Lost World: Discussion, Impressions and Fan Reviews

[Sami]

Getting rid of the very reliable and stable L1/R1 button switching between rails in the game that has levels comprised entirely of rails has to be one of the most moronic ideas I've ever seen.

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[jeremycarrier]

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

Consistent with my experience. A game with a lot of half-baked ideas and weird design decisions. Honestly, it feels rushed. Something that could have used an extra 6+ months in the oven to figure itself out and nail down what it wanted to excel at. Its something you just kinda play in a daze, with nothing particularly special about it in any way. 

[JezMM]

3DS has Unleashed style rail switching though.  Wii U doesn't and jumping from rail to rail feels more like SA2 or 2006.

[TheOcelot]

Wii U doesn't and jumping from rail to rail feels more like SA2 or 2006.

 

Which is why rail grinding in SLW (Wii U) is so good. You have much better control over where Sonic lands when he's in the air. If you are heading (after jumping) to the wrong rail/or towards a bottomless pit, you have time to re-direct Sonic onto the correct rail. Easily the best rail controls since SA2.

Edited October 31, 2013 by -Bender-

[EmmBee]

I wouldn't say the 3DS version has rail controls from Unleashed. In fact, the controls for it kind of annoy me. I wish I didn't have to push both the direction I want to go and the jump button to switch rails. SA2 did it well, I guess, but here it doesn't work too well.

It's a personal preference, but I wish they had stuck with just using the shoulder buttons, or just using the circle pad to switch.

[Emmett L. Brown]

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

Speaking for the 3DS version, I haven't had fun playing the game since the end of the first zone. Lots and lots of frustration and annoyance, but no fun in sight.

 

The Wii U version may be much better, for all I know, but the 3DS version is the worst Sonic game I have ever played in my life. I want that to sink in. It's less fun than Sonic 06. It's more tedious than Sonic Labyrinth. It's got sloppier platforming than Sonic Blast (G-Sonic). The controls are less reliable than Sonic & The Secret Rings.

 

It is the perfect storm of bad Sonic gameplay.

 

That's my experience, anyway. Others have managed to make the game fun to play, and I for one envy them.

[Blue Blood]

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

I like the Wii U version, and am still really enjoying the parts that are worth replaying. But considering the problems it has, the mixed reception seems right on the mark to me.

Now for the 3DS version, I don't think is deserves any of the praise it's gotten around these parts or in a few reviews. It's MetaCritic score is almost the same as the Wii U version's, and that is totally unwarranted. I think it should be much lower.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Blue Blood

[Jet Prower]

Why am I not surprised to hear the kind of talk going on in this topic?

 

Well, if you want my honest opinion after finishing this game, I think it is one of the best I've played in awhile, much better than colors and generations, which honestly seem to be a bit dull over time. This game changes things up a lot and I feel very in control of everything I was doing. The game has good difficulty progression like it should, where the levels slowly start getting harder and a lot harder once you read world 5 or 6. Finally, there is a story that I can proud of in one of the games since Unleashed, even better in my opinion by a mile.

 

I don't see the complaints of lack of speed and controls, because to me, everything was clear as day and easy to pick up for someone like myself. The game tells you what all buttons to press and after reading them once, I understood it and did just what it said. I saw lots of elements from the older classic games thrown in here that make this game look almost like the perfect mix that is needed to satisfy both the classic fans and the modern fans. Bringing back lots of classic badniks as well helps a lot there.

 

I just feel a lot of criticism about this game isn't really fair to be honest and some of it is just whining on some people's parts out there. I know people aren't going to agree with me as usual, but I see this as a positive direct for the series totally.

[The Deleter]

Can I just say that I love the level design in this game? Well, the 3D stages are a bit of a bore to speedrun, but the 2D stages just flow together so well, even with their blocky platforming. Silent Forest act 2 is just so fun to speed run, especially when spindashing through those boosterless loops which kill you if you don't pull it off right, and Desert Ruins act 1's 2D sections allow so much parkour abuse it's not even funny.

 

Past Sonic games just felt too easy to blast through, making speedrunning feel rather redundant there, but this game allows you to take advantage of the physics and blast through what would usually be a tedious section, and it feels sooo satisfying to pull something like that off. It may not be as open as Generations or Colors, but on the basis the quality of one path, imo the level design in this game is far superior to both games.

[SilentDoom]

Getting rid of the very reliable and stable L1/R1 button switching between rails in the game that has levels comprised entirely of rails has to be one of the most moronic ideas I've ever seen.

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Not really, since jumping between rails is absolutely effortless in this game.

[Blue Blood]

Not really, since jumping between rails is absolutely effortless in this game.

