Sonic Nintendo Exclusive - Sonic Boom (Video Game)

[Harmless]

I hear that from a lot of people, but apparently it's supposed to play like the Sonic genesis game (with some Sonic Heroes of course).

[Konradix]

So the 3DS demo for Shattered Crystal is out, it has 3 levels: a gigantic 2D stage with lots of secrets and stuff, a "Sonic 2 bonus level" level, and a race. Since the race and the bonus-like level are kinda uneventful, I'll just talk about the open stage.

I found myself using Sonic pretty much all the time, since he's the fastest and there werent many sections that the other characters were needed. All characters were assigned to a D-pad button, and each character has a different ability:
Sonic has a dash forward thing which breaks through blocks
Boomerang girl has a boomerang she can throw (Duh!), but if you hold the button throwing the boomerang, you'll gain control over it and can steer through obstacles to kill enemies.
Tails can float up air currents and falls slower.
The Mc buffbuff has an attack which he can use to dig through the ground (think Drill in Sonic Colours).
All characters can also jump, sprint and use a laser beam thing (think Super Metroid) to swing around, break enemies shields or to launch themselves with a cannon.

There were multiple objectives that the stage had, finishing the level, speedrun challenge, collect a certain amount of rings, collect 5 crystals, collect 6 blueprints. While I don't know what they do (since the game kinda kicks you out to the title screen when you finish a level), they do add exploration value to the level, albeit not that great since you have a map available at all times and it pretty much is a "detour to get an item and loop back to the main path".

I found that Sonic, while the fastest, doesn't move that fast. However, the camera is a little too close to the action for me, so even at that speed I sometimes got overwhelmed. I didn't have problems with the controls or glitches, all characters did what they were supposed to do. The 3D is not available on the title screen or the menus, but it is in the levels (and that's all that matteres). In the levels it was nice, even if it didn't play a great role like, say, Kirby's Triple Deluxe.

Overall I'd say I enjoyed it. It wasn't too challenging, and characters other than Sonic did not play that great of a role (like seriously, pretty much to advance without strayign from the main path, you pretty much only had to use Sonic) it was enjoyable. I would definately compare it to Lost world more than Generations, Colours, SA1 etc. I liked the exploration and the presentation, though the Music was forgettable. I'd say check out the demo if you're unsure.

[Raz]

Sonic '14

[ChaosYoshi]

And I had hopes for the Wii U version. *sigh*

From what I've played of the 3DS demo, I share quite a bit of my opinions with Konradix. I think the main 2D stage is a little longer than I'd like (seriously, 6:40 is the speed-run time?), and the submarine section breaks up the pace. The screen is a bit close to Sonic & friends, so I sometimes run straight into something I didn't know was coming up the first time playing it. It's giving me a bit of Sonic Genesis flashbacks in that aspect, just not nearly as buggy. The inclusion of multiple characters is cool, but it doesn't add a whole lot when you have to stop in your tracks just to switch to another character so you can perform some character-specific task that you only need to do once or twice.

I always get some sense of rubber band AI when it comes to the race level. Whenever I take the shortcuts, the computer player is right behind me. When I screw up badly, the AI is only a few feet ahead of me and slows down just for me to get ahead. However, I enjoyed this a bit because it was shorter length and it had a sense of speed in it.

The boss stage is incredibly pathetic. Heck, there's not really a boss in it; you just reach the end and BOOM the boss is dead (and very pixelated up close). The speed-run and ring challenges aren't that hard to pull off, either. Sure, you have to collect every single ring, and you can't change lanes while boosting, but everything's very easy to see coming. I'm also getting a lot of vibes from the sprinting stages in Sonic Lost World.

[Harmless]

Yeah, if only you could change characters while still running... I feel like you could keep your momentum a lot more.

[Raz]

welp this game is officially the sonic 06 of the 21st century

[#4715]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about. This game looks stellar.

[Konradix]

So I am watching the gameplay footage of the WiiU game... and holy crap does it look bad. I was gonna say something along the lines of "'optional' glitches don't ruin a game, they're everywhere in games" (optional meaning, e.g. Bob-omb glitch in SM64, not a Sonic '06 hitbox problem), but boy the game has a bad intro. I'll watch the rest of the stream later (when it's saved) and will say my opinions.

@EDIT:

Ok, here come impressions:

Spoiler: show

Wow the game looks slow as hell. 3DS version was slow, but the screen was zoomed in, so it made 'some' sense. Here the camera is... still way too close, but the space before you is visible and open, why are the characters slow as ♥♥♥♥? Oh, also the camera. Why does the camera get spasms every 2 minutes? Also why the fights? Who knows Sonic for his slow movements and combat manouvers? Not that the fights look interesting. Or general gameplay. The open areas look soooooooooo empty. Not "Xenoblade Chronicles'" where you fight monsters, can find cool vantage points, has interesting sights and has cool music while you run through (Not to mention you have a freaking map and waypoints). No, this is "look at all this blandness, boring scenery for hours while running slow as all hell, no enemies to fight, no nothing, just rings". And rings cap off at 100, so what's the point? It's not like you're going to lose them in this empty, boring hub. Not that the 'stages' are any better. Move through a maze, hit some buttons, find someone, hit some buttons, rince repeat with each character. And it's not like the exploration is any better than the 3DS version. Now instead you don't use Sonic for 10 minutes, but Knuckles for 10 minutes! Great! Even Sonic Heroes, which I didn't enjoy that much, had better integration of teamwork in the game. Also the music. At first I thought it could have soem potential. Then, when I noticed that the music does not switch in fights (to some fighting theme or something along those lines) I thought it was a bit weird. Then when they introduced a new soundtrack and played this single soundtrack for LITERALLY AN HOUR, I saw what the people meant by saying that it's boring. And I don't mean listening to Gaur Plains for an hour. Listening to a boring tune for an hour. It's almost non-existant. That combined with the bland, boring gameplay sections and lack of direction, makes me sleepy. However, God forbid I sleep, because they, for some reason, thought that making Characters talk was a good idea. And I mean ALL THE TIME. And nothing they're saying is interesting! In Xenoblade the characters only spoke in battle, and their quotes were funny and memorable. Here all they talk about is basic ♥♥♥♥. "Look a bounce pad!", "Can't get enough rings!", "It's time to spindash!", "aaaaaaaand I'm awesome!" it's like that ALL THE TIME! The dialogues are badly placed too. There is absolutely no directions given, and the dialogue that was supposed to help you is now confusing you because it activates when you can't even see what they're talking about.

Overall, I'm getting the impression that it's the Sonic Unleashed effect. When they made Sonic Colours because the Day sections of that game were fun. Except this time they wanted more of the werehog sections with boring fight scenes. With no speed to Sonic or the characters. And weird, non-existant speed sections. And something that tries to mimic Sonic Heroes gameplay with the characters. And boring music. And bland world design. And bland gameplay elements and level design. And annoying ♥♥♥♥ dialogue all the time. Also what is the story?

Apparently the game runs like ♥♥♥♥ too and I can see this in the Youtube footage (even more visible since I don't use Chrome and 60FPS but the game losing frames is still visible). So yeah, no. I'll just have my hopes for the 3DS version.

This is based on Game Grumps YT footage (FPS the game runs at and Frames lost) and ProJared's stream (EVERYTHING ELSE).

Also why is Lost World hated on the internet? Granted I've not played the whole game, but it certainly played and looked better than this.