User blog:BlurayOriginals/The Bluriginals Blogs Episode 1: Sonic Lost World U Review

Intro
Welcome one and all to the first ever Bluriginals RRR, Reviews, Rambles and Rants! Today we'll be tackling Sonic Lost World U.

Sonic Lost World. A game whose true quality is hidden behind ignorant defense and ignorant hatred. A lot of hype, worry and overall huge reaction came from Sonic Lost World. Unlike the previous installment Generations, Lost World reverses the console exclusivity from PlayStation and Xbox to Nintendo only. We’ll get into that later but what’s my story with Lost World?

History
I came across Sonic Lost World a few days after its announcement and was hyped, taken by the storm of this Wonder World.



You can strike me down soon enough.

I (as were a majority of people) was expecting a lot as we all came out of Generations and was ridiculously excited for this game. I knew it’d be one of the must haves for the Wii U! Sonic had finally remade his mark on gaming with Unleashed, Colors and Generations. But did Lost World hold up to it’s three critically beloved predecessors? Well let’s dissect this game’s guts and find out.

Summary
The game begins with Sonic and Tails chasing after Eggman...and Cubot and Orbot(?) who’re holding an Animal Friend capsule hostage. Eggman drops it in an attempt to lure Sonic to Lost Hex where he plans to use the Deadly Six to destroy him and use his new machine to absorb all the energy from Earth. But in an unexpected twist (not really since it was spoiled beyond belief prior to release) Eggman...IS BETRAYED BY HIS LIVING WEAPONS. [[File:Living Weapons.png|center}600px

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME!

http://dundundun.net/

So now Sonic, Tails, Eggman, Cubot, Orbot...and the Wisps(?!?) must team up and rise against the Deadly Six™ before Earth is devoid of life. Oh and Knuckles and Amy are there too. For fanservice, or something. Now ignoring the fact it’s not explained or mentioned how Eggman escaped White Space….and how Cubot and Orbot escaped REAL space...and why the Wisps are on Lost Hex...and how Tails knows what Lost Hex is...where was I again? Oh yeah. It’s alright with these little plotholes though. None of that is too important. With such a simple plot it’s obvious Lost World’s focus isn’t plot like previous titles, but it’s to deliver amazing gameplay. So, now for what you’ve all been waiting for! How is the gameplay?

Gameplay
Most of the time it’s really good and can actually be fun, but when the game starts throwing that age old Sonic B.S at you, you can tell something is off from Colors, Generations and Unleashed. First off, let’s start with the controls. It’s almost unanimous that Lost World U and 3DS have….to be nice “awkward” controls. To be blunt “clunky”. Well for the Gamepad anyway.



The main complaint with Lost World U is the speed, or the alleged lack of. Players often state the annoyance of not being able to get the right speed or not being able to go fast period. Sonic no longer runs fast naturally. Instead the ZR Trigger is used for running, similar to Rayman Origins and Legends using shoulder buttons. Sonic can jump with B and A and depending on whether you press Y/X or A you will use the Bounce Attack (which replaces Unleashed, Colors and Generations; stomp) or Double Jump respectively. Finally the spindash returns by using the ZL trigger. Here’s where everything goes wrong.



''No not that wrong! Stop exaggerating!''



''Eh, a bit better but close enough. ''

Firstly, unless you want Sonic to fling everywhere while platforming you have to use the to button to jump/double jump as it doesn’t lead into the homing attack. However for people who use the A button (like me) prepare to get your double jump constantly screwed over by Sonic flying in directions you had no intention in going. However, it’s still better than Colors which had only one jump button. While we’re on the topic of flinging in random directions, your finger or another object may occasionally tap ZL resulting in a death most likely due to the fat this game has Sonic Heroes tier amounts of bottomless pits.



''Unholy nightmare. ''

Now you can argue this is Nintendo’s fault for making such sensitive shoulder buttons but in the end it was Sonic Team’s decision to map spindash to ZL. For whatever reason the roll/crawl, something you barely use is on the face buttons. Not to mention that for some reason (probably because they’re



) people have stated they get tired of holding the run button and considering you’ll only want/need to walk once or twice in Lost World, having a run button feels archaic. What feels even more archaic is the camera. Now I’m sure gamers and Sonic Team alike were scarred permanently by cameras in Sonic games from Adventure to ‘06. It’s not like we have this extremely multi-angular camera (say like SpongeBob: Battle for Bikini Bottom or Super Mario Sunshine), but the simple ability to turn the camera horizontally around Sonic (shoulder buttons in Sonic Heroes) or have a button to put it behind Sonic would’ve made backtracking all the more easier. You know another game that had backtracking issues due to the camera? Crash Bandicoot. That was 17 years ago, almost 18. You think we would’ve figured out how to get around such a SIMPLE problem, which had been overcome in Heroes (granted, Heroes was a lot more open, but many of the areas were simply well designed halls that gave off a feeling of freedom), but no. Let’s regress. Again.

