Sonic Lost World - Nintendo Exclusive

[Jingles]

Maybe it will get better in the later levels...?

Having played up to the final world, I can assure you it does not.

[Esrever]

The snowball stage is possibly the perfect example of one of the game's biggest problems... because I actually like the snowball stage! I dig those kind of games, and I've played a bunch of them, so I found it a reasonably competent and not especially difficult spin on the formula.

But why the heck is it doing in a Sonic game? I mean, OK, sometimes it's nice to mix things up a little for variety's sake. But ball-rolling maze games are, by their very nature, kind of slow, patient and methodical affairs. It's completely counter to the kind of vibe you want a Sonic game to have, and the overlap of players who like both kinds of games isn't likely to be huge. Surely you must realize that it's going to infuriate a large portion of your players? But then again, these are the same guys who made half a Sonic game a combo-based brawler.

Anyway, Lost World is just filled with stuff like that... one-off stages that, while not usually broken or dysfunctional (although a couple of them sure are), just feel out of place. Your enjoyment level of the game overall is going to be dictated by how many of those random genres you also enjoy. And even if you do like them, you're probably going to be annoyed that they detract so much focus from the new kind of core Sonic stage, which only really gets superficially explored in a handful of levels as a result. (As my friend put it, "Here's some grassy boxes and dildos. Now here's some icy boxes and dildos. Wow. Can't get enough.")

[Radrappy]

The snowball stage is possibly the perfect example of one of the game's biggest problems... because I actually like the snowball stage! I dig those kind of games, and I've played a bunch of them, so I found it a reasonably competent and not especially difficult spin on the formula.

I didn't mind the snowball stage either. It's very clear about what its rules and objectives are and for the most part doesn't break them. That's more than I can say for a lot of the game's levels.

I'm on the final act of the final world right now and I have to say how shockingly all over the place the game is in terms of quality. Things work so poorly in general that I'm often taking the easy routes just to save myself headaches. For instance, parkour is so dodgy, I hardly ever want to risk using it. When the game works, it works really well (Tropical Coast 2, Desert Ruins 1, Sky Road 2, Silent Forest 1, Windy Hill 3) but when things go wrong they birth perhaps some of the worst sonic levels I've ever had the misfortune of playing (Frozen Factory 1, Silent Forest 3). To add insult to injury, the wisps, which were delightful in Colors, are hardly any fun to use.

That's not to say that I'm hating the game; in fact I'm rather enjoying it. I just play very cautiously and operate knowing that many of the mechanics are spotty and won't always work as they should. It's a shame because the game really has its heart in the right place. It's just obviously all a bit more than ST could handle. The game feels very short/small too. There are only a handful of fully 3d levels and they tend to be relatively short as well.

Here's hoping the next game takes these mechanics and tightens them. I'm thinking planetoids might not be the way to go either.

[Radrappy]

by the by, what are your guys' nintendo network ids? We should send drawings to eachother and junk. Mine's Radrappy.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I haven't played the game myself, but it seems like a lot of people are complaining about the use of touch controls and the gyroscope on the 3DS being half-baked.

I don't honestly mind non-gamepad controls, but it seems like Sonic games in particular have a tendency to experiment with everything while mastering nothing. If that's the case, then I'd rather they stick with what is known to already work. It's the same reason why Sonic and the Secret Rings is an okay game in every aspect but controls.

[big_smile]

Here's hoping the next game takes these mechanics and tightens them. I'm thinking planetoids might not be the way to go either.

Given Sonic's history, it's more likely that the next game will throw away these mechanics and try something completely new. This is a core problem with the series: too much experimentation, not enough refinement.

[Neo]

Sonic games in particular have a tendency to experiment with everything while mastering nothing.

This is a core problem with the series: too much experimentation, not enough refinement.

Not only that, but they experiment a lot of new stuff instead of trying to improve on the existing formula.

[Esrever]

True enough, although the more I play this the more I wonder if abandoning most of it would be such a bad thing.