Yeah, sorry Discoid but the rail jumping in this game in pretty flawless. I don't think it's even possible to fall between the rails, and you can control how many rails to jump in one go.

Granted the rails themselves are also very scripted (they automatically make you go forwards, so you can't use them to backtrack), they're utilised differently and only show up in one main stage.

3DS rail hopping is shite though. Again with the twitchy controls...

Edited October 31, 2013 by Blue Blood

[Soniman]

Yeah it feels really good to switch between multiple rails and stay in the air for how long YOU want instead of a set animation.

[Narukami07]

Can i just say that i really dig Sonic's spindash in this game? Sega should totally keep it.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Narukami07

[-blank-]

Not really, since jumping between rails is absolutely effortless in this game.

I agree. I would always miss rails when switching them in SA2. In this game I've only had that problem a couple times. Much more of an improvement.

[Conando]

So I definitely say the 3DS version is tripe while the Wii U version is an enjoyable, albeit flawed, little thing. I quite enjoy having my Mario in my Sonic.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Wreck-It Ralph

[Jet Prower]

I didn't have any trouble with the rails in this game honestly. Other than maybe getting a tad annoyed at hitting one of the explosion insta death carts every now and then, I had no complaints about the rail stages that I played. Yes, I miss the ease of it from the other games, but with it not being that hard too simply jump between them either in this game, it isn't too bad to get used to at all. You do have a bit more control than you did unlike in SA2 as mentioned where it was more finicky.

[TheOcelot]

I just played the hidden ? stage in the Sky Road world. The one with lots of teasing extra lives and the green blocks you run along keep disappearing. It's another stage that could have been fun if the momentum physics weren't so poor.

 

What do you think of the stages where you float in mid-air as you move along? It's an interesting idea but the control could be better, and why they made one of these stages as a main act (Sky Road Act 3) I will never know.

 

I do like the endless different platforming ideas in Lost World...................yet some of the ideas and how they have been implemented is just plain weird.

Edited October 31, 2013 by -Bender-

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Can I say that, I feel quite glad to finally have a Sonic game that actually challenges me for my speed after Generations?

[Fletch]

Beat the 3DS version today. A very mixed experience for me. I felt many of the levels were just boring/frustrating, Sonic felt a bit slippery to me at times, and I swear I still just don't like Master Zik boss battle.

 

At the same time though, I felt that some of the boss battles in this version was better, Parkour was still fun to use, Special Stages were great, snowboarding in Frozen Factory was actually fun, final boss was more challenging, and 3DS version allow me to re-watch the cutscenes.

I also might be in the minority, but I really loved the Special Stages. The gyro controls for me worked perfectly. Just got the 7th chaos emerald, and it was easy. I'm not sure I'll want future handheld versions to use gyro controls (really sucks not being able to play these on the bus =/). 

[Autosaver]

I don't know who started shitting on this game's cutscenes, but they are pretty good. It feels like watching episodes of Adventure of Sth. I was even playing the game in a skype call and someone asked me I was watching it.

 

They're fun, they don't take themselves seriously, and they're not as corny as Colors. It's also not as dreadful as Sonic Gens (...wtf were those?) I'd love to see more of these appear.

[Jet Prower]

I don't know who started shitting on this game's cutscenes, but they are pretty good. It feels like watching episodes of Adventure of Sth. I was even playing the game in a skype call and someone asked me I was watching it.

 

They're fun, they don't take themselves seriously, and they're not as corny as Colors. It's also not as dreadful as Sonic Gens (...wtf were those?) I'd love to see more of these appear.

 

The story is one of the highest point in the game for sure to me. After so many games where the story almost seems to be on the back burner, this was such a great surprise to me. I want them to do a lot more story related stuff in Sonic games like this. It was wonderful. Yet, then I hear people saying in reviews, oh well I didn't like the story because there was too much humor and it wasn't serious enough. Just irritates me that people will find anything and everything to pick on a Sonic game about.

[Sami]

I thought the cutscenes were... okay. It tried to tell a story using the same structure and pacing that Colors did, which doesn't exactly work. With Colors, most cutscenes were just fun little interactions between the characters and were for the most part dialogue-driven, rather than plot-driven. This structure works for Colors because these interactions don't require much overarching narrative or flow, they just exist for the sake of existing. I quite enjoyed it for that reason - I liked the portrayal of the characters in Colors very much (especially Sonic, who was hilarious), so I had fun watching them just... "hang out", basically.

 

With Lost World, the game actually attempts to tell a story. While this may seem like an improvement on paper, all it really does is prove that Colors had its script written with the structure of the game in mind, whereas Lost world doesn't.

