Lost World: Discussion, Impressions and Fan Reviews

[PSI Wind]

Yes, a joke at the expense of game design that allows you to blast through a level and "win" by holding a single button. The joke is that all it takes is "boost" to beat the game, and no deeper method of interaction.

 

Which is not at all what Generations is, and exactly why I assumed you were making the exact same completely incorrect statement that everyone made after Generations stopped being new and suddenly became the worst game ever.

 

hey guys remember when it was considered fantastic and fun haha those were the days huh

Except Generations is a great game?

[Sami]

Except Generations is a great game?

 

You don't have to tell me, I'm not the one brushing off an entire game's worth of content as "boost2win".

[KHCast]

So all this Generations talk got me thinking about something. Each of the levels in Lost World. I've seen quite a bit from each of them and I had to ask myself, if they were to put any of these levels in generations, would there be anything as memorable in the levels as, for example Sky Sanctuary's crumbling architect, or Rooftop Runs(both modern and classic) clock tower section...I really couldn't think of much. And I think that is one of the things that disappoints me the most about this game. Not many(if any) of the levels have something in it that grabs my attention or defines that level in interesting ways that utilize the gameplay. Green hill had the loop, Emerald Coast had the whale, Crisis City had the tornado, Unleashed and Colors were chalk full of memorable pieces in their levels. What does Windy hill have in its level that makes me remember it? What about Frozen Factory?Silent Forest? I'm not asking for scripted events galore either(although 1 or 2 wouldn't ruin the game), just something exciting to happen in the levels.

[MegasonicZX]

So all this Generations talk got me thinking about something. Each of the levels in Lost World. I've seen quite a bit from each of them and I had to ask myself, if they were to put any of these levels in generations, would there be anything as memorable in the levels as, for example Sky Sanctuary's crumbling architect, or Rooftop Runs(both modern and classic) clock tower section...I really couldn't think of much. And I think that is one of the things that disappoints me the most about this game. Not many(if any) of the levels have something in it that grabs my attention or defines that level in interesting ways that utilize the gameplay. Green hill had the loop, Emerald Coast had the whale, Crisis City had the tornado, Unleashed and Colors were chalk full of memorable pieces in their levels. What does Windy hill have in its level that makes me remember it? What about Frozen Factory?Silent Forest? I'm not asking for scripted events galore either(although 1 or 2 wouldn't ruin the game), just something exciting to happen in the levels.

I can get behind this, its probably my problem with this game from the footage ive seen so far of it (which is mostly just windy hill) it doesn't really have anything that really stands out in the levels but hopefully later levels in the game have something like these.

[CurtyTheJerkface]

I can get behind this, its probably my problem with this game from the footage ive seen so far of it (which is mostly just windy hill) it doesn't really have anything that really stands out in the levels but hopefully later levels in the game have something like these.

Sadly the later levels are more of the same, to a literal degree. You'll play several levels in the second half of the game that feel exactly like levels from the first half.

[Hero of Legend]

Is there a sound test or a cutscene viewer? I'll be really sad if they're not in the Wii U version.

[Indigo Rush]

Not in the Wii U version, I'm afraid. The 3DS version has it, though.

[KHCast]

I just have to wonder why. Unleashed had a cut-scene viewer and a sound test, colors I'm pretty sure had them, generations had them; why all of a sudden just drop them and not include them here of all games? Did they just forget or something?

[Sami]

I just have to wonder why. Unleashed had a cut-scene viewer and a sound test, colors I'm pretty sure had them, generations had them; why all of a sudden just drop them and not include them here of all games? Did they just forget or something?

 

I don't believe Colors did. This is the Colors team.

 

Could be wrong, but I don't recall there being one in Colors.

[KHCast]

I thought they had a sound test or something. It was either that or a cutscenes viewer.(although its been a while since I played colors.)

