Games News: Sonic Lost World – Wii-U review

In Sonic Lost World, the hero now naturally walks at a sedate pace, rather than automatically tearing about the place – he's got lots of new moves, too

Shigeru Miyamoto's career and that of his most famous creation, Super Mario, have remained entwined for 30 years. Every Mario game is checked and tweaked by Nintendo's prize designer, whose fingerprints and aromatic genius can be sensed in even the most throwaway spin-off.

Sonic the Hedgehog, by contrast, has an absent father. Sega's mascot – designed by the artist Naoto Oshima at the behest of Sega's CEO (who recognised the company's need for a digital poster-boy) – was trained and defined by Yuji Naka, who left the company nearly a decade ago. He was the last of the original Sonic team to depart (Oshima left in 1999, while Mark Cerny, one of the original game's programmers is currently the architect of Sony's PlayStation 4). Perhaps for this reason, in recent years, Sonic the Hedgehog has tripped and floundered, where once he streaked and tore. His appeal has skewed towards an ever-younger audience, as his games have come to rely more on character and attitude than on ingenuity and creativity of design.

Sonic Lost World is an expensive, bolshie attempt by Sega to redefine the character as more than a mere mascot, to reinstate him as the lead of an artistically rich, fidgety and important game series again. Drawing together the cream of Sega's remaining talent, the team has chosen its benchmark wisely: Sonic Lost World is perhaps best described as a cover version of Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy titles, a pair of games that remain the finest expression of their type yet made.

Sonic Lost World turns 3D into 2D and switches back again; it sends its character screeching through the air between floating landmasses, some of which are laid out like long, verdant cylinders, others much closer to Galaxy's globes, which can be circumvented in seconds. Finally, it launches Sonic off some powerful spring or squinting cannon to the next land mass in sequence.

Gambling on ambling?

Sonic's approach to navigating his world has always been blunt: a sprint or a blurry tumble, down and around pre-laid loop-de-loops at trainer-ruining speeds. For this world, however, which demands much more precise jumps from platform to platform, he's been slowed down and taught some new tricks. Sonic now naturally walks at a sedate pace; you'll need to hold down a trigger to squeeze him into a sprint. Another button press tucks him into his buzz-saw roll, which can be revved up and finally used to launch him off in a straight direction.

Sonic can now run along walls, bounce on the ground three times in succession, gaining height with each bump (a move directly lifted from Mario's repertoire) and, crucially, he can quickly attack any nearby enemy that's highlighted by a targeting cursor. This allows you to automatically streak between enemies with deadly ease.

Finally, Sonic's 'Wisp Powers', introduced in Sonic Colors, can be triggered when you find the appropriate item, shifting play to the Wii-U's touchscreen as you, for example, burrow down into the earth for a subterranean excursion, or aim a cannon's trajectory to launch Sonic towards a specific location. The combined effect of these additions is to increase the speed, style and exactness with which you can move through the world. It's fussier than Mario's easy-going moves, but nevertheless, for Sonic, it's remains a novel triumph.

The Lost World itself (known as Lost Hex) is an orb composed of hexagonal tiles that represent new stages and minigames. Divided into a series of themed areas, you work your way across these tiles, unlocking new ones as you go.

Your task is to free small fluffy animals that antagonist Dr Robotnik has imprisoned. The game keeps a tally of the number of animals you've rescued and you must pass certain thresholds before some new stages open up. This core objective is supplemented by all manner of bolt-on tasks, from collecting coins, to finding five secret tokens in each stage to completing random feats. Each of the game's main stages is intricately designed, with many routes to its conclusion. It will take multiple playthroughs to uncover every secret and, with an online leaderboard for each stage, there's added incentive to perfect your approach.

Shakespeare it ain't

Sonic's kitschy but irritating Saturday morning kid's cartoon storyline persists, with regular expositional cut-scene interruptions featuring the belligerent Sonic and his tittering sidekick Tails, Dr Robotnik and the so-called Deadly Six, a group of native villains, coerced into fighting on Robotnik's side who also provide the boss battles in each area. These cutscenes will grate for all but the youngest players, the awful dialogue ("Some lessons can only be learned at the end of a boot … It is time to teach you those lessons") only partially offset by the assured animation.

Mario's plotlines may be equally tiresome, but at least they have the decency to limit their intrusion to the opening and close of the game.

With so many elements, shifts in perspective and dynamics, Sonic Lost Worlds can feel, at times, like it's struggling to hold together into a cohesive whole. There is unevenness in the quality of those elements too, something that its primary influence avoided. But this is nevertheless the finest Sonic game in years, a riot of ideas that at times approaches the quality of Nintendo EAD's work. It may not provide much insight into where games are heading, but as a Sonic-themed celebration of the past few years, it's a surprising delight.

Source: Theguardian. comReadmore: Games News: Sonic Lost World – Wii-U review

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