By Austin Chiavaroli, Staff Writer
With Sonic being the main mascot of the famous gaming company SEGA, it is a shock to see a game this bad since the Sonic Teams experiment with “Sonic 0’6” in 2006. Developers Big Red Button have replaced Sonic Team alongside SEGA, creating the new Wii U game “Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.”
The story of the game starts off with the main characters from the previous games and shows: Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails the Fox, Amy Rose, and Knuckles the Echidna. All four are chasing Dr. Eggman until they come across an ancient tomb hidden in the forest. While going inside Sonic accidently releases a snake-like being, from the race of ancients, called Lyric. Once released, Lyric plans on powering his army of robots with the Chaos Crystals to destroy anything that is organic in Sonic’s world. It is now up to Sonic and the team to grab the Chaos Crystals before Lyric plunges the world into a desolate mechanic wasteland.
The gameplay is based on a formula that previous Sonic games have used. Each member of the team has a specific mechanic such as Sonic is fast, Tails can fly, Knuckles has better combat damage, and Amy hits enemies with her hammer. Apart from combative moves, there is also a new mechanic that has each character use an electric rope to help with solving puzzles and grabbing certain enemies in game. There is also currency that can be found in chests that help buy power glyphs which help with damage, rings, and other perks.
There are an abundance of issues with this game as many of the controls and camera angles are confusing and make the gameplay harder than it should be. The new character designs are disliked by many fans and the voice actors make them feel stereotypical. However, the biggest issue of the game is that there is no objective or map mechanic that tells the player what he/she is supposed to do and where to do it. With the game lacking this needed mechanic, the player might miss a cut scene and be oblivious to what he/she is supposed to do.
The main over world is bland as well. Characters are scattered across a world and with very little to do and there are even some graphical environments that look and feel unfinished. Even the cut scenes in the game show this as some of the lip movements don’t match up to the characters and breaks between transitional frames are completely noticeable.
The game is based around the TV show of the same name, “Sonic Boom,” making it feel as if it is just a marketable Sonic game to get fans and other players to go and watch the show as well. However, with the game not being well made, this makes the players not want to see how bad the show is either.
This game is just a very horrible creation that feels as if it was never finished. The game could have been much better if the creators had taken longer to make the game and had kept it away from the TV series that this game is based around. This grotesque addition to bad sonic games gets a 1.5/5, definitely not something to buy for anyone.
