I'm genuinely struggling to say anything interesting about this game, because truth be told it's all over the place.
The controls are passable, but barely. Sonic's turning is awful, the jumping and double jumping feel sluggish, and he has almost no air control whatsoever. The infinite spindash is kinda fun and has some flow to it if you try and keep it going, but most of Lost World's level design has you stopping and breaking any sense of flow you had for a variety of reasons so you can't really get much value from it. The charged homing attack and kick attack are borderline pointless additions. What do these moves really add in the grand scheme of things, exactly? The charged homing attack feels like a boring solution to a made up problem: they have enemies that need multiple hits to kill, so you can just...awkwardly sit there and lock on to an enemy to slowly charge the homing attack and take him out instantly. Sometimes the number of charges needed increases with no intuitive indication whatsoever (like with the Zavok fight in Sky Road), it just seems random. The kick has similar issues, some enemies need to be kicked before they're able to be homing attacked, or some enemies are immune to the homing attack entirely and need to be kicked. Again, no intuitive indication of this whatsoever, just blind guessing.
The game has little faith in the mechanics it presents. The parkour, for instance, seems cool but is barely utilized outside of a few walls that are literal straight lines. When you do try and experiment with parkour, the game slaps you on the wrist and forces you up whatever you were climbing anyway. For instance, you see a wall in an act in Windy Hill, your first instinct is to wall climb, but when you approach it the game gets cold feet and hammers you with tons of automated hidden springs to bounce you up the wall instead. It's just really head scratching
The levels themselves can range from average to dull. Platforming is nothing you haven't seen before and the controls don't help with this issue, the cylindrical tube based level design isn't engaging as all the optional paths you can take are pretty much identical and all of them are more or less a straight line anyway. I've seen people compare this to Mario Galaxy on the basis that "both have planets for level design", but Mario Galaxy actively takes full advantage of the main mechanic it has: the anti gravity, while this game has absolutely nothing to do with anti gravity at all. It just has spherical and tube like level design because...reasons. No exciting slopes or loops in these areas just...curved flat ground. Great. Thanks.
This game also cannot decide what it wants to be as it constantly throws new gameplay gimmicks at you all the time. One minute you run automatically and cannot stop, another you're a snowball that you cannot get out of, one instance you're forced to play pinball, another you're playing a stealth level avoiding detection from a robotic owl, or you could be playing...a flappy bird esc skydiving level? Stage themes often change around for no reason (like the bizarrely out of place food world in desert ruins, or the casino in Frozen Factory), the wisps return with no explanation given, and all of the returning ones are slower, clunkier to use and less fun than in Colors (because being forced to press A after every single Color power usage was completely necessary). New wisp powers just make me scratch my head. There's Asteroid which is just glorified Frenzy and appears in like 2 levels, Eagle where you fly through the air very slowly through a whole bunch of...nothing, Rhythm where...umm...you tap the screen a bunch? And get rings? Don't even get me started on bomb. There isn't even a mechanic like Colors where you're encouraged to go back to previous stages and use the new wisps you've unlocked to find new passages and areas, they're relegated to the stage they're in and that's that (hover is in this game for a grand total of 1 stage and nothing else).
I don't get Lost World. I don't get the new clunky control scheme and mechanics, I don't get the incredibly bland level design that has no faith in its actual mechanics, I don't get the absurd amount of gimmicks and new playstyles that are constantly thrown at you, I don't get the overly cutesy cartoony aesthetic, I don't get why the story tries way too hard to be edgy despite this (and is unintentionally the funniest Sonic story because of it, seriously it's a great watch), I don't get why so many things about this game are unexplained or unexplored, I just really don't get it. Music is incredibly jazzy and bangs really hard to be expected, I don't even know what to say about it as a whole. It's not awful, but it certainly isn't good either.
The controls are passable, but barely. Sonic's turning is awful, the jumping and double jumping feel sluggish, and he has almost no air control whatsoever. The infinite spindash is kinda fun and has some flow to it if you try and keep it going, but most of Lost World's level design has you stopping and breaking any sense of flow you had for a variety of reasons so you can't really get much value from it. The charged homing attack and kick attack are borderline pointless additions. What do these moves really add in the grand scheme of things, exactly? The charged homing attack feels like a boring solution to a made up problem: they have enemies that need multiple hits to kill, so you can just...awkwardly sit there and lock on to an enemy to slowly charge the homing attack and take him out instantly. Sometimes the number of charges needed increases with no intuitive indication whatsoever (like with the Zavok fight in Sky Road), it just seems random. The kick has similar issues, some enemies need to be kicked before they're able to be homing attacked, or some enemies are immune to the homing attack entirely and need to be kicked. Again, no intuitive indication of this whatsoever, just blind guessing.
The game has little faith in the mechanics it presents. The parkour, for instance, seems cool but is barely utilized outside of a few walls that are literal straight lines. When you do try and experiment with parkour, the game slaps you on the wrist and forces you up whatever you were climbing anyway. For instance, you see a wall in an act in Windy Hill, your first instinct is to wall climb, but when you approach it the game gets cold feet and hammers you with tons of automated hidden springs to bounce you up the wall instead. It's just really head scratching
The levels themselves can range from average to dull. Platforming is nothing you haven't seen before and the controls don't help with this issue, the cylindrical tube based level design isn't engaging as all the optional paths you can take are pretty much identical and all of them are more or less a straight line anyway. I've seen people compare this to Mario Galaxy on the basis that "both have planets for level design", but Mario Galaxy actively takes full advantage of the main mechanic it has: the anti gravity, while this game has absolutely nothing to do with anti gravity at all. It just has spherical and tube like level design because...reasons. No exciting slopes or loops in these areas just...curved flat ground. Great. Thanks.
This game also cannot decide what it wants to be as it constantly throws new gameplay gimmicks at you all the time. One minute you run automatically and cannot stop, another you're a snowball that you cannot get out of, one instance you're forced to play pinball, another you're playing a stealth level avoiding detection from a robotic owl, or you could be playing...a flappy bird esc skydiving level? Stage themes often change around for no reason (like the bizarrely out of place food world in desert ruins, or the casino in Frozen Factory), the wisps return with no explanation given, and all of the returning ones are slower, clunkier to use and less fun than in Colors (because being forced to press A after every single Color power usage was completely necessary). New wisp powers just make me scratch my head. There's Asteroid which is just glorified Frenzy and appears in like 2 levels, Eagle where you fly through the air very slowly through a whole bunch of...nothing, Rhythm where...umm...you tap the screen a bunch? And get rings? Don't even get me started on bomb. There isn't even a mechanic like Colors where you're encouraged to go back to previous stages and use the new wisps you've unlocked to find new passages and areas, they're relegated to the stage they're in and that's that (hover is in this game for a grand total of 1 stage and nothing else).
I don't get Lost World. I don't get the new clunky control scheme and mechanics, I don't get the incredibly bland level design that has no faith in its actual mechanics, I don't get the absurd amount of gimmicks and new playstyles that are constantly thrown at you, I don't get the overly cutesy cartoony aesthetic, I don't get why the story tries way too hard to be edgy despite this (and is unintentionally the funniest Sonic story because of it, seriously it's a great watch), I don't get why so many things about this game are unexplained or unexplored, I just really don't get it. Music is incredibly jazzy and bangs really hard to be expected, I don't even know what to say about it as a whole. It's not awful, but it certainly isn't good either.