maybe i’m just petty but this is part of why I can’t bring myself to pay any money for Frontiers. it’s a retooled Forces, which is a retooled Lost World. please for the love of god just make new assets and an engine
Every mainline 3D Sonic game since Lost World (aka just two, though Shadow Generations looks like it might be the same) has literally been just a glorified mod of Lost World on the technical side. Forces is literally just Lost World v2.0 internally, it's just a mod of Lost World that's been hacked into a Boost title (that's why Sonic's acceleration is weird and not smooth, because it's not real acceleration, it's the Run Button being triggered automatically after running forward for a bit. Also why there's blatant Lost World mechanics, most obvious in the first Infinite fight which is just a Lost World level). And since Frontiers was clearly built off Forces it's also ultimately a modified Lost World, though this time they actually modified it substantially enough to be not nearly as bad in that regard.
Yeah. Ive always wondered why they bothered using Lost World's framework, when Generations exists, with nearly perfect physics. Ever see the video of Sunset Heights being played as a mod in Generations? It looks SO much smoother and natural, and I guarantee you it'd feel great in Frontier's as well. But the new games, are held back by being glorified Lost World mods, and the new Sonic X Shadow Generations will be the same thing, which is gonna be very jarring.
Someone made a Sonic Lost World mod where the level design was built around the parkour, and it was fully 3D. It was the most enjoyable experience I've had with the game. I genuinely don't think that the control is awful, its just the level design.
I think the 3D controls are for the most part pretty decent, but the level design absolutely ruined it, yeah. I did do some 3D level mods for Lost World, but I feel like I used parkour in the most basic sense possible. A few wall runs here, some climbing there, spindashing over steep slopes here and there... Maybe I'll do a better level mod eventually, because I did like making custom levels for it more than playing the game, but I'll wait for a better level tool (which is in development right now) first.
@@MathewRYF There's only 9 level mods on Gamebanana right now, and there's 1 other that's exclusively on the Sonic Hacking Contest archive website (because I felt like my level mod for SHC wasn't that good, because my stomach essentially wanted me to die right at that moment in time, and I was also just procrastinating on it until the end). I'm sure you'll find the mod they were talking about eventually. ^^'
@@MathewRYF There are only 10 total stage mods out there. 9 of them are on Gamebanana and the other one is exclusively on Sonic Hacking Contest because I feel I didn't do a good enough job on it. Might as well try all of them. ^^'
@@spritvio639 in my opinion colors is better than lost world and forces put together, does that make is a good game? Not really (the ds version is better tho).
It is honestly such a shame this game was made the way it was. You can tell in the 3DS version that Dimps actually made a functional game that would probably be even better if it didn't have to copy all the junk in the console one. I hope you find that the 3DS version fixes a lot of core problems since that has been my experience (even with a run button movement doesn't suck, there are actually alternate paths that make time attack fun and interesting especially in the 2D levels, wisps are often mandatory but make level design more interesting, extra challenge stages for getting all the red rings in a zone, bosses are more involved and often have quick-kill strategies, parkour is more consistent, etc.)
ok as someone who likes Sonic lost world its nice to here anyone say anything about this game even if its a different view and I like learning the inner workings of this game to appreciate it more great video as always pariah sorry you had to suffer it really is a flip of a coin game if you'll like it😄
@elmaionesosexo There's no point, just stating my opinion. I like the galaxy games, so i don't think it's a surprise i liked this game, that's all im saying. I'm just a fan of this type of gameplay.
It really sucks because to me, the parkour system was a very good idea, but not only are the controls for it more complicated than it should be, but the level design also completely sucks and doesn't allow said system to shine right.
Yeah I also played this game back in 2015 and it freaking destroys me! NGL I never enjoyed playing this game because clunky controls, annoying enemies with tons of instant death pit, and the difficulty spikes are over the place which makes you throw the controller out of your window room, I never actually beat it as a kid and then back in 2020 I used to revisit the game and try to beat it and I finally managed to beat the game! (Except the mini games) and never revisit this game again but if I have some spares with this game, maybe I could revisit it for the third time! and now I'm here watching someone playing this game for us
Yes. The Rhythm wisp used to work on Wii U like this: The player looked down on the gamepad and sees a highlighted music note. They need to tap that note on the touchscreen once. The player note will then go towards that note. Then they need to proceed to the next one and so on. You basically guide the note through a path made of notes. If the player taps multiple times while the note hasn't reached the next destination yet, they'll get rings. If there are no notes, the player can also touch the left or right side of where the music note is to direct that note to jump towards that direction. On the PC, every A press guides the player note to the next note. If there are no notes and the player presses A, the note either jumps in place (acting like if the player touches the player note on Wii U; if no direction on the analog stick is held) or it makes the note go left or right (if the player holds left or right on the analog stick).
@@aortaplatinum probably having not played them, i myself didn't have a WiiU or a Wii so i just did not get to play sonic games for a while. If anything i would hear ghost stories about lost world, just people dunking on this game hard and later just see trailers, hoping to GOD they were exaggerating about the game but as soon as the game got a steam release...
The worst part of it to me is that we got the DLC of Sonic running around in Hyrule. That is a million-dollar hype idea that will almost certainly never be done again. ...and it was done for Lost World.
You forgot the issue of randomly homing attacking an enemy you didn't want to when trying to double jump, it is in the same button and because the double jump is so universally useful, there are gonna be many situations where you will want to double jump when an enemy is nearby. Not to mention that this game also has a second type of homing attack that also share it's button with another move you also use often, the bounce, the same problem will also be present every time you bounce near a enemy, making the problem even more frequent.
and to this day, I still don’t know what to think of the fact that after colours and generations it was mostly consecutive mediocrity being released in the sonic franchise (debatably once again). I personally see 2013-2017 as a period where it was clear sonic team didn’t seem to know what they wanted sonic to be nor how to go about doing it
@@Ultra_7 Ehhh, wasn't that exactly what happened in the mid-2000s too? After Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Team decided to change everything in 2003 with the launch of Sonic Heroes (sending everything achieved in the first 2 Adventures to hell), and then they completely lost their way with the disaster of Sonic 2006. So this It's nothing new...
