game though. Most of the music is pretty forgettable and the performance on non mobile platforms. I played this on a MacBook Air and the game could get really choppy even on the lowest graphics settings. The game ran perfectly on my iPhone 13 so I believe it is an optimization issue. The problem I have with this is that there is no way to play this game comfortably with a controller without dealing with performance issues. Even with all of that said I still really liked this game. Just buy one of those controller clip-on accessories for your phone before playing.

It took thirty years, but between Ariem and Lanolin, I'm glad SEGA finally realise that sheep are the peak of the animal kingdom.

Oh, and the game centered around Ariem is pretty neat, too!

Perhaps this is a bold statement, but this game feels like an attempt at classic Snoc in 3D. It's obviously streamlined in plenty of manners, but I can't help but appreciate what they were going for anyways.

The controls in particular give me the impression. Every character has the same base moveset: running, jumping, homing attacking, and boosting. There are no complex techniques to pull off such as stomping or wall jumping. However, Snoc/Amy can light dash, Tails/Cream can fly, and Knuckles/Rogue can scale walls.

These abilities are utilised for specific paths in levels. However, there were times I was able to surpass the barriers with other characters; such as flying with Cream to reach the top of a wall the treasure hunters would have to climb. It was fun getting to experiment with the level design like that. Even if that level of experimentation wasn't possible though, being able to switch between the playable characters at any point meant I was never screwed out of exploring the levels to their fullest. ...Well, once I unlocked them all, of course.

On that note, the level design reminds me of Classic Snoc as well, albeit much simpler. There aren't many instances of completely different routes to the finish. However, exploration is heavily encouraged. The levels feel very open, with multiple path to reach the next checkpoints. The five red rings and thirty blue coins to collect also tie into the appeal. The levels still have a linear goal in mind, but how to reach the end can be drastically different.

I still have my gripes with the game, of course. I can tolerate most of the mobile gameisms like the design of the menus or the DS style cutscenes, but locking progression behind collecting orbs certainly feels arbitrary. I was willing to put up with the touch controls, but they certainly aren't ideal. Moving the camera in particular felt inadequate. I'm sure the game would be far more enjoyable with a controller.

There are a plethora of Snoc games I still prefer, but I had a lot of fun with this. A sonic game that encourages fucking around and finding out has been my dream since I got into the series, and Dream Team delivered those wishes quite well! I'd love to see more 3D Snoc games like this. Preferably more fleshed out, of course.

tl;dr the fucking phone game is better than both of the new $60 releases in this franchise

played this on an iphone 11 mirroring to TV. performance was alright (though there really needs to be an FPS cap and better performance settings). the level design and controls here feel like the perfect mix between the adventure and boost games. it's not perfect (knuckles/rouge gliding in particular feels a bit too heavy and sensitive to turning) but i had enough fun to bother going back after i beat the story to get all 101 dream orbs

ggs sonic team

Overall this was amazing for a mobile game. It’s not doing anything that I don’t like in the game that I would want out of it. Rather, I just have things I’d want in it and that’s amazing for most 3D Sonic games (unfortunately). The music is also kinda okay for a Sonic game with me wanting more from most of the tracks, but this is the composer’s first time doing music for a Sonic game so that’s cool. The levels and platforming feel like a more fun and less of a Mario Galaxy knock off version of Lost World for me and I enjoyed all of them. The bosses are pretty fun too, and honestly, it’s just nice to play as Cream in a 3D Sonic game after idk how long? Since Heroes? It really does suck this’ll probably be stuck on Apple Arcade. Sorry for all my Android Sonic fans we’ll get em next time. (Hopefully this review ages like milk). Also also, I hope Sonic Team takes notes, I would love for these kind of levels to show up in Frontiers 2 or whatever they plan to cook for mainline Sonic games.

Sonic Dream Team is honestly what I want future Sonic games to be (sort of). I’m not going to act like this is a “Sonic Adventure 3” but if there is one, I want it to be like this. Is the rating I’m giving fair for the game? Probably not, but I had a ton of fun, even if it’s a bit safe.