Another problem is targeting and the Flying Kick. Often times after an enemy was targeted, it’s crosshair would disappear during a Homing Attack fest leaving you to most likely mash A for most of the game as that always gets the job done (like in previous games). The Flying Kick is meant to spice things up and add a bit of diversity to the gameplay, as opposed to simply mashing away at the Homing Attack. It can defeat certain enemies with much more ease than the homing attack, and in some cases is the only way to defeat enemies. It’s a shame that there’s no way in telling which one hurts which enemy so instead you’re left to guess, sometimes causing you to take a hit. Not only that but the Flying Kick doesn’t always do what it’s advertised to do. It’s supposed to be able to take out long streams of enemies I often find myself getting all of said enemies (in this case, Motobugs) targeted and using the Flying Kick, only for 3 of the 7 motobugs remain for whatever reason.

Now for rings. A staple of the Sonic series. As long as you have one with you, you don’t die. Why am I explaining a concept ANY Sonic fan should be familiar with. Simple. This game pulls one of the dumbest choices to be featured in any Sonic game. What is that choice? Getting hitting once causes all of your rings to fly out. No matter the amount. So if you worked hard on collecting a lot a rings, screw it, you’re out of luck. I hate when Sonic games do this because, other than extra lives and being money it makes rings feel so pointless. Sonic could literally have a heart like he does in Zelda Zone, and when he’s hit the heart shatters into 20+ pieces and lands in a circle around him. Picking up even ONE of these fragments automatically refills his health 100%. That’s EXACTLY how the rings function in Lost World. Even worse is that in Generations you lost a certain AMOUNT of rings rather than all of them. Sonic Team makes stupid mistakes, fixes them, makes new mistakes and then makes the old stupid mistakes again.

On the topic of making stupid mistakes they’ve showed they’ve learned from: Hint Rings. We all know those right? Run into one and the game will tell you about what to do/how to do something? Gone are they in Lost World. Rather, a small icon will appear near the bottom left hand corner of the screen. What you need to do is, find a safe place to stop so you aren’t assaulted by an enemy, look down at the GamePad if you aren’t already, tap the icon, read the message (which at points is completely useless), and exit out and continue the game. Is it so hard to place it somewhere and have Sonic run into it while Tails or something informs him like in Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors, Sonic /Generations/ (the last main series game prior) and even Sonic 2006. Making this mistake when you knew what to do to start with in 1998 (15 years ago) is simply inexcusable and the lack of thought put into it is disgusting.

If you’ve played Super Mario 3D World you may have seen the White Tanooki Leaf. Obtaining it made the game significantly easier and allowed less experienced players to get in on the fun. Sonic Lost World U attempts to emulate this by having a Capsuled Wing that skips the player to the next checkpoint if they continuously die. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this as more experienced players can simply ignore the wing if they want. That is, if it wasn’t placed so badly. In 3D World the White Tanooki box is specifically placed away from the main path, as well as having to be hit to activate it. Lost World places the Capsuled Wing in the WORST possible places, right above or in front of you. Since capsules are broken by being jumped into you’ll find yourself jumping after a respawn and running into the Capsuled Wing, skipping you ahead of the level against your will and making you feel like a



It gets even WORSE in terms of things they should know better. I can’t believe I’m saying this but: the spindash isn’t that good. In the old games Sonic would spin however you could tell he was slowing down/about to unroll as you could more clearly see his face and shoes. In Sonic Lost World, Sonic slows down, but rather than still being able to hurt foes, if Sonic is in an about to unroll state, he’ll take damage from anything he rolls into. That’s right something Sonic’s been doing for /21/ years was screwed up here. “But you can mash ZL to keep using the spindash!”. Firstly, don’t start a sentence with “but”. Idiot. I kid, but in all seriousness we shouldn’t have to mash ZL when simply revving up the dash was all we had to do to ensure safety before. On top of becoming vincible early and not having to mash to attempt to maintain safety, an enemy that takes two hits, the Egg Pawn cannot be spindashed into. If he is you /WILL/ take a hit as the hitting him gives him invincibility that hurts YOU. You can’t just one shot him, or at the least be bounced back, NOPE you take that hit you had NO knowledge you would be taking. You’d think this would’ve come up in beta testing but I doubt it as all you’ll need to get through the enemies is your good old Homing Attack (and occasionally the Flying Kick) as let’s face it, it’s more accurate and efficient than the classic cartwheel-roll maneuver. The spindash in this game is simply-- “Wait a second!?” someone cries! If I hold ZL after beginning a fully charged spindash it goes infinitely? GOLLY I’M SORRY. THE GAME DIDN’T TELL ME. Even if it did tell me I probably ignored it because I was used to it telling me useless crap you already know. Like how to homing attack in Zone 5/7. The spindash in this game is simply a dysfunctional boost occasionally used for parkour and fanservice and when it does work properly it’s an over complication of something that hasn’t needed it for 22 years. I should be able to ease my way into a spindash without double tapping.