Lost World is a strange one, I think. It's one of those games that feel weird and unintuitive at first and it only gets marginally better with time. Maybe it's a case of the developers getting used to the weirdness and then they forget to improve it. I didn't even realise the similarities to both the classic games as well as to the Mario games. Some of them are obvious, whereas others are easy to take for granted, I think. You got a keen eye, man. 5:52 I think that's too simplified. The credits of Generations and Lost World aren't disjoint. There are people that worked on both games. And teams often aren't the same between games either. Some people leave the company and others get hired. 8:07 It's kind of interesting that you say that, I think. I agree that this happened a few times, but more so I think they didn't learn from their mistakes or even unlearned what they previously excelled at. That's the bigger issue for me. 9:27 I assumed that was a technical decision, made to not have to compete with the somewhat realistic graphics from Unleashed and Generations because the Wii U maybe can't do that. 31:06 It may sound absurd, but I like the one grinding level that's really hard. It requires precision and timing to beat, the controls behave expectedly and the music (hopefully) keeps you calm. It's competent, I think. 31:49 I didn't even remember those. Sonic Pinball Party looks more fun to play to me. Overall I agree with the video. I think it's not as frustrating as you make it out to be, but I don't want to play it either. But you made some interesting points that I didn't think about and that's what's most important to me.
Fun fact: Everything that is wrong with current day Sonic Team can be traced back to this game: the movement; engine framework, art style, speed, stage gimmicks, sound effects etc
I used to blame Forces, but then a couple weeks ago I played Lost World and found out that in some ways, EVERY sonic game since it's built on top of Lost World. The current model? Reused of assets? most of the time, it's from Lost World and sometimes Generations.
@@erikm7224 On the technical level, every 3D Sonic game since is quite literally built on top of Lost World internally, they're all glorified mods of it. Forces is quite literally just a mod of Lost World cobbled into a makeshift Boost game, and Frontiers while altered significantly more than Forces was is still built on that same Lost World framework. And Shadow Generations is looking like it'll be too.
@@legoboy7107 Holy shit, it all makes complete sense now. If a game's bones weren't good to begin with, it requires more work to fix it when building off from it. Unfortunately, starting fresh costs more than fixing what's already there. Lost World was built off Colors because of the Power PC architecture and Colors' bones originated from Sonic and the Secret Rings.
I mean if you're gonna say that, you have to accept it honestly goes all the way back to Unleashed, it's just with each game the poor ideas compound on each other. Unleashed was the first game to push heavy for the quick fab side scrolling stages, but they were just for extra missions. The thing is those missions were basically required because of the emblem requirements. Colors then followed this up with instead of making extra side stages, all stages are just slices of 2-3 stages with some just being a single room with a tiny challenge. One of the stages is quite literally just run in a circle for 3 minutes. And the Cyberspace stages for the emeralds got to just be reused classic Sonic stages but with no textures. The story from here on would now be less serious more being focused on almost cartoon humor. Generations followed up with this with the side missions which again were quick fab stages in the quality of Mario Maker. And once again they are also required to get the chaos emeralds to beat the game. But Gens also pushed the idea the story can be side lined and doesn't have to be very serious nor logical, it can just be used to move the game forwards. This is the slow progress of the series. Sonic Team has slowly taken the poor ideas from one game to the next mainly to save development time or to pad the game. If nobody complains well it's clearly fine to do it again. Lost World and Forces were just the breaking point for most people. Gens especially got a pass for being a celebration game and Colors was honestly the first decent Sonic game since Unleashed for the Wii.
This game is like the modern equivalent of those bad 90s platformers that tried to copy either Sonic or Mario, or both, but failed at understanding what made either good to begin with, except it's an official Sonic game, which makes it a bit worse if you ask me
Sonic Lost World is a special game to me. By itself, it's ok. Definitely won'y catch me playing this over the Adventure or Boost games (aside from maybe Unleashed because of the Werehog). But it's the first Sonic game I was actually there for in pre-release. I remember watching the E3 stuff, Cobanermani456's update videos, and utterly hating Frozen Factory Act 2 when I actually got the game.
Just by watching your footage alone i can tell that this is your least played game so far. You double jump too much and you turn too sharply killing your speed, you never aproach the wall head on to make side to side movements with parkour, you never hold (crouch while parkour) the wall in 2d (wich is basic and super helpful), always jump before fully climbing the wall (i'ts slower than not doing anything), barely used the kick even though it kills all of the enemies you bumped into (caterpilars, eggrobo, gold tontons...) and worst of all you struggled terribly with zavok 2nd boss fight. The bosses are piss easy, no excuse for this one bro. It's understandable tho, you didn't care enough with a game that didn't interested you from the begging. But i expected different from the guy who defended sonic labirynth and made a feature lenght analysis of Sonic Battle.
The lost world video being uploaded on that same hour Junichi (i.e.: Japanese Sonic's va) retweeted actual gay porn on his twitter is some insanely cursed timing
Call me crazy, but the Sonic 4 badnik design was one of the best aesthetic decisions, it's like a mix between classic and modern, respecting both eras. Sonic Lost World makes everything too cute, it was never the idea, they were simply relatively simple designs that could hypothetically be brought to primitive 3D
Oh my god Pariah, I hope you're doing ok. I hope this video generates enough revenue for you to pay your hospital bill after suffering so much playing Sonic Lost World . Pray for Pariah's recovery.
