This review was written before the game released
I-I. I cant believe it? After around 11 years, Sonic Team finally made not just a good game, but a great game? Seems a little hard to believe, but it's true!
Going into this game, I was expecting to play a generic, boring open world game with little to no platforming and challenge. But I'm happy to report, this was wrong. Exploring the open zone was a blast. Each collectible felt fun to collect, and you can collect a lot if you're fast enough. You can sequence break platforming challenges, use rails or ramps to travel far distances. Some of the most fun traversal I've had in a while, I didn't use fast travel ONCE over my two playthroughs.
Collecting stuff was so fun, I collected every single memory token, which would sound like it would get old, but it didnt? It was just such a fun time. The open zone is genuinely fun, unbelievable.
However, I have a laundry list of issues with this game. First off, it can feel jank at times, it's hard to explain, but sometimes it just feels a bit too buggy in general. Cyberspace is a joke, Sonic feels like the worst he's ever controlled in Cyberspace. It's close to unplayable without a mod for me. Combat while fun is very vanilla, and doesn't have a lot of stakes or challenge, which is why I prefer Unleashed or even Black Knight combat. Boss fights while amazing on the first playthrough are way too easy, they can be killed in under 2 minutes at level 1. And can feel too much like I'm watching a cutscene. And the final boss... it's literally a JPEG, what a dissapointment.
Going into this game. I was expecting a great story, but I think I set my expectations too high. I mean... it's fine? Compared to the meta era, it's amazing. But most of the story just felt like characters were standing around talking. Nothing crazy happens in the story compared to something like Sonic Adventure 2 or Black Knight where there are a lot of events. The lore is cool in this game, and the characterisation is pretty good (if not a little vanilla). So the story was good, but nothing more. A bit disappointing, but I'm happy we are out of the meta era.
A big issue people have with this game is how budget it can feel. You can tell they put their all into it this time, but with only 60 people making this, they clearly had to cut corners. Especially with Cyberspace and the last 2 islands. But despite the budget issues, it's not a huge deal for me.
Music wise this game is a masterpiece, expected from a Sonic game. However Cyberspace music sounded like it was from Geometry Dash or something, I miss the music variety, like in Unleashed, Secret Rings or 06.
Now reading this, it sounds like I'm more negative than positive. But I must reemphasise. Exploring the open zone was so fun, some of the most fun I've had in years... This is probably my favorite collectathon type game. So it nailed the most important aspect. The fact is... I can sense the heart, and soul of this game. After around 13 years of soulless and unambitious, safe games, they took a huge gamble this time. And for me, I can appreciate that over a safe, boring, soulless game.
The next game could genuinely be a top 5 Sonic game if they had more budget and manpower. Most of the issues stem from that. The fact that 60 people were able to make a game like this, is mega impressive. Well done Sonic Team, and go fuck yourself Sega for treating this I.P like dirt lmao!
Going into this game, I was expecting to play a generic, boring open world game with little to no platforming and challenge. But I'm happy to report, this was wrong. Exploring the open zone was a blast. Each collectible felt fun to collect, and you can collect a lot if you're fast enough. You can sequence break platforming challenges, use rails or ramps to travel far distances. Some of the most fun traversal I've had in a while, I didn't use fast travel ONCE over my two playthroughs.
Collecting stuff was so fun, I collected every single memory token, which would sound like it would get old, but it didnt? It was just such a fun time. The open zone is genuinely fun, unbelievable.
However, I have a laundry list of issues with this game. First off, it can feel jank at times, it's hard to explain, but sometimes it just feels a bit too buggy in general. Cyberspace is a joke, Sonic feels like the worst he's ever controlled in Cyberspace. It's close to unplayable without a mod for me. Combat while fun is very vanilla, and doesn't have a lot of stakes or challenge, which is why I prefer Unleashed or even Black Knight combat. Boss fights while amazing on the first playthrough are way too easy, they can be killed in under 2 minutes at level 1. And can feel too much like I'm watching a cutscene. And the final boss... it's literally a JPEG, what a dissapointment.
Going into this game. I was expecting a great story, but I think I set my expectations too high. I mean... it's fine? Compared to the meta era, it's amazing. But most of the story just felt like characters were standing around talking. Nothing crazy happens in the story compared to something like Sonic Adventure 2 or Black Knight where there are a lot of events. The lore is cool in this game, and the characterisation is pretty good (if not a little vanilla). So the story was good, but nothing more. A bit disappointing, but I'm happy we are out of the meta era.
A big issue people have with this game is how budget it can feel. You can tell they put their all into it this time, but with only 60 people making this, they clearly had to cut corners. Especially with Cyberspace and the last 2 islands. But despite the budget issues, it's not a huge deal for me.
Music wise this game is a masterpiece, expected from a Sonic game. However Cyberspace music sounded like it was from Geometry Dash or something, I miss the music variety, like in Unleashed, Secret Rings or 06.
Now reading this, it sounds like I'm more negative than positive. But I must reemphasise. Exploring the open zone was so fun, some of the most fun I've had in years... This is probably my favorite collectathon type game. So it nailed the most important aspect. The fact is... I can sense the heart, and soul of this game. After around 13 years of soulless and unambitious, safe games, they took a huge gamble this time. And for me, I can appreciate that over a safe, boring, soulless game.
The next game could genuinely be a top 5 Sonic game if they had more budget and manpower. Most of the issues stem from that. The fact that 60 people were able to make a game like this, is mega impressive. Well done Sonic Team, and go fuck yourself Sega for treating this I.P like dirt lmao!
3 Comments
,
Tina...
Awtumn
2 years ago