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.
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.