What is not talked enough about this game is the legacy it left behind. I think Sonic Lost World played a significant role in the destruction of Sonic Team after Generations. The reason why Colors and Generations were so good was because Sega at the time had a significant increase in their yearly revenue because of the sales of Marvel super hero games they made. Another thing that happened at this time was that after years of being in the red, Sega strated generating profit again after the downward spiral that began in the mid 90's. Maybe if 2010 to 2012 Sonic Team had more stability and resources to make their games. That and a strong vision for the brand in the 2010's to target western children, leaving behind the teen audience it garnered over the decades. But after shipping Generations, a lot of the more talented Sonic Team devs left Sega and went to Nintendo, and I think same vision for the brand, and the possibility of Sega becoming unstable again (which happened after the sales of super hero games died) are what made those devs quit. If you work in creative field, you want to make cool new stuff. I think despite everything Sonic Team in the 2000's was a breeding ground for a lot of weird and experimental ideas the devs wanted to try, and no other IP would allow that. Those "dark age" games all sold well and made profit, despite critics hating them. But the new brand for Sonic in the 2010's was to be plain and boring, recycle the past. I think after Generations a lot of creatives at Sonic Team knew this would be the path of Sonic moving forward and that Sega was working with BigRedButton to create Sonic Boom - a reboot of the entire IP. This was at the same time when Nintendo was looking to revilatize many of their legacy game IPs with new ideas, which resulted in games like Mario Odyssey and Zelda BotW (which some of those ex-Sonic Team devs worked on). Starting from 2010 was when Sonic software sales started to diminish, culminating in Sonic Lost World selling way less than a million copies on the Wii U. This is speculation of my part, but I think this is what happened behind the scenes: 1) Sonic Team got a nice cash injection by Sega after Black Knight. New money and morale comes with new vision for the brand for the next decade; 2) Colors, 4: Episode I (initially), and Generations are very well received by fans and critics. It is working. This is what Sonic should be moving forward; 3) Sonic Team devs quit because they wanted to work on something new instead of just recycling Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Lost World develop happens during the end of Sega revenue growth, after the PS3/Xbox 360 generation comes to an end; 4) Sonic Lost World is released, being part of the 3 game deal between Sega and Nintendo to bolster the Wii U's shitty game library. The game was made to appeal to Nintendo and haters of the boost gameplay. I remember Takashi IIzuka saying they made the run button and rotating planets because people "complained Sonic was too fast and hard to control and the they get lost in the stages" so they made everything loop around. Remeber, at this moment the vision for the Sonic brand was to target casuals and very young children in western countries; 5) Sonic Boom was intended to reboot everything, before that thing crashed and burned. I still remember many press releases and interviews refering to Sonic Team's Sonic games as "Legacy Sonic", and Sonic Boom as the main branch. I will talk more about Sonic Boom's behind the scenes in your Sonic Boom RoL video, because I think there was some strong insatisfaction within the japanese staff that eventually led to some of them quitting ("Why would I stay here if they are rebooting everything and handling the IP to western devs? I'm out!); 6) Remaining Sonic Team staff is left stuck with the Lost World framework, which they have been using for their games since. The Hedgehog Engine 2 is just a modified Sonic Lost World engine, possibly built on the 2015's PC port. I heard the devs who made the HE1 are no longer at Sega to help them port the engine to newer platforms because the engine was made for PS3 and Xbox hardware. The PC port of Sonic Generations was made by a third party company, not Sonic Team. I will not be surprised if Sonic X Shadow is ported from that old PC port, even on consoles; 7) HE2/Lost World's framework is not suited for the games current Sonic Team wants to make, which shows in Forces' movement, and Frontiers' pop-in. The engine is not made to render large map, only narrow paths. I think Kishimoto or Iizuka said they intended to use UE5 for Frontiers, and got some progress, but they had to scrap everything and go back to HE2. I think Sega didn't wante to pay the license to use the engine. Now Sonic Team is a shadow of what it was in the early 2010's, stuck with an increasingly bad game framework, and torn between following the guidelines for the brand set in 2010 (nostalgia pandering, simple, plain, boring etc) and appealing to hardcore Sonic fans. All while appealing to casuals and selling enough games to make a profit. The more you appeal to Sonic fans, the less you appeal to casuals. But it seems the strategy of appealing to casuals isnt' paying off anymore because sales of Sonic software from 2010 onwards are very low, with Frontiers breaking that being the best selling Sonic game ever. My tips for Sonic Team moving forward would to abandon HE2 and use Unity or UE5 (which might be out of question for them); scale down their games (which might be what they are doing with Shadow Generations); or invest in the new blood at Sonic Team. It seems they hired new folks during Frontiers' development and some of the best ideas of that game came from those new devs, like the rail generation system for fast travel. Rintaro Soma also came in the picture and already produced absolute bangers for Frontiers Cyberspace and Superstars in a time where people are losing faith in Jun Senoe.
not even going to mention the insane over-abundance of random ass instant-kills this game throws at the player like in a lot of cases - especially the minecart and auto-run levels - simply touching a wall is instant death. Super Sonic in this game is just absolutely worthless outside of the boost thing he gets because all of the instant kills still fully affect him - even those stupid very generic-looking bomb mine carts that any sane gamer would think just do damage but oh no no no these are SPECIAL bombs that are so powerful nothing in the world can hope to save you if you collide with them.
Yeah, I have no idea what Sonic Team was thinking with Super Sonic. He was perfect in Colors but after that they went to the opposite extremes. In Generations he is too OP, and in Lost World, he's pretty weak.
