A BIG HARDCORE GAMER CHALLENGE, A CASUAL GAMER NIGHTMARE
Sonic Lost World (3DS) is a good game, however, it isn’t perfect. It’s original and long, and the technical difficulties of it will remind one of the 90’s games. On the bright side, the game does get a lot easier with experience, so casual gamers can play this too.
If you do not want to read a lot, scroll to the bottom.
This is the first boss. Also the easier one.
STORY (free spoiler)
Sonic is saving animals from Eggman, something happens and you will discover a strange place called Lost Hex. There, you will meet The Deadly Six and you must fight them with Eggman, making two big enemies into big allies or something of the sort.
It’s mostly a kid friendly storyline, and like most of Sonic games, it has an interesting twist at the end where you must also save the world.
GRAPHICS
The hardest level for me in the game. You must think a lot to beat it.
In this case, the graphics of the game are amazing. Although they are not the best, it’s still eye catching. Dimps did a great job in this part and they made a lot of progress since Sonic Generations.
Levels are colorful and big with really little lag. The only time you can suffer from lag is when you’re playing multiplayer or when you’re losing like 100 rings.
Also you can enjoy the movies and videos from the Wii U version, but the video compression is horrible and with the 3D, it is even worse. However, it is at least still better than picture conversations.
SOUND & MUSIC
Sonic Lost World has an excellent work in this part. Why?
The music at the various levels are excellent and very enjoyable. There is a lot of variety, with catchy tunes one can enjoy. The most surprising thing for me was a Tango song, and I loved it.
The only problem is wisp tunes, in some levels you will need them a lot and it becomes annoying with the time. But don’t worry, the good news is that this only happens in 3 or 4 levels.
The voice acting is normal for my taste, it isn’t annoying like other games, but the surprising part is the localization work. That means you can read and hear the game in not only Japanese or English, but also in Spanish, Italian and French for instance.
Furthermore, you cannot change those settings unless you change your console settings.
GAMEPLAY
2D levels are the fastest one, and also, a lot of them original. But some times you must slow down a little.
Level Design: The level design is strong and sometimes one can be surprised by this. Some levels are original meanwhile others aren’t.
You will be playing 7 different zones and the design isn’t the only difference. Some zones have a lot of different ways to play their acts, keeping it refreshing and enjoyable. In every level, you can find a lot of different ways (and a lot of them are hidden), therefore you will need to play a lot to find all.
Playing this game is like playing a Sonic Adventure game with wisps, but with a lot of difficulty. Some levels will make you remember Super Mario 3D Land, some of Sonic Xtreme (if you heard of it), and some parts to Sonic Heroes.
You must learn to use the Spin Dash if you want to play fast.
They aren’t so many glitches in the game and sometimes you won’t notice existing ones making that a good thing. However, if you have bad luck and encounter one, you may feel frustrated.
The camera is of good quality and in 3D stages (well, most of them) you can easily fix the camera by pressing “L”, so the camera fortunately is user friendly.
Special Stages have a lot of potential but there is a problem with them.
The design idea is really good and it will make you remember Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but the gameplay will make you detest them, and only play them when you need the 7 chaos emeralds.
When you lose a lot of lives, you get special items that help you to reach the desired levels. Those can be very useful in most parts of the various levels, but a few times you may have to skip them and play like nothing happened. Be prepared, because you will lose a lot in the game.
This new move is crucial to beat a lot of enemies without getting damage when trying.
Controls: For the majority of the game, the controls are excellent. The game is fast if you want to be quick and it gets slower when you desire or need it to in order to beat the level.
But there is a big problem, gyroscope controls are broken in some parts. This will give the user some problems when playing with wisps or in special stages.
Furthermore, you must master the controls to do a lot of things. For example, you can play fast if you don’t make a fully spin dash, or need to do an air kick before killing an enemy.
The game controls feel like a Sonic Adventure game and the classic stages to Sonic Generations (the console one), with the famous wisp gameplay from Sonic Colors and the new parkour system.
Good idea. Bad controls in most of the cases.
Difficulty: At the start, you will play easily, you will learn the basics however half of the game is significantly harder, and can be frustrating. You must learn the levels, learn where to be fast and where to be slow, sometimes there are puzzles and you must discover how to play it.
In other words, you will need a lot of skills, concentration and memory to be perfect in this game. Also, you will need to know how to make puzzles because you must discover how to solve them meanwhile you’re playing in most cases.
Also, to beat the rank system and collect all the red stars will be quite a challenge. If you played Sonic Adventure and thought “Get an A is hard”, you will discover a new concept of that word.
This is the act two of the first zone. Very different to the first one.
Bosses have a good point here because those are hard to beat, and some of them you will need a good eye to play it. You ought to be patient and learn their moves. Sadly, most of them are short or easy to learn.
Wisp controls are a problem, and I will tell you why. At first, those will be hard to use, so you need to learn how to use them, but sometimes you will need the gyroscope, and it makes the gameplay harder therefore you may want to choose another way.
Special Stages are the worst part of the game to some extent because they entail a complete use of the gyroscope, and it’s somewhat broken. The only way to play them is standing up, complete the level then you can sit down and enjoy the rest of the game.
Another problem is the frustration when you’re playing to collect a lot of rings without any shields and when you get a hit, it will make you lose almost every ring you’ve obtained. However, that’s a normal thing about the saga. The real thing is about learning how to beat your enemies, but I will address this better in another post.
The race online mode is a lot of fun.
Like I said, they’re shields in special boxes such as the Fire Shield (immunity to fire), the Light Shield (immunity to electricity, also attracts rings), Water Shield (infinite oxygen on the water), also the common Invincibility item.
Lastly, you have to learn to keep resources. That means wisps or shields (you can keep up to 4 items or wisps) because if you have, for example, a wisp in the start of the level, you may need to use it later if you want to get a red star or go in a shorter way. Item boxes can be saved for other levels also.
Replay Value: There is a lot of replay value in the game, most of them when you finish the game:
The battle mode is exclusive of the 3DS version.
MULTIPLAYER: This game has a lot of multiplayer features. It has local multiplayer and also a download mode, so if the other user doesn’t have the game, you can play regardless.
However, the best thing is it has wi-fi (online) multiplayer, that means you can play races and battles with the people around the world, and this can add a lot of gameplay hours.
Sadly, the only way to unlock multiplayer levels is by beating the main game level first. If those come unlocked from the start, I should add a few extra points to the review.
With a lot of releases in October, maybe it can be hard to find people to play with for the while. As we know, the most played game right now is Pokémon X / Y so if you want to fully enjoy the online mode, you may need to wait a while.
There’s a classification system which means competitions around the players who love this feature, and this can be a problem if you are still learning this game, because you will lose your position.
VERDICT: 88/100 (Excellent!)
This game is a lot of fun and it can be harder for casual gamers. Online and cross features are well received. This is an excellent game and it must be played by platform lovers.
Here’s a short version of this review:
GOOD
+ Great level design
+ Excellent graphics
+ Excellent music
+ Multi-language text and voice acting
+ Local, Wi-Fi and “Download Mode” game modes
+ Good replay value
+ A good challenge
+ Good button controls
+ Different levels styles
+ You need to be speedy and slow
NORMAL
= Game story
= The game can help you if you lose a lot of lifes, but in a few cases it doesn’t
= Wisps tunes
= Voice acting
BAD
– Gyroscope controls can be broken
– Bad video compression
– You must learn to play by yourself
– Lack of hints
– Unbalanced difficulty
