The people stating that this is better than Frontiers are on massive copium I'm sorry LOL.
Hardlight's newest mobile endeavor is indeed an ambitious title for a mobile game. A fully 3D platforming-focused Sonic game is something I'm kind of surprised hasn't already been attempted at this point...though considering most of Hardlight's other titles are more simple pick-up-and-play arcade-y high score-based affairs, it's easy to see why this hasn't been attempted before. I've seen a lot of backlash against this game being Apple Arcade exclusive, and while I do agree that offering the title to more people that can play it is a good thing to do, those asking for a legitimate console port...guys, c'mon...it's a mobile game.
Should start there before I talk about anything else I suppose. Sonic Dream Team is a mobile game at its core and it is fundamentally hindered by being an experience crafted for mobile. What do I mean by this you may ask? Imagine a typical 3D Boost game (the kind that's roughly similar to Frontiers, Colors, Gens, etc) except with a pathetically weak boost, no airboost, no stomp or slide, no wall jumping, and a free camera that fights against you most of the time. That's Sonic Dream Team. It's a boost game but worse. The only things it has going for it movement-wise are the ridiculous range on the homing attack and uh...slope jumping I guess. That's really about it. It's still kinda fun to play on a basic level but like, would I rather play this if I pitted it against any of the other boost games besides Unleashed and Forces? Absolutely not lmao. Seriously, the lack of a stomp really hurts this game more than it should. Precise platforming is a chore because you don't have an effective way to stop quickly enough. And I know they couldn't add these elements in because, again, it's a mobile game. Everything needs to be extremely simple otherwise your fingers would become a pretzel trying to chain all of these different actions together. I played on a controller during my playthrough, and while it is...marginally better than using the touch screen, it only further reminded me of how much lesser this game is than the other boost titles, but I digress. You can also play as multiple different characters but their unique attributes aren't anything to write home about. Amy and Sonic can lightspeed dash, Tails and Cream can fly with a clunky feeling stamina meter, and Knuckles and Rouge can glide (heavily nerfed and plummets like a rock) and climb walls. You can also swap characters on the fly once you've unlocked them but doing so requires you to come to a complete standstill halting the pace of the stage completely. What's worse is that this is even mandatory for specific acts to complete them.
Despite this, the main levels (I'm talking like, the first stage of the act with the red rings and the blue coins) can be pretty fun and well-designed, once you get the task of “collect 3 keys to progress” taken care of anyway. I particularly had a lot of fun with Ego City and the final couple of acts with Nightmare Maze. Scrambled Shores is...fine as a starting level, does what it needs to do. Dream Factory is...also fine. Aesthetically it looked too much like Sweet Mountain and the most interesting aspect it has to offer is rising and lowering platforms. Wooo. Much like Secret Rings (and because, again, it's a mobile game), Dream Team has multiple missions within each act offering various objectives, from time trials to checkpoint gate races. These wildly vary in terms of actual quality. The "get the dream orb" challenges are pretty good. They typically involve completing a satisfying platforming obstacle gauntlet challenge to get a single dream orb. Short, sweet, and to the point. The time trials and the checkpoint gate races are mainly just an excuse to play the same level again with a slightly different goal. The crystal hunt missions are just bad. I don't have anything positive to say about them. Imagine bumbling around a giant closed-off maze looking for a set number of trinkets. It's about as exhilarating as it sounds. The game at least looks pretty nice for a mobile game and the animated intro is fantastic. The animated cutscenes are surprisingly really REALLY impressive and invoke an expressive fluid style of animation we haven't seen since...geez, Rise of Lyric on the Wii U. The problem is that there are only like, 5 cutscenes in the game and the rest of the game's story presentation is in comic book slide show mode with voice over. Hearing Michelle Ruff as Cream again was kinda jarring but I guess it's mainly due to how long she's been from this character. Sadly I don't have much to say on the soundtrack aside from the main theme and the final boss theme. It's fine I guess, nothing terrible to listen to but it just feels like background noise a lot of the time.
Again, for a mobile game, it's pretty interesting and a good step for Hardlight to develop something truly special; but as is, I dunno if I'd ever want to go back to it instead of replaying the dozens of other Sonic games I already have a lot of fun with. Such is the mobile curse.