I feel like the point of this series is a little backwards. At least, going off the name. (Though I mean, the name exists for a reason. The series exists for a reason.) I get the feeling you made this series to convey that this series has a lot of good in it, and I feel the best way to do this would be to go from game to game detailing what they do *good.* But you've kinda just treated it as "This is how I feel about these games, no punches held." Which, is mostly positive, sure, but it kinda emphasis the flaws of these games too and so this series can come across as pretty harsh at times. I'm not crazy about Lost World either but the reason I bring this up is because, even if you don't personally like Lost World, that shouldn't be the point of it being included in this series, should it? Maybe look for others to help gain a different perspective on this game if you're unable to. Allowing room for different opinions is part of the reason Sonic WAS always good after all- no series is objectively perfect, but this is a franchise where every game is gonna be someone's favorite. I guess what I mean to say is, this series can feel overly critical sometimes. And if your goal was to make a series meant to demonstrate the series has more good than people realize, I kinda feel like it fails at that. Doesn't help that, honestly I feel some criticisms in your videos lean away from being... criticisms, to just jabs or gripes based on negative bias. Not even far into this video and you're already discussing how this game copies Mario Galaxy and how your initial reactions to this game were negative based on it not being like Generations, but... these aren't criticisms. They're personal negative anecdotes that don't have to do with if this game is good or not. Which can sorta turn the vibe of the video from a deconstruction of what Lost World does wrong, and more just... a long list of every unfiltered complaint you put in the first draft of your script.
The point of this series has never been about going out of his way to find good in every single Sonic game. It's just a personal review series, named this way as a retort to infamous IGN's "Sonic Was Never Good" -- nothing more. Pariah just happens to like a lot of Sonic games despite their many flaws, but that has nothing to do with this series' name -- it's more of a branding than anything beyond that. He even titled his Zelda reviews "Zelda Was Always Good" before ditching it because it might hurt the visibility of those reviews in recommendations -- and his Zelda 2 review was also titled "Zelda Was Always Good" despite the fact that he hated the game. Pariah doesn't try to explicitly be positive about every Sonic game -- he's sharing his honest thoughts, and if he dislikes a game, he will not pull any punches, just like you'd expect from a personal review. The series is named this way because of branding -- every official Sonic game up to this point has been reviewed under this series title, so Lost World had to be under that series' title as well, at least from Pariah's POV. The only exception was Sonic Forces Overclocked, due to Pariah wanting to offset the overwhelming praise of this fanmade creation and offer genuine criticism because every other content creator was going "OH MY GOD, IT'S BETTER THAN FORCES, TAKE NOTES SEGA" even though it was just more Forces. There was never a goal to find good in every Sonic game. Pariah never set that as his goal. So he couldn't have failed at something he was never even trying to achieve. Pariah was positive about previous Sonic titles because he genuinely liked them deslite their flaws, not because he was positive for the sake of it.
@@_dot_tea2774 Okay but my problem is, when you devolve into harsh criticism frequently, the whole point of retorting against IGN's "Sonic was never good" quote is lost. Because at that point you're just doing the same thing IGN is. It's as you said, it's not that he disagrees with IGN, he just happens to have different opinions. But that also brings to question why he's playing every single game. Like, if I hate Metroid games, I'm not gonna play a Metroid game and give it a review, right? Obviously Pariah's tastes lean towards very specific things, so when he comes across a game like Lost World, he's not even gonna try and enjoy it- he's putting himself in a position where he's going out of his way to play something to trash on it. Which... is again, what IGN does, frustratingly. I get it, he's just being honest. I hear that a lot. But like, to some degree I can't help but feel this honesty often comes less from genuine criticism and more just a lack of interest in whatever he's playing? And it's not uncommon for his criticisms to devolve into just complaining either- he doesn't like it so why not nitpick at every detail that isn't necessarily a *problem*, but every problem he just personally doesn't care for? I think Pariah's videos are much better when he's just talking about things he likes. His Shadow video is fantastic at articulating what the game does right for example. But I can't help but GROOOAAAN when his entire Generations video is just an excuse for him to complain about how every game before this one sucks sooooo much for soooo many different reasons. It just feels complainy to an exhausting degree and saying he's being honest doesn't change that. I don't doubt his honesty.
A lot of the problems you have in this game are problems that other sonic games have. Run button, (sonic frontiers) can't control your jump velocity in mid air, (sonic 06) mechanics that barely work and are buggy (the dreamcast era). Glitchy weird overly automated mechanics (story book games) crappy boss fights every sonic game ever. None of these are new critiques for sonic games
to my understanding Sonic Lost World was part of SEGAs 3 exclusive games deal with Nintendo which means Nintendo had to oversaw this in some way. They saw SEGA "playing it safe" making a Sonic game very derivative of their own IP instead of doing their own thing and thought that was okay? I'm glad to see people in the comments acknowledging subsequent games being built off Lost World, I remember making reference to that in a comment on another Lost World review and someone commented at me like I was crazy. Also why does this game aesthetically look almost good (like I like how the jungle level looks) but then they give everything this bulbous look most notably with the badniks which otherwise would look closer to their OG designs and even the UI is all ballooned up. Does anyone else see this?
I think Sonic Team wanted to use the opportunity to make an experimental game, just because it's more fun for devs than doing the same thing for Nth time, since Nintendo was paying for it so it was risk-free.
I don't know how big Nintendo's influence was on this game. Maybe it was Sonic Team's / Sega's decision to change it like this. After all, the Wii isn't the console that got the mature 06. For the UI, maybe you mean the circles in the lower corners? They are somewhat annoying, I suppose.
"Sonic Was Always Good", and it seems there's no better way show that than your first real major disliked "Sonic" game just doesn't even count as aSonic game.