The controls in this game are really solid. I played with a dualsense controller and had no issues. The same general movement is shared by all characters, but is divided further into Sonic and Amy who can air dash and lightspeed dash, Tails and Cream who can fly, and Knuckles and Rouge, who can glide. I actually prefer these versions to those found in Frontiers since they don’t have animations that stop all momentum. I wish Knuckles climbed quicker, and everyone had a quicker boost, but neither of these were that big of a problem for me.

I played this on an M1 Pro Macbook, and with all the settings cranked to the max the game was nearly flawless, although I noticed a few frame drops. It is sadly evident that it’s a mobile game, with some pieces that may not be as high quality as one might wish.

Level design is actually really good. There’s a ton of different paths that lead to blue coins and red rings, and you can change your character in an instant to collect certain items. It’s still somewhat linear, but I do think they have the potential to expand levels with this same control scheme and see great results.

The game is pretty easy which I believe stems from it being a mobile game. Being Apple Arcade exclusive is stupid and I hope it gets ported someday, but that Tim Apple money is probably how this game exists in the first place, so whatever.

Most cutscenes are also just pictures with a moving element or two, which is either a budget constraint or a hardware constraint. It sucks, but Sonic stories are just whatever to me anyways.

Overall I think with a few tweaks this is what I want sonic to be. Manages to outdo a lot of Sonic Team’s work and I hope Hardlight can develop more than just infinite mobile runners.

Very surprised with how much I liked this, it feels like a very neat compromise between keeping the appeal of boost sonic with levels a lil more open-ended akin to older 3D Sonic game.
Due to the nature of the release and how it came to be there is some obvious corner cuts such as levels feeling like obvious fillers and controls being very simplified (probably likely due to touch screen controls players)
Otherwise it's a very good fondation and I can only hope that whichever big Sonic game comes out will attempt to follow up on these ideas for the stages

As far as mobile games go, this one is extremely well made and high budget!
A lot of fun to pick up and play, though I don't quite understand when people directly compare this to something like frontiers or other mainline Sonic games.
It is better than Forces, though, lol.

Anywho, there's not much to say about this one?
It's fun, just extremely by the numbers.
I do appreciate the added polish in this game in regards to animation quality, but when there's as little animation as there is in this game, I'd expect nothing less.
Fun time!

Sonic Dream Team is a really well-made mobile game and if that's all you wanted to know, I can say it succeeded on that front for most of it.

However, once I start judging this game as an overall video game experience and compare it to other Sonic games. It is still a good game, but something about the experience just doesn't quite fulfill me or leave a big impact to confidently say that it satisfied me more than Sonic Frontiers or Superstars which I know is gonna be a controversial opinion considering how many people seem to think that this is the best modern Sonic experience in a while.

I unfortunately don’t agree with that as I personally don’t see myself having the desire to eat up everything that Dream Team has to offer like how I felt with the other recent Sonic games.

This a very effective simple 3D platformer on Apple Arcade that is fun, but I wouldn't exactly sacrifice myself to play it if I didn't own an iOS device.

The perfect example of a good game let down by its hardware. The controls are great and the level design is solid, but playing this on an AppleTV consistently has frame drops (frequently dipping to single digits), abhorrent resolution and occasional crashes. I get the distinct impression that if this were on PC and Consoles, these issues would be significantly improved and we could have a genuinely great little game here. I was impressed, but I'd advise waiting for a potential escape from Apple Arcade hell before playing.

Sonic Dream Team is just about what I expected, but I'm still oddly disappointed. The game feels overly grindy, with the game requiring you to complete most of the stage missions before moving on, rather than them feeling like mostly optional missions that an allow you to complete the game faster if you wish, like other games with similar gameplay loops. Voice acting, as usual, sucks too. It's especially egregious in this game with each actor given awkward line reads and Rouge, Sonic, and Amy all continuing their thirteen year long trend of not sounding as they really should. The game was overly buggy and laggy on my iPhone 12, which seems incredibly bizarre, considering the phone isn't that old. The game softlocked on the first act of the final zone and I proceeded to uninstall the game. I plan to complete it later for a video, but, aside from that, I can never see myself playing this game ever again.