Despite my complaints, there's a fair amount of ideas in Lost World that I enjoyed. I just am not certain that there's enough juice in any of those ideas to fill another game. I don't think they had enough juice in them to fill THIS game, which is how we wound up with so many one-off gimmick stages.

The tube-shaped levels are pretty cool! But from a design perspective they are extremely limited. Lost World does as much as it can to make each tube stage feel distinct -- outsides of tubes, insides of tubes, tubes you run on automatically, tubes covered in grind rails, tubes covered in ice, tubes filled with death holes -- but it's not a deep well, and by the end of the game it is thoroughly emptied. I liked the tubes for what they were, but I don't think there any many permutations left that are worth exploring, and I don't really want to see another game focused on them.

Low gear/high gear Sonic is another thing that worked fine in this game, but that I don't really want to see going forward. Sonic is much easier to handle in this game, but I think that stems more from the reduction of Sonic's top running speed than from creating the running/walking split. In the future, I would prefer they cut the run button business and just have Sonic gradually accelerate to the new lower top running speed when you push the stick. It worked in the old games, and now that they've slowed Sonic down a bit, it'd work again here, too.

I'd cut a lot of the parkour stuff too, honestly. The ledge grabing and vertical wall running is fine, but the Prince of Persia-style running-along-the-sides-of-walls wall running is a big wash, especially compared to previous games. Lost World's big innovation lets you perform a horizontal wall run anywhere (by jumping into walls), instead of sending you into scripted wallrunning sequences via springs like Generations and Unleashed did. I don't think that was an improvement. In Lost World, you only ever want to horizontally wall run in a handful of specific places where you HAVE to do it to get through. So all the new system really does is allow you to fuck up, either by wall-running when you didn't mean to (and dying), or accidentally NOT wall-running when you had to (and dying). It's not impossible to figure out, but it's needlessly fussy... and most damning, it's just not as fun as the old quick-step wall-running segments were.

The biggest duds are the auto-chained and charging homing attacks; they suck, and I hope they bury them forever. I'd also rather see the Colour powers eliminated entirely than ever see them used the way they were here again. In Colours, they were cool powers that you could use to discover secret alternate routes and areas. In Lost World, half of them are transformed into boring mini touch-and-tilt mini-games or gimmick levels (my precious drill included), while the other half are effectively just warp points that you can use to skip areas entirely. Blech.

[G.Silver]

Not only that, but they experiment a lot of new stuff instead of trying to improve on the existing formula.

You'd think this level of experimentation alone would make Sonic a critical darling, but apparently even that is something Sega can't do right.

New way to fix Sonic: The next AAA Sonic title is actually a compilation of dozens of completely separate and unrelated Sonic-themed games made by everyone at Sega (why restrict it to just Sonic Team?), in teams of no larger than 3 or 4 people.

[Yami CJMErl]

So...what, like WarioWare? 'Cause that's a kind of formula I can't really see many companies OTHER than Nintendo actually get right...

[G.Silver]

I meant that as a joke but if I have to explain it then I have to treat it serious. :(

So no, nothing like WarioWare! These wouldn't be mini games, they wouldn't be strung together, and there'd be no directorial consistency between any of them--Iizuka would only be allowed to ruin one or two games at most! Each team gets the full amount of time normally afforded to a full AAA Sonic title, but only a tiny fraction of the staff. The result should be that each one makes a Sonic game that focuses on what they think is important. Maybe they're allowed to share some sound and art assets but I'd rather they all be really different from each other. Imagine if all of us were given a year and 3 talented goons to do whatever we tell them? That's what I'm talkin' about, except obviously they won't do that for us, so they should do it for themselves instead.

Worst case they make a collection of games that, combined, is better than Sonic 2006, and gets another 10+ years' worth of shitty ideas out of their system. I really think part of their problem is the speed that their development is forced to go at, to bang out a new title year after year (at first glance Lost World appeared to have benefited from breaking out of that cycle but evidently not), this can't afford them much time to plan ahead and really work on what would be good, they've got to pick an idea right away and stick to it.