"Even basic bitch ass games like, uh, Rayman 2, idk... barely even have any mechanics." Pariah. I like you. But I need you to take that back. Rayman 2 is one of the best platformers ever made and is the best platformer on the N64. Please reconsider.
@@Pariah6950 I never felt like I need to manage it in Generations and UnleasHD. And I consider it to be a positive about those games. I enjoy power trips from sense of mastery more than arbitrary limitations which limits core moveset. Meter management is especially annoying in Forces where is also limits air dash when base acceleration is pathetic.
@@Pariah6950 It was also much more interesting as a way to move because you couldn't just stop your speed on a dime. If you wanted to do precise platforming fast, you had to work with the speed you chose to use by pushing the boost button.
I have a pretty positive impression of the game because a lot of the people I respected reviewed the game pretty well, such as ClementJ64 & Nick on Planet Ripple (Nick's review was likely the reason I bought the game as a teenager). Since I was pretty young, I was primed to think that the only reason I wouldn't like the game was if I was bad and didn't get it. Coming back to the game years later, I feel like it's a middling game that lacks focus and direction but is ultimately inoffensive. I can't comprehend how anyone would think it's the worst Sonic Game ever made, but I do understand why people would dislike it.
The game that this game actually seems to be emulating the most profoundly imo is SM3DWorld. The run animation when Sonic runs in place is the sane as when you press the run button in that game and even the skinny pirouette he does when skating on the ice is literally the same as that game. It's even more blatantly in the 3DS version, imo because the games have the sort of Hakoniwa garden esques design philosophy the Galaxy and inward games have. The design aesthetic of feels so fake. As mentioned before, it's cribbing on the Classics, but everything about how the world is designed feels like you're in a Lego set or something. While the Classics had some fantastical elements, they were still grounded in a way that made them feel like organic places rather than a playset the way newer the Mario games at the time did. This game just fundementally feels bad to play to me. Everything about it plays so, so inherently unintuitive to anyone with any semblance of a clue of what Sonic should be like to play, even if they didn't play one before. I regularly bring up this game when people tell me they wanna see a literal Mario and Sonic platformer crossover because...this is pretty much what you'd get conceptually, and it's a big mess. I'd be one thing if it was just different, but it's not even good for something different. Wisps are so much more forced in LW than Colors somehow. While Colors had obligatory obvious usage sections, LQ treats them like level section gimmicks in of themselves as a distraction from the actual gameplay. I don't think it's objectively intuitive, but I did figure out hitting thr bird bot's missles back at it. Dunno why but I did. Probably hit one by accident or something. I always found the Final bosses design odd because it's designed to look like Classic Eggman.
I agree about the similarities to 3D World, except the games came out at around the same time. So they didn't take influence from it. Sonic Team was just so good at copying Mario that it has a lot of parallels with the 3D Mario of the time.
@Pariah6950 considering how close they were with Nintendo at the time, I wouldn't be shocked if they had some perspective or insider knowledge about the development of 3DWorld before it came out, but that's obviously not definitive. The borderline copy-paste job feels too blatantly to me to disregard the possibility. @.@ It'd be the world's most massive coincidence, especially given a sequel to 3D Land had to have been known to be in some kind of pipeline given that games success. But again, that's theory.
my little nice tried to play this bc my grandmother gifted her the game for easter (for context, she is a very big Sonic fan). She was so fucking sad i swear, i never saw a look of that pure misery and frustration on a seven years old child.
The 3ds version of lost world is secretly one of the sickest Sonic game games in terms of movement and what is actually possible but I guess I have to prepare for the possibility of yet another bashing video.
@@Pariah6950 From what I know, some parts of 3DS Lost World are actually pretty sick and line up with what OP described and also _actually look and feel like a Sonic game to play_ unlike the Wii U game, while other parts are downright terrible and worse than the Wii U game. So, uh, get ready for that.
@@Pariah6950there's a few things you could look forward to, and it even addresses some of your issues with the controls of sonic (IE, it's not a slog), so I'm looking forward to that
@@Pariah6950 I actually prefer the 3ds version,Its spindash better than wiiu. There are some boring bridges but it's fun to see how different all the levels are when you get the super sonic.
you know it's gonna be a good when Pariah actually edits sounds into the video. And people do not talk enough trash about this game. There are worse games, technically (literally because they're broken) but this is the real worst one.
