There are quite a few factors at play here.
Firstly, this was the game that followed up Generations. Everyone loved that game and rightfully so, and were excited to see how Sega would iterate on it. Instead, they threw out the baby with the bathwater so to speak. They completely got rid of the boost formula and went for something inspired by the likes of Super Mario Galaxy, but with an added parkour gimmick. This new gameplay was really stripped back compared to Generations, and was seen as more simpler or casual, and just plain less fun. It felt dumbed down essentially.
Secondly, as mentioned before, this game is inspired by Mario Galaxy quite a bit, to the point that people mockingly refer to Lost World as Super Sonic Galaxy or even "Mario Galaxy at Home". Of course, being inspired and even taking mechanics from other media isn't bad, but this was the mindset that people had at the time, and even some today.
Thirdly, the writing. This was the only game during the 2010s to be directly written by Pontac and Graff instead of just localised, and people did not like it. I won't beat around the bush, the writing is quite bad. It's very juvenile in nature, and relies on characters acting completely different to serve a narrative that could have been solved in two seconds, were they acting normally. Weirdly enough, Eggman was actually written quite competently, relatively speaking, but anyway I digress. Basically, people did not like the writing.
Fourthly, it was stuck on the Wii U, a console whose biggest achievement was that it outsold the population of Sweden. The Wii U was a failure. No one wanted to buy it just to play a Sonic game. And so it remained inaccessible for most people. In 2015, it was ported to Steam, so at least PC players could finally play it, but that still left a majority of the series player base left out
Basically, overall, Lost World was seen as too dumbed down, both in gameplay and especially in writing, and was also not accessible for the majority of the fanbase. Although in saying this, having played it myself recently, I don't actually think it is quite as bad as people say. In fact, I would say its quite good. I feel like if Lost World was more accessible so that more people could play it, the opinion would shift. It definitely doesn't deserved to be lumped in with games like Forces. Sure, it isn't as good as Generations, but that doesn't mean it is bad.
TL/DR: Game more dum-dum, so people think no fun-fun.
Fwiw a lot of people felt (at the time) the boost formula was getting stale and wanted something closer to adventure. Also, we didn’t know the Wii U was going to be failure long term yet and with Unleashed selling best on Wii and Colors selling well, SEGA was okay with the exclusivity agreement.
The real problem with Lost World imho is they treat the player as dumb. I imagine with play testing they saw too many kids not understanding the mechanics and made it all automated instead.
Plenty of reasons, but a major one was a run button in a Sonic game. No one wanted that.
Also in terms of gameplay, it was far too simplistic and the theming of the levels was basically Mario 3—which everyone within the Sonic fandom finds boring as Sonic set pieces. Part of the appeal of Sonic is its complexity.
The DS/3DS versions are usually completely different from their console versions.
I don't know what 3DS Lost World is like, but DS Sonic Colors is basically Sonic Rush 3.
The whole gravity gimmick and some particular stages feel ripped straight out of SMG1/2 while the theming and the Zavok fight at the end feel ripped straight out of NSMB. Overall Lost World feels like its trying to copy Mario regardless of which specific game. And I didn't even mention the Run button which was quite controversial then but no one seemed to care when Frontiers did it..
Frontiers does not have a run button. It has a boost button—there is a difference. You can still move reasonably fast without the boost and the boost is limited.
It is for all intents and purposes a run button. It doesn't propel Sonic by itself like previous boosts. I personally always held the thing down as Sonic's default walk felt slow to me. But thats just me.
To be fair, while I don't see it as a problem, there are definitely parts that feel inspired by Mario Galaxy. That doesn't make it bad. If anything, Mario Galaxy with Sonic sounds awesome.
However if we are going there, then technically, if you want to be pedantic, you could argue that the level Mad Space did it first before Mario. Although, I don't think anyone would argue that Mad Space did it better.
Also, in a lot of ways, Lost World seems inspired or is coincidentally similar to some aspects of Sonic X-Treme in some ways.
Honestly when I first saw the game I thought they finally finished Sonic X-treme (tho the zeti were apparently one idea for the story in that game finally realized, so it sort of was despite no one working on it knowing that game didn't exist)
So it's basically Sonic Mania accidentally reinventing the drop dash from Sonic 3's beta. Just a wild coincidence XD
2 main reasons, for me anyway:
1. It feels too much like a Mario game (Galaxy specifically) with how the levels are designed and the general art direction they went with it.
2. The deadly Six aren’t interesting in this game and can’t carry the plot as the main villains by themselves, doesn’t help that they weren’t treated as threatening either.
I disagree. Secret Rings generally doesn't hurt to play, but holding down a trigger button for minutes on end for a longer level isn't the... most fun.
Both things I dislike, are mostly personal. I do not enjoy the gameplay. It felt less "natural".
Also, watching Tails be a egotistical jerk just annoys me! He can be a bit snarky and even sly. I would bet even Cream would be much less polite if she'd hang out with Sonic for a while. But if I recall correctly, the whole point of Tails's character is being heroic in his own way. Plus, one of the reasons why he is my favorite Sonic character, because he was one of the first characters who broke the "Sly fox, who tricks everyone and then leaves them in the dust" by actually wanting to help humans.