Finally in terms of dysfunctionality, the invincibility frames are short. Trying to just through something you were hit by without getting any rings will most likely result in death.

Unless Sonic is going dash panel speed, used spindash or is in a mach speed section



Oh my God, STOP COMPARING IT TO ‘06 IT’S NOT THAT BAD.

Sonic goes at a pretty alright speed and loses what feels like all momentum after jumping, even when spindashing (even as Super Sonic). Speaking of losing speed ho, ho the parkour. Other than the Deadly Six, Wisps and level design the



was this main games drawn in gimmick. Sonic Lost World Commercial

Sonic’s “smoking new moves” originate from Sonic Team asking players during development what bothers them the most in Sonic games. They said going fast and just stopping dead to a wall or some other obstacle. Now for those who don’t know what



is, it’s this gymnastic sort of thing with very fluid and fast jumping, running, flipping and I just can’t do it justice. Here’s a sample.



Now nothing’s wrong with the way Sonic performs parkour. Sure it may seem a bit bland in comparison but it still makes sense sort of. There is one thing however that separates Sonic parkour and real parkour. This is pretty fluid and fast huh? So how does Lost World approach it.

Not that well.

Aside from wallrunning (which can be used in combination with spindashing for some pretty cool and effective looking stunts) both other kinds of parkour, ledge hopping and wall running, destroy all previous momentum you had. It’d be understandable if Sonic kept his speed and slowly lost it as he ran up a wall (you know, to keep parkour from being broken) but nope. He just slows down on CONTACT to a parkour section. Ledge hopping is even worse as it feels as if Sonic completely stops in his tracks. While Sega tries to advertise parkour as a completely new thing my friend pointed out it has sort of been done before.



Kudos to Sonic Team for improving over both of these “versions” of the Triangle Jump/wall jump. Instead of having to tilt the control stick at an angle and just dropping after an amount of time like in Heroes and Shadow, Sonic just has to jump in the opposite direction of the wall and slowly cascades down the wall, giving you time to react. Overall at best Sonic controls OK, at worst mediocre. If I had a say in what the controls would’ve been it would’ve played out like this



The reason I chose all this was firstly, to remove some of the stress of having to look down at the GamePad during TV play. They can be on the screen during GamePad play, but not TV. Hint rings also have to be a physical thing again rather than being tapped. Removing ZR and ZL from the equation for normal gameplay frees up the sensitive trigger problem while having Sonic have a gradual gain in speed. One Sonic gains enough speed he performs parkour automatically with no unnecessary button input. Meanwhile the spindash and duck buttons have switched places from shoulder and face. The reason for this as it avoids unintentional spindash deaths and let’s be realistic here, Sonic has barely used the duck period from day one, and especially not so in the modern games were he uses his duck/slide about only once per zone. I think it came out quite nicely. At least in comparison to the rather erratic scheme featured in Lost World.

Speaking of controls, take a look at the control listings for the back of the box.



We don’t have to use the GamePad’s screen and motion stuff? Awesome! I can just play the game the way I want. Guess again buster. So you boot up Lost World and attempt to use your Classic Controller (Pro)/Wii Mote/Wii Mote and Nunchuk combo in vein. You’re soon to discover these controller options are exclusive to two player and to pour salt on said wound, only player 2 can use them. Great. Now you may be thinking, “this isn’t a big deal, the GamePad is good, just use that!” and while that is true we’ve come to expect a lot more customizability from out games in this day and age. Only allowing the first player to do something is an extremely archaic choice. You’d think Sonic Team would know people like other control options and allow them to use said options...and they do. Sonic Colors, three years prior came with a plethora of ways to play, Wii Mote, Wii Mote and Nunchuk, Classic Controller and Gamecube controller. Meanwhile this game gives you three options, two of which are multiplayer exclusive and also exclusive to player 2. It comes off as a real step down in the customizability of the game and how you can play, as well as seemingly wanting to shovethroat the GamePad into your playstyle. To sum it all up the back of the box could’ve been a real disappointment to players expecting to play the way they want and finding out their way is non-existent and an excuse to put another little “We have this in the game” tagline on the box.

Now to the wisps who are a bigger kick to the ribs. The wisps have NO reason to be there. It’s never explained nor acknowledged they’re there which is a real step down from Generations’ reasoning to bringing them back. Second, a majority aren’t necessary to completion like Colors Wii and just serve as shortcuts. For such an “important” element it legitimately feels like Sonic Team was like “Hmm, people like the wisps! Let’s keep them for advertisement!”. Let’s go over the wisps one at a time and see how they fare.

