Picked it up on sale.
The good;
Instead of going for the shitty cringey "sooper srs story" like they did in Forces, 06 and other low points of the franchise here is just a basic, inoffensive plot. The Chaos Emeralds get drawn to a weird island which results in Sonic, Amy, Tails and Knuckles all getting sucked into this cyberspace like world that Eggman inavertedly activated while screwing around with some of the island's seemingly ancient tech. Sonic, for some reason has the ability to jump between cyberspace and the real world, which then means he needs to figure shit out and put an end to this nonsense. Not particularly revolutionary or crazy, just a narrative to push the game along. Does have some neat details about the Chaos Emeralds and the Chaos species itself as backstory though. Decent development for Tails as a character as well.
Open world gameplay fits Sonic like a glove. It's fun blasting around the world and the "maps" themselves (4 in total, with a 5th basically being a short interlude) are perfectly sized where you don't feel like there's too much shit to do but enough where you feel like you want to.
speaking of the shit to do, the gameplay loop is actually pretty straightforward and pretty much everything floating around in the world all have purpose. Essentially the point of each world is to find the chaos emeralds. If you ask "why do i need to do that in every world if i found it the first time?" There's a plot reason for that, i promise. The Chaos Emeralds are "locked" either behind doing missions to help your trapped friends, (usually 2 of the 7 you need), and then the other 4 are locked behind these containment towers, and then the final one basically just being a set piece and locked behind the main boss fight in that area. And then there's 20 or so bite sized challenges scattered across the map that act basically as pings. Completing one shows you more of the map and completing them all gives you fast travel.
To unlock these towers you need chaos vault keys, which can be found by unlocking portals. Portals and/or cyberspace are basically small 2D level segments where you go to meet your nostalgia quota. Each level has 4 challenges to complete that awards you with a key, completing all 4 nets you an extra 3 keys and most of them are simple and don't have to be done in one go. To open the portals you need gears, which can be found by fighting the map's mini boss type enemies (marked with red crossed swords on the map). Side stories/main stories can be opened up by collecting the character's "memory tokens" scattered across the map. Everything has a purpose unlike Ubisoft shit.
- Music is good but it comes in two flavors. A more somber, simple string/piano composition (this is definitely ripped off from BOTW) and then pieces that go absolutely hard as f*** for no reason in classic sonic fashion with techno stuff for the cyberspace levels and boss fight music being post-hardcore metal composed and sung by Kellin Quinn of Sleeping With Sirens. Both styles (especially the former) work incredibly well which i didn't expect for Sonic.
- Game isn't stupidly long. 20 hours got me everything including the full 1000 gamescore.
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The bad:
- The cyberspace levels are a cool idea, but they get kinda old when it's basically the same three locales recycled in Green Hill, Chemical Plant and Sky Sanctuary over and over. Those levels are great, Sonic Team. But have you ever considered perhaps using one of the other locales from the first three games instead of Green Hill for the 45th time? Hell you did it in Generations by converting the 3D era levels into 2D and those were great!
- The pop in. I don't think it's as bad as reviewers made it out to be since i felt like i didn't notice it as much, but when you do...it's kinda ugly.
- Combat is...mixed. Basic enemies work fine since Sonic's ace in the hole technique in this game is the cyloop, where you just run real fast in a circle around things and stun them. Bigger enemies range from engaging to straight up jank. Boss fights are mostly just big ass set pieces and have to be fought as Super Sonic. Given how Super Sonic runs basically on a timer there are instances where you can screw yourself and die mid boss fight and spawn with only 100 rings on you, which isn't nearly enough for these types of fights.
- Traversal can be a pain in the ass since in some instances (3rd map especially) it felt like they just threw a bunch of rails, bumpers and shit everywhere with no rhyme or reason, making it hard to tell where you're supposed to be going/if you can get to where you want to go.
- Similar in that vein, there's sections of these mazes of rails/bumpers/wall run shit that lock you into a forced 2D perspective until you've moved past it making it incredibly janky/frustrating when it looks like you can go right forward but then get essentially hard turned into these sequences.
- Camera will f*** you if given the chance. Makes perceiving distances difficult at points.
- Having stuff like attack level and speed level that can be upgraded feels kinda just there and not well thought out.
There is no question a lot of jank/kinks, but i will say this. When Sonic Team's head said they want this game to be the foundation of the next era of Sonic i think they've absolutely got the right idea. There's a lot to love here and the basic formula works damn well for a first attempt given this is the first time Sonic Team has gone full open world. Even i will say while frustrating at points, there was a lot more i liked than disliked. I fully expect the next Sonic game to be a crowning achievement type thing assuming they don't f***ing throw everything out like they always do.
3 stars out of 5