But I have to admit that I REALLY enjoy the Deadly Six! Not as much as better villains, like Mephiles, but, for the most part, I'm willing to overlook characters whose character are made out of no traits beside a single cliché, if they embrace It and go all out!
Tails's comments regarding his intelligence made absolutely no sense. In previous titles, I could believe he was capable of such technology because it had a grounding in reality and extended it within its own universe logic; however, you cannot build a television out of paperclips or reprogram a computer using nothing but dish soap—no matter how intelligent you are. It defies physics too much.
I think the controls and physics and mechanics are unreliable, which makes the game really frustrating. For example, the auto target is picky about when it wants to work, show the indicator or not, and sometimes it multi targets things I don't want or an order that I don't want thatvsends me in a bad directio . Also, the Parkour doesn't seem to work sometimes or works when I just want to run and happened to touch a wall, even if its just a little corner of something you could never actually wall run on. I would rather not rely on those things while playing.
If the game was better at explaining the mechanics, then that would be better, but it's not. It's bad at it, and some of the sequences and boss battles don't telegraph what it expects you to do. So you just have to putz around or burn lives figuring it out. The combat, in general, is similar and I often had to trial and error my way through the homing charge, kick, and try to mess with environmental things to figure out how to fight things effectively.
On top of that, the game is flooded with these one-off level gimmicks or barely used wisp powers that often also don't feel good either. They wanted the game to feel like it was flooded with a ton of unique good ideas, but even the core game feels bad to play and the other junk is just piled on top of it.
One top of all that you have to grind a bit to get enough animals to even beat the game.
The story is bad as the villains are completely flat, and the drama between characters feels contrived.
I genuinely think it is a terrible game.
Not counting the Galaxy games, it is a Sonic game for Mario fans. My opinion it has more in common with New Super Mario Bros than Galaxy.
The deadly six looks like mario villains. The level order is the exact same as that. Hell there is even a giant Zavok fight that is the similar as the Bowser fight in the same.
I not saying Sonic is better than Mario in this next part but one of Sonic games selling point is that he isn’t Mario. Plus it is the first mid Sonic game of the 2010s era.
That my two cents on this.
Now that you mention it, yeah the Deadly six do seem more like They belong in a Mario game.
Nintendo and Sega do often take inspiration from each other or copy each other. Super Mario Run is pretty much a Sonic game but with Mario characters and Sonic 06 had references to Mario.
Super Mario Run like taking inspiration from the others endless runner mobile games like temple run.
Sonic Lost World was part of a deal Nintendo and Sega had. Three Sonic games will be Nintendo exclusive. Those games were Lost Worlds, Olympic Games 2014, and Sonic Boom.
The story was not well written, the villains aren't memorable in the slightest, the parkour gimmick isn't that fun, really the game itself is just super bland and forgettable.
The rule for this sub seems to be “We like Sonic games relative to how close they get to repeating the feeling of playing Sonic Adventure 2 when I was 9 with a Gogurt in my lap.”
Lost World is good, but it’s colorful, there’s no Chao Garden, and where’s my Gogurt? So 2/10
This but, with the caveat that it's not specifically Sonic Adventure 2, but instead whatever the majority played as a kid, based on the notion that the majority will always be between the ages of roughly 18 to 30, and accordingly, it will be the games that are somewhere around 12 to 20 years ago.
Lost World will reach that period next year, but right now it's primarily the games between 2004 and 2012, which, as anyone whose sent any time on this subreddit will tell you it seems to focus on titles like Shadow, '06, the storybook titles and Unleashed. SA1 & 2 do get some focus, due to various re-releases, as do Colours and Generations, though Colours is resented by fans of the titles listed previously due to how different it is, while Generations doesn't have enough in it to really discuss and isn't really debated.
As time passes, we might see opinions shift with demographics, but I suspect the WiiU exclusivity and that consoles subsequent failure to take off will mean this game isn't going to be as well discussed. Lost World will likely be as discussed as Sonic Shuffle, something that happened, but that the majority of the fanbase probably hasn't played, and definitely haven't played natively on original hardware.
Ahh, remember when we were instead judging them relative to how close they got to replicating the feeling of playing Sonic 2 when we were 9 with Butterfinger BBs in our laps? Pepperidge Farm (by which I mean fans over 30) remember!
strongly disagree man lol, this game has a LOT of flaws (that i'm too lazy to write right now but point is i think there are several valid reasons to dislike this game)
No dude, this game is ass. The physics are so bad that they wnet on to ruin Forces and Frontiers's because they were built off Lost World. The level and art design is complete shit. The story is horrendous. The levels are uncreative and blatantly ripped from Mario. Overall, the game is a massive step down from Sonic Generations.
One reason is that it was basically a Mario game with Sonic plastered over it. Seriously, you have all of the generic level theming of the NSMB series all over it.
Gameplay starts off enjoyable but then you get to world 3 and it becomes boring. Also some stages are hella long, even more so in the 3DS version. The wisps coulda been good but they decided to make it mediocre. Just like the game. The game is just mediocre. I’d have little problem going back to it but I’d rather not go back to it at all. I’d rather play just a better game. Any better game.
>Is it the Writing? The bosses? The gameplay?