[SilentDoom]

You know what?  This game's reception overall, both critically and from the gamers, has presented quite an interesting scenario for Sonic.  People compare it to Unleashed's scenario due to it's similar level of critical reception but I don't think that's quite the case for two main reasons.  The first being that Unleashed's initial fan reception was arguably more positive than this.   A larger majority of people were more defensive about the game.  It wasn't until later on where fan views on the game branched out more.  The second being the fact that the games proceeding Unleashed/Lost World were received very differently.  Whereas Unleashed proceed 06, a game that was universally hated and almost killed the franchise, Lost World proceeded Generations which was, to a lot of people, the best Sonic had been in 3D and the game that nailed what Unleashed had established.  Unleashed marked a game revival game for Sonic.  Whilst the game itself wasn't exactly the best, it did mark a transformation in terms of production.  06 barring certain points is poorly produced and presented.  Graphics are sloppy and dated, animations are atrocious and everything just looks lifeless and dead.  Unleashed on the other hand showed off a brand new graphics engine with fresh beautiful visuals, a more engaging visual style and vastly superior animations all done by hand as opposed to half of them being done via motion capture (which consequently made all the characters look like puppets).  This was obviously not the case for Lost World.

 

Additionally, Unleashed's general reception and feedback was a lot more black and white than Lost World's.  "Day time stages pretty good, Werehog gimmick bad".  As a result it was much clearer on what Sonic Team needed to try to do for the next main game.  Expand on these day time ideas.  With Lost World however, this is not the case.  You see, Lost World does a much better job at selecting its padding and trimming its fat than any other 3D Sonic game (barring maybe Generations).  There isn't some over-arching obvious gimmick problem (Werehog, sword, additional poorly implemented characters/genre roulette etc), there isn't a hub world you're forced to traverse, there isn't an overly melodramatic story and cutscenes are punctuated quite nicely.  Only thing would be the arbitrary animal collection to progress, but even then it's not hard to play through the game without having to back track at all (unlike Unleashed's Sun/Moon medal system).  As a result the problems lie more within the core of the game and level design, but it's very selective.  There's moments of frustration and plenty of little elements that could've been executed a little better but there isn't that massive issue that "drags down an otherwise great game".  

 

At the same time, however, Lost World completely reinvents the Sonic formula and introduces a lot of potentially really interesting ideas.  This, as we all know, has led to it being very divisive (particularly in the fact that it feels a little too much like a certain plumber) but deep down the core of Lost World (in my opinion anyway) is a lot more interesting than anything we've had in 3D Sonic gameplay.  I felt more in control of Sonic in this game than I have probably in any 3D Sonic game and that in itself isn't something that should be neglected.  Nonetheless various elements could have been tighter (parkour mechanics for instance) and less convoluted (even though I feel that I've got to grips with the without too much of an issue now, I still feel that it definitely is needlessly complex).  

 

I guess at the end of the day the point I'm trying to get across is that the future of Sonic seems more uncertain, but at the same time extremely intriguing.  I'm just here questioning "What are they going to do with the blue blur now?" as well as weighing what I'd want from the next game.  If it were up to me I'd really like Sonic Team to take a moment to really careful examine carefully the various positive elements of each of the past games (classics in particular obviously) to really create not only something that feels fresh and exciting, but establishes an extremely strong core gameplay that doesn't need to constantly be reinvented.  I personally really enjoyed Lost World for what it's worth I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

 

Also I feel like I posted this in the wrong place...

[MykonosFan]

Colors had a cutscene viewer on the satellite option menu, but no sound test for what it's worth. 

[SuperStingray]

So I've just finished Lost Worlds for Wii U.  I... didn't care for it.

 

The most important thing in a Sonic game (except arguably for physics) is the level design.  For the first few levels, it was okay.  There was some cool variety.  By world 3, though, it started to get a little samey.  Mario Galaxy had some incredible imagination in its levels; they were robust and took advantage of all of the character's abilities from many angles.  The level design in Sonic Lost World doesn't really get much more interesting than a few Donkey Kong Country-esque on-rail stages and this one level where you're stuck in a snowball, but the controls are basically the same but more slippery.  Other than that, it recycles things like an ecologist on Earth Day.  Enemies, level structures- hell, the entire game is basically just the Green Hill Zone "checkerboard" motif in various cliched platformer settings.  But by World 5, things started taking a turn for the worse.  It started throwing in absolutely INFURIATING precision platforming, irritatingly long checkpoint distances and mechanics that literally get as cheap as I Wanna Be The Guy.  For instance, there's a stage in the last world where the floor collapsed underneath me WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARNING and dropped me into insta-killing magma.  Twice.  FUCK. THAT. SHIT.  I can be very forgiving.  Hell, I 100%ed Sonic and the Secret Rings and I still regret taking the time to simply finish this game once.

