Sonic Dream Team (New 3D Game from Hardlight, coming to Apple Arcade December 5)

Yeah I'm with Drake.

I guess climbing anywall could get buggy with the weird MK8 wall-running mechanic this game's got going on. That's not necessarily an excuse but I'm saying a wall whitelist would be the easiest way around all that. The SA2 light dash is obviously acceptable under these circumstances considering it's pretty much just another form of rail grinding as it's used here.

 

The more open ended a character's ability is, the more utility its going to have. Knuckles/Rouge being able to scale any surface made sense in the earlier 3D games when they were confined to relatively small spaces. So as to not invalidate the other cast members, they had to put some type of limit on them.

 

You know, you can restrict the reach of the climb move through the level design without nerfing Knuckles and Rouge's abilities. That's what previous games did.

 

Sonic games are always going to struggle with the fact that two of the classic gameplay styles--flying and gliding/climbing--are insanely comically turbo-busted in a 3D space without shooting them in the metaphorical kneecaps.

 

Just a quick tech review for anyone curious

I got an Apple 4K TV. Game runs at full 60fps with the graphic quality set to medium and resolution scaling set to 0.7 at 1080p. My capture card can only hit 1080p so I don’t know how it handles at MemeK.

̶I̶ ̶r̶u̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶f̶a̶u̶l̶t̶ ̶M̶e̶d̶i̶u̶m̶ ̶P̶r̶e̶s̶e̶t̶.̶ ̶A̶n̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶r̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶0̶.̶8̶ ̶s̶c̶a̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶e̶d̶i̶u̶m̶ ̶s̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̶r̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶6̶0̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶l̶u̶c̶t̶u̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶r̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶r̶a̶t̶e̶.̶

Why the fuck don't characters have shadows at the medium preset? What the fuck. That's crucial for a 3D platformer. I bumped it up to High and Resolution Scale to 6.0.

This is just stage 1. Who knows how later stages are performance wise. If anyone else has other hardware, it would be nice if you could share your settings and experience. I have a feeling that John from Digital Foundry will probably cover this game. He always covers Sonic stuff.

 

Tails' three seconds of flight isn't busted at all and you can already boost run up all the walls you want here. Would it have killed them to at least have a BOTW climb limit or something? Anything besides artificial climb walls that defy Knuckles fundamental character trait as someone who would obviously be able to dig into a dirt wall with his sharp-ass knuckles. Like why even call him that anymore if he's not really using them in any capacity? It's just lame and I think Knuckles mains have the right to be pissed.

 

Knuckles' climb is stupid easy to restrict with competent level design.



And it's not just in 2d. The Adventure games use similar roadblocks on the walls at various points. That's what keeps Knuckles from, say, reaching the rooftops of some the buildings in Speed Highway, or climbing over the canyon in Wild Canyon.

 

They could have even made it an integrated mechanic. Unscalable platforms could just have a smooth curve around their edges that you can't get over by climbing but can with wall-running. But yeah settling for lame climb walls was simply easier to deal with I guess.

 

I simply didn't play with Knuckles in Superstars, but one of the joys of playing with Trip -- who is a better Knuckles (as well as a better everyone) -- is seeing a wall at any point in time and thinking "what happens if I climb that?". It's usually broken, but so what? Knowing which walls are climbable is a utilitarian decision that takes that joy away, completely.

As much as I understand why you would restrict his ability to where you want him to use it, I think what made everyone like Knuckles in the first place was feeling like the explorer he is, being driven around the level by curiosity and even hubris, why not. So I think doing so fundamentally takes away the spirit of it all.

(It's not like they don't make him broken every time anyway by inadvertently giving him infinite jump)

 

Not that it would be literally impossible, but neither of these are good comparisons. The 2D games manage it because no matter how Knuckles glides and climbs, he's subject to the restrictions of 2 axes. In a 3D game, there would be nothing stopping him from climbing or gliding around this structure. And in the 3D games...that's true, there isn't anything that does that. The "rooftops and canyon" are not parts of the level design that force him to engage with the challenge of the stages, they're invisible walls acting as map boundaries. And even then, Knuckles's gameplay is retooled in the Adventure games to prioritize exploration and collecting rather than platforming challenges precisely because he totally trivializes anything that Sonic has to deal with in those games.

 

That's what I was talking about.

Those aren't invisible walls, they're visible roadblocks in the level layout.

Literally same design philosophy as the 2d games. Don't want the player to climb past this point? Then have the wall protrude.

 

one of my favourite things about this game is the way it makes my iphone overheat, which really warms up your hands during this cold December month

but in all seriousness after finishing this game, I'd say it was a fun time overall. Probably won't blow you away but it's fun. The final boss is crazy and it's amazing to me that this is what mobile games are nowadays. I'm old enough to remember when the mobile version of Unleashed felt revolutionary.

 

But again, they're boundaries of the level itself. It's not any different to just giving it a ceiling. They're not blocking you from getting to a different part of the level you need to reach more naturally, there's just nothing up there to begin with.

