Sonic Lost World Should Just Stay Lost From Our World....

Sonic Lost World is best described by go play the first 4 levels then boot off the game and pretend like the other 24 levels don't exist because what could've been a groundbreaking entry is muddled by 2D sections and bad level design because the foundations set aren't all that bad.

Controls (3D):
Easily the best aspect of this game it actually controls wonderfully in 3D I have next to no issues with how sonic feels to move around in 3D here the run button is whatever,jump feels fine and double jump allows you to instantly snap to another direction,etc it all feels pretty solid and the parkour mechanic especially shines in 3D.Sadly the controls in 3D is basically where everything good about this game comes to a halt because... well you'll see.

Controls (2D):
I don't know why and can't exactly put my finger on it but the way sonic controls in 2D here might just be the worst in the series the jump needs momentum to clear distance but the issue with that is sonic has really bad acceleration in this game and is slow in general in 2D paired with alot of this game making you jump off tiny floating platforms over bottomless pits especially towards the latter half of the game can make 2D sections feel like constant leaps of faith and results in a hair pulling,mind grating,2D experience.This game would've been miles better if they had not shoehorned these terrible sections in.

Graphics:
While not the best on the system it is pretty passable the visuals are very similar to generations but sadly the level environments feel about as generic and corporate as you could get like this game should've been titled "New Sonic The Hedgehog" for how uninspired the level themes are and it's a letdown to the games otherwise solid presentation.

Level Design:
IT SUCKS... straight up the 2D sections are awful and most 3D sections use this weird cylinder level design I know they wanted to be like mario galaxy but the best 3D sections of the game are when they decide to abandon this gimmic entirely and only then does it feel good and all the gimmics SUCK i mean seriously the snow in particular the snowball level is responsible for most of my deaths during this playthrough and I can't spite it enough.

Replayability:
To be honest pretty akin to generations and colors you can time attack to get better ranks maybe even beat your friends if the leaderboards are working and red rings collecting to unlock super sonic so all in all its pretty solid but I don't know why you'd revisit this title over pretty much any other entry....

Soundtrack:
I have to use the word again but... GENERIC it is probably one of the weakest sonic soundtracks aside a few (the opening acts unironically might be the strongest in this department) I really don't have much to say here but ehhh.

Voice Acting:
It's Roger and co's worst outing it feels the most exaggerated and forced in terms of line delivery out of all of the entries yet and the terrible script doesn't do much to compliment it.

Story:
TERRIBLE it feels so soulless and there is literally no impact to it what so ever nothing really changes from the first act to the end credits it basically loops back around and becomes a pointless journey with no soul in it easily the worst of the series in my opinion.

Characters:
Again TERRIBLE sonic doesn't even feel like the same character we have been watching over for the previous 25ish entries he is an asshat and eggman is so surface level its unreal and why is tails so jealous of them teaming up with eggman every character arc in this game also just gets resolved in the same cutscene and any impactful scene gets retconned all in all its just a load of nothing.And not to mention the antagonists I couldn't even tell you what half of there characters were even if I tried they are literally all 1 dimensional and have 1 trope they embody and dont even stray the slightest from even a stick figure has more personality than the "deadly six" they are terrible characters.

Overall:
If I was you and reading this review i'd say don't even bother with this game its not so bad its funny good and its not good either it is the most nothing game ever and it feels as much as of a soulless cash grab sonic game you could get the only save and grace is the sonic brand itself I really couldn't tell you to stay away from this title at all costs any more.

Trivia:
The Wii U Version of the game has some exclusive free to download DLC levels that premote the Zelda and Yoshi Wooly World series respectfully and as of right now the Nintendo EShop for Wii U is closed from my memory and if so how would you play these levels in 2023 you may ask? go to gamebanana and download a DLC restoration mod there short but sweet levels that are actually better designed than the main game.

Sonic Lost World is one of the most mixed-up bags I’ve ever seen.

Sonic moves too damn slow, that much is true. His controls can be a bit clunky and the parkour is rarely ever required. The level theming is not just uninspired, but ripped straight from the New Super Mario Bros. games. Grass world, desert world, beach world, ice world, jungle world, sky world, and lava world. Am I playing Sonic or NSMB 2? The level design is so blocky and/or narrow that it can be a pain to try and pick up speed. On top of all that, there are some aggravating gimmick levels, like that one where you have to roll around in a snowball or that particularly infuriating rail-grinding one in the last world.