 

As for the gameplay itself, this is not a Sonic game.  This is a Mario game pretending to be a Sonic game and failing at being either.  I know people don't like blindly boosting through levels, but they should have at least tried to find a more interesting way to the provide the high speed thrill that Unleashed and Generations provided rather than removing it outright.  There's no real kinesthetic thrill to moving in this game.  I keep wanting to go faster through the game's broad, open spaces, but Sonic's sprint and jump is somehow LESS powerful than Mario's.  Of course there's the parkour mechanics, but they become kind of irritating; it doesn't really give you that Assassin's Creed "ninja run" feeling, it just breaks the flow.  Clinging onto edges I don't want to cling on, continuing to run up walls when I want to drop- it just feels like I have less control.  Finally, the wisps.  The wisps were probably the worst part of the core gameplay, creating artificial variety and breaking the flow of play.  They worked in Colors because the paradigm shift was pretty quick and seamless and most of the options had a very Sonic-y feeling, i.e. Drill and Spikes.  The ones in Lost World (except Drill, which was still pretty cool), just kind of exist so they can find a way to take advantage of the gamepad.  They didn't need to be there for the most part, but the only one that they should have just kept out was Rhythm which is the most infuriating thing to control ever.  It bobs up and down while you poke the screen in the direction you want to move desperately hoping it doesn't touch a wall along the way and drop you to your death.  There was also some bullshit on the menu that lets you trade items you can use in game with other people, which is pointless but is there because a producer probably asked them to find a way to utilize the Miiverse without having a purpose in mind.

 

I'm starting to rant at this point, but I think you get the idea.  To even things out, it wasn't ALL bad. The only thing that really kept me going was the storyline which is, in my opinion, the best one in the series since Sonic Battle.  Sonic is actually a relatable character with flaws as opposed to the usual indomitable and infallible paragon of freedom and virtue, Tails is a fucking badass, Eggman's relationship with Sonic is developed, and the villains are Saturday Morning Cartoon villains but in the good way.  Also the soundtrack is great, but this is a Sonic game so that kind of goes without saying.

[EmmBee]

I might as well also add, the 2D sections in the 3DS version are way too zoomed in on Sonic. It's really difficult to tell what's coming half the time. Plus, the last few games did so well with telling you which pits were lethal and which actually had something down them, it's amazing that this one doesn't do that.

[jords]

In Lava Mountain zone 3.

 

Lol, Zakok is soooo Not Bowser

[JezMM]

Re: Indigo's 3DS Review

 

I have to disagree with your harsh criticism of the Quake Wisp.  You can turn around sharply by doing a ground pound.  There is a brief pause where you can spin around quickly on an axis, the tutorial even explains this.  And if you're heading towards a pit, you are not doomed, you can touch the sonic icon on the touch screen to cancel the Wisp power.  Granted... this ISN'T explained in the tutorial lol.

 

As for the Special Stages... urg it keeps irking me when people say the Special Stages don't work properly because I've made a video proving they do.

 

I think the tutorials for these should have had a little illustration of Sonic or whatever holding a 3DS to show how you need to move your body and keep your line of sight locked with the 3DS screen at all times - no twisting the 3DS in your hands coz that messes up the 1:1 effect of Sonic pointing where YOU'RE looking.

 

 

With the parkour, I can do a lot of stuff and the extreme absence of invisible walls

 

Eh, I've found plenty of invisible walls trying to parkour up places that the game apparently doesn't want me to.  Also tbh the reason the Unleashed trilogy had so many invisible walls was so they could make these rich, detailed looking levels without having to make them be entirely explorable.  Whereas now we have simplistic, undetailed levels that give me no aesthetic payoff for exploring particularly.  I'm not saying that's an objectively bad thing but I, personally, would rather have a rich awesome world that I get a taste of than a bland, empty world that I get to see all of.

 

Why? The whole boost to win thing is overblown as it is, idea being I can just hold down one button and I can make it to the end.

 

Well... in the stuff I'm looking at, and this game is barely a few weeks old yet. The speedruns are far from perfect, yet in most cases, all what you have to do is hold down the spin dash button and occasionally use parkour for sections that demand it to progress?