I can agree that this game is not a good Sonic game whatsoever, but man calling it one of the worst games ever I just absolutely cannot understand lol. You mentioned the problems with the parkour, and they do exist, but just like most 3D Sonic games if you just learn all the workarounds for it, you “git gud” then it’s a lot of fun to master the movement in this game and send Sonic flying around with this parkour system. Plus, in this game the biggest workaround is actually an intended mechanic… just let go of the run button xD It is the most in-depth and involved platforming system Sonic Team has made since… the Classic Sonic games I guess? The main differences here are the barrier for entry is higher than usual for Sonic game standards, and mastering the mechanics takes a lot of tinkering and messing around with it before you can fully understand how it works and how to use it well. For me, it was very intuitive to learn, but for others it isn’t because I will fully admit they made it obtuse and obscure for like no real reason. I say all this while agreeing that this game was absolutely a major mistake for the series and SHOULD NOT have been the game to follow up Generations. In fact, despite how much I enjoy this game, I still think it should have NEVER been made in the first place. Not only does it strip Sonic of his core gameplay identity entirely, leaving almost nothing remaining, but it also for some baffling reason is the basis used to make both Sonic Forces and Sonic Frontiers. From here on out, say goodbye to any sense of momentum or flow in Sonic’s movements, say goodbye to fluid and intuitive air control, say goodbye to… any real identity Sonic had before this point. A ton of the negatives that begin with Lost World are still plaguing future titles, and I suspect will continue to plague future Sonic titles going forward. I know a lot of the big lovers of Frontiers would hang me for saying this, but I genuinely do not think Morio Kishimoto should be the director for these Sonic games. It is clear to me that Kishimoto has inherited Iizuka’s ideal that “we want to change things up each time to keep it fresh for the fans” but has taken it to a whole new level. It seems like he has an idea for a game, not a Sonic game but just a game in general, and has to think of a way to fit Sonic into it. And if that idea succeeds, he pushes forward with it but overcompensates and pushes things too far in that direction. And if something fails, he throws it out entirely and tries to fall back on what he thinks does work, but doesn’t fully understand why it works, so the product he makes is just a worse version of something that came before. And if falling back on the “tried and true” doesn’t work, instead of trying to do it again but better this time, he throws that out too and makes something entirely new from scratch again (except it’s not from scratch as it all uses the same code base the previous games used). I’m very worried this is going to be a cycle with him. Colors was good, so he made Lost World which doubles down on all of the wrong things. Lost World didn’t pan out, so he falls back on the “tried and true” with Forces. But it’s not a very good game either so throw it out with the kitchen sink and let’s try… YES! Sonic in an open world like Breath of the Wild! Oh wow, that was extremely successful and relatively well received, let’s double down on everything and learn the entirely wrong lessons from Frontiers for the next game! And when that doesn’t work, let’s get rid of the open zone idea and come up with something else and/or fall back on the “tried and true” again. What I think should happen is… they should let Sonic Team make more games again outside of Sonic. A new Mario inspired 3D action platformer with parkour mechanics sounds like it would be a fantastic… if they didn’t feel the need to shove that onto the Sonic series, which fundamentally clashes with that idea in so many ways. I obviously still want Sonic Team to make Sonic games, but it would be really nice if Sonic games were allowed to be Sonic games again. I’m glad we have the Classic Sonic styled games back, but it hurts so bad knowing there is a world out there where Lost World was never made and they instead decided to make a fully original Sonic game that evolved upon the gameplay of Generations, and they just continued on that path. Instead we have a 3D Mario clone but worse, Generations/Colors 2 but worse in almost every way, and open world environment with Sonic level design footing above it and a between meh and pretty good Sonic game stitched to its side.
I think you're being a bit unfair towards morio kishimoto. He has made a lot of bad decisions when it comes to sonic but he's made it very apparent that the open zone formula is here to stay and has been taking in tons of feedback since day 1. Update 3 clearly shows that they know what people want and are trying to implement it into the games. That doesn't mean the next game is guaranteed to be perfect but wanting kishimoto gone when he finally starts to give people what they ask for makes no sense.
@@slitchey I think it’s actually stupid weird when he brought in the most unique and strongest gameplay elements into Sonic with Frontiers. And despite the praises of Mania, I find it stupidly dull and confused most of the time. Just look at its final bosses. The story itself is so ridiculously Ian Flynn-like and it cannot be blamed on the stages being reused since Forces reused stages just fine and actually brought in truly unique sightings and additions that made the reused zones stand up with the giant spider mecha, the pyramid, and the caterpillar. Green hill zone could’ve started in the sunset, have an egg robo mess with us in the background, or be a lot more of an aquatic level or have cave sections.
I don’t get most of the criticisms here. I personally found the game just decent. My biggest problem is the story of all things but gameplay wise I didn’t have nearly as much problems as much people I guess.
I actually like this game I enjoy playing this game but I haven’t played vanilla in a while because I play with lost world improvement mod and some hmm codes, so I can’t remember what the vanilla game though I do remember liking it Apart from the snowball. I hate the snowball.
3:08 Another actual edit in a Pariah video??? (Last one being that one in the Generations video). Pariah, is it really you? Are you okay? Did Lost World make you need therapy? XD
This game is alright, and pretty easily the most overhated game in the series. It's always been bizarre to me that people can love Generations and especially Colors so much when they do most of the same things (heavy automation, more gimmicks than proper 3D levels, limited momentum and physics, etc). 90% of the issues people have with this game come from people's preconceptions. The controls work fine. The reason run buttons exist is because you're not supposed hold them all the time, you use different speeds for different situations. Structurally, you're meant explore the level rather than blaze through it. Which is why the game drops the ranking system outside of time attack. Something that should've happened back in Unleashed IMO. I don't like the run buttons either, but like it or not they are a core part of the controls. Not switching between them as needed is on the player. The game is more fun when you actually play it as intended. It's not amazing, but it certainly isn't miserable. I'll go out on a limb and say I prefer Lost World over Colors and Generations.
That makes me think you probably don't like sonic games then. This game was designed to be nothing like previous entries, and that's why people find it so offensively bad as a follow up to generations. If a sonic game doesn't accomodate for greatly replayable, speed based level design then it is not a proper "sonic" game. That is what sonic was conceived to be. And it is a fundamental element that had consistently appeared WAY past the classic games. I would argue it is much more important than whether it incorporates physics based gameplay or not. This game has none of that. Generations and colors do. To differing degrees but they absolutely do.
@@mau2172 I like most Sonic games. I just don't think the series needs to be pidgeonholed into being anything specific. I never minded the alternate playstyles and asset reuse in the adventure games and I don't mind it in Lost World. My point is that Generations and Colors do the same things, but for some reason they get a free pass from some fans. I get that Lost World isn't what fans wanted. Nobody was asking for this game, myself included. But this isn't an excuse to judge the game for what it isn't. The series has been around long enough that we can't pretend that there are hard rules that Sonic must follow or else the game is automatically bad. What is a "proper" Sonic game? What specific thread running from Sonic 1 up to Generations was cut off in Lost World? You can't really say the run button, because the boost games exist. Slapping a meter on it doesn't change the fact that those games use a go fast button instead of level design and physics for their "speed based level design". It's fine if you think Lost World is too different, and I can see how that could ruin the experience, but that doesn't make it a bad game.
