The Wii throwback nobody asked for!
I
hate to admit it, but I hate Sonic. I hate having to do that because it might make it seem like I am biased, since I grew up with Mario, but believe me, I've always wanted to like Sonic. I've always wanted to play the Adventure series, even though Adventure 1 on PC wasn't very fun. I was so
hyped for Sonic heroes when I was younger. And I haven't been excited about a Sonic game since... until
Sonic: Lost World was announced, and it looked like THE Sonic game. I tried out the demo for the 3DS version, and I loved it, so I was chomping at the bit until I could get my hands on the
full game and now I regret it.
Sonic Lost World is 3-D Sonic meets Mario Galaxy,
kinda. A few levels play a bit with gravity and what have you, but for the
most part, it's just another Sonic game in which you gotta go fast.
Kinda. The game is divided into 7 worlds, with 3 Acts and a boss each. Sonic has a lot of abilities,
too many in my opinion. There's the jump and the homing attack, by pressing jump again close to an enemy, a
reticule will appear over them signifying the homing attack will land, as well as a 'Somersault Kick', which is a projectile, by pressing the Spin Dash button while on air. This is an
unnecessary complexity, because some enemies can only be safely dispatched by hitting them with the somersault kick and then the jumping attack. To be honest, some enemies
don't show clear signs that suggest a straight homing attack wouldn't work, which made it extra annoying. You can also perform a 'super' Homing attack by targeting an enemy for a short while, which is the only way to defeat a few enemies. It's also
super boring in a game about speed having to wait for the lock-on to charge up to level 3. On the ground, The X and Y button perform the Spin Dash, Sonic's land attack
But we ain't done yet. The only way for Sonic to reach max speed is by holding down R, which I think was a
good idea, since you may not always want Sonic to be at his full,
slippery speed. Plus, if you approach a wall at high speed, Sonic will run on it. If you approach walls that are in front of the camera, Sonic will run upwards, if you approach walls that aren't facing the camera, Sonic will run alongside them. It's incredibly
confusing at first, so you'll try to scale walls on their sides or try to wall run on others because this
restriction makes no sense. But we aren't done yet. Press X or Y during a wall run/climb to get a boost of speed, or press A/B to jump to the opposite side. I think in another game these mechanics could've worked, but Sonic is too slippery and too sticky. It's easy to accidentally run on walls you didn't mean to and accidentally kill yourself. He is so slippery that it's also easy to fall off platforms while you try to
reposition yourself. Plus, it's easy to
also hurt yourself by trying to perform a homing attack on the wrong enemy, which is easy to do if you're trying to go fast. But trying to go fast will also get Sonic to run on things you didn't mean to or fall to his death because he is just that slippery. In other words, I
hated the controls in the game, and they made the game
incredibly frustrating. It's not just that, the homing attack can kill you too. Y'see, Sonic can target up to three enemies and/or objects. Sometimes the game might have you cross a jump by doing homing attacks on flying enemies.... but Sonic might decide to home into an enemy or object behind you, that you didn't know was targeted, and plummet him to his death.
The game has challenging levels,
for all the wrong reasons, and easy bosses. And here's the thing, if you die a lot the game will drop
help capsules to help you, such as a flying machine or a friendly UFO that shoots at enemies. If you tried to avoid them, considering them cheating, like I did, it's possible that one of those homing attacks will home in on the flying enemy.... AND THEN HOME YOU BACK INTO THE CAPSULE YOU TRIED TO AVOID,
often times killing you. It's so poorly designed, and the appearance help capsules
should have been optional. Luckily, it seems like the developers knew that you'd unfairly lose a ton of lives, so it's very easy to
amass a surplus of lives. While I died a lot, I finished the game with 60 lives to
spare. As for easy bosses, let's just say that Act 6's boss can be beaten with one attack.
ONE ATTACK.
Finally, rounding up Sonic's arsenal are the Color wisps from Sonic Colors. Indigo turns you into a slippery asteroid that turns enemies and objects into debris rings around it, Yellow turns Sonic into an unwieldy drill that works better in water, Ivory turns Sonic into a slippery electric bolt that can zap into electric cables or swing from...
floating batteries, Grey is the worst because it turns you into a hard-to-control iron ball which can
only be move with... gyroscopic controls and, lastly, the Red turns Sonic into a ball of fire, and this final one is unlocked in one of the final levels. You can store these Wisps when you find them, but most of the time you are
supposed to use them right where you found them.
As for the levels themselves, they come in three varieties: 2-D Sidescrolling stages, open 3-D stages and... 3-D stages in which you are supposed to be moving forward. The difference between the last two is that in the first type you can reposition the camera behind Sonic by pressing L.
Why they didn't stick to just one type of 3-D stage is beyond me. I've heard that many people complained about the stages being too long or gimmicky, but they didn't feel that long, and I was so busy getting
frustrated with the controls that I didn't really cared about the gimmicks. What's more, I think these light puzzle-like gimmicks, such as find the right teleporter, were a decent
breather from having to deal with platforming while
struggling to control Sonic. That said, there was this one annoying level near the end that had you riding rockets... using gyroscopic controls. There's also a boss that
requires gyroscopic controls, which once again, is very dumb for a HANDHELD game, am I supposed to stand up and turn in circles while riding a bus? Nah, just close the 3DS and cut your gaming session short, there's
nothing you can do since you can't turn them off. Bonus stages, in which you collect the Chaos Gems, also require gyroscopic controls, but these were actually
quite fun.
I wanted to like Sonic: Lost World,
I did, but controlling Sonic is a mess due to how slippery he is. There are so many
poor design choices, like the homing attack being able to home in on things behind you or how the wall running/climbing works. The worst part about this whole ordeal... is that I'd still be willing to give the home console version og Lost World a chance if it ever gets ported to Switch... or if I ever get a Wii-U.
3.0 out of 10
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