Gave this a whirl for my friends who are Sonic fans but don't have a Mac. All-in-all, I think it suffers from being basically a mobile game.
In general... It's, uh, Sonic? I don't have much of a reference considering the last time I played a 3D Sonic game was in Colors.
The stages are fine enough and don't feel linear at all, but having to replay them over and over drains my motivation, and that's the game's biggest downfall. The "beat the level while hitting all the checkpoints" and "collect the orb" are the only tolerable replays since they're so short, but then the "collect all six shards" or "beat the level in under 2 minutes) objectives don't feel different from the first run-around, which makes it boring to replay.

As for the characters, there's 3 groups (Sonic and Amy, Knuckles and Rouge, Tails and Cream).
Sonic's Group is the most fun to control because it feels like you have a lot more momentum and maneuverability.
Knuckles' Group is generally fine. I'm not a big fan of the climbing aspect but the game toys with it in interesting ways so it's not all too bad, and the gliding's good too.
Tails' Group is the one I find to be the most unwieldy. Flying lasts too little in the game and hitting the rings midair to recharge your flight meter can be a little tough to measure.

I was concerned about the lack of colorblindness settings, but I don't believe there's any mechanics that require colors, so it's fine.

what a nice surprise! sega hardlight has consistently been crushing it on the sonic mobile market but this being their first attempt at a 3D action game in the sonic universe is wildly impressive.

graphically i love how it looks! tons of color and charm, and a lot of the acts particularly in the last 2 worlds are very distinct and unique. something like this is for sure the art style i’d want the series to continue on. the animations and whatnot are also insanely well done, to be fair there’s not a ton of actual animated cutscenes but the ones that are there look great! music was nothing too special, i don’t see myself actively searching up anything i heard here but it wasn’t bad by any means just didn’t stick with me.

story was cute, love seeing cream and rouge back, especially cream as she’s a big driving force of the story. it’s not the most engaging story and i wish there were a bit more character interactions but what’s there is solid. rogue’s voice actor is pretty rough though LOL.

gameplay wise i was impressed at how well made each major act in the worlds were, i wish it got slightly more challenging but at the same time it’s got to be a bit more generous since it has to cater to touch controls. the gameplay loop wasn’t my favorite thing, i kinda wish you could just do all the main acts and the other objectives were entirely optional. they aren’t particularly fun, they aren’t insanely bad or anything it’s just usually replaying the level or finding items in a small section of the level. it’s very sonic colors esque in where the main act is really solid and then the next couple shorter acts aren’t all that interesting. i would have played them either way but requiring them to make progress is a bit lame. the bosses are way too easy but still pretty fun! the final boss though was actually a ton of fun, those are my favorite style of sonic boss fights that aren’t super sonic, is big levels where the boss is attacking you as you platform and whatnot! controls are overall really solid, not as fun as something like the adventure games or frontiers but still feel really good. i have a couple nitpicks, my biggest one being no stomp. boost sonic always feels so much better with the ability to stomp after a homing attack chain or with a big drop below you and then boosting forward immediately after. it felt a bit awkward hanging in the air as long as i did cause i’m so used to stomping down. the character specific moves are cool, and i’m really glad in the main acts you can swap to whatever character you want mid stage but i do have a few gripes. the air dash for sonic/amy is pretty sick, but sometimes it feels like you go absolutely nowhere with it and it can feel awkward when that happens. the glide knuckles/rouge have works well enough but i wish you didn’t fall so fast. the worst one though is flying with tails/cream, it’s just so slow and sluggish unfortunately. i wish you could boost midair or something to make up for that. aside from that though each character feels solid, and it’s really cool to be able to play as rouge and cream again.

a really good showing for sega hardlights first 3d action sonic game, no real major downsides or complaints just a few small very fixable things. excited to see what they continue to do with this game and if they get to make another game in this style in the future cause it shows a lot of promise.