Recent reviews by Poefred

Sega out of complete nowhere eclipsed the entire franchise in terms of level design, storytelling, animation, atmosphere, and controls in shadow generations. Crazy stuff.

And to be clear, I'm a huge sonic defender, I insist nearly every game in this series is at least good if not excellent. That said I'm still shook at how good this was. I've platinumed this on PS5 and PS4, will buy it physically on the switch, and digitally for a 3rd time on xbox. If you've ever been interested in Sonic at all now's the time to jump in.

Genuinely no clue what the constant negativity around this relaunch has been about. The game's WAY more polished now, consistently runs significantly better as far as being lag free, all the movesets and animation work is a ton of fun. The battlepass encourages getting on daily over just grinding for 50 hours in a week and burning out. The devs are still actively listening to feedback and providing quick updates for fixes and compromises. Getting into matches is literally ten times faster than it used to be not only because of insanely short queue times, but now you can just press ready and skip the perk choosing phase whereas before you had to wait a set amount of time every single match.

Solid game I hope stays around getting new characters for a long time to come.

Frantic and insane yet easily accessible. Insane style that has a lot of depth to it if you want to master the stages.

Satisfying gameplay and charming characters with great animation and overall art style. The free to play nature makes it have some grindy elements, and it's definitely on the laggier side of things, but it's really not so bad.
Works great on the Steam Deck. Also something I really appreciate compared to other multiplayer games is how fast games start. Makes it much easier to feel like playing "just one more" round when every single match doesn't start with a full minute of waiting for people to pick their loadout like in multiversus.

An absolute classic with a dev worth throwing $5 at~

Edit: Still cool

This is a game so simple yet so universally fun it's hard to believe it hadn't been made yet. This is a good base to start on, I'm excited to see all the new modes, maps, and costumes as the game grows. I'd say it's worth getting in on this for sure.
Given the nature of an online indie game some bumps early on are to be expected, but the devs are actively taking feedback and ideas, this game has a very promising future.

And don't worry about people crying about server issues, an indie game on the front page of steam reaching #1 on twitch instantly is gonna have an hour or 2 of downtime on launch day, I don't know how anyone expects otherwise. All the matches run smooth and finding full matches is quick.
+1

I was never a fan of this game to begin with, it's always been completely unplayable as far as I'm concerned. But now that they're full on pandering to the Fortnite demographic and letting any remotely redeemable aspect slip through the cracks, it's a wonder anyone still plays this.

Before you even get into all the bad decisions made recently that many others have pointed out, you're left with one of the most incompetent shooters that's ever been put on the market. Unbalanced, unfocused, outdated the instant it came out. This is a game that requires literal instant reaction times yet kicks you for shooting your teammates who swarm together because numbers win, leaving your team with a bot with the most braindead AI I've ever seen meanwhile hackers run rampant and unpunished.

This game makes the gunplay in N64 shooters look like DOOM2016 in comparison. If you want a good shooter in a more realistic style like this go play Phantom Forces on roblox, their engine and game integrity unironically blows this out of the water. Or if you just want a game that's better than this in general, I'd suggest bad rats, as it's way more intuitive and doesn't waste your time anywhere close to as much as counter strike.

Most of this review is gonna just be a rant about how unapologetically awful the road to 100% in this game is.

TL;dR: I'm someone who actually finds that almost every Sonic game has its own unique merits and can be fun if you're willing to learn them. I don't struggle with Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, 06, Riders, etc. But THIS game is just pathetic. It's a completionist nightmare if you're into that and a 2 hour cakewalk if you're not, buy literally any other Sonic game. The only value this game has is for super young kids who haven't played the rest of the series or finds the other games too difficult. Though even there I'd recommend just getting generations over this anyway, it's literally the same game but actually really good.

I have LITERALLY beaten over half the levels in this game with my eyes closed, it's that pathetic. But everyone's gone over how automated this game is, what I haven't heard much about is how disgusting the completionist route is. You essentially have to just play every level at LEAST 3 times, but you'll end up playing most of them 5 or more times. And that's assuming you get everything in one go every single time, which you probably won't because of how illogical hidden items are, sometimes being hidden in the lowest paths you fall into. (Actually a genius hiding spot because you'll never not be going the fastest routes up top)