On the other hand, when the game works, it works well. While the parkour is very underutilized, you can do some legitimately cool stuff with it to skip massive portions of levels. The levels themselves are littered with alternate paths and secrets in typical Sonic fashion. And occasionally, you’ll be running through a level at top speed, plowing through enemies, loading up on rings, and you’ll think “Hell yeah. This is Sonic.”

The story and characters are meh. The cutscenes are well-animated, but too fast-paced. The Deadly Six, as a whole, suck. They’re meant to be the Sonic equivalent of the Koopalings, so like the Koopalings, each one has a defining character trait and nothing else to them. However, the reason the Koopalings work is because they’re only ever used in boss battles and appear sparingly, so their lack of personalities doesn’t annoy the player. The Deadly Six, on the other hand, have too much screentime, making it glaringly obvious just how shallow they all are, to the point that they become annoying very quickly. Zavok, at the very least, is decently threatening and taken seriously. Zoe’s excessive nihilism is unironically funny, especially at the end. The rest are just annoying as shit and I couldn’t stand them. Not helping matters is that Zavok is the only one with halfway-decent boss battles, while everyone else is piss-easy, which really diminishes the team as a threat. Like, really? These dumbasses are trying to destroy the world? Whatever you say. Even worse, the game never explains what they are or where they came from, meaning they don’t even have a place in the series’ lore. So yeah, that’s the Deadly Sux. Here’s hoping they never come back.

At the core of the story is the alliance between Sonic, Tails, and Eggman. I’m gonna go against the grain here and say that I actually like Sonic’s arrogant and snarky attitude in this game, as it contributes to an actual character arc for him and gives Roger Craig Smith the opportunity to show off his comedic timing. Tails… not so much. Tails spends much of the game upset towards Sonic for teaming up with Eggman instead of trusting him. The problem is that this game is like the fourth time they’ve teamed up with Eggman, and Tails has never had a problem with it before, so he just comes across as whiny and unreasonable.

Then there’s Eggman, who gets his own paragraph because he’s the best part of the game. The writers, unfortunately, failed to go in-depth with Eggman and his dynamic with Sonic and Tails in the way that Adventure 2 and especially Frontiers did. However, Eggman is still fantastic in this game. He’s treated as a genuine threat and there’s some moral ambiguity to many of his actions throughout the game (him not wanting to destroy the world, saving Tails, and allying with Sonic in the first place), even he’s still clearly a bad guy. We also get to see just how cunning and manipulative he can really be for the first time since the opening of Unleashed, which is a relief since he’d been treated like a complete buffoon for like 5 years by the time this game came out. Mike Pollock, as always, does an excellent job, especially in the scene where Eggman swears to strangle the Deadly Six to death and burn their world to the ground (this game is for kids).

The graphics are surprisingly good. The art style, while simplistic, fits the cartoonish nature of Sonic and friends in a very natural way. The music, of course, slaps my balls; we’re treated to an energetic jazz orchestra that successfully captures the game’s (admittedly uneven) tone perfectly. Gotta love Sonic music.

All in all, Sonic Lost World hits about as often as it misses, and is a disappointment after Colors and Generations. However, when taken on its own merits, it’s a fun time with some missed potential that doesn’t deserve the sheer level of scorn that the Sonic community levels at it, especially considering how awful some of the Blue Blur’s other adventures are. Sonic Lost World is just… fine.

Played v2.0.0 via Steam on Windows 11 (Gigabyte B560 HD3, i7-11700 @ 2.5GHz, 64GB DDR4 RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070) with Flare's GUI Assets v1.3 mod.

Sonic Lost World is such a weird game - the awkward middle child between the highs of Generations and lows of Forces, Lost World appropriately straddles between the two in a potentially brilliant package but teaming with hints of mediocrity.

First up the gameplay. I enjoyed how this game handles and feels whilst playing - for the majority of the time. The "sprint" button seems like it should be a strange inclusion for a mascot with a crippling "go fast" medical condition but it compliments the level design well, allowing you to control fairly well where and how Sonic will get from point A to B. The advancement of the homing attack to allow chains the longer you wait near enemies felt like it could have a satisfying risk/reward system depending on how long you wait for your opening but often times chains don't appear when you want and waiting around stronger enemies for the chain to build can result more often in wasted time. The parkour is the big new gameplay gimmick this time around and I wish I could give it high praise but it falls just shy of being very finnicky and unreliable. Running up and along walls can be fun but jumping between them to cross a long gap or even getting started on your run can be frustrating and result in multiple deaths. The Wisps from Colors make a return but they're relegated to one-off gimmicks in rare scenarios and feel forced in given their lack of narrative inclusion and sparsity.