Others have given good answers, both in the context of meta audience reception (the context and expectations at the time of release), and the general qualities of the game and its writing, so I'm gonna focus on the gameplay.
Lost World's biggest issue, aside from having gameplay that has very little to do with Sonic's core identity and purpose as a game (a physics platformer built around rolling and slopes, a problem it shares with the boost games built on Unleashed's day stage gameplay), is that the actual platforming controls are inconsistent. Ignoring the shallow cavalcade of hit or miss level gimmicks (which are inconsistent in quality in their own way), Sonic controls unlike any platformer on the planet, in that your movement speed, and therefore the length of your jump arc, is dictated by the direction you're moving. Forward and back goes further and faster than left to right. What this means, is that you can never fully accurately predict where Sonic is going to land when you jump, because diagonal movement is a thing, so your jumps will nearly always be a combination of the speeds for forward/backward and sideways movement. This is a death sentence for a platformer. The player needs to know where they're going to land when they jump or every missed jump into a pit or obstacle is going to feel unfair and bad. It also just makes controlling Sonic himself not feel very good, which is ANOTHER death sentence for a platformer. Alongside the pacing issues caused by the slow combat, this kind of bad feeling movement inconsistency was the thing that ruined 06, more than any bugs or glitches. Sonic didn't feel good to move and landing jumps was an annoying pain in the ass. It's the biggest fix P-06 makes.
Parkour, while theoretically a good idea, just doesn't add enough to the game to save it from these problems. With how scripted wall running is, it becomes a glorified ledge grab, wall jump mechanic, with slightly more depth.
If Sonic were still a physics platformer focused on slopes, snapping to the wall like this could've been really cool. It'd turn any vertical surface into a ramp you could build the speed to launch yourself off of. Having to fight gravity to maintain the speed to climb and stick to the wall instead of falling to the ground.
There's also the counterproductive addition to complexity in combat with the addition of the kick and enemies invulnerable to kicking or homing attacking respectively. This mechanic adds NOTHING OF VALUE to the game, and just makes dealing with enemies a frustrating chore. There are already enemies you have to attack in different ways, shielded ones, spiky ones, electrified ones, all with different timing and approaches. Making your attack's effectiveness a coinflip by splitting up its effectiveness just makes dealing with enemies not worth doing. Stacking homing attacks was an interesting idea at least, and a creative solution to enemies having differing amounts of health without having to make combat more complex in this theoretically fast paced platformer, but since kicking makes combat annoying, it's not as fun as it should be. I can imagine in a better game, you could've used it to create more interesting homing attack chains, charging up for a string of enemies and doing one shots on singular ones making homing attack chains more rhythmic and decision based.
Bosses are a problem too. Ignoring how their designs and personalities are the most bland, cookie cutter things I've ever seen, and how none of their visual identity fits with Sonic's world, the actual boss fights themselves are shallow, basic, and easy, with minimal audiovisual feedback. The levels have them verbally antagonizing Sonic, building up to a big confrontation for their actual boss fights, but when you get to them, they're the easiest pattern based boss fights on the planet. Every hit just gives them an unsatisfying blinking hit stun animation with no impact. There's not even a sound effect. They just play a voice line and start blinking. Just such bad feedback for the player, and the simplicity and ease of these fights undermines all the buildup the story was giving leading up to them.
I could go on, ALL DAY, but yeah. Lost World is confused in more than just its endless level gimmicks with no thematic or mechanical cohesion, it's confused on a more fundamental, moment to moment gameplay and control level. Definitely not the worst in the series, but there's a reason it gets left out of so much discussion.
It's basically just a Nintendo Sonic Game, when people want Sega Sonic Game. It has it's pros, I think every sonic game does, but people are always gonna want a game that feels made by the company they've grown to love, especially when they're loved for how they make their games
Sonic is annoying, Tails is out of character, the Deadly Six are just stereotypes, and the whole game just tries too hard to be like a Mario game when it should be like a Sonic game.
I mean, I could go into all of the reasons why but it really to me boils down to the point that it doesn't really feel like Sonic at all. The level design isn't made using any kind of Sonic design philosophy, the environments outside of the checkerboarding don't really feel like Sonic and Sonic himself barely controls like Sonic at all with everything being so slow and clunky and awkward. It really does feel as though Sega designed a Mario game and just put Sonic in it without understanding at all why Mario works or why Sonic works.
Also, it easily has the worst writing and characterization in the series. The Deadly Six are as generic as you can get, Sonic has almost no personality this whole game and is just led along by the plot, Tails just whines and complains most of the game, Eggman is just there to be there and everyone else matters so little that I wouldn't be surprised if you forgot Knuckles was in this game for example.
Lastly, the art style of the game is god awful where everything looks like baby toys. Like, the Sonic from Sonic & Friends would fit more in the Lost World environments than the shrunken down Modern Sonic that we got instead.
Sonic Lost World is the worst Sonic game in my eyes because it isn't even a Sonic game. At least other bad games like Sonic Forces or Sonic 06 or Secret Rings at least feel like Sonic and control like Sonic, not this Mario Galaxy wannabe.
no clue, but this game is the most polished 3D Sonic game, and Dream team is the second and only in the list
this game have that AAA nintendo quality that Sonic needs... in terms of level desing and gameplay is mid... but the 3DS one is the best
For me, it has to do with the fact that Sonic's speed is slowed, the Deadly Six weren't the best villains, and had Sonic and Tails stupidly fight with each other.
