Sonic Lost World - Nintendo Wii U

This was one of my first purchases as a game to play for my Wii U when the Wii U first released. I vividly remember enjoying the game despite the massive amount of hate for it online. Recently I was feeling nostalgic, so I re-bought a Wii U and this game. I can safely say this game is incredibly fun. While yes, the gameplay is slow and the levels are somewhat un-inspired, there's some diamonds in the dirt in this game. First thing I have to praise is the graphics, even though this game runs at 30 fps on the Wii U, the colors are extremely vivid and pop off the screen. Most of Sonic's moveset is also here, with some new additions. The super peel out from Sonic CD is here, a reworked spin dash ( it goes infinitely now and if you hold down the spin dash button, automatically resumes the spin dash if you jump and land, similar to the drop dash in Sonic Mania ) and the bounce from SA2. Along with some new moves, a kick variation of the homing attack which unironically "kicks" the enemy you hit into surrounding enemies, a new run button, ( if you're used to the boost formula its basically the boost but it lasts infinitely ) some new wisps: eagle, asteroid, and rhythm are the new ones off the top of my head. Just fyi, if you purchase the 3ds version, the wisps will be slightly different, along with level design. Obviously the elephant in the room is the controversial parkour system. I personally love it, but I wish it wasn't so limiting. While there is techs to infinite wall run/scale walls, most of the time the sections the levels implement to coax the player into using the parkour system are so brief you can't really use the new system to its full potential. One thing that is annoying though is when Sonic vaults over obstacles when you don't want him to, but this happens so rarely it isn't a big problem. A unique thing this game does is lock levels based upon how many animals you've rescued, a feature I didn't find annoying at all since 90% of the time you get enough animals simply by playing and exploring the levels, but if you want to NEVER deal with this problem, simply go to the first level. There's an area with multiple animal capsules which you can open and then die to reset them, as your animal count in a level saves even if you die. The most amount of animals you'll need to unlock everything in the game is 5,000, so you can just abuse that until you have enough. Another criticism of the game I see people throw around is the game is too easy, and while I can admit the game isn't all that challenging, there were still several times I found myself needing to grind lives to avoid a game over, so take that how you will. All in all, I definitely recommend this game, and while it does have some strange design choices and glitches, I still got a lot of enjoyment out of this game.

As a long time Sonic fan, I was looking forward to this game, considering Nintendo was helping SEGA with this game. The last few Sonic games have been better than the bad ones that came before them, so hopes were high for this game. Other than one complaint I have, this game is actually pretty good.Unlike the most recent games, the focus on this game is not purely on speed. As fun as those games were, they lacked the platforming and enemies to take down that you had seen in the classic games, which are still very popular to this day. SEGA and Nintendo have gone back to those roots, added the parkour system (wall running) with some of the newer mechanics, like wall jumping and homing attacks returning. They also added a new kick attack, which can mix up how to fight the enemies, and returned the spin dash to replace the newer boosting mechanic. The final touch was to give Sonic 3 levels of speed. Walking, running and spin dash boosting. It works well, but does take a little bit to get used to initially. Once you've learned how to properly utilize the speeds and understand the parkour system, it becomes a blast to run through the levels as fast as you can to try to beat your best score, and to also collect all the hidden items for 100%The visuals are beautiful and the music is great. Silly cutscenes explaining the story, reminiscent of a saturday morning cartoon return, making it great for kids, as it keeps them interested. Levels can be beaten fairly easily as well, so they won't get frustrated, but like many games in this genre, going for 100% completion is a good challenge for the older, more experienced "hardcore" gamer. It's so easy to dismiss cartoony games when you're older, but there is plenty of fun and challenge to be found.My biggest, and only real complaint with this game, are the bosses. Sonic games aren't known for having really hard bosses, and some in the past have been really easy, but these bosses are just way, way too easy. Even the final boss seems as easy, or easier than some first bosses in older Sonic games. Only two bosses had any sort of challenge, and that's only because it took me a little bit to realize what I had to do to finish the fight. Once I learned that, the second time I went back to fight them, they became as easy as the others. It would have been nice to be able to play as other characters, especially Tails or Knuckles, but its not much of a complaint, just would have made for a bit of variety.Overall, it's a good game, with plenty to do. You're looking at around 15-20 hours to get all the collectibles, and longer if you go for true 100% and get the best speed ranking for every level. Good bang for your buck, and they have some DLC which adds levels and adjusts some things, like letting you get a free life with every 100 rings, like the old games. Definitely good for all gamers, fun for kids, challenging for older kids. Definitely recommend this game for Wii U owners.