The level design is fairly varied with a decent mix of 3D and 2D segments. Lost World also takes a step back from the level stylings of Generations and Colors with their one or two big levels per area and a handful of smaller challenges and instead sticks to 4 decently-paced levels per zone, each offering a decent amount of exploration of different paths and methods of traversal. These can vary from 1 minute to 4 and beyond depending on skill level and how far you are in the game but I had fun exploring and progressing through the majority of these - for the majority of the time. The only ones I grew to hate were the 2D-gliding-through-the-air levels, which had a steep learning curve and never felt natural to control with the caveat of dying if you strayed too far up or down the screen. There are a fair number of levels where you can farm lives however so you shouldn't really be reaching a true "game over" screen, but sometimes you will hit snags where you're repeatedly dying to what feels like stupid decisions, often involving the red rings. Bosses vary from stupidly short and easy to obvious but dysfunctional. Zavok's second encounter took a frustratingly-long time to figure out and when I finally did the homing attack chain would cut off in the middle 3 out of 4 attempts, resulting in me falling off and having to wait for the next opportunity to stun him.

The art direction is fairly solid - for the majority of the time. The CG cutscenes have weird foliage/artifacting that looks straight out of Colors while the design of "Sonic's World" feels strange and unlike anything we've seen before. Designs for the Lost Hex and the Deadly Six felt strong to me however and I really enjoyed their stupid interactions, even if a lot of it was incredibly surface-level.

Also being surface-level was the narrative - a very strange episode in this series that tries to take a minor step back from Colors and Generations' more light-hearted and overly-comedic banter and attempts to take itself a little seriously. However the lack of any drama or tension in cutscenes or pathos in the characters' relationships and the voice actors' direction results in it all falling just flat and it was a tradition carried on through Forces until Frontiers managed to break that cycle. If nothing else then you can argue Lost World sows the seeds of Eggman's recent grey morality and as always Mike Pollock's comedic timing helps sell a lot of the cutscenes.

Even the music can feel a little off at times. It's all still good, but Ohtani was very clearly either given the direction to emulate some symphonic Mario or he really wanted to go in that direction from the start because ooh boy if you thought this looked like Mario Galaxy, wait til you hear it. There's a lot to love about this OST though - Careening Cavern is a super chill beat with an underlying menace that bursts out on occasion, Midnight Owl is a fun musette-styled caper, and Desert Ruins is classic percussion-filled Ohtani with a variety of lazy middle-eastern inspired catchy melodies. Cutscene music however is forgettable and boring, nothing at all sticking out or complimenting much of what's happening on screen.

Lost World's greatest sin however is it's complete and total lack of tutorialisation. It doesn't tell you how to do anything, whether it's basic movement, the new parkour move set or how the Wisps properly function. The new homing attack takes way too long to figure out, I thought it was determined by how long you held the jump button on the second press but it instead requires you to wait for the chain to appear. It never felt really intuitive and it ended up causing me to take damage more often than not due to course layouts or boss attack patterns. Learning the parkour requires a metaphorical trial of fire by going after the red rings. They won't start as very challenging in the first few zones, but only by the time you reach the fourth will you begin to get a better understanding of how the parkour actually functions. Activating the Wisps will present a pop up box (every time) on how to move with the wisp, but it doesn't explain any basic functionalities. I still don't know what the deal with the Rhythm Wisp is or how you're expected to know that the Hover Wisp offers a light-speed dash ability since there's no explanation in the game anywhere for them. They all end with another pop up saying the Wisp has been depleted too which...yeah, I know.

I want to give Sonic Lost World more than 3/5 but it truly doesn't deserve it. For every cool level design, ability or bopping track, there's at least one other thing detracting from it and holding the experience back. It's not a complete waste of your time, there is fun to be had here despite it not adhering to the boost formula of prior successful games and shamelessly aiming for a "Mario but with a Sonic approach" design philosophy, but it doesn't take long to find minor grievances that sour the regular gameplay experience all too often.

It's a bit offensive to even try to compare this game to Super Mario Galaxy when by 2013 Nintendo already had their heads deep into 3D World, but it's an obvious inspiration nonetheless.