Cyan Laser, controls OK except when you’re trying to call off a misaimed launch. It’s possible TO call off a misaimed launch but the game never tells you how, so whatever.



Drill is perfect with the stylus distance effecting Sonic’s speed. The close the stylus is to Drill Sonic, the slower, but the farther it is the faster he moves. It would be pretty easy to do such a feat considering the tech has been around since 2004, but it’s nice that Drill works so well.



Hover (who is literally in one level, cementing the fact wisps were shoehorned in simply to say it’s in the game) is a bit off but you get used to it. Not like you need to though since hover is completely optional and off the main path for the first half of it’s level.



Rocket TRICKED me into thinking it was good when really, it’s probably the worst one. See, instead of simply pressing the button and watching him fly off you get to manually aim and fire Rocket with the Gyroscope. This would be a huge step up from Colors but if an event, say the motion control screwing up and no longer being centered there’s jack you can do about it since Sonic Team didn’t lessons from Nintendo and have a button for centering the cursor. So you’re left to disengage then re-engage Rocket which could’ve easily been avoided with a bit more thought.



Now what about the three new wisps? Indigo Asteroid, Crimson Eagle & Magenta Rhythm? Well, let’s get started with Asteroid and Eagle since they both share the same control idea, gyroscope. So um...no. Just no. Alright to be fair they work sometimes, but that’s sometimes. The controls should work ALL the time. The motion control was already mediocre with Rocket but this drops the ball ridiculously fast. Both Asteroid and Eagle refused to move with the trashy gyroscope most of the time and the worst part is Asteroid is necessary to getting two Red Rings and completing the game. Screw them, let’s just move onto our final wisp: Magenta Rhythm. Pretty alright, occasionally derps out. It’s placement in Sky Road is horrid though. Plentiful ghosts mixed with small gaps and a timed item? No ty.

Well, that’s all the wisps in this game! Overall the-- oh wait! We forgot one! Black Bomb, the secret wisp that’s hard to obtain, comes with a certain pre-order and holds explosive power! Getting him must give you a real edge, shouldn’t it? NOPE. Firstly: gyroscope. Hell no, moving on. Second, this supposedly powerful wisp that’s a BOMB can still take damage. Third, this is probably my least favorite wisp conceived. It barely lasts, isn’t fun to use and doesn’t help at all. You don’t need it for red rings or anything. Black Bomb is literally the most pointless wisp in the game (excluding the easter egg in Zelda Zone which contributes nothing to completion). In fact, most of them are pointless excluding Orbit, an even father leap back in comparison to Colors Wii and DS which. Where as two wisps could appear in one level in Colors Wii (and DS for crying outloud) Lost World U only features one per level. In addition remember how wisps were invited to come and assist in the epic boss fights? Well, that’s been taken away as that would take creativity to implement the wisps into the fights against the Deadly Six. Instead let’s have Sonic homing attack them all. Seriously, he doesn’t even use the Flying Kick during any of these bosses. In opposition to the levels the bosses are RIDICULOUSLY easy and once again take a step down from Colors as, instead of using something they already HAVE (the Wisps) they use gimmicks, like snowball mechanics, turning on lights and tricking them into rolling the fruit their running on into a blender. Wisps were obviously thrown in so they could say there’s more in the game and appeal to people who liked them in Colors. They could’ve been replaced with similar devices made by Tails and NOTHING would change. I TRULY feel sorry for anyone who was duped into getting Black Bomb. Granted, I got duped too but we’ll get to that. It wouldn’t even be that bad if you could control wisps with standard controls! Why couldn’t it be like this from the get go! Imagine if Mario Kart 7 forced you to use motion controls. Yeah, bet a lot of you preferred the conventional huh. Why can’t they release an update or a patch to fix it? Oh wait, THEY CAN AND THEY DID, Did they bother to TELL people about the new and highly improved controls in addition? Nope! Figure it out by accident by yourself shmuck, we already got your money! Aside from improving all the wisps (except Hover, who was like that from the get go, Drill, whose controls were already perfect and Rhythm who has no standard control) the patch as readded the series staple 100 rings = 1 life. Removing it in Colors Wii was bad enough (making the game seem a lot more difficult than it is due to scrambling for extra lives) but at least they changed their mind. At least we know why the amazon pre-order came with 25 extra lives. Back to the whole, bottomless pit thing, Sonic Lost World U is the hardest Sonic game in ages. It provides a nice challenge and the missions add a bit of replayability. On the topic of pre-orders one of the pre-orders came with a special DLC, Nightmare Zone based on the NiGHTS series. So how does Sonic Team treat this crossover of epic proportions?

The NiGHTS DLC is a reskin of the bosses.