Hardlight's newest mobile endeavor is indeed an ambitious title for a mobile game. A fully 3D platforming-focused Sonic game is something I'm kind of surprised hasn't already been attempted at this point...though considering most of Hardlight's other titles are more simple pick-up-and-play arcade-y high score-based affairs, it's easy to see why this hasn't been attempted before. I've seen a lot of backlash against this game being Apple Arcade exclusive, and while I do agree that offering the title to more people that can play it is a good thing to do, those asking for a legitimate console port...guys, c'mon...it's a mobile game.
Should start there before I talk about anything else I suppose. Sonic Dream Team is a mobile game at its core and it is fundamentally hindered by being an experience crafted for mobile. What do I mean by this you may ask? Imagine a typical 3D Boost game (the kind that's roughly similar to Frontiers, Colors, Gens, etc) except with a pathetically weak boost, no airboost, no stomp or slide, no wall jumping, and a free camera that fights against you most of the time. That's Sonic Dream Team. It's a boost game but worse. The only things it has going for it movement-wise are the ridiculous range on the homing attack and uh...slope jumping I guess. That's really about it. It's still kinda fun to play on a basic level but like, would I rather play this if I pitted it against any of the other boost games besides Unleashed and Forces? Absolutely not lmao. Seriously, the lack of a stomp really hurts this game more than it should. Precise platforming is a chore because you don't have an effective way to stop quickly enough. And I know they couldn't add these elements in because, again, it's a mobile game. Everything needs to be extremely simple otherwise your fingers would become a pretzel trying to chain all of these different actions together. I played on a controller during my playthrough, and while it is...marginally better than using the touch screen, it only further reminded me of how much lesser this game is than the other boost titles, but I digress. You can also play as multiple different characters but their unique attributes aren't anything to write home about. Amy and Sonic can lightspeed dash, Tails and Cream can fly with a clunky feeling stamina meter, and Knuckles and Rouge can glide (heavily nerfed and plummets like a rock) and climb walls. You can also swap characters on the fly once you've unlocked them but doing so requires you to come to a complete standstill halting the pace of the stage completely. What's worse is that this is even mandatory for specific acts to complete them.
Despite this, the main levels (I'm talking like, the first stage of the act with the red rings and the blue coins) can be pretty fun and well-designed, once you get the task of “collect 3 keys to progress” taken care of anyway. I particularly had a lot of fun with Ego City and the final couple of acts with Nightmare Maze. Scrambled Shores is...fine as a starting level, does what it needs to do. Dream Factory is...also fine. Aesthetically it looked too much like Sweet Mountain and the most interesting aspect it has to offer is rising and lowering platforms. Wooo. Much like Secret Rings (and because, again, it's a mobile game), Dream Team has multiple missions within each act offering various objectives, from time trials to checkpoint gate races. These wildly vary in terms of actual quality. The "get the dream orb" challenges are pretty good. They typically involve completing a satisfying platforming obstacle gauntlet challenge to get a single dream orb. Short, sweet, and to the point. The time trials and the checkpoint gate races are mainly just an excuse to play the same level again with a slightly different goal. The crystal hunt missions are just bad. I don't have anything positive to say about them. Imagine bumbling around a giant closed-off maze looking for a set number of trinkets. It's about as exhilarating as it sounds. The game at least looks pretty nice for a mobile game and the animated intro is fantastic. The animated cutscenes are surprisingly really REALLY impressive and invoke an expressive fluid style of animation we haven't seen since...geez, Rise of Lyric on the Wii U. The problem is that there are only like, 5 cutscenes in the game and the rest of the game's story presentation is in comic book slide show mode with voice over. Hearing Michelle Ruff as Cream again was kinda jarring but I guess it's mainly due to how long she's been from this character. Sadly I don't have much to say on the soundtrack aside from the main theme and the final boss theme. It's fine I guess, nothing terrible to listen to but it just feels like background noise a lot of the time.
Again, for a mobile game, it's pretty interesting and a good step for Hardlight to develop something truly special; but as is, I dunno if I'd ever want to go back to it instead of replaying the dozens of other Sonic games I already have a lot of fun with. Such is the mobile curse.
2 Comments
game issue
gaywiiu
3 months ago