Find all 5 Red rings, then play it again but touch all 5 number rings in descending order. This game asks you to count down from 5. It's RARELY more complex than it sounds. Then you replay the level again and find the silver rings which you have to get all of within a short time limit, also rarely requiring an ounce of brain cells to complete. And then there's SOS missions which are essentially just replaying a level without dying. Then there's the speedrun missions. A specific few of these are actually somewhat demanding, they're actually somewhat enjoyable as it's the one time the game attempts to have you find any depth at all, problem is the levels with the most speedrun complexity outside of glitches is classic sonic, who controls worse than he ever has with blatantly artificial physics. And then after you've replayed every level at least 5 times, the grind really kicks in. Now you have to get all 7 animal races up to level 30. You get about one rank or so every S rank. So about 30 levels later that's one down. Oh look there's 30 levels in the game, perfect, replay every level again a few more times. THEN there's the missions that read "Defeat an enemy in X stage" Missions don't complete until you finish the level. So once you beat a stage inevitably slapping an enemy along the way the next mission pops up "Defeat 3 enemies in the SAME stage" so you replay it again only for another mission to pop up saying "Defeat 5 enemies in the SAME stage". This game is absolutely absurd.

I'm currently grinding out the last achievement of collecting a total of 100thousand rings, which only counts the rings held at the end of stages. I'm literally just replaying the same minute and a half long level with 999 rings in it repeatedly at this point. As a longtime fan of the series I know 100% completion is usually a lengthy and difficult process, but no other game has felt the need to be 2 hours of gameplay and 18 hours of padding. And literally all you get for doing all this is a bunch of avatar clothes, that's literally it. Which is so stupid, why not have you buy avatar clothes with rings, it already tracks them! The way it is in the game means you have to grind for hours playing the same set of stages over and over again to get a good selection of clothes for the avatar, but at that point you're DONE with the game. Even if you for some reason wanted to keep playing there's no reason to, all the missions are now over and there's no replay value inherently in the levels.

And anything else you've heard about the game is true. Personally I'm happy they're bringing back some elements of the series that have been missing ever since Colors. A lot of the older characters are finally back talking to you in stages again, the music isn't afraid to just be hilariously over the top cheese, some of the new level aesthetics are cool, presentation in a few ways has improved over recent games and yet declined compared to unleashed anyway. I'm conflicted on the overuse of techno synth dance rave music the soundtrack went for, so even the music was hit or miss here. And the characters all being here is nice and all but almost none of them do anything beyond go OH NO WE'RE GONNA DIE STOP 'EM ROOKIE. Then you climb up some stairs and touch a dash panel and they go WOW YOU'VE REALLY TURNED THIS WAR AROUND HOW AM I EVER GONNA TOP THAT GOOD JOB!!! It's hard to believe this game actually came out 6 years after generations and quite literally a third of the game takes place in green hill and chemical plant. And the unique level just titled "City" is almost the exact same with every character you play it with, they just change where enemies are standing. Really I could just keep rambling on, this is by far the most disappointing sonic game out there, even rise of lyric felt more substantial.

Full 3D platformers are all too rare, and this one's especially good. Level design is simple enough to not confuse newbies but open enough to be fun to replay and get better at. Bosses are engaging enough though they tend to feel a bit samey even if they all have their own attacks.

Also as a big fan of the Sonic series, this is better than anything Sega's put out since Generations by far.

This is a fantastic game if you're willing to understand that it's not meant to be played like a traditional kart racer. The gameplay revolves entirely around the team mechanic, so rushing to first place and leaving your team in the dust isn't going to get you far. It's about strategy and skill. Do you give an item to your teammates to help them boost ahead and increase your super meter, or do you help them by hitting an enemy with it yourself, also filling your super meter a bit.

The map design IS more simplistic and less alive than transformed for sure, but the nature of the team mechanic naturally changes how each race plays out making the relatively flatter ground less of an issue since it allows you to interact with your team more than if there were more complicated maps. And I also really appreciate the higher than expected difficulty even on easier settings, it forces you to utilize the team gameplay properly straight from the beginning, you can't just ignore it.

I was initially worried from the footage I had seen that the game was incredibly slow, but that's not the case at all. Mastering the teamwork speeds up the game by a ton, as well as higher difficulties increasing car speed. Getting a speed boost from behind your teammate, blasting in front of them, and giving them a speed boost to go back in front of you and looping that is incredibly satisfying. All the interactions are satisfying enough on their own but they all build toward your special meter so you can blast ahead even faster.

I've seen some people complaining they win but the AI team always finishes FAR behind. I feel like some people go into this playing it like it's mario kart. And mario kart is fantastic for sure but this is something completely different and it rewards the time you put in to learn it. It isn't incredibly difficult to consistently place high with your entire team by your side once you understand how everything works. I will say there IS a normal non-team racing mode you can play online if that's what you prefer but at that point I'd recommend sticking with transformed. This is all about whether or not the team mechanic clicks with you, if it does you'll love it, if not there isn't much to offer that you can't find elsewhere. Which I don't think is really a problem considering TEAM is in the title, it's literally the point.