This left me disgusted and baffled. Oh ok, Zeena is a bit different but that’s probably because they didn’t want to reuse the snowball mechanics and changed running into snowmen to kicking fireworks. I pre-ordered Sonic Lost World for this DLC. Granted the pre-order was only $5 more (still $15 less than the standard $60 price tag for games) so the loss wasn’t that bad but I was still left dumbfounded. I was expecting to get 6 new amazingly crafted boss battles. When really the NiGHTS bosses have been demoted to reskins of the existing bosses. Only nerfed. You may be thinking “at least they used NiGHTs again”. While that is nice it still feels REALLY cheap, especially with the advertisements describing this “Sonic’s worst nightmare” instead of “a nerfed reskin of the existing bosses” even when the DLC is free. I understand NiGHTs isn’t as profitable as he used to be, what with Journey Into Dreams and all but at least give the series, different bosses. This is like if I promise my girlfriend a present that’s a follow up on something I got her years ago and when I give her said present’s it’s just a cheap knock-off or the same thing I got her last year, just with minor changes.

Very often there circuses will open up where Sonic and Tails can team up and attempt to earn more Animal Friends/Rings. It takes advantage of the GamePad correctly because it only uses stylus minigames, not the horridly applied gyroscope.

Earlier I mentioned the Wisps could be replaced by gadgets built by Tails that emulated their abilities and it just so happens this game HAS gadgets built by Tails. They’re called RC Machines, miniature replicas of aviation vehicles, like helicopters, hovercrafts and planes. They’re meant to give Sonic a little leg up (and give players a bit more incentive to buy both versions) during gameplay. While they do help, they really come off as shallow as they aren’t that helpful. Not to mention that everyone of one type (for example the giraffe and zebra Stealth Jet) is the exact same, no difference. Just reskins. Helicopters drop bombs, which requires timing and precision, something the second player probably won’t be able to execute due to the fact that Sonic normally moving and when he is standing still the vehicle is stuck in a specific radius around him, same with the Fighter Jet who is a bit of a step up but since he only fires a tiny little missile forward he’s bound to probably miss. Did I mention that when fast enough Sonic can OUTRUN his RC buddy? Yeah. Nice Sega. Nice. Oddly enough the motion control here works. Probably because it’s as simple as moving up and down. The Stealth Jet isn’t normally useful since for the most part, all of the Badniks Sonic meets are pretty easy to kill and you’ll want to do so to free Animal Friends and get more circuses and other such stuff. But it works. The hovercraft is useless trash die in a hole NEXT. UFO is also pretty useless but I can see a purpose. If only more levels could’ve actively IMPLEMENTED the RC Vehicles they would’ve been more valuable as opposed to being a crappy excuse for co-op that EXPIRES. Yup, if you use a basic RC vehicle too much for too long is disappears. Balloon is pretty close to useless and we finally make it to Omochao the one who comes with some of the pre-order bundles. What does he do? I don’t know, I never unlocked him throughout all my playtime. From my research he can be used to collect stuff but I can’t see that being too useful when Sonic is basically the full package. RC Vehicles were a cool concept in theory but are really just a shallow limited experience for the second player only included to give incentive to buy both versions, as well as say Wii U version had co-op.

Finally before we reach the gameplay the verdict let’s talk about the two other DLC stages. Why? They’re just worth talking about. As opposed to the rest of the levels which are a mix of fun to frustrating Yoshi’s Island Zone and The Legend of Zelda Zone were different unique experiences. Yoshi’s Island felt like a nice 2D platformer, and really special due to the Mario-seque atmosphere as well as the fact it was all very well designed, other than a few occasional leaps of faith. The Legend of Zelda Zone was this grand open journey through Hyrule Field with a bunch of things to do. It felt like a real departure from the rest of Lost World and a good one at that. It even gave Black Bomb a purpose! The only problem was occasionally was the camera but it normally doesn’t distract from the pure fun you’ll be having controlling Sonic in his Hero of Courage garb. You then get to the latter section of the level where all scale and atmosphere is killed by what looks like a leftover level layout from the main game painted with a Zelda coat. It really diminished the value of the DLC by including such a boring finish. The levels overall were pretty cool and so was the DLC, but Zelda Zone’s second half is real disappointment. It’s like if you got a huge very fancy looking present and inside was something you already had plenty of.

In short, Sonic controls OK (at best, at worst he’s an awkward mess), the wisps were shoehorned in and unnecessary, the levels can provide fun (albeit occasionally unfair) challenge, parkour can take a while to get used to, the bosses are brain dead easy, the placement can be stupid on occasion, the RC Vehicles were pointless and the game likes to use exclusive gimmicks rather than the things it already has (like the Flying Kick and wisps). It plays pretty fun at best and frustratingly unfair at worse.