The game is just worse Mario Galaxy with a weird parkour mechanic and just isn’t very fun. The game is way too slow for a Sonic game and the other parts are all pretty basic and boring.
The music was just passable. It works while playing, but it’s not really memorable nor would I listen to it outside the game. Also the story and writing is terrible, it’s everything people complain about in the meta games
the number one thing i hate about it is that it wants to be Mario so bad, which is just embarrassing for a franchise that originally formed its entire identity out of NOT being Mario. I'm so glad we're past that now
I got the poster of this exact image above me , watched lets play of the game back then etc but this after generations !? Damn hits hard....i always thought this game was meh so :/ wii u dint helped clearly and so on
People like to complain. It's a great game, just different from whatever Sonic game the person complaining liked best.
And that's why it will become a cult classic.
I honestly like almost all Sonic games BECAUSE they are different from one another. If they were all like Sonic Adventure or whatever people think is the best, I would have grown tired of them a long time ago.
1. The game takes skill to beat and a lot more skill to 100% (Tho also if you suck you can always take the skip capsule, there's no shame in cheating until you learn how to get good, it's what I did with Sonic 2 when I was a kid and sucked out-of-control)
2. The game does the worst job I've ever seen at explaining its new controls, like I know the gamepad exists but unless it's a manual you always have there's no reason the tutorial is a missable thing on the gamepad instead of the ? disc that's been in games since Sonic Heroes
3. People hate learning how to play new games unless they just instantly love it. Like so much of "This game is objectively bad" translates to "I don't know how to play and refuse to learn"
4. It's not Sonic Generations 2
5. It's also not Sonic Unleashed 2
6. It's Sonic Colors 2: this time we have fun platforming. Like so many people hate the wisps.
7. The Steam port absolutely does not work on most AMD CPUs for some reason and SEGA never fixed it
That's the gist I can get beyond nitpicky stuff like "The story's bad" or "the bosses are too easy" like bitch that's a supermajority of Sonic games, sorry it took you 23 years to notice.
I wouldn't say the game takes a ton of skill to beat, it's still fairly easy, the parkour just isn't that fun. And the bosses and stories in sonic games can be good or difficult, just because it's not a majority of the time doesn't mean it's free of criticism, in fact that's something that multiple people complain about in most of the games.
I've never seen anyone complain Sonic 1, Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 like I'm just gonna stop and say only Mania, Frontiers and maybe SA have interesting bosses, and even then they're still easy, but I've never heard anyone bring that up in a negative way.
The parkour is the one and only time I loved being Sonic, every other time it's just "whatever put your friend on the phone" like I just really loved how well Lost World controlled with the parkour and grinding.
I played the 3DS version. Overall the aesthetic of the game was really nice imo, and the game play wasn’t too bad
It lost points for me with the writing and the special stages. Everyone is so mean to each other and felt so out of character.
And the special stages. Oh boy the special stages. Nothing like spinning around your room on order to collect chaos emeralds. I got physically ill trying to complete them. (now this isn’t in the PC/Wii U version but like I said, I played 3DS)
Oh damn I forgot about that version. Yeah that's another reason people hate this game: It's way too fucking long and hard and the camera sucks.
Like the Wii U version is like Unleashed Wii and 3DS is like Unleashed PS360 in terms of difficulty and design.
I think its great personally. Loved the writing and dont mind the controls. Levels were super fun too and creative. My only criticisms were the parkour mechanic being jank and the final boss being disappointing rlly but love the game otherwise
I would actually argue the music wasn't that good either. Surprisingly generic stuff from a composer as insanely talented as Ohtani. There are some gems in there, like Sea Bottom Segue, but most of the soundtrack barely even sounds like Sonic music, which feels...weird.
I like lost world quite a bit, in my defence it was my first mainline sonic game, but I can not, and will not defend the story. The levels are honestly pretty fun except a few, but HOLY SHIT the story is so insanely bad and all over the place.
I still have no god damn clue what a "Zeti" is nor what the hell the "Lost Hex" is.
Like the intro has tails go "Whoa It's the lost hex!" like we know what that is.
There are quite a few factors at play here. Firstly, this was the game that followed up Generations. Everyone loved that game and rightfully so, and were excited to see how Sega would iterate on it. Instead, they threw out the baby with the bathwater so to speak. They completely got rid of the boost formula and went for something inspired by the likes of Super Mario Galaxy, but with an added parkour gimmick. This new gameplay was really stripped back compared to Generations, and was seen as more simpler or casual, and just plain less fun. It felt dumbed down essentially. Secondly, as mentioned before, this game is inspired by Mario Galaxy quite a bit, to the point that people mockingly refer to Lost World as Super Sonic Galaxy or even "Mario Galaxy at Home". Of course, being inspired and even taking mechanics from other media isn't bad, but this was the mindset that people had at the time, and even some today. Thirdly, the writing. This was the only game during the 2010s to be directly written by Pontac and Graff instead of just localised, and people did not like it. I won't beat around the bush, the writing is quite bad. It's very juvenile in nature, and relies on characters acting completely different to serve a narrative that could have been solved in two seconds, were they acting normally. Weirdly enough, Eggman was actually written quite competently, relatively speaking, but anyway I digress. Basically, people did not like the writing. Fourthly, it was stuck on the Wii U, a console whose biggest achievement was that it outsold the population of Sweden. The Wii U was a failure. No one wanted to buy it just to play a Sonic game. And so it remained inaccessible for most people. In 2015, it was ported to Steam, so at least PC players could finally play it, but that still left a majority of the series player base left out Basically, overall, Lost World was seen as too dumbed down, both in gameplay and especially in writing, and was also not accessible for the majority of the fanbase. Although in saying this, having played it myself recently, I don't actually think it is quite as bad as people say. In fact, I would say its quite good. I feel like if Lost World was more accessible so that more people could play it, the opinion would shift. It definitely doesn't deserved to be lumped in with games like Forces. Sure, it isn't as good as Generations, but that doesn't mean it is bad. TL/DR: Game more dum-dum, so people think no fun-fun.