[Radrappy]

I'd cut a lot of the parkour stuff too, honestly. The ledge grabing and vertical wall running is fine, but the Prince of Persia-style running-along-the-sides-of-walls wall running is a big wash, especially compared to previous games. Lost World's big innovation lets you perform a horizontal wall run anywhere (by jumping into walls), instead of sending you into scripted wallrunning sequences via springs like Generations and Unleashed did. I don't think that was an improvement. In Lost World, you only ever want to horizontally wall run in a handful of specific places where you HAVE to do it to get through. So all the new system really does is allow you to fuck up, either by wall-running when you didn't mean to (and dying), or accidentally NOT wall-running when you had to (and dying). It's not impossible to figure out, but it's needlessly fussy... and most damning, it's just not as fun as the old quick-step wall-running segments were.

I don't think the wall running needs to go so much as wall running over bottomless pits. I just finished getting all the red rings today and have to say my affection for the game has grown substantially because of it. That being said there were 4 red rings that could only be gotten by using the very finicky wall running over pitfalls which lead to some very loud cursing on my part. Once you get the hang of it though, it's very satisfying to pull of correctly. My ideal next game would involve much of the same gameplay utilized to explore spread out, flat(as in not planetoids or tubes), 3d environments with vertical tiers and an absolute lack of bottomless pits. Make it happen, Sega.

[gr4yJ4Y]

It is curious that for a series negatively associated with bottomless pits would come out with a game that have a good deal of levels that center around the idea. In fact the whole game is set high in the sky - everywhere you turn is a bottomless pit (though often just for visual effect).

[G.Silver]

by the by, what are your guys' nintendo network ids? We should send drawings to eachother and junk. Mine's Radrappy.

I thought I was late to this party but maybe no one else put theirs up? I'm gsilverfish.

So I must have bought a WiiU, but I've decided Lost World isn't a priority game for me right now. It's Pikmin time!

[Jingles]

So Sega released a patch to fix some stuff. Now getting 100 rings gives you an extra life and the Wisps can be controlled with the analog sticks and buttons. I'm glad, because I could never get the bloody Eagle one to work.

[gr4yJ4Y]

The wisps are useless for the most part. Hopefully the ones that gained the support are easier to use with analog controls.

[Yami CJMErl]

Today's Nintendo Direct announced two new exclusive DLC stages for the WiiU: The first one being...Yoshi's Island Zone. It's free, and available now (in North America)!

Also, there was a very strong hint that the next zone is going to be Zelda-themed.

[G.Silver]

Just the Yoshi's Island video, if you like: http://www.joystiq.com/2013/12/18/yoshi ... lc-stages/

[Esrever]

Weird, but... free? So OK! Kind of bums me out that this looks (visually) better than the actual new Yoshi's Island game coming out.

[Jingles]

I like how there's a Genesis-style loop in the stage about a SNES game, but not anywhere else.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I'd hate to sound bitter and ungreatful, but I'm going to bet that this is going to be a more fleshed-out experience than the Nights DLC.

[Esrever]

Played this last night! It's pretty boring, even in comparison to the other 2D stages in Lost World. The aesthetics are nice, though... a nice capturing of the art style of the original game, and a couple great Mario-and-Sonic-styled full instrument remixes of a classic Mario tunes.

[big_smile]

It's too bad Sonic doesn't have to look after baby Mario. Sonic is quite a 'cool' character, so seeing how he would cope with a crying baby would be priceless!

[Dr. BUGMAN]

I dunno; riding a hedgehog might be rather painful!

This is all rather surreal. Ohsima has worked on two Yoshi games (with a third in the works), which is like half the games in the franchise, not counting the puzzle games. It's like witnessing some kind of singularity form before our eyes. (Spirit of Speed, indeed!)

[Rob-Bert]

Ugh number one: Those first two Yoshi games blew ass.

Ugh number two: Mario Wiki.