Plot
Let me start off by saying this is probably one of the best written Sonic games to date. Some people think Sonic should always have a super serious and intricate plot. Some people think Sonic should always have a simple and goofy plot. In my opinion, I’d like to balance the two and this game delivers that exactly. It has all the jokes, humor and colorful visuals you expect from Sonic but can also take it’s characters seriously, which is something I love. However like gameplay, in some aspects Sonic Lost World U steps DOWN from its predecessors. In Generations it’s explained that while in space Eggman found Time Eater and harnessed his to erase time. Unlike that game which at least had the courtesy to explain Eggman at least ESCAPED, Lost World completely glances over the fact that Eggman is trapped in White Space with his younger counterpart at the end. Not to mention Cubot and Orbot are back and it never made note that he retrieved them from space. All they had to do was say Cubot and Orbot built something to help the doctor return but nope. Completely ignored. Remember how the Wisps were demoted from useful and inventive power ups to pointless gimmicks and fanservice? Well joining them in the fanservice boat are Amy and Knuckles...just like in another game…



Remove Amy and Knuckles from the plot and NOTHING will change.

They literally do nothing but contact Sonic and Tails and ask them if they saved the Animal Friends and be used as warning signs that Earth’s life is being sucked away, something Eggman or any of the Deadly Six could’ve told/shown the two of them. That’s not the only thing wrong here however. There’s also Sonic’s horrid incompetence. Sonic and Tails have been getting a much stronger and defined relationship in the series, especially with Generations and Colors. Gone are the days where Tails would simply look up to Sonic, they now talk to each other like equals, make jokes, tease each other etc and that’s all present here. The only problem I found here is the fact that Sonic and Tails clearly look at Eggman using the shell to inhibit the Deadly Six and can hear him from where they’re sitting. Tails even warns Sonic but he runs in, head first and kicks the



MAGIC CONCH 

out of his hand without thinking twice about it, regressing Sonic into a brash and arrogant child who doesn’t even glance over the potential consequences of his actions and thinks with such straight forward quips as “When is it a mistake to take your toys away?” when it was clearly being used to keep them in line. Them being those two monsters who /attacked/ and threatened you earlier and another one, who you can presume is allied with them. This makes Sonic come off as extremely stupid and single minded character who believes destroying and getting rid of things is the only way to do it. On a plus note the minor argument between Sonic and Tails gets interesting to say the least. Other than the “bites” line (which isn’t that bad) it’s a bit testing of Sonic’s trust in Tails, while we all know it’s there Tails may not. Which brings up the question why they don’t just ditch Eggman. Other than Sonic’s out of character stupidity this plot is pretty enjoyable. The Deadly Six are pretty cool too, but can come off as too generic. Excluding Zavok because he’s just too rad for that.



CGI is only used for the opening cutscene, no others. All others are pre-rendered. This is alright however as Sonic Lost World, while not beautiful looks pretty nice much like the rest of the game. Every character gets some form of unique, charming or witty dialogue and all the characters are how you expect them to be. Especially the Deadly Six who can be read like a book.



Couldn’t have said it better myself Sonic Retro.

You’ll probably like a majority of them and have that one you hate (Zor is mine, look at that generic boring despair filled little--) but it won’t detract too much from the experience. Eggman in particular is portrayed extremely well here as per usual with great dialogue and emotion all the way through. The ending though...oh, ho skip over this if you CARE about spoilers for Lost World. You really shouldn’t though. I didn’t.

In the climax of Lost World U the Deadly Six successfully get the life-draining machine working and actually begin sucking all life from the Earth. One by one all of Sonic’s friends begin to fall in rather touching scenes. Tails is kidnapped and to be roboticized, Amy and Knuckles are getting the life sucked out of them and Cubot, Eggman and Orbot all fell to their deaths saving Sonic. Sonic is literally alone, but he keeps a strong head and continues going knowing he’ll find a way. What kills the plot is the violent anti-climax fiesta. All that seems to lead up to something big doesn’t it? Nope. You don’t find out where the Deadly Six came from. You don’t find out where Lost Hex came from or how Tails knew what it was. You don’t learn how Eggman got the conch. And we don’t learn the fate of Lost Hex and the Deadly Six after their defeat. Coming out of Generations all of these unanswered questions to the plot are truly jarring and make the plot feel incomplete. There’s literally a FLOATING PLANETOID above them and no one questions where it came from. I don’t know whether they thought it was important or they were just scared to make an actual plot after numerous disasters (Adventure 2, Shadow the Hedgehog, ‘06) anything would’ve been better than nothing. They could be genetically made mutants by Eggman, sure it’s been done/bland but it’s /something/. That’s overall the feeling the ending leaves you with. Nothingness, questions and annoyance at the fact the plot is so incomplete and will probably never be mentioned in the next Sonic game. It’s a shame too because I thought the rest of the plot was really well written, could be comedic and portrayed the characters with lots of emotion.