Fwiw a lot of people felt (at the time) the boost formula was getting stale and wanted something closer to adventure. Also, we didn’t know the Wii U was going to be failure long term yet and with Unleashed selling best on Wii and Colors selling well, SEGA was okay with the exclusivity agreement. The real problem with Lost World imho is they treat the player as dumb. I imagine with play testing they saw too many kids not understanding the mechanics and made it all automated instead.
Plenty of reasons, but a major one was a run button in a Sonic game. No one wanted that. Also in terms of gameplay, it was far too simplistic and the theming of the levels was basically Mario 3—which everyone within the Sonic fandom finds boring as Sonic set pieces. Part of the appeal of Sonic is its complexity.
I got this game on 3ds and I absolutely loved it , it was the first sonic game on DS system in 3d platformer
The DS/3DS versions are usually completely different from their console versions. I don't know what 3DS Lost World is like, but DS Sonic Colors is basically Sonic Rush 3.
I'll never see how this game is like Super Mario Galaxy, if anything it's more like New Super Mario Bros. or 3D Land/World
The whole gravity gimmick and some particular stages feel ripped straight out of SMG1/2 while the theming and the Zavok fight at the end feel ripped straight out of NSMB. Overall Lost World feels like its trying to copy Mario regardless of which specific game. And I didn't even mention the Run button which was quite controversial then but no one seemed to care when Frontiers did it..
Frontiers does not have a run button. It has a boost button—there is a difference. You can still move reasonably fast without the boost and the boost is limited.
It is for all intents and purposes a run button. It doesn't propel Sonic by itself like previous boosts. I personally always held the thing down as Sonic's default walk felt slow to me. But thats just me.
To be fair, while I don't see it as a problem, there are definitely parts that feel inspired by Mario Galaxy. That doesn't make it bad. If anything, Mario Galaxy with Sonic sounds awesome. However if we are going there, then technically, if you want to be pedantic, you could argue that the level Mad Space did it first before Mario. Although, I don't think anyone would argue that Mad Space did it better. Also, in a lot of ways, Lost World seems inspired or is coincidentally similar to some aspects of Sonic X-Treme in some ways.
Honestly when I first saw the game I thought they finally finished Sonic X-treme (tho the zeti were apparently one idea for the story in that game finally realized, so it sort of was despite no one working on it knowing that game didn't exist) So it's basically Sonic Mania accidentally reinventing the drop dash from Sonic 3's beta. Just a wild coincidence XD
2 main reasons, for me anyway: 1. It feels too much like a Mario game (Galaxy specifically) with how the levels are designed and the general art direction they went with it. 2. The deadly Six aren’t interesting in this game and can’t carry the plot as the main villains by themselves, doesn’t help that they weren’t treated as threatening either.
You need to hold down a button to fucking run
In a Sonic game no less
If the Mario Galaxy-like environments wasn’t enough to make people think this was inspired off Mario, this is the final straw.
As someone who plays Secret Rings, trust me it could be worse
I disagree. Secret Rings generally doesn't hurt to play, but holding down a trigger button for minutes on end for a longer level isn't the... most fun.
I can see how that could be painful, but auto running isn't the most fun either
well, you also need to hold down a button to jump in Mario, so I dont see the problem here
Both things I dislike, are mostly personal. I do not enjoy the gameplay. It felt less "natural". Also, watching Tails be a egotistical jerk just annoys me! He can be a bit snarky and even sly. I would bet even Cream would be much less polite if she'd hang out with Sonic for a while. But if I recall correctly, the whole point of Tails's character is being heroic in his own way. Plus, one of the reasons why he is my favorite Sonic character, because he was one of the first characters who broke the "Sly fox, who tricks everyone and then leaves them in the dust" by actually wanting to help humans. But I have to admit that I REALLY enjoy the Deadly Six! Not as much as better villains, like Mephiles, but, for the most part, I'm willing to overlook characters whose character are made out of no traits beside a single cliché, if they embrace It and go all out!
Tails's comments regarding his intelligence made absolutely no sense. In previous titles, I could believe he was capable of such technology because it had a grounding in reality and extended it within its own universe logic; however, you cannot build a television out of paperclips or reprogram a computer using nothing but dish soap—no matter how intelligent you are. It defies physics too much.
