Sonic Lost World doesn't have a vocal theme song.

Vocal theme songs have been a staple part of the series since Sonic Adventure 1 (arguably earlier, with Sonic CD's themes and 3D Blast's credits song etc) and part and parcel of the fanbase's excitement for each new game lies in the hype for a new epic track to add to the canon. By Lost World's release in 2013 it was practically mandatory, especially for a mainline 3D title; Sonic Generations had skipped on that too but it was a game purposefully built on nostalgia and included so many of the old ones that you didn't even miss it. But it's striking in its absence, particularly as the game's end credits roll and all you have is the semi-orchestral but wholly instrumental title theme. Lost World has plenty of other, real problems, but having recently revisited a number of Sonic soundtracks the lack of a "proper" theme song struck me as a really strange occurrence - and in a roundabout way it's a summary of the game's key issue. Lost World just doesn't really seem to want to be a Sonic game and that indifference permiates through the game so much that it never feels like one either.

It all piles up. There's a separate button to make Sonic run which, in a Sonic game, is borderline absurd. Super Sonic is almost completely absent except as a simple unlockable bonus. The character and plot focus is on the Deadly Six, a group of budget Saturday morning cartoon rejects that look like they came from an entirely different series. Part of the magic of the Sonic series is that the Sonic Team isn't afraid to experiment or shuffle things around, and so breaking away from the series' conventions isn't an unwelcome thing, but Lost World acts like an unfocused collection of hodgepodge ideas that have hastily had a Sonic skin wrapped over it. It doesnt feel like a Sonic title, and the more I played the game the more it bugged me; I'm by no means a Mario expert and the Galaxy comparisons around Lost World are done to death, but the final world in particular with its Bowser-esque castles, tricky 2D platforming focus and the Giant Zavok puzzle fight all felt too eerily like a "heavily inspired" fan game of another series. I'm a big Sonic dweeb and normally even many of the weaker titles have that tone of a Sonic game that hits certain pleasure spots in my brain in a particular way. The closest Lost World ever came to that was with the bonus stage featuring Tails' plane - ironically because of its interpolation of Tails' vocal theme from Sonic Adventure 2.

Lost World is also just not fun to play, and no matter how it feels that's of course the biggest issue. Much like the overall design, the gameplay and level design also feel unfocused and like the team didn't really have a clear plan ahead. The idea of small segmented 360-degree environments (think Mario Galaxy's planetoids), where theoretically each side is its own path, never really comes to life in a manner that would make it seem inspired. Sonic is always either too slippy to control when you hold the run button or too slow to get anywhere if you let go, and the 2D platforming sections can be especially awkward thanks to the inconsistent speed and floatiness. The game tries to add depth to Sonic's basic moveset by introducing a way to build up power for the homing attack, giving Sonic a dedicated kick move to alternate attacks and enabling the hedgehog to parkour over ledges and across walls and ceilings with a tactical use of that infamous run button, but the ideas feel raw and half-implemented. The power-up wisps from Colours are inexplicably back again too, feeling more superfluous than ever like a quickly implemented afterthought that rarely results in genuinely rewarding gameplay changes. The game also has a bad habit of not actually teaching the player properly how to make use out of all these ideas and then suddenly mandating their use, which frequently results in the feeling of being stuck until you find out that there's a now-mandatory mechanic you never even noticed before.

I just don't have fun with Lost World. At best it's fine, at worst it's a frustrating churn. There are very few memorable levels, and the most memorable of them is the Dessert zone in the Desert world which, honestly, genuinely a funny idea and kudos for that but I also primarily remember it because it's an extended joke. I never had a desire to go back and replay a stage either for fun or to get all the red rings. Add to that the middling soundtrack which is like a discard pile of Ohtani's demos that weren't good enough for the last two scores, and barely-there plot with little space given even for any of the casual banter dialogue that is typically all over these games. It is quite possibly the weakest mainline Sonic, even below the infamous '06 because that game at least tried; Lost World, on the other hand, plays like the whole dev team operated on zero enthusiasm for it after the decision was made to trap it as as a WiiU exclusive at the time.

Recentemente eu assisti a um curta chamado "Dolapo is Fine" tratasse de uma garota preta, nigeriana e com um sonho de trabalhar com mercado financeiro de sua cidade, até que ela consegue uma entrevista com uma pessoa que era sua referencia. Na entrevista, Dolapo foi julgada por ser o que é, por ter o que tem, mas a pessoa diz a ela "Assimilação é tudo, Dolapo" no sentido de que a protagonista devesse abdicar de suas raízes para que fosse aceita ou tivesse alguma relevância. Mas o que isso tem a ver com Sonic?