Overall it’s a nearly perfect Sonic plot other than all the gaps left by the unexplained things that had no business being unexplained. Give it a bit of lore and I think it would’ve been great.



MMM LORE. Oh Big Red Button. YOU ARE MAGNIFICENT. YES YES YESYEYEYSYSYHS.

Music
The tunes in Sonic Lost World U are exactly as you’d expect them to be, great. As per usual Tomoya Ohtani (the composer for this game, you may recognize him for such classics as “His World” and “Endless Possibility) brings some amazing and fitting tunes for the levels. The absence of Crush 40 again may bring some down but Wonder World is quite the theme with reminiscences to the ‘06 and Unleashed soundtrack. Overall it’s amazing and like most Sonic soundtracks flies high through the sky… without boundries.

I don’t get tired of getting beaten do I?

Modes
Lost World has three different modes at its core: story, time attack and two player. Both story and time attack fall under the “New Game/Continue” category where Two Player falls under, well “Two-Player Race”. Story mode is a pretty good time and has optional missions to keep you busy after you beat the main storyline. What will truly keep you busy with challenge however is Time Attack which will put your skills to the test and see if you can be pixel perfect. In a good way though, not a finicky way. It even brings back ranking! So basically time attack is like playing through Sonic Lost World U with Unleashed ranking times. It’s fun. What isn’t fun however is the fact that, like Generations you may only have one save file. Meaning if you ever want to start over, too bad you delete your save.



R.I.P Main Series Sonic Games Having Multiple Save Files 1994-2010

Putting that senseless decision (yes I know different Wii U accounts have different save data but they could have easily pulled a Wind Waker HD or Mario 3D World) aside let’s talk about the multiplayer. It’s pretty fun, like Colors DS. You run into items and they automatically activate. It’s a shame there aren’t too many. There’s even a wisp there! Grey Quake...who’s supposed to be exclusive to 3DS version. You know, two player could’ve been where they poured a bit more effort. Why not dump all the wisps and not just one that’s not supposed to be on this version. Eh, oh well. Normal and Expert race are good and very reminiscent of Sonic Heroes, which is a plus. It even has Ring race! However ring race isn’t as fun as the stages for that mode are really short and you may find yourself looping 3 times before the timer finally stops. It CAN be fun but not as fun as normal an expert. Over all SLWU has a bunch of modes that go for quality over quantity. You know, Lost World Quality over quantity not really good quality over quantity.

Development
Sonic Lost World U began development after Colors when a few members of Sonic Team began experimenting with what could be the next game after Generations, which was also in development. At the same time as all this Sonic Team planned to make a game which also took advantage of the 3DS’ capabilities and features (gyroscope, microphone ETC). After Generations’ release and prior to the Wii U’s (aka early to mid 2012), Sonic Team began developing Lost World for the PC but later switched over to the Wii U as they saw Sonic’s fans were commonly loyal to Nintendo. Then they decided to pull a Sonic Colors and fulfill their 3DS advantage taking agenda with a portable version.

With all that in tow Sonic Team decided to bring back the wisps. Not because they brought anything to the plot or gameplay but because fans liked them which means another thing we can use to lure them in. Swear to God the wisps are so useless they aren’t even mentioned or seen in the American commercials. Moving on Sonic Team, of course, wanted to provide players with something Sonic’s never done before as they usually love to do. They decided to go with twisted tube like levels (not inspired by Sonic X-treme OR Mario Galaxy guys.) inspired by the children’s tale Jack and the Beanstalk. The final action done was adding parkour. That’s pretty much it.

Let’s stop for a minute and analyze this decision. While it is most likely true a lot of Sonic’s fans were loyal to Nintendo this game REALLY shouldn’t have been exclusive to Wii U. Many people argued that people who wanted this on other consoles just didn’t want to get a Wii U. Evidently that’s not the case for me since I own one. The problem is that Nintendo and SEGA were expecting Lost World U to move consoles. I can tell you that after Sonic ‘06, it’d be a MIRACLE if Sonic was able to sell consoles again. He’d have to get at least 6 or 7 years of good credit under his belt again before people started to trust him. Unfortunately he didn’t as Secret Rings and Black Knight, are also looked out with much hatred. Sonic’s marketability to sell consoles is currently dead so it’s to NO ones surprise Lost World did poorly. Had it also been on PS3 and 360 it probably wouldn’t have changed much on the Wii U’s position at the moment. Sonic Lost World U currently has sold 0.22 million copies. Only /1/ of those point millions is from Japan. On top of that compare it to it’s predecessor, Sonic Generations: White Time and Space which sold 1.25 and 1.11 million on PS3 and 360 respectively. Even with its better selling 3DS brethren Lost World only totals at .52 million. With its 3DS (and pc don’t forget pc)



