Just today, a demo for Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal was released on the 3DS eShop. All of you should give it a shot if you don’t have a Wii U or simply aren’t interested in the console version. The Wii U version won’t get a demo until DECEMBER THE FRIGGIN’ FOURTH, unfortunately. A BLOODY MONTH FROM NOW. AFTER THE GAME’S RELEASE. I guess I’m lucky to be buying day-one for RoL. Anyway–
From what I played, it was alright. Sonic felt a bit odd. Somewhat floaty, but somehow a little bit stiff. He has a run button again, but thankfully it’s on the Y button and not R like Lost World. His running speed is decent and I never felt slow. His spindash sucks, though. It’s faster to just start running from a halt, honestly. He has a double-jump, but no spin jump oddly. But this is fine, since he has a homing attack, so you don’t really need a spin jump anyway. Overall the control was decent, certainly less slippery than Lost World 3DS, but not the best I’ve used.
I started with the adventure level; it took me a good 20 minutes to finish it, and even then I hadn’t managed to find all the goodies, since the demo doesn’t save, and there were path splits where you couldn’t backtrack. The game honestly felt like some strange hybrid of Sonic and Megaman of all games. It had Metroid-style exploration, but all of the platforming and combat of “constantly moving, getting hit, overshooting jumps only to be floaty enough to hop right back on and keep moving” felt like I was replaying Megaman Zero. Hell, the controls are close enough to what I used in the DS version too. It was fun, but I felt like it was insubstantial for a demo. It wasn’t until Kayla called me up on skype and talked about the demo that I learned that you can walk past Amy’s house and Sticks’ burrow. Simple thing, but I felt like both the game and me were stupid in that moment. I guess it’s just how it’s layed out in the final game that changes this.
This led me to the worm tunnel level, the one I was most excited for…and I think it was bleh. I understand it was the first one, but it was almost abominably basic and simple. Move left and right. Boost on straightaways. Press A here. That’s about all you’re getting. I didn’t think it was terrible, and it was certainly a spectacle to watch, but I can’t say it kept my interest forever.
Then came the race level, the last one I played. It was basically just a more linear adventure level with a time limit disguised as another character. I mean, I guess it was fun, but it didn’t leave me with much of an impression. It does help me segway into one thing about the speed, though; it’s got DIMPS level design. In the sense that, while you can go fast ordinarily, the fastest you’ll be at, not counting the worm tunnels, are during scripted sequences with lots of boosters and springs. This happens just a little more than it should, and while I can certainly tolerate scripted sequences, I do know that OTHER people are going to whine about it, because Sonic fanbase.
Now for the presentation. Ever since we got…whatever it was that showed the finished version of the main theme (the one in the Nintendoworldnews video was very unfinished and eugh), I’ve expected a lot from these games’ soundtrack. And while nothing from RoL excluding the main theme has been revealed (what we HAVE heard is taken from other places, will be completely different in final game according to frost), the music in the 3DS version was rather pleasant and I was enjoying it. None of it was quite as memorable as the main theme, but I was not annoyed, and not really bored by it, so…yeah. The graphics are pretty nice. There’s plenty of jaggies as you’d expect from a 3DS game, but the models are all relatively well crafted and the environments look nice. The textures on a few of the models are bizarrely low-res, though…like, Mario 64 DS low-res. It wasn’t anything too distracting, so I guess I’ll call the graphics passable.
And I guess that’s it. All in all, Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal feels like what it is. A smaller, but still heavily packed portable Sonic game. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I’m not calling it the best Sonic game ever, or even the best portable Sonic. Although it was certainly miles ahead of the trainwreck that was Lost World 3DS. Eugh. I’m putting priority on the Wii U version still, as I only have enough money for one game before Christmas and I’d rather use it on what is likely the bigger game, but I won’t pass this one up either.
I encourage all of you to download the demo yourselves.