Assimilação sempre foi tudo para Sonic.

Mas geralmente, Sonic sempre assumiu pra si todas as tendências de mercado e em internalizar sempre tomou pra si e fiz daquilo tão único, tão seu. Sonic 1 assimilou o debate ambiental dos anos 90, Sonic Adventures assimilou a rebeldia da juventude dos anos 00 e Sonic Unleashed assimilou a essência da cultura emo.

Veja, Sonic nasce assimilando sempre, mas o que tem de errado com Sonic Lost World? Ora, não existe sonic, existe apenas uma tentativa de se assemelhar com Mario Galaxy e podemos definir ai, Sonic Lost World é uma tentativa barata de ser Mario Galaxy.

No caso, o jogo leva em questão de brincadeiras com a câmera e o level design, mas enquanto em Mario galaxy é quase uma ouroboros do game design aonde o sentido de galáxia está ligado desde o nome até ao level design... Em sonic Lost World o que você tem é apenas a estética sem base alguma, um sonic da serie boost que é lento, e os chefes são primos distantes dos poupançudos da caixa.

Sonic Lost World é o exemplo de uma assimilação dando errado, não se trata apenas de roubar pra si, mas de roubar como um artista, e nisso (e em todo o resto) o jogo deixa a desejar.

I used to like this game entirely just because it's not a boost game but man, this just isn't good at all.

This whole game is trying so hard to just be a Mario rip-off instead of a Sonic game. Visually the game looks like a 3D World bootleg, the main antagonist is a blatant Bowser rip-off, the rest are basically just the Koopalings but they can talk and are annoying, and the main gimmick is taken from Mario Galaxy. Also Sonic isn't fast! He moves slowly by default and has a run button to make him run at average speed. Yeah, it's just a shitty version of Mario.

Extremely boring and uninspired level design, which somehow manages to feel more linear than the boost games, very generic OST which isn't Sonic music at all, bland presentation, terrible writing, etc. etc.

This game doesn't do a single thing right. Straight up, not one decision made in this game's development was good. How the hell is this the game that came after Generations?

Its kinda crazy how terrible sonic controls in this game. I dont think sonic has ever been a very great feeling platformer game, he kinda always fucks up a little. This game feels like dog shit to play though. The parkour system is terrible, it just serves to send you flying all over the place. On top of the fact that sonic has 0 speed from a standing jump, you have to run for a couple seconds to actually gain distance. The other major issue is the levels are also garbage. Despite slowing sonic down which I think might have actually been a good thing if they didnt fuck it up, the levels are insanely linear, more than any other sonic game I think. Levels send you on the little boost pads all the time and most of the time you just hold forward. Can you beat the game despite the terrible controls? yea, its not that hard but platformers are all about control. Its why games like mario 64 is relevant 20+ years later. Like this game just feels like a soulless husk of the blue blur we used to know. The villains designs are fucking awful, sonic is an asshole, the levels are insanely derivative, linear, and short, sonic controls like ass cheeks. The only reason this doesnt get a 1/10 is because some of the music was cool.

i am not even slightly exaggerating when I say this is my least favorite game ever made like there are worse out there for sure but this is it no game will ever be as ass as this game

even when i was literally like 12 years old i knew this was ass. when i was 13 i bought on steam and still thought it was ass
i want the people who made this game arrested it is genuinely so terrible and the 3DS version is somehow even worse with the 30 minute long snowball level

my personal story with it is that it was one of the only wii u games i even had so i was forced to just replay this and super mario bros wii u over and over again and while the mario game was relatively fun this game made me hate myself every time i touched it. i dont even know why i bought it on steam

i think this game has actually irreparably damaged sonic for me i cannot stand this stupid hedgehog

To start things on strong, the art design and music for this game is great! Some real talent went into bringing this game and it's world to life! Unfortunately though, everything else this game has to offer is a complete and total shitshow.

To start things off, it's your general sonic affair, Eggman + Bad guy of the week, and this time it's the "Deadly Six" who came in second place for "corniest team name" right behind "The Super Friends"
All of the new antagonists are boring cliches that don't get expanded upon at all, they could all pass for mini-boss enemies in most other platformer games and have no unique sense of style.
The world that the game takes place in, Lost Hex, is a crumby setup to justify the weird level design and it has no sense of direction in the environment.
The environments in the games 7 zones are pretty much just exactly what you'd see in a Mario game, except they repeat the "grassy area with trees sometimes" style like, 3 times, so you've got your typical expected Ice World with awful controls, the Volcano world, etc.
But for some reason this wasn't enough for them, so for the FOUR STAGES each zone gets, half of them will just be completely and totally random, suddenly you're in Dessert World, or Casino World, etc. it's just complete and total inconsistency and it's just confusing, it at the very least looks nice (again, props to the art team.)