@@hijster479 " You can't really say the run button, because the boost games exist." The boost is, like the name says, a boost. Like the spin dash, sonic already runs fast and the boost is used to keep the fast speed and TRY to see how long you can keep it on. Boost is not supposed to be a "run button" since you DONT WANNA boost all the time, you just want a little "boost" to get to some places faster. Lost World is not a Sonic game, if you can't even understand how Sonic works then you will never understand why Lost World is a terrible game.
@@hijster479That is true. Doing things differently is not inherently worse. There probably are fun, new ways in which to approach sonic. You could say ranking systems are in their own a different way to design sonic. SA2 heavily relies on it and it has proven to resonate with a lot of people. I just feel that whatever this game was trying to bring to the table was excecuted with very little vision. These levels simply say nothing to me. I've tried to make sense of the way they are constructed and I just can't. They feel either shallow or random compared to the more tightly designed multi-tiered structure that most sonic games present. Passivity traps, interesting use of terrain, the application and conversion of speed, differing difficulties and lengths between upper and lower routes, platforming sections that can be tackled in multiple creative ways, things like these give so much nuance to what otherwise would be a series of very basic platformers. Sonic to me feels like a series of games that you always have to play as best as you can. Historically at least, they have always accomodated replayability, and get more fun the better you get at playing them. These qualities more than make up for whatever automated loop or side-step section you can find in a game such as generations or colors. Those are undeniable flaws deserving of criticism, but they do not invalidate the good gameplay that is already there. Lost World's basic platforming challenges, in my opinion, do not reach the highs of the previous games. You can try playing the game fast, but the level design rarely ever makes that an interesting objective, much less so with its slow, clunky controls. Searching for red rings or animal capsules was mildly entertaining, but not an activity I found worth my time. The level gimmicks are not unplayable, but they are bland, uninspired, repetitive, basic. If they want to design something more akin to a mario game, so be it. But I would really like it to be good. To offer me the quality experience a mario game would. Sonic has, more often than not, followed its own rules because they have proved to be engaging to so many people, yet malleable enough to where you can make vastly different experiences (such as classic, adventure, heroes or boost games) that ultimately do feel like sonic. They all share elements that feed into the idea of making a game fun to master. If you find enjoyment in either exploring or learning to blast through lost world, more power to you, I am only telling you why it hasn't been much of a rewarding experience for me.
I remember some people at the time being disappointed with how Super Mario 3D World looked, and Sonic Lost World looked more exciting and interesting. Over a decade later and wow how time has shifted in favor of 3D World while Lost World is the harbinger of modern 3D Sonic.
@@Sydney_Angelyt yeah you're right, it can be kinda fun to speedrun.I recently played 3ds Lost world, haven't finished it yet but there's no denying that a vanilla play through of it is miserable 😖.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see how the lack of run button is some kind of flaw in a game like this where momentum simply is not integrated into the gameplay loop
@@Pariah6950 i get your point, i just feel like even if this does have sonic in the name it should be judged compared to other games primarily and against other sonic games secondarily. sure, as a sonic game it’s odd that it deviates from those standards, but ultimately this is a much different game than others in the series and thus should be judged from that standpoint rather than dismissing that mechanic outright
@@Pariah6950thoughts on the way it works in super Metroid? I just started the game recently and despite the wack controls (thank god for remapping), I actually like the way the run button is handled. You generally don't wanna be running around because of how small your view is and how you have to stop for combat and the like, but when you do want to run, it's faster than fuck (especially with the speed booster) Granted, that kind of design only really applies to newcomers and kinda has the same problem you noted with lives where it just gets completely ignored once the player gets to a high enough level of skill
The run button was even worse to me than a regression, you basically need to hold the button down anyways to do the parkour system. So there's never a reason to let go of the run button.
So, the music notes thing is a PC port problem. The Wii U had a touch screen, so you were expected to hit them with your finger or something like that. It's still lazy design, and just generally kinda shit, but it was way more clear for the player to understand.
Sonic Lost World is truly an anomaly in the Sonic franchise, because despite being a terrible videogame, it doesn't get the hate from casuals and even Sonic fans. People don't love it, but they don't hate it. No one talks about this game, it simply exists. Which is funny in restrospective because when this game first came out for the Wii U in 2013 it was kind of a big deal. It was first Sonic game to run at native 1080p 60 FPS. The game was buttery smooth with zero frame drops, and graphically it was very polished. Many robots had a metalic painting texture that reflected the sun rays and it looks good even today. Sonic had this squash and stretch animations that made him more animated than before. And this was the beginning of a new music style for the Sonic series that Tomoya Ohtami was exploring until 2017, when he entered his dubstep era. It sucks that this game is so flawed fro a game design point, because it is very polished. It is the polar opposite of Sonic '06, which was a good game, but very unpolished. Given how this was the second of the 3 Sonic games deal with Nintendo, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo at least partially funded the development of this game. But I doubt, because 2 years later Sega ported this game to PC, possibly to recoupe some of the investment they made for game. They even threw parties to celebrate the release of this game on Steam.