brethren Generations sold a total of 3.31 million easily dwarfing Lost World. Let’s take to one more comparison however. Colors Wii and DS sold a total of 2.79 million copies. While not outclassing Generations it is an outstanding feat for a 2-4 game comparison. Why did Colors sell and not Lost World? Well aside from a majority of fans and critics thinking of Colors highly and Lost World not so highly there’s the fact that I mentioned before. Sonic can no longer sell systems after ‘06. In 2010 the Wii had long since launched and destroyed the 360 and PS3. The Wii was extremely popular already with titles like Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess and Smash Brothers Brawl. The game already had the foundation set for it so of course it was able to do well. Lost World U was attempting to set the foundation, things 3D World, Mario Kart 8, Nintendo Land and even Smash Bros. may have/had trouble doing. Of course Lost World was doomed the minute it tried to assist. Sonic games need to be multiplatform, and if they aren’t they need to be extremely great or have the foundation set for them. Trying to go in alone results in stuff like this:



Yeah. That is what we call “a mixed bag” kids. Second, do I have to say it again. THE WISPS WERE NOT NECESSARY FOR THIS INSTALLMENT. THEY ADDED NOTHING TO THE GAME. WHY ARE THEY HERE. Overall the development of this game seems to be rather standard, no mass layoffs, no company financial troubles and no development issues. Just Sonic Team trying to please Sonic fans. And as per usual failing. No, no not because they’re bad or incompetent. No matter how good this game was it would’ve gotten hate. Sonic fans are unpleasable idiots is what I’m trying to say. These last few sentences had no bearing to anything else. Just had to put that out there.

Replayability
Lost World’s replayability comes from collecting the red rings, doing time attack and doing the side missions as the multiplayer will probably only keep you coming for 2 days tops. When I set out to collect the red rings that’s when Lost World’s true cheapness began to shine but I was able to make it through and do so, in the end collecting all the red rings was worth it to unlock Super Sonic!..who feels incomplete. While playable in levels Super Sonic has regressed back to genesis limitations, and his quills are unable to stay up when he double jumps or does parkour. In the 3DS version he does this all fine however making it look like Sonic Team got lazy while their assistant company Dimps, didn’t.



''Sometimes I wisp Dimps took over the series. They normally make really good games. Maybe it’s for the best Sonic Team still has control…''

The 3DS version even looks better than the WII U version. To me at least. Much faster an energetic. I have hopes for it. Not high though, because after this game I learned not to set the hope n’ hype bar too high. For Sonic Team games at least. You can also try to max out the RC Vehicles if you’re a true completionist, bored or into doing trivial stuff. Overall the game’s replayability depends if you LIKE doing all that stuff. I’m willing to bet most people will do the red star ring stuff but not everything else. It’s fun, but only for passing time. Not really something you’d do voluntarily for days like Mario 3D World’s Green Stars. The replayability is overall moderate.

Verdict
Sonic Lost World U is overall the definition of a mixed bag. It’s like the epitome and definition of Sonic, in the middle. Never great but (almost) never garbage. Some people adore the game, others think it’s an insult to Sonic and it’s characters. Some critics love it, some hate it, some think what I think, it’s rather mediocre. No matter how you look at it Sonic Lost World U is either OK at the new stuff it does or steps down from its predecessors in many aspects. Whether it be adding useless gimmicks (something we thought we outgrew with Colors and Generations), randomly pulled story elements and (most likely) one-offs characters and-- wait a second.

Sonic Lost World is like a spin-off title.

Think about it! (Supposedly) Horrible gimmicks?



Abandoned/Underdeveloped/unexplained plotpoints and locations



Underdeveloped minor/one-off characters.



The sad thing is that there are more characters than just them.

Then there’s the fact that after how this game sold I’m sure SEGA will want to abandon it as fast as possible, basically acting like Lost Hex and the Deadly Six never happened. Not to mention it was in development at the same time as the next big Sonic game. Lost World is the generation 8 equivalent of Secret Rings, with Generations being the ‘06. In role I mean, not quality. So yeah. Overall Sonic Lost World doesn’t feel like a main series game due to it’s lack of unity and tradition with the past games.

This doesn’t stop one from enjoying the game however, it just minorly takes them out the experiences. So overall what do I give Lost World U? Well it is definitely a step down from the reputation that Unleashed, Colors and Generations helped build but it can be fun at times. You just may find yourself asking why they did this or why they did that when they didn’t need to. Sonic Lost World is overall a decent game with some glaring problems, that may or may not derail from the experience. Stick with the game for a while though and you’ll find yourself having lots of fun, err, most of the time.



I hope you enjoyed my review of Sonic Lost World U. There’s more coming soon so stayed tuned and look out. Special thanks to Placlutwo and Cobanermani for having Super Sonic footage. Thanks for reading! See ya!