It's cute and charming (the villains are a bit iffy though), I just wish it was a little less broken. It has difficulty addressing it's own mechanics because they sometimes simply don't work. They try to shower you with like 40 lives, but I got a Game Over 3 times because some things would simply not work (though most of these were on optional Red Rings). The wisps from Colors have no business being in this game either.

That being said, I like Sonic.

Uh-oh! The Sonic franchise suddenly had an identity crisis again after Generations and decided to go a whole different direction by ripping off another game people really liked at the time, this time being Super Mario Galaxy.

To be serious, there is so much wrong going on here that it's almost concerning at this point. There's so many missteps in Lost World that left me frustrated and baffled through my entire playthrough of it to where I felt like even minor annoyances of the game feel outright soul-sucking to get through. This review is gonna be a little different from my previous ones because this was genuinely an awful experience that I cannot fully wrap up in just a few words and in context to my post-06 Sonic run-through, it's something I really want to break down.

So after the major success of Colors and, in particular, Generations (which I thought was great), it seemed like Sonic was finally getting back on his feet with everyone, including and especially, the fans. Having a game that is a celebratory run of the franchise with its most iconic levels and a new take on them depending on if you're playing as Classic or Modern Sonic was a huge refresh the series needed, with so much love and care that was put behind it, and I could fully see that energy that was put into it. It rekindled a lot of faith in Sonic and reminded people that the series and Sonic Team can still put out something great, whenever its blasting through levels at high-speed and learning new paths and ways to get through them with the Boost formula, or having that quick, engaging, and satisfying platforming playgrounds of the Classic levels. With such a strong interest by many to continue the momentum of Generations, what was SEGA and Sonic Team's next step after their anniversary triumph of its iconic mascot?

Completing ditching that entirely and decided it needs to be just like Mario.

Now I cannot talk about Lost World without mentioning how much of Mario is in the game's DNA. From the mechanics including having a Run button (I will get into this later), to levels having timers, to the overworld structure, and ultimately, some of the literal zones of the game, its in just about every ounce you can think of here. This doesn't even include the second to last boss essentially being a Bowser fight and the entire existence of Hidden World. It's so bizarre that this is the direction they went for after their last few sets of games leading them to feeling like Sonic can stand on his own two feet. One of the few times that the game feels more of an inspiration rather than a clone is in the first act of Windy Hill, but from that moment on, everything becomes a messy, balancing act of an identity crisis playing out in front of you. Which lead into the level designs...

They're just a straight up mess. Again, its trying its best Galaxy impression and it doesn't really work in its favor because it lacks the well-thought-out design and mechanical nature of what makes that game enjoyable, but also its still trying to be a Sonic game with its occasional running sections that feels like the level is actively trying to kill you and its rail sections which are the worst they've ever felt from the exclusion of grind stepping (but for some weird ass reason was in the 3DS version of the game), but also there's 2D sections that don't mesh well with some of the zones and are a slog to get through, but also there's a bad gimmick in almost each one??? Why is there an awful stealth section? Why is there a zone where I'm slowly moving through a poor man's version of Super Monkey Ball as a snowball? Why is there a gliding zone that feels bad and very floaty? There's no rhyme or reason for how a lot of it comes together so you end up with levels that feel incredibly disjointed in themselves (and that's not including the actual out of place level themes that are within each world that feel like they belong in a completely different part of the game). A good portion of Sonic's strength is going fast and getting through a level as quickly as you can, but you spend more time moving slow either due to the levels not being built around being fast, and/or making sure you don't die from the game's absurd design choices, which makes levels that are already too damn long to get through go on even longer. It makes for a slow paced game that's also incredibly frustrating because certain levels will troll you and you'll end up losing a life on a whim from either its artificial difficulty spikes in the later portion of Lost World or just a poorly thought-out execution. There's zones like Sky Road Zone 2, which requires you to be precise with platforming but becomes a pain in the ass because of the game's air movement being really stiff, and then zones like Lava Mountain Zone 2, where not jumping and moving near-perfect through the railings will either land you into a bottomless pit or an instant-kill bomb cart. Some sections of the game are so difficult to get through that the game will just load you up on lives when it can and if you die enough times, the Warp item appears to help skip a section. While it's a nice thought by the devs, their implementations feel almost patronizing as they seem well aware that game has pretty BS sections and this is their best solution for that.

