2023
It's actually a shame how good this game is because it's locked behind Apple devices with Apple Arcade.
The story is whatever, Sonic stories have never amazed me or anything and I certainly wasn't expecting much from this game. It's the standard "Eggman did something, we gotta stop him" and it's fine.
The six playable characters in the game are a lie as there are really only three. Three different character types with two characters in each and those characters play the same as each other. Sonic and Amy are your speed types and they get access to the light speed dash and air dashing. Tails and Cream are your flight types who can fly, and Knuckles and Rouge are your power types who can glide and climb walls. Every character can boost and homing attack. As far as controls and movement goes it feels great to play and keep your speed going. Certainly feels better than Frontiers anyway. I will commend the game for allowing you to switch out characters in the middle of the level. While it's unfortunately not available in every level and is quite slow, I appreciate the option and offers many unique play styles and approaches.
Level design was an honest surprise, with springs that maintain your speed and wall running segments to keep your speed going. It's more difficult to get your speed and flow interrupted which is what Sonic should be to me at least. My favourite level was the last level, Egg City.
Boss fights were ok, nothing that really all too memorable. Performance is something they gotta address. Sound mixing was all over the place, with some sounds being super loud and some being really quiet. I first played and beat the game on Apple TV and had the game crash perhaps two or three times. On my M1 MacBook Air the game ran wonderfully at 60fps but again, crashes aren't uncommon.
If you have Apple Arcade or at least a free trials of it like I had, then I highly suggest giving this a go. You can pair basically any game controller to an Apple device that runs this game so do not bother with touch controls. My hope for this game is that it eventually get released on consoles, I'd happily buy this on Switch for AUD$30.
The story is whatever, Sonic stories have never amazed me or anything and I certainly wasn't expecting much from this game. It's the standard "Eggman did something, we gotta stop him" and it's fine.
The six playable characters in the game are a lie as there are really only three. Three different character types with two characters in each and those characters play the same as each other. Sonic and Amy are your speed types and they get access to the light speed dash and air dashing. Tails and Cream are your flight types who can fly, and Knuckles and Rouge are your power types who can glide and climb walls. Every character can boost and homing attack. As far as controls and movement goes it feels great to play and keep your speed going. Certainly feels better than Frontiers anyway. I will commend the game for allowing you to switch out characters in the middle of the level. While it's unfortunately not available in every level and is quite slow, I appreciate the option and offers many unique play styles and approaches.
Level design was an honest surprise, with springs that maintain your speed and wall running segments to keep your speed going. It's more difficult to get your speed and flow interrupted which is what Sonic should be to me at least. My favourite level was the last level, Egg City.
Boss fights were ok, nothing that really all too memorable. Performance is something they gotta address. Sound mixing was all over the place, with some sounds being super loud and some being really quiet. I first played and beat the game on Apple TV and had the game crash perhaps two or three times. On my M1 MacBook Air the game ran wonderfully at 60fps but again, crashes aren't uncommon.
If you have Apple Arcade or at least a free trials of it like I had, then I highly suggest giving this a go. You can pair basically any game controller to an Apple device that runs this game so do not bother with touch controls. My hope for this game is that it eventually get released on consoles, I'd happily buy this on Switch for AUD$30.
2019
Probably the worst Sumo Digital Sonic Racing game. Not bad by any means but it pales in comparison to the gameplay, content and personality of the other two games. Customisation is a neat addition, but it didn't feel much like customising my own vehicles because each part has their own stats so I just attached the best parts to all the characters. Colours are also limiting as you can only pick from a pallet instead of just every colour.
Character roster is much smaller than the previous games and only includes Sonic characters. I think point I'd like to see characters now that SEGA owns more iconic IP's.
Story mode is very monotonous, way too long for what it is, and the story itself could've been removed entirely. Just a worse version of World Tour from Transformed. Outside of the story mode you can play offline races in a team or on your own, and you can play online, and that's about it. Good luck finding a full lobby.
Team gameplay doesn't have much to it and only works with other human players instead of CPU's. There is no point playing solo games, the team mechanic is removed entirely and there's nothing interesting.
Maps can be interesting but feel very static and barren compared to previous games. They really shot themselves in the foot by removing the transformed mechanic here. Music is pretty good, love some of the remixes.
Overall it's pretty meh, not much to it.
Character roster is much smaller than the previous games and only includes Sonic characters. I think point I'd like to see characters now that SEGA owns more iconic IP's.
Story mode is very monotonous, way too long for what it is, and the story itself could've been removed entirely. Just a worse version of World Tour from Transformed. Outside of the story mode you can play offline races in a team or on your own, and you can play online, and that's about it. Good luck finding a full lobby.