 

How is this any different from the old boost to win complaint?

 

Come now, you've played the game yourself at SoS, you know the controls and level design is much less simplistic and intuitive as the boost to win games.  Whatever speedruns you're watching, you can be sure that they are not being performed with ease, and the huge option of routes on offer compared to the Unleashed trilogy probably means that these first speedruns emerging have either had a lot of trial and error put into figuring out the route, or are far, FAR from optimal runs.

[MegasonicZX]

Re: Indigo's 3DS Review

 

I have to disagree with your harsh criticism of the Quake Wisp.  You can turn around sharply by doing a ground pound.  There is a brief pause where you can spin around quickly on an axis, the tutorial even explains this.  And if you're heading towards a pit, you are not doomed, you can touch the sonic icon on the touch screen to cancel the Wisp power.  Granted... this ISN'T explained in the tutorial lol.

 

As for the Special Stages... urg it keeps irking me when people say the Special Stages don't work properly because I've made a video proving they do.

 

I think the tutorials for these should have had a little illustration of Sonic or whatever holding a 3DS to show how you need to move your body and keep your line of sight locked with the 3DS screen at all times - no twisting the 3DS in your hands coz that messes up the 1:1 effect of Sonic pointing where YOU'RE looking.

 

 

 

Eh, I've found plenty of invisible walls trying to parkour up places that the game apparently doesn't want me to.  Also tbh the reason the Unleashed trilogy had so many invisible walls was so they could make these rich, detailed looking levels without having to make them be entirely explorable.  Whereas now we have simplistic, undetailed levels that give me no aesthetic payoff for exploring particularly.  I'm not saying that's an objectively bad thing but I, personally, would rather have a rich awesome world that I get a taste of than a bland, empty world that I get to see all of.

 

 

Come now, you've played the game yourself at SoS, you know the controls and level design is much less simplistic and intuitive as the boost to win games.  Whatever speedruns you're watching, you can be sure that they are not being performed with ease, and the huge option of routes on offer compared to the Unleashed trilogy probably means that these first speedruns emerging have either had a lot of trial and error put into figuring out the route, or are far, FAR from optimal runs.

On the last part, yeah speed runs always look easy when your watching them but they are tons harder than actually doing them so I don't know how anyone can say that the game looks too easy to speed run on unless they've done it themselves without having a couple of attempts at it.

[Blue Blood]

Come now, you've played the game yourself at SoS, you know the controls and level design is much less simplistic and intuitive as the boost to win games.  Whatever speedruns you're watching, you can be sure that they are not being performed with ease, and the huge option of routes on offer compared to the Unleashed trilogy probably means that these first speedruns emerging have either had a lot of trial and error put into figuring out the route, or are far, FAR from optimal runs.

Thing is, if you want to speed run a level, you have to avoid all the extra routes and just stick to the main path. In levels like WH1, this means just running to the giant springs as quickly as you can, which is little more than going in a straight line and slightly weaving around obstacles. Speed running in the game isn't great, and exploration can seem a bit pointless as the rewards for it are often just longer routes. However, going fast while playing the game normally IS super good fun.

[Tails spin]

Re: Indigo's 3DS Review

 

 

 

As for the Special Stages... urg it keeps irking me when people say the Special Stages don't work properly because I've made a video proving they do.

 

I think the tutorials for these should have had a little illustration of Sonic or whatever holding a 3DS to show how you need to move your body and keep your line of sight locked with the 3DS screen at all times - no twisting the 3DS in your hands coz that messes up the 1:1 effect of Sonic pointing where YOU'RE looking.

 

 

 

 I can agree with Jez here. I kept the 3DS still in my hands and in my line of sight and moved my body around and for the most part it was 1:1. I even got an A rank on the stage.

[Sonicka]

Third'd.

 

1:1 is exactly how it should be played. Not the optimal choice of course, especially in front of people - my Financee walked in on me during play last week and thought I was going nuts!

 

...but that's the general idea behind the controls. Literally become Sonic's perspective and those emeralds are easy as heck and ever so satisfying to snag. When I finally nabbed that final one after 2-3 attempts I was even awarded an S rank. Thank-you game for the reward of my hard earned sweat. =D 

 

 

 

I have to disagree with your harsh criticism of the Quake Wisp.  You can turn around sharply by doing a ground pound.  There is a brief pause where you can spin around quickly on an axis, the tutorial even explains this.  And if you're heading towards a pit, you are not doomed, you can touch the sonic icon on the touch screen to cancel the Wisp power.  Granted... this ISN'T explained in the tutorial lol.