Now, for the gameplay, it's just really really clunky, to start you just are really... really slow and even slow down when turning, and a lot of the platforming segments have a lot of waiting or have plenty of easy falls that either instakill you or make you waste 50 seconds doing the short scenes bringing you to the next area, and it's just the opposite of what you'd expect in a sonic game.

The level design and by proxy camera seem to be taking inspiration from Mario Galaxy, where you're looping around these small spheres, but it's just weird and disorientating to keep up with when you're running around at a decently quick pace, at worst sometimes I was genuinely feeling nausea from the camera bobbing up and down weirdly with each jump in certain areas.

The Wisps from Sonic Colors are here for some reason, I don't know why, there's like maybe 2 spots in the entire game where they're neccesary, and most of them are a total piece of shit to control, Rhythm in particular had a bad habit of just going the opposite direction for no reason, or just plummeting to the ground on a whim. (and all the wisps grind you to a halt after every use letting you know the power-up ended, which.... I already knew) No further comment on them, waste of an addition.

Level difficulty is a total clusterfuck, some levels will be long, some will be done in <2 minutes, some have plenty of pits to fall into and some are just linear railroads where you jump sometimes, up until you get to the last world where it goes from confusing and inconsistent to different flavors of fuck you constantly, usually due to design oversights (got killed by a floor I had no way of knowing would fall like, 3 times in a few levels)

The extra additions to your move set are kind of shit, the wall-run is only ever useful in very rare circumstances and typically will cause plenty of problems trying to jump up on walls you're hugging, instead sticking to the wall and going nowhere, the mantle onto ledges has been a hinderance for trying to drop down more than it's helped me get a jump I just barely missed, the kick is just a situational second homing attack for like 2 enemies (1 out of the 2 being a boss) and having the slam be a bounce is just confusing, did this game even get playtested at all?

The exotic levels with their own unique mechanics were never not a drag, the Ice Skating just is breakneck speeds on levels that have too precise of platforming, where if you get too much momentum you're likely to just sail off of your intended landing target if you go too fast, and you can't double jump.
The snowball level was just boring, it was a gimmick that was fun for about 3 minutes then it was just the ice levels again, but slow.
And the rail grind levels? Awful, every last one, I fell a hundred times because I would overshoot a jump due to my momentum, I died a dozen times to the bomb carts being instakills instead of just losing your rings, and I died about 5 times to the second rail level because there was a part where you're being bombed by birds, have to stand on the right color rail to not go towards the door too fast or too slow, and have to make sure you're not on a track with a bomb on it, and the visual overload made it impossible to see where I'm going.

For the final note on the game, something that I went out of my way not to mention until now... The homing attack.
The worst mechanic in all of the 3D sonic games, rewarding you for just being in the general direction of a boss and double tapping A, and they managed to fuck it up here.

The Homing Attack now has this little attribute where if you wait, it ramps up in damage, which would be neat if not for the fact that half the time it doesn't lock onto the boss for no reason, or only locks on for 0.5 seconds, and regardless it ends up making a lot of boss fights easily cheese'd, by just forcing 2 fully charged hits you can clear some bosses in 30 seconds, even very very late in the game.
It's also the core utility used for jumping onto bumpers to get moving, and it again, had a bad habit of going to the wrong thing, a lot of hits taken because of it, just generally unpleasant to deal with, and I'd sooner the homing attack just get removed from the game for being awful.

Not worth a play for anyone other than the most die-hard sonic fan, and even then, this game is just awful, one of the worst Sonic Team has made.

With most Sonic games, even the ones I dislike, there’s enough of a unique flavor to them where I can understand why someone might vibe with a certain game’s quirks. I can understand someone’s favorite Sonic game being Unleashed, or Adventure 2, or Sonic R, or even Shadow the Hedgehog. I legitimately cannot understand how Lost World could be someone’s favorite Sonic game. Lost World is a game whose only noteworthy feature is how little of it is worthy of note. It’s missing the secret sauce that makes each Sonic game special, it’s bland and flavorless. It’s a Sonic-branded saltine cracker.