The experience is made even worse when not only are you fighting against the levels, but the controls and mechanics. Instead of the usual "move this direction to start building up speed", there's now a Run button in place for you to start moving quickly....except its not really that fast. The movement of the game feels so slow, which while I do understand why due to how the game is designed, it also fucks you over more often than not. From either how sluggish the controls can be, or the slight lack of air momentum you'll have from jumping after being a tiny bit too slow that leads to you falling into a pit, or to the quick and whiplashy nature of the ice levels where you'll fall off and die because you may have moved a tiny bit too quickly in the other direction, there's rarely a moment where any of the movement and controls feel nature or good. The only kinda good addition to the game is the parkour system, but it comes off way better on paper than in actual execution to everything else going on. I'm also not really a fan of the revamped homing attack system, where now there's an automatic lock on system and a charged homing attack system that works by approaching enemies. None of these really work well, as they either just kill any momentum of speed you're trying to get (which is barely anything most of the time), or trivializes bosses that weren't that interesting to begin with. None of this helps when the game can even be really vague explaining its mechanics, and at times, a few of the objectives. Sadly you'll probably end up having to slow down anyway and rely on your homing attack on enemies because the game decided to bring back the pace-killing medals objective from Sonic Unleashed, in form of freeing animals from either destroying Eggman's robots or contraptions. It's still just as much of a waste of time as before, but slightly less grindy.

Oh yeah Wisps are back now too. Does the game explain why they're here? No. Do they need to be here and fit well with the levels? Not really. Are they at least fun and useful? Mostly no. Did Sonic Team put them here because they're still riding off the highs of Sonic Colors? More than likely.

Now this isn't something I usually bring up from Sonic games, but its something to absolutely point out because it's very telling when even someone like me, who usually isn't too stressed over this element from the franchise, can notice and point out how bad it is. The story and writing in Lost World are presented horribly. The general plot is that Sonic and Tails must stop Eggman, then eventually have to team-up to stop the Deadly Six from destroying the world after Eggman loses control over them. To clarify, I don't think Sonic or anything has to have some top-level, Shakespearean-ass writing or storytelling. Sonic has more simple, straightforward stories and that's cool! But one of the problems here is it's trying to have a more serious, world-threating plot, but it still has the same Saturday Morning Cartoon tonal feel of Sonic Colors, so it ends up clashing with each other and completely falls flat in the process. You have scenes like this with this problem while having forced drama and conflict that comes out of nowhere despite this not being the first time they had to work with Eggman, while those same moments will have someone like Tails act completely out of character. I thought the little dude was nice, why is he suddenly an asshole now? There's also other scenes where they're suppose to be this big serious moment with the characters but end up being laughably bad either from the voice direction, the dialogue, or just the straight up fact that these are colorful cartoon characters trying to play up a high-stakes plot with the presentation of a 4Kids episode. None of the humor lands and when it does, its very unintentional. Also the Deadly Six are extremely one-dimensional boring characters that bring virtually nothing new to the table and are the weakest villains in the series by a lonnnnnnng shot (and all of their boss fight sucks).

I will say there is one undoubtedly good thing about Lost World and that's its music. To keep it brief since I don't really have much to say on it, its just good, not to the levels of the highs of other Sonic games, but it gets the job done.

I hate that this ended up being my longest review, but I had to get everything out because the game encapsulates every problem I've had with nearly every Sonic entry I've played post-06. It has levels that take too long, sluggish to whiplashy controls, some of the worst level designs I've played by far in the franchise, tacked on gimmicks that either add nothing to the game or makes the overall experience worse, locking level progress via collectibles that slow down and hurt the pacing of the game, and the biggest one, its lacking sense of identity of what it is, with probably the worst story that ends up being the cherry on top of this dumbass mountain. While its not necessarily the "worst" Sonic game on a technical level, it feels like the worst complete Sonic experience once everything comes together. Even the worst games in the series like '06 have something that people like about them, whereas here its almost nonexistence asto what can be savaged from it. At this point, I would rather play something like Sonic 4 Episode 1 or even somehow, Secret Rings, because while those games are bad, they're at least consistent in their own garbage and are simply eclipsed by other Sonic entries. It's so strange that by the time Sonic got its confidence back, it goes right back to being pulled in a million different directions that do far more harm than good. I think Lost World is the perfect subtitle for this one, because it really does seem like Sonic is lost in his own world.