 

In actual fact it was. (I've double checked too, just to be sure)   

 

So there's another additional thing to add on, and why I get a little finicky when I keep reading about players falling to their doom due to this wisp because it seemingly makes the game impossible. Right in the first level of Silent Forest when the quake power is introduced the game instructs you about touching the screen below to return to normal Sonic form when you want because of the constant movement.

 

Read, you peoples of the interwebs. Then you'll actually find that you can play the game! 

Edited October 31, 2013 by Son-icka

[jeremycarrier]

At the end of the day, I'm not sure what the game itself is intended for, or what it wants to do. It seems to be a set of concepts that Sonic Team slapped together into a game, but it just lacks cohesion and even its own sense of identity. I can almost see the assets being reused simply because it's a string of concepts put together until they realized they were making a game and needed to add level tropes. You can see some sort of sense that they knew they were doing with some of the gimmick stages (ie: the casino stage and the dessert stage) because they related directly to the Deadly Six Member of the Current World (ie: dessert for Zomom and casino for Zeena since it matches their personalities a bit). But other than that, you don't have a lot of that sorta thing going on. 

I'm struggling to figure out what the game overall is simply trying to do. I'm certain that when I do completely finish, I still won't know. It's odd that after three games of knowing exactly what roles those games served and what the design intents were for those games, Lost World just leaves me feeling puzzled.

 

Its a competent, average, 6/10 game with no real identity of its own, trying to cater to a variety of tastes and excelling at nothing. 15+ years later, Sonic is still floundering around for an identity in 3D, and that's just kinda sad to me.

Edited October 31, 2013 by jeremycarrier

[JezMM]

Just to keep things level I'd certainly say that the amount of reading in Lost World 3DS isn't good game design for teaching mechanics, but yeah, like it or not, it's there.

 

 

Ideally, they should have setup a first use area where you are faced with a hairpin turn that can only be easily dealt with as regular Sonic.  The turning point would have a breakable floor (that regenerates after) preventing you from ground pounding to turn here.  As you approach the turn, an icon flashes up to draw your attention to the touch screen, where the Sonic icon is glowing brightly, encouraging you to touch it and learn that you can disable the Quake Wisp.

 

Failure to cancel or breaking the floor would cause Sonic to roll off onto some springs that send him back to the start of the sequence.  This would have allowed them to teach with no reading required, as the only way to pass is to understand you can turn back into regular Sonic.

Edited October 31, 2013 by JezMM

[EmmBee]

The special stages work well, but no one wants to get up and start spinning around the room like a jackass. I admit, it can be fun, but imagine playing in public and you've got a chance to enter a special stage. You certainly can't play like that in public, so another control option would've been preferred, even if it were something you had to switch over to in options.

 

I may also point out how much I'm disliking the rails in this game. I'm on Silent Forest Act 2 (3DS, mind you) and I'm finding this to be so frustrating. Getting hit when jumping between rails causes you to fall to your death, something I think other Sonic games didn't do. Imagine in Colors if you jumped to another rail too late and got hit by something like a laser? You'd fall between the rails and die. I'm pretty sure other games didn't do this.

 

On top of that, there's a really shitty puzzle with disappearing platforms that just flat out doesn't work in a Sonic game. With how Sonic controls in the 3DS version, it's just a pain to get through.

[Emmett L. Brown]

I may also point out how much I'm disliking the rails in this game. I'm on Silent Forest Act 2 (3DS, mind you) and I'm finding this to be so frustrating. Getting hit when jumping between rails causes you to fall to your death, something I think other Sonic games didn't do. Imagine in Colors if you jumped to another rail too late and got hit by something like a laser? You'd fall between the rails and die. I'm pretty sure other games didn't do this.

Gonna have to disagree with you on this one. Sonic falling to his death if he gets hid mid-rail transfer has been a consistent element in all the games. Fortunately, very few of the game have such cheap hazards that the player is likely to discover this fact.

[Dejimon11]

So would you guys say this game has earned it's criticisms and mixed reviews?