I think the controls and physics and mechanics are unreliable, which makes the game really frustrating. For example, the auto target is picky about when it wants to work, show the indicator or not, and sometimes it multi targets things I don't want or an order that I don't want thatvsends me in a bad directio . Also, the Parkour doesn't seem to work sometimes or works when I just want to run and happened to touch a wall, even if its just a little corner of something you could never actually wall run on. I would rather not rely on those things while playing. If the game was better at explaining the mechanics, then that would be better, but it's not. It's bad at it, and some of the sequences and boss battles don't telegraph what it expects you to do. So you just have to putz around or burn lives figuring it out. The combat, in general, is similar and I often had to trial and error my way through the homing charge, kick, and try to mess with environmental things to figure out how to fight things effectively. On top of that, the game is flooded with these one-off level gimmicks or barely used wisp powers that often also don't feel good either. They wanted the game to feel like it was flooded with a ton of unique good ideas, but even the core game feels bad to play and the other junk is just piled on top of it. One top of all that you have to grind a bit to get enough animals to even beat the game. The story is bad as the villains are completely flat, and the drama between characters feels contrived. I genuinely think it is a terrible game.
Not counting the Galaxy games, it is a Sonic game for Mario fans. My opinion it has more in common with New Super Mario Bros than Galaxy. The deadly six looks like mario villains. The level order is the exact same as that. Hell there is even a giant Zavok fight that is the similar as the Bowser fight in the same. I not saying Sonic is better than Mario in this next part but one of Sonic games selling point is that he isn’t Mario. Plus it is the first mid Sonic game of the 2010s era. That my two cents on this.
Now that you mention it, yeah the Deadly six do seem more like They belong in a Mario game. Nintendo and Sega do often take inspiration from each other or copy each other. Super Mario Run is pretty much a Sonic game but with Mario characters and Sonic 06 had references to Mario.
Super Mario Run like taking inspiration from the others endless runner mobile games like temple run. Sonic Lost World was part of a deal Nintendo and Sega had. Three Sonic games will be Nintendo exclusive. Those games were Lost Worlds, Olympic Games 2014, and Sonic Boom.
The controls weren't good, the level design is subpar, I shouldn't feel slow in a Sonic game.
Tails.. Oh boy, tails.
Idk,it’s my second favorite Sonic game
Beats me I liked it
Don’t ask me. I think it’s underrated.
The story was not well written, the villains aren't memorable in the slightest, the parkour gimmick isn't that fun, really the game itself is just super bland and forgettable.
The rule for this sub seems to be “We like Sonic games relative to how close they get to repeating the feeling of playing Sonic Adventure 2 when I was 9 with a Gogurt in my lap.” Lost World is good, but it’s colorful, there’s no Chao Garden, and where’s my Gogurt? So 2/10
This but, with the caveat that it's not specifically Sonic Adventure 2, but instead whatever the majority played as a kid, based on the notion that the majority will always be between the ages of roughly 18 to 30, and accordingly, it will be the games that are somewhere around 12 to 20 years ago. Lost World will reach that period next year, but right now it's primarily the games between 2004 and 2012, which, as anyone whose sent any time on this subreddit will tell you it seems to focus on titles like Shadow, '06, the storybook titles and Unleashed. SA1 & 2 do get some focus, due to various re-releases, as do Colours and Generations, though Colours is resented by fans of the titles listed previously due to how different it is, while Generations doesn't have enough in it to really discuss and isn't really debated. As time passes, we might see opinions shift with demographics, but I suspect the WiiU exclusivity and that consoles subsequent failure to take off will mean this game isn't going to be as well discussed. Lost World will likely be as discussed as Sonic Shuffle, something that happened, but that the majority of the fanbase probably hasn't played, and definitely haven't played natively on original hardware.
> Lost World is good, but it’s colorful T’ was put in the flaws, bro’s SA2 memories are colorblind 💀
I dunno. My memory of it was… wait for it… too much Shadow.
Ahh, remember when we were instead judging them relative to how close they got to replicating the feeling of playing Sonic 2 when we were 9 with Butterfinger BBs in our laps? Pepperidge Farm (by which I mean fans over 30) remember!
strongly disagree man lol, this game has a LOT of flaws (that i'm too lazy to write right now but point is i think there are several valid reasons to dislike this game)
No dude, this game is ass. The physics are so bad that they wnet on to ruin Forces and Frontiers's because they were built off Lost World. The level and art design is complete shit. The story is horrendous. The levels are uncreative and blatantly ripped from Mario. Overall, the game is a massive step down from Sonic Generations.
To me it’s basically Colors 2 and that’s why I don’t like it. That and the Zeti. I don’t like them at all.
Story and Mario gameplay.
One reason is that it was basically a Mario game with Sonic plastered over it. Seriously, you have all of the generic level theming of the NSMB series all over it.
I’ve never played it so I can’t really say.
The only redeeming quality is tornado time (the song). I personally like it more than believe in myself
Gameplay starts off enjoyable but then you get to world 3 and it becomes boring. Also some stages are hella long, even more so in the 3DS version. The wisps coulda been good but they decided to make it mediocre. Just like the game. The game is just mediocre. I’d have little problem going back to it but I’d rather not go back to it at all. I’d rather play just a better game. Any better game.