 

I think he's saying you could use a concept like that for things besides the map boundaries.

Your issue with him being able to potentially climb and glide around platforms is valid but Dream Team already expects you to explore around finding keys etc. Climbing just very much seems like something they could have worked around. They just didn't wanna.

 

Yeah. Knuckles' levels in the Adventure games don't use those kind of roadblocks often as they're designed to be more open, but there is nothing stopping the level designers from using them to block off areas or paths if they see it fit.

There is a secret area in Security Hall that does exactly that.

 

And if they wanted to, they could make it very open and traverseable but punish you for climbing and gliding too much by having time be a part of the score. (Most, if not all, sonic games do this). You get to explore all you want, but climbing and gliding are slower than running and jumping so if you want that A-rank you have to learn how to do all of it efficiently.

 

Just spent the last 6 hours playthrough the entire game. I can see why some people have been throwing around the term "Adventure" regarding this game, but it's its own thing. Really enjoyed the game for what it was. Not perfect mind you. There were times I was missing being able to roll into a ball on slopes, and I felt that dash was a tad too short. Worst was the glide that Knuckles and Rouge share. Thing falls like a sack of bricks and never takes me as far as I want. Tails and Cream's flight is alright, reminding me of Heroes, but falling after using your meter lets you slowly drift to the ground. Used their flying in any instance I would have otherwised use Knuckles glide. Sonic and Amy's air dash really reminded me of Frontiers drop dash with how it arcs in the air, but without the burst of speed when landing.

Speaking of speed, the only real way to go fast is through boosting. I mentioned the boost being a bit short, but the momentum in the game helps balance it. You can quick boost before jumping to jump large sections of the stage. The homing attack is also quite generous with what it will lock on to, saving me in quite a few situations.

Levels.... They were alright. I liked the Mario 64 style of reusing each act into multiple missions, but some of the objectives take you through the exact same critical path as the main level making the experience feel samey. None of the themes really stood out to me except the last one that made me think of Ratchet and Clank. Music was mid overall, but there were a few tracks I enjoyed (Lofi style one when collecting shards was chill, and the final boss music brought a good energy.

Baring the Tails Challenges, I believe I have 100% the game with 101 Dream Orbs, but the trophies for "Collect all Dream Orbs" and "Get all Dream Orbs in Ego City Act 3" are still greyed out, despite having 8/8 with both Red Star and Blue Tokens collected.

It's worth the play if you have the hardware for it, but for someone like me who bought an Apple TV for this, I can't really justify the expense. I have a month of Apple Arcade, so I plan to also check out the Sonic Racing game that is on here.

 

Now that i am over the fan phase and thinking clearly.

Here’s the update on which characters control the best from best to worst.

1. Sonic/Amy are definitely the most fun to control. The boost, homing attack, and ring dash all work exactly as they do in any Sonic game. The Boost is back on the square button which takes getting used to after playing Frontiers. The turning works great as well. If you have the skill, you’ll have a lot of fun with speedrunning.

2. Knuckles/Rouge are ranked 2nd because they control just like the speed characters but with Glide and climbing on certain walls. The glide is slower than the Adventure era which I do not understand but I guess they were not wanting to make these characters overpowered. You also fall down after a certain amount of time which I think would be perfect if you could climb every wall. The glide turning is better than Frontiers. Furthermore, to make up for these nerfs the game’s platforming is complimentary to this player type’s move set which is why I placed it 2nd. It’s not like there are a lack of areas to climb but it would be better if we weren’t limited.

3. Tails/Cream is by far the worst flight controls I’ve seen in some time. They do have homing attack and boost like Sonic which is good. It will take getting used to the flight platforming at first and you will die a lot. There’s a weird delay before Flight like Frontiers but he stays in the air a shorter amount of time and to put the icing on the cake, his flight is slow. It almost feels as if they purposely made his controls bad. There are yellow arrows to increase your flight boost meter so you stay longer in the air but the meter still runs out too fast. There are also air boost panels but they do not work like Adventure at all. Oh noooo lol you have to release the flight button and hold it again to avoid falling to your death. There are areas where it is not a big deal but when you get to the point where you have to hit an arrow for your meter then an air boost , it gets tedious. I should be able to do all of this without releasing the flight button at all. They also have each arrow boost meter a long distance from each other. In Adventure, this worked to perfection because the controls were complimentary to the level design. Imagine you are doing that and you have to release when finally get to the boost panel, but you also have to press the flight button again to make sure you don’t fall to the bottom or to your death. They did my boy Tails dirty and I think it needs to be patched.

I don’t think this is a bad game at all and I actually enjoy it more than Frontiers because the levels are more interesting. This will go down as one of the best 3D Sonic games out there. It’s just that these things held it back from being a 9/10.

 

I'll put this in spoiler just in case, but

Spoiler

There's no secret ending, right? I finished all the missions plus the ones you gain after you beat the story, just need finish collecting those blue coins.