Team gameplay doesn't have much to it and only works with other human players instead of CPU's. There is no point playing solo games, the team mechanic is removed entirely and there's nothing interesting.
Maps can be interesting but feel very static and barren compared to previous games. They really shot themselves in the foot by removing the transformed mechanic here. Music is pretty good, love some of the remixes.
Overall it's pretty meh, not much to it.
This review contains spoilers
Gameplay-wise, a significant improvement over Yakuza 7 to the point where it makes it look bad. Didn't play around too much with the new jobs as I found everyone's base job to be sufficient (Dragon of Dojima job is OP). New mechanics such as the proximity bonus, back attacks, and combo attacks are all great additions. Difficulty-wise I didn't have too much of an issue, the game makes sure to tell you what level you should be at before you enter a boss sequence.
The new map, Waikiki, is huge and there are plenty of things to do within it even if some activities and places are just carried over from Yokohama in Y7. Didn't play much of Sujimon and Dondoko Island outside of their respective tutorials, but I plan to go back and explore them more.
The story was a little disappointing. Yakuza stories have never been amazing but it becomes apparent when something just isn't right. I felt it started off strong with a focus on Kasuga and his mission in Hawaii, but by the time you reach the halfway point of the game and Kiryu returns to Yokohama the story suddenly has to juggle both protagonists and it felt like it focused more on Kiryu. I love the guy but I was hoping for another Kasuga game and with all the callbacks to previous Yakuza games for Kiryu and with how the story ends for him, the game really does feel like a swan song for him. I thought the villains were a little weak, especially Ebina and Bryce. By the end of the game they didn't feel all that threatening and it didn't help that Bryce's boss fight just sort of comes and goes. The story is nowhere near as bad as something like Yakuza 4, but it is on the lower-end for me.
Overall this game was a fantastic experience with so much stuff to just get lost in and an insanely fun combat system. Despite a lack-lustre story, the rest of the game very much makes up for that. If you're a long-time fan or someone like me who has played them all within the past few years, the call-backs and references are a delight and are done tastefully with some character cameos and mentions I didn't expect to see.
The new map, Waikiki, is huge and there are plenty of things to do within it even if some activities and places are just carried over from Yokohama in Y7. Didn't play much of Sujimon and Dondoko Island outside of their respective tutorials, but I plan to go back and explore them more.
The story was a little disappointing. Yakuza stories have never been amazing but it becomes apparent when something just isn't right. I felt it started off strong with a focus on Kasuga and his mission in Hawaii, but by the time you reach the halfway point of the game and Kiryu returns to Yokohama the story suddenly has to juggle both protagonists and it felt like it focused more on Kiryu. I love the guy but I was hoping for another Kasuga game and with all the callbacks to previous Yakuza games for Kiryu and with how the story ends for him, the game really does feel like a swan song for him. I thought the villains were a little weak, especially Ebina and Bryce. By the end of the game they didn't feel all that threatening and it didn't help that Bryce's boss fight just sort of comes and goes. The story is nowhere near as bad as something like Yakuza 4, but it is on the lower-end for me.
Overall this game was a fantastic experience with so much stuff to just get lost in and an insanely fun combat system. Despite a lack-lustre story, the rest of the game very much makes up for that. If you're a long-time fan or someone like me who has played them all within the past few years, the call-backs and references are a delight and are done tastefully with some character cameos and mentions I didn't expect to see.
- Game looks ugly as hell
- Level design is boring and forgettable
- Sonic controls like ass
- Level themes are all ripped straight from Genesis Sonic games
- Boss fights are 1:1 to their original counterparts with one additional attack that shakes up nothing
- Soundtrack grates my ears
- Level design is boring and forgettable
- Sonic controls like ass
- Level themes are all ripped straight from Genesis Sonic games
- Boss fights are 1:1 to their original counterparts with one additional attack that shakes up nothing
- Soundtrack grates my ears
2022
Probably one of the most unpolished Sonic games to date. Still really fun with decent controls made better in a later patch and a ridiculous spin dash, but gets pretty boring pretty quickly. Collecting memory tokens is a monotonous task and the Cyber Space levels are easily the worst part of the game.
Boss fights are very button mashy and require zero brain power. You can see the influence from games like Bayonetta but all this game does is make me wish I was playing that instead because of how piss easy it is. The Super Sonic boss fights, while cool at first, show their cracks upon multiple attempts with them bring nothing more than "approach the boss, mash attack, parry its attacks, attack again".
The updates released throughout 2023 added a decent amount of content that kept me returning each time but none really improved the game significantly for me, except for the second update that added more movement options. The third update is really neat and lets me play as Sonic's friends again, but they were all very underwhelming and the update as a whole just highlighted the issues of the base game.
