Everything I wanted and more. Whitehead and his team continue to be masters at their craft at making great platformers.
It's not perfect, by all means, but the issues are so minor to the point where it doesn't detract from what's easily gonna be a 2024 GOTY contender for me. Easily the best 3D platformer I've played since Mario Odyssey.
I think a lot of the division I've seen seems to come from those who expected it to be more of a Sonic game, hence it sharing a lot of the staff from Mania. There's some of that here, by all means, but It felt more of momentum-based 3D Mario game (Odyssey came to mind with all the powerups). There's a bit of a learning curve, but I think that's exactly why the first world is as slow as it is pacingwise, to ease people into the controls, and I don't think that's an issue at all.
The two biggest critiques I've heard regard bugs and controls, and honestly barring a few minor instances early on I didn't have much of an issue with either. I only had one flat-out crash on PC total, and the worst I had with bugs was with World 2's boss fight (although I feel most of that was due to me still trying to get the hang of the roll controls), as I either would get knocked off course for seemingly no reason or in one specific case completely lock up and have no input on Penny's movements. And as I said prior, while I do think there is a learning curve to it, it's exceptionally satisfying to master, and the game does a great job of pushing you to play faster and thinking out of the box with your entire moveset to either skip whole areas or get into areas with special collectables/objectives.
Everything else is top notch. Tee Lopes' compositions here are admittedly a bit more low energy compared to what we heard in Mania (and even a bit recently with his Superstars tracks), but as someone who loved Mania's more slow tracks like Press garden I have no issue. Legit can't wait for the soundtrack to release.
My only real issue would probably be the currency you pick up in levels not mattering much in the long run. You have the stuff you can use for bonus levels, and that's all well and good, but the one-use items felt kinda pointless aside from it being a crutch for worse players or those who maybe want to explore the levels with more freedom. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather find things legit instead of relying on the items, so I felt no desire to spend them. Even something as simple as costumes would've given the normal currency more worth imho.
That, and probably the biggest thing for me (and I'd imagine some others), the price point. This game has around the same completion+100% timing as Sonic Mania (8-9 Hours) yet is 30 bucks, compared to Mania being just 20 when it came out. I have no issue spending 30 here since I'll support the devs no matter what here, but I do feel 20 is a more appropriate price point for this game and I feel like considering the teams background they wanted to do that, only for it to not happen due to Private Division or T2 meddling. Not a big issue at the end of the day and doesn't lessen my enjoyment, but if you ARE on the edge I don't think it'd hurt at all if you waited for a 10 buck price drop. Either way, highly recommended. Give these guys more projects, please.
It's not perfect, by all means, but the issues are so minor to the point where it doesn't detract from what's easily gonna be a 2024 GOTY contender for me. Easily the best 3D platformer I've played since Mario Odyssey.
I think a lot of the division I've seen seems to come from those who expected it to be more of a Sonic game, hence it sharing a lot of the staff from Mania. There's some of that here, by all means, but It felt more of momentum-based 3D Mario game (Odyssey came to mind with all the powerups). There's a bit of a learning curve, but I think that's exactly why the first world is as slow as it is pacingwise, to ease people into the controls, and I don't think that's an issue at all.
The two biggest critiques I've heard regard bugs and controls, and honestly barring a few minor instances early on I didn't have much of an issue with either. I only had one flat-out crash on PC total, and the worst I had with bugs was with World 2's boss fight (although I feel most of that was due to me still trying to get the hang of the roll controls), as I either would get knocked off course for seemingly no reason or in one specific case completely lock up and have no input on Penny's movements. And as I said prior, while I do think there is a learning curve to it, it's exceptionally satisfying to master, and the game does a great job of pushing you to play faster and thinking out of the box with your entire moveset to either skip whole areas or get into areas with special collectables/objectives.
Everything else is top notch. Tee Lopes' compositions here are admittedly a bit more low energy compared to what we heard in Mania (and even a bit recently with his Superstars tracks), but as someone who loved Mania's more slow tracks like Press garden I have no issue. Legit can't wait for the soundtrack to release.
My only real issue would probably be the currency you pick up in levels not mattering much in the long run. You have the stuff you can use for bonus levels, and that's all well and good, but the one-use items felt kinda pointless aside from it being a crutch for worse players or those who maybe want to explore the levels with more freedom. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather find things legit instead of relying on the items, so I felt no desire to spend them. Even something as simple as costumes would've given the normal currency more worth imho.
That, and probably the biggest thing for me (and I'd imagine some others), the price point. This game has around the same completion+100% timing as Sonic Mania (8-9 Hours) yet is 30 bucks, compared to Mania being just 20 when it came out. I have no issue spending 30 here since I'll support the devs no matter what here, but I do feel 20 is a more appropriate price point for this game and I feel like considering the teams background they wanted to do that, only for it to not happen due to Private Division or T2 meddling. Not a big issue at the end of the day and doesn't lessen my enjoyment, but if you ARE on the edge I don't think it'd hurt at all if you waited for a 10 buck price drop. Either way, highly recommended. Give these guys more projects, please.