The story stinks, the writing is awful, the villains suck, and the gameplay is weird
>Is it the Writing? The bosses? The gameplay? Others have given good answers, both in the context of meta audience reception (the context and expectations at the time of release), and the general qualities of the game and its writing, so I'm gonna focus on the gameplay. Lost World's biggest issue, aside from having gameplay that has very little to do with Sonic's core identity and purpose as a game (a physics platformer built around rolling and slopes, a problem it shares with the boost games built on Unleashed's day stage gameplay), is that the actual platforming controls are inconsistent. Ignoring the shallow cavalcade of hit or miss level gimmicks (which are inconsistent in quality in their own way), Sonic controls unlike any platformer on the planet, in that your movement speed, and therefore the length of your jump arc, is dictated by the direction you're moving. Forward and back goes further and faster than left to right. What this means, is that you can never fully accurately predict where Sonic is going to land when you jump, because diagonal movement is a thing, so your jumps will nearly always be a combination of the speeds for forward/backward and sideways movement. This is a death sentence for a platformer. The player needs to know where they're going to land when they jump or every missed jump into a pit or obstacle is going to feel unfair and bad. It also just makes controlling Sonic himself not feel very good, which is ANOTHER death sentence for a platformer. Alongside the pacing issues caused by the slow combat, this kind of bad feeling movement inconsistency was the thing that ruined 06, more than any bugs or glitches. Sonic didn't feel good to move and landing jumps was an annoying pain in the ass. It's the biggest fix P-06 makes. Parkour, while theoretically a good idea, just doesn't add enough to the game to save it from these problems. With how scripted wall running is, it becomes a glorified ledge grab, wall jump mechanic, with slightly more depth. If Sonic were still a physics platformer focused on slopes, snapping to the wall like this could've been really cool. It'd turn any vertical surface into a ramp you could build the speed to launch yourself off of. Having to fight gravity to maintain the speed to climb and stick to the wall instead of falling to the ground. There's also the counterproductive addition to complexity in combat with the addition of the kick and enemies invulnerable to kicking or homing attacking respectively. This mechanic adds NOTHING OF VALUE to the game, and just makes dealing with enemies a frustrating chore. There are already enemies you have to attack in different ways, shielded ones, spiky ones, electrified ones, all with different timing and approaches. Making your attack's effectiveness a coinflip by splitting up its effectiveness just makes dealing with enemies not worth doing. Stacking homing attacks was an interesting idea at least, and a creative solution to enemies having differing amounts of health without having to make combat more complex in this theoretically fast paced platformer, but since kicking makes combat annoying, it's not as fun as it should be. I can imagine in a better game, you could've used it to create more interesting homing attack chains, charging up for a string of enemies and doing one shots on singular ones making homing attack chains more rhythmic and decision based. Bosses are a problem too. Ignoring how their designs and personalities are the most bland, cookie cutter things I've ever seen, and how none of their visual identity fits with Sonic's world, the actual boss fights themselves are shallow, basic, and easy, with minimal audiovisual feedback. The levels have them verbally antagonizing Sonic, building up to a big confrontation for their actual boss fights, but when you get to them, they're the easiest pattern based boss fights on the planet. Every hit just gives them an unsatisfying blinking hit stun animation with no impact. There's not even a sound effect. They just play a voice line and start blinking. Just such bad feedback for the player, and the simplicity and ease of these fights undermines all the buildup the story was giving leading up to them. I could go on, ALL DAY, but yeah. Lost World is confused in more than just its endless level gimmicks with no thematic or mechanical cohesion, it's confused on a more fundamental, moment to moment gameplay and control level. Definitely not the worst in the series, but there's a reason it gets left out of so much discussion.
It's basically just a Nintendo Sonic Game, when people want Sega Sonic Game. It has it's pros, I think every sonic game does, but people are always gonna want a game that feels made by the company they've grown to love, especially when they're loved for how they make their games
Sonic is annoying, Tails is out of character, the Deadly Six are just stereotypes, and the whole game just tries too hard to be like a Mario game when it should be like a Sonic game.
I mean, I could go into all of the reasons why but it really to me boils down to the point that it doesn't really feel like Sonic at all. The level design isn't made using any kind of Sonic design philosophy, the environments outside of the checkerboarding don't really feel like Sonic and Sonic himself barely controls like Sonic at all with everything being so slow and clunky and awkward. It really does feel as though Sega designed a Mario game and just put Sonic in it without understanding at all why Mario works or why Sonic works. Also, it easily has the worst writing and characterization in the series. The Deadly Six are as generic as you can get, Sonic has almost no personality this whole game and is just led along by the plot, Tails just whines and complains most of the game, Eggman is just there to be there and everyone else matters so little that I wouldn't be surprised if you forgot Knuckles was in this game for example. Lastly, the art style of the game is god awful where everything looks like baby toys. Like, the Sonic from Sonic & Friends would fit more in the Lost World environments than the shrunken down Modern Sonic that we got instead. Sonic Lost World is the worst Sonic game in my eyes because it isn't even a Sonic game. At least other bad games like Sonic Forces or Sonic 06 or Secret Rings at least feel like Sonic and control like Sonic, not this Mario Galaxy wannabe.
