I miss Sonic Runners, easily the most interesting and ambitious project for a Sonic Mobile game until Dream Team, Runners was a 2D sidecroller that has simple controls but very addictive gameplay. While it has been delisted, there are still.. ways of playing it, and if you choose to do so, I think you’re in for a great time.

Runners has a very basic story, but it served as an excuse to provide different stage challenges for the types of characters.

All the characters available are split into 3 categories, Speed, Flight and Power. Speed characters had a triple jump, Flight could fly up and hover down, and power characters could dash horizontally before a second jump. Simple mechanics but when playing the game it allowed for some crazy action. The speed increased every time you reached the end of a section where you would chase Dr Eggman and try and collect rings. After hitting max speed you would then enter the infinite mode where you just keep going till you die. There were power ups you can activate as well as Wisp power ups to help you really rack up high scores.

Unlocking other characters always sucked, as most were locked behind a premium roulette that required red rings to spin, rare collectibles that they really wanted you to buy. Considering the game is down I’m glad I never did this.

I loved how the game looked, sometimes I did experience lag which is absolutely a run killer, but for what it was Sonic Runners was a hell of a great time. They also did not need to go as hard on the soundtrack as they did but damn the OST is such an underrated gem that keeps finding ways to creep into other games. I’d love if Runners got released again on something else, but it’s unlikely, and that’s sad