 

Think of it this way - In Sonic Adventure, after fighting Chaos 0, the game "really" begins with Sonic lazing around at the pool, enjoying his day. Tails' plane crashes in the distance, and that's what gives Sonic a reason to take a run through Emerald Coast. Once you save Tails, he delivers some exposition about the Chaos Emeralds and tells you to meet him in his lab, thus giving you your next objective in a context that fits the game's story.

 

Lost World doesn't work that way. Rather, the cutscenes exist completely independently from the levels themselves, existing more as "rewards" for finishing the level than to explain why Sonic is going through this particular area, doing what it is he's doing. As a result, everything feels very disjointed. At the end of one cutscene, Sonic is in one location, while in the next, he's somewhere else entirely. Where was he? In the level, yes, but where was that level? What's its context? how does he know exactly where all of the animals are and how is that going to help him get any closer to the Deadly Six? 

 

The game simply lacks narrative structure, and the story suffers greatly as a result. The gameplay and story are completely independent from each other, so rather than working together to tell an effective story, they instead just get in the way of each other. While this works for a more dialogue-based game like Colors, where the actual plot is very light, it doesn't work for a game that actually tries to do something more.

 

For the sake of a metaphor, Colors is Sonic Rush and Lost World is Sonic 4. Though the physics engine in Rush works fantastically in the game it was designed for, taking it out and trying to apply it to a vastly different style only highlights its flaws and takes out its benefits. It does much more harm than good, and it's really just an awful way to design a game.

[nintega137]

The story is one of the highest point in the game for sure to me. After so many games where the story almost seems to be on the back burner, this was such a great surprise to me. I want them to do a lot more story related stuff in Sonic games like this. It was wonderful. Yet, then I hear people saying in reviews, oh well I didn't like the story because there was too much humor and it wasn't serious enough. Just irritates me that people will find anything and everything to pick on a Sonic game about.

Actually I've heard from some that the story takes itself too seriously. 

 

I thought the cutscenes were... okay. It tried to tell a story using the same structure and pacing that Colors did, which doesn't exactly work. With Colors, most cutscenes were just fun little interactions between the characters and were for the most part dialogue-driven, rather than plot-driven. This structure works for Colors because these interactions don't require much overarching narrative or flow, they just exist for the sake of existing. I quite enjoyed it for that reason - I liked the portrayal of the characters in Colors very much (especially Sonic, who was hilarious), so I had fun watching them just... "hang out", basically.

 

With Lost World, the game actually attempts to tell a story. While this may seem like an improvement on paper, all it really does is prove that Colors had its script written with the structure of the game in mind, whereas Lost world doesn't.

 

Think of it this way - In Sonic Adventure, after fighting Chaos 0, the game "really" begins with Sonic lazing around at the pool, enjoying his day. Tails' plane crashes in the distance, and that's what gives Sonic a reason to take a run through Emerald Coast. Once you save Tails, he delivers some exposition about the Chaos Emeralds and tells you to meet him in his lab, thus giving you your next objective in a context that fits the game's story.

 

Lost World doesn't work that way. Rather, the cutscenes exist completely independently from the levels themselves, existing more as "rewards" for finishing the level than to explain why Sonic is going through this particular area, doing what it is he's doing. As a result, everything feels very disjointed. At the end of one cutscene, Sonic is in one location, while in the next, he's somewhere else entirely. Where was he? In the level, yes, but where was that level? What's its context? how does he know exactly where all of the animals are and how is that going to help him get any closer to the Deadly Six? 

 

The game simply lacks narrative structure, and the story suffers greatly as a result. The gameplay and story are completely independent from each other, so rather than working together to tell an effective story, they instead just get in the way of each other. While this works for a more dialogue-based game like Colors, where the actual plot is very light, it doesn't work for a game that actually tries to do something more.

 

For the sake of a metaphor, Colors is Sonic Rush and Lost World is Sonic 4. Though the physics engine in Rush works fantastically in the game it was designed for, taking it out and trying to apply it to a vastly different style only highlights its flaws and takes out its benefits. It does much more harm than good, and it's really just an awful way to design a game.

I agree with this. Don't get me wrong I really like the story, but it was far from perfect.

[Sami]

Yeah, sorry Discoid but the rail jumping in this game in pretty flawless. I don't think it's even possible to fall between the rails, and you can control how many rails to jump in one go.

Granted the rails themselves are also very scripted (they automatically make you go forwards, so you can't use them to backtrack), they're utilised differently and only show up in one main stage.

3DS rail hopping is shite though. Again with the twitchy controls...

 

Oh. Fair enough, then. I was expecting SA2-style switching. Christ that was awful.

[Narukami07]

^Yeah rail grinding in SA2 when it came to switching from one to another was so........ugh.