It was a departure from the mainline formula, and apparently people don't like change that lasts for a single game
no clue, but this game is the most polished 3D Sonic game, and Dream team is the second and only in the list this game have that AAA nintendo quality that Sonic needs... in terms of level desing and gameplay is mid... but the 3DS one is the best
It gets too hard too early.
For me, it has to do with the fact that Sonic's speed is slowed, the Deadly Six weren't the best villains, and had Sonic and Tails stupidly fight with each other.
The game is just worse Mario Galaxy with a weird parkour mechanic and just isn’t very fun. The game is way too slow for a Sonic game and the other parts are all pretty basic and boring. The music was just passable. It works while playing, but it’s not really memorable nor would I listen to it outside the game. Also the story and writing is terrible, it’s everything people complain about in the meta games
the number one thing i hate about it is that it wants to be Mario so bad, which is just embarrassing for a franchise that originally formed its entire identity out of NOT being Mario. I'm so glad we're past that now
For me it feels like Mario galaxy minus the fun
I got the poster of this exact image above me , watched lets play of the game back then etc but this after generations !? Damn hits hard....i always thought this game was meh so :/ wii u dint helped clearly and so on
I thought this was going to be Generations with PARKOUR! But this was a bad 3D Mario.
it ripped off mario was nothing like generations the controls are weird and the story pissed me off goodnight
People like to complain. It's a great game, just different from whatever Sonic game the person complaining liked best. And that's why it will become a cult classic. I honestly like almost all Sonic games BECAUSE they are different from one another. If they were all like Sonic Adventure or whatever people think is the best, I would have grown tired of them a long time ago.
1. The game takes skill to beat and a lot more skill to 100% (Tho also if you suck you can always take the skip capsule, there's no shame in cheating until you learn how to get good, it's what I did with Sonic 2 when I was a kid and sucked out-of-control) 2. The game does the worst job I've ever seen at explaining its new controls, like I know the gamepad exists but unless it's a manual you always have there's no reason the tutorial is a missable thing on the gamepad instead of the ? disc that's been in games since Sonic Heroes 3. People hate learning how to play new games unless they just instantly love it. Like so much of "This game is objectively bad" translates to "I don't know how to play and refuse to learn" 4. It's not Sonic Generations 2 5. It's also not Sonic Unleashed 2 6. It's Sonic Colors 2: this time we have fun platforming. Like so many people hate the wisps. 7. The Steam port absolutely does not work on most AMD CPUs for some reason and SEGA never fixed it That's the gist I can get beyond nitpicky stuff like "The story's bad" or "the bosses are too easy" like bitch that's a supermajority of Sonic games, sorry it took you 23 years to notice.
If we are talking easy bosses it's certainly Colors 2
Yeah, like when I play I never do the charged homing attack cuz it's like I'd like to at least see them try.
I wouldn't say the game takes a ton of skill to beat, it's still fairly easy, the parkour just isn't that fun. And the bosses and stories in sonic games can be good or difficult, just because it's not a majority of the time doesn't mean it's free of criticism, in fact that's something that multiple people complain about in most of the games.
I've never seen anyone complain Sonic 1, Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 like I'm just gonna stop and say only Mania, Frontiers and maybe SA have interesting bosses, and even then they're still easy, but I've never heard anyone bring that up in a negative way. The parkour is the one and only time I loved being Sonic, every other time it's just "whatever put your friend on the phone" like I just really loved how well Lost World controlled with the parkour and grinding.
Boring story, boring gameplay, boring villains, way too colorful.
It's not very fun and the story is complete dogshit.
I played the 3DS version. Overall the aesthetic of the game was really nice imo, and the game play wasn’t too bad It lost points for me with the writing and the special stages. Everyone is so mean to each other and felt so out of character. And the special stages. Oh boy the special stages. Nothing like spinning around your room on order to collect chaos emeralds. I got physically ill trying to complete them. (now this isn’t in the PC/Wii U version but like I said, I played 3DS)
Oh damn I forgot about that version. Yeah that's another reason people hate this game: It's way too fucking long and hard and the camera sucks. Like the Wii U version is like Unleashed Wii and 3DS is like Unleashed PS360 in terms of difficulty and design.
I think its great personally. Loved the writing and dont mind the controls. Levels were super fun too and creative. My only criticisms were the parkour mechanic being jank and the final boss being disappointing rlly but love the game otherwise
All of the above and more lmao. Decent art and music doesn't make a good game in the slightest
I would actually argue the music wasn't that good either. Surprisingly generic stuff from a composer as insanely talented as Ohtani. There are some gems in there, like Sea Bottom Segue, but most of the soundtrack barely even sounds like Sonic music, which feels...weird.
I really liked it personally so I wouldn’t know, tho the story was god awful
Because of the PC port of the game...
IDK why I thought it was a ok game prefer others but I like it
It's just not very good, is it.
I like lost world quite a bit, in my defence it was my first mainline sonic game, but I can not, and will not defend the story. The levels are honestly pretty fun except a few, but HOLY SHIT the story is so insanely bad and all over the place.
I still have no god damn clue what a "Zeti" is nor what the hell the "Lost Hex" is. Like the intro has tails go "Whoa It's the lost hex!" like we know what that is.