I'm just gonna start out by saying that this game is definitely not for everyone. Spoiler alert but even for how much I liked the game, it does have a bit of a learning curve to it and it did take me a little while of playing for everything to really 'click'. I would definitely say that if you are at all interested in this game, it's one you are going to want to try the demo of before purchasing to really get a taste of the gameplay and determine whether you like it or not.

With that said... I can't deny I really liked this game lol. I was definitely interested in it since it was being developed by a studio comprised of the devs of Sonic Mania (including Christian Whitehead himself!) and after playing it, while I wouldn't say it feels any more like a 3D classic Sonic game than any of the, well, actual 3D Sonic games, I definitely see a lot of that 'style' here. The visuals and art style are really colorful, in a lot of ways feeling like a modern take on the Sega Saturn style (both in terms of the system's limitations and the kinds of games on it) with it's characters and environments. Everything just kinda 'pops' with color, and on top of that the occasional 2D animated cutscenes look quite nice as well. Plus there's some rather creative use of level theming here - the main example that stood out to me was Pengoville (the seventh 'world' in the game) which is sort of a run-of-the-mill snow level but also has this running background gag of a party going on between everything else and I can't help but love stuff like that.

Gameplay-wise, like I said, I wouldn't really describe as any more of a 3D 'classic Sonic' game than most 3D Sonic titles - if anything I found it pretty comparable to Super Mario 3D World with a higher emphasis on movement - but those classic Sonic elements are definitely there. The main 'gimmick' for lack of a better word is Penny's Yo-Yo abilities in which you have a pretty significant moveset to utilize throughout each stage that you can combine together to build up combos which adds towards your level score. Admittedly, at first, I did have a hard time understanding how the controls and moves worked (hence my whole spiel at the beginning of this review), but once it 'clicked', everything just felt satisfying between stacking up combos and utilizing the moveset to access different parts of the level to get collectibles, perform certain "missions" within levels to help the Denizens, or just traverse the level in faster ways. I think the level design generally compliments the movement in this game well, with elements like slopes and ramps to increase your speed and different paths you can take that often have collectibles that also add to your level score. And that's something the game emphasizes too, as getting a minimum score in each level rewards the player with a postcard containing concept art. Which admittedly isn't really that big of a deal on it's own but does feel like a nice little way to reward mastering the game's movement. Plus the giant coin tokens that unlock extra 'Star Globe' levels, again emphasizing replayability and mastering of the game's moveset.

Though, a lot of people have been pointing out that the game is somewhat janky and... yeah I do have to admit I did run into some weirdness on that front. There were definitely quite a few times where I found myself clipping through walls when especially when performing certain moves in rapid succession and while it wasn't necessarily a constant thing that I ran into in each level, it was definitely often enough to be noticeable as a major issue. Even outside of that there were moments of the penguin enemies photobombing the 'level complete' screen and, although it's possible this is just a certified skill issue on my part, I did feel like the targeting system (which was 'home in' on certain areas) felt pretty inconsistent at times with how it worked.

Other than a somewhat steep learning curve and some jankiness, I do have to say overall I just had a lot of fun with this title. Might be my favorite game of 2024 so far even if that's not a really high bar lol.

I'm just gonna start out by saying that this game is definitely not for everyone. Spoiler alert but even for how much I liked the game, it does have a bit of a learning curve to it and it did take me a little while of playing for everything to really 'click'. I would definitely say that if you are at all interested in this game, it's one you are going to want to try the demo of before purchasing to really get a taste of the gameplay and determine whether you like it or not.

With that said... I can't deny I really liked this game lol. I was definitely interested in it since it was being developed by a studio comprised of the devs of Sonic Mania (including Christian Whitehead himself!) and after playing it, while I wouldn't say it feels any more like a 3D classic Sonic game than any of the, well, actual 3D Sonic games, I definitely see a lot of that 'style' here. The visuals and art style are really colorful, in a lot of ways feeling like a modern take on the Sega Saturn style (both in terms of the system's limitations and the kinds of games on it) with it's characters and environments. Everything just kinda 'pops' with color, and on top of that the occasional 2D animated cutscenes look quite nice as well. Plus there's some rather creative use of level theming here - the main example that stood out to me was Pengoville (the seventh 'world' in the game) which is sort of a run-of-the-mill snow level but also has this running background gag of a party going on between everything else and I can't help but love stuff like that.

Gameplay-wise, like I said, I wouldn't really describe as any more of a 3D 'classic Sonic' game than most 3D Sonic titles - if anything I found it pretty comparable to Super Mario 3D World with a higher emphasis on movement - but those classic Sonic elements are definitely there. The main 'gimmick' for lack of a better word is Penny's Yo-Yo abilities in which you have a pretty significant moveset to utilize throughout each stage that you can combine together to build up combos which adds towards your level score. Admittedly, at first, I did have a hard time understanding how the controls and moves worked (hence my whole spiel at the beginning of this review), but once it 'clicked', everything just felt satisfying between stacking up combos and utilizing the moveset to access different parts of the level to get collectibles, perform certain "missions" within levels to help the Denizens, or just traverse the level in faster ways. I think the level design generally compliments the movement in this game well, with elements like slopes and ramps to increase your speed and different paths you can take that often have collectibles that also add to your level score. And that's something the game emphasizes too, as getting a minimum score in each level rewards the player with a postcard containing concept art. Which admittedly isn't really that big of a deal on it's own but does feel like a nice little way to reward mastering the game's movement. Plus the giant coin tokens that unlock extra 'Star Globe' levels, again emphasizing replayability and mastering of the game's moveset.

Though, a lot of people have been pointing out that the game is somewhat janky and... yeah I do have to admit I did run into some weirdness on that front. There were definitely quite a few times where I found myself clipping through walls when especially when performing certain moves in rapid succession and while it wasn't necessarily a constant thing that I ran into in each level, it was definitely often enough to be noticeable as a major issue. Even outside of that there were moments of the penguin enemies photobombing the 'level complete' screen and, although it's possible this is just a certified skill issue on my part, I did feel like the targeting system (which was 'home in' on certain areas) felt pretty inconsistent at times with how it worked.

Other than a somewhat steep learning curve and some jankiness, I do have to say overall I just had a lot of fun with this title. Might be my favorite game of 2024 so far even if that's not a really high bar lol.