Overall this game's biggest detriment is how unpolished it is, and issues like pop-in, uninteresting environments, ugly platforms that don't blend with the environments, mindless combat etc. all add up. There is not a whole lot to this game, it's very shallow.
Boss fights are very button mashy and require zero brain power. You can see the influence from games like Bayonetta but all this game does is make me wish I was playing that instead because of how piss easy it is. The Super Sonic boss fights, while cool at first, show their cracks upon multiple attempts with them bring nothing more than "approach the boss, mash attack, parry its attacks, attack again".
The updates released throughout 2023 added a decent amount of content that kept me returning each time but none really improved the game significantly for me, except for the second update that added more movement options. The third update is really neat and lets me play as Sonic's friends again, but they were all very underwhelming and the update as a whole just highlighted the issues of the base game.
Overall this game's biggest detriment is how unpolished it is, and issues like pop-in, uninteresting environments, ugly platforms that don't blend with the environments, mindless combat etc. all add up. There is not a whole lot to this game, it's very shallow.
Growing up is realising that everything about this game is really good until you actually play it. If it were to receive a remaster with upgraded visuals and an overhauled control scheme then it would, no doubt, be an amazing game.
2022
A decent entry point for new fans of the series who wish to get into the games, but that's about all it is really. Personally, I believe this collection should've consisted of SA1, SA2, and Heroes as they don't see nearly as many rereleases and ports that these classic games do.
Despite aiming to be the "definitive" way to play these games, there still lacks many basic features and customisation options that you'd expect, with the most glaring exclusion being save slots for each game (with the exception of Sonic 3 but only because it was a feature of the original game). Once you clear a game with a certain character your only options are to replay the last level or play again from the beginning, which is surprising as the iOS ports of these games bothered having save slots. You're given the option to play the games in "classic" mode which is the game's anniversary mode but in 4:3 and with lives, which is super restricting and plain odd. Should have just given us seperate options to play in whichever aspect ration we like and toggle lives.
The unlockables in the museum aren't all that interesting if you're a long time fan as most of, if not all, the entries are accessible elsewhere. I will commend the devs for including each episode of Sonic Mania Adventures in high quality for it to be preserved and not just exclusive to YouTube.
What should have been an easy task for SEGA instead is an undercooked collection of 4 beloved games that took way too many updates to fix bugs. Not to mention the unnecessary "Plus" revision a year after launch that included content that, in all honesty, should have been part of the game to begin with.
Despite aiming to be the "definitive" way to play these games, there still lacks many basic features and customisation options that you'd expect, with the most glaring exclusion being save slots for each game (with the exception of Sonic 3 but only because it was a feature of the original game). Once you clear a game with a certain character your only options are to replay the last level or play again from the beginning, which is surprising as the iOS ports of these games bothered having save slots. You're given the option to play the games in "classic" mode which is the game's anniversary mode but in 4:3 and with lives, which is super restricting and plain odd. Should have just given us seperate options to play in whichever aspect ration we like and toggle lives.
The unlockables in the museum aren't all that interesting if you're a long time fan as most of, if not all, the entries are accessible elsewhere. I will commend the devs for including each episode of Sonic Mania Adventures in high quality for it to be preserved and not just exclusive to YouTube.
What should have been an easy task for SEGA instead is an undercooked collection of 4 beloved games that took way too many updates to fix bugs. Not to mention the unnecessary "Plus" revision a year after launch that included content that, in all honesty, should have been part of the game to begin with.
2023
Physics are about what you’d expect from 2D Sonic and work pretty well. Level pacing is all over the place as some levels have 3 acts while some only have 1, and they all have boss fights that last way too long. Character specific levels are OK, but they kill the vibe when trying to play with friends as they’re single-player only. Co-op is a mess and was 100% not play tested. Even just playing with one other person we had difficulty trying to keep ourselves on-screen and even ran into numerous bugs. Soundtrack is all over the place with some tracks sounding really good and some sounding like they were leftover from Sonic 4.
The extra Trip story mode is a cheap way to pad out game time and is only single-player. It’s just the main campaign again but you can only play as Trip, and it’s required to beat the game. True final boss is the worst in the series that is >10 minutes of just waiting for the boss to do dear God anything.
This should’ve been a slam dunk, especially after Sonic Mania 5 years prior, but this game just comes up short with some decent level design, terribly design boss fights, and an unfocused soundtrack.
The extra Trip story mode is a cheap way to pad out game time and is only single-player. It’s just the main campaign again but you can only play as Trip, and it’s required to beat the game. True final boss is the worst in the series that is >10 minutes of just waiting for the boss to do dear God anything.
This should’ve been a slam dunk, especially after Sonic Mania 5 years prior, but this game just comes up short with some decent level design, terribly design boss fights, and an unfocused soundtrack.