@@artey6671 It was a small celebration for the press and fans to promote the release of Lost World on Steam. It was during the drought era of the Sonic franchise with nothing exciting happening and coming from Sonic Boom, which had tanked the perception of the IP back to negative. The party eventually became a mess because Sega had setup a deal with the open cafe bar for attendants to get drinks for free, it was all on Sega's tab. However, something must have been poorly comunicated between the two companies because the people there ordered any drink they wanted and would place the bill on Sega's tab. A lot of people got drinks for free on Sega's behalf, when it was supposed to be just the specific drinks Sega's PR team had prepared for the event (some blue soda or something). Because the party was open for anyone to come by and play the game, some people who weren't even Sonic fans joined the party just for the free drinks. I think the event itself was ok, fans were there and played the game and had fun. But at the end of the event Sega had a massive bill to pay because of this oversight. Sega never did this stunt again for a Sonic game.
You know the video is going to be good when he says the game sucks lol. EDIT: Sega to this day are still chasing trends as of Frontiers... I hate it here.
The Rythm wisp is busted in the PC version. In the Wii U original, it would show all the notes on the gamepad, and you would have to tap them to make Sonic go to them. Obviously, there's no gamepad on pc, so they just made it a button mash sequence.
I played this game for the first time a few months ago and it’s one of the most confusing games i’ve ever played. it creates a brand new gameplay style that honestly isn’t horrible (not that great either) then does literally nothing with it by making every stage an auto runner on pipes or forcing you to do something else. I seriously don’t get who it’s for.
I wonder if the 3DS version will fare any better for you... You might not believe it, but I actually enjoyed that version more. It's still Lost World but it's a little more freeform in a way. The game controls slightly differently with the parkour, and the 2D stages feel better than the 3D ones. I feel like you still wouldn't like it in general though. Especially if you go for the chaos emeralds. That's literally backbreaking work
I don't think Colors is the only reason for Lost World. Sonic Team clearly saw the success Generations had and brought back more nostalgia from here on because of it.
'3d is where this game is at its best' Pretty damning indictment given that the game has Sonic move faster going left and right than it does going forwards and backwards in the 3D levels! No wonder Sonic feels weird.
To be fair, that speed difference in the directions does make sense given the kind of level design they have here with these tubes and hallways where the main objective is going forward and moving left and right only serves to adjust you or loop around to another path. If they gave him the full speed he has running forward when running to the sides it would feel way too fast and unwieldy to control especially with how little left to right space there is or when looping around a tube, and if they gave him the speed he has moving left to right when going forward he'd feel way too slow and running through the level would be kinda agonizing. So as weird as it sounds, he has the two different speeds in order to match the kind of level design present here and it does actually make sense. 2D sections are just slow period though if you're not spindashing.
A run button? They gave him a run button? They had the BALLS to give THE FASTEST THING ALIVE, A RUN BUTTON? NO! NO! DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!
And that’s the second best gameplay decision they had. Just below “add parkour mechanics”, which even then they’re so mechanical and isolated from the gameplay you could make an argument that that sours the concept. The run at least gives Sonic a very slight amount more control which is least useful in 3D What’s truly abominable about how he plays is the updated homing attack. You have like 4 homing attacks (normal, a set of varying (maybe 2) charged forms where you need to wait, and a kick one which runs on a separate button). Kick is fine, it’s used interestingly, but the charges are extremely temperamental and mostly just lead to taking hits because the game wants you to wait to attack a moving target in a game about speed. The highest charge form is used only once against Zavok in very last hit you have to make in his fight in 7-4. Never used again, only exists to fuck you over because the devs thought it would be cool if you had to pull a bigger homing attack for this one, which is like all the other homing attacks so what’s the point.
After Super Mario was conceived, every game that imitated it was almost immediately labeled as a generic Mario clone…until Sonic came around. Sonic was always the anti-Mario. That was its success. It amazes me that when Sonic Team created Lost World to be more like Mario…they ended up just making another generic Mario clone.
@@thewanderingchelmet That’s exactly what the aim was. It would’ve been a good idea…if…you know…Mario wasn’t the dominant IP on his own platform lol. Mario fans wanna play Mario. And Sonic fans wanna play Sonic. Sega smh
I've actually only played the 3DS version, so I can't really say anything about this one. I like it though. Of the 1st 3 games of the Meta Era it's the only one I legitimately like. Colors makes my ears bleed when listening to the cutscenes in English and Generations... I don't really think back to that game much.
It is crazy how well made this game is compared to 06, the storybook games, Heroes and SA1 but just isn't a sonic game.... also flaws of the mario series ? you mean being way better designed ? Also colours is suspicious because it's in space and on the wii... what a fucking joke lmao. Did not know mario owned space games on the wii. Also there not the same thing, Colours has a theme park themeing throughout. Galaxy did not. Well done on painting a bad picture of one of the good ones.
I was expecting the unexpected with this since seeing you say that shadow the hedgehog is one of the best controlling adventure era games was something I was so surprised by, and I tried giving the game a chance after seeing your video but I didn't enjoy it very much And what's funny is that before this review I actually replayed lost world because I've been trying to enjoy it like I did as a kid but I've never really connected with the game and this time I actually really liked it, and went for all the S ranks and red star rings, so like I guess this was unexpected in a sense Lol
I remember when this game came out and I hated it because collecting 100 -rings- coins didn't give you an extra life. Collecting coins was pointless since there's also no score-based ranking system. And, if you kept dying from the game's bullshit, your only way of getting more lives was to grind for 1up items in desert ruins 2. That is, unless you lived in the US and preordered the game through Amazon, which gave you 25 extra lives! But hey, they patched it a month and a half later, so it's all good right?
I remember around when this game was releasing, so many Sonic fans tried to convince themselves that this game is actually inspired by Mad-Space and not a Mario Galaxy rip-off.
Ah yes, I've seen that, the "uh actually it's not a Mario Galaxy rip-off because Sonic did this first in SA2" argument, which is just obviously cope if you are honest for 2 seconds.
The point isn't that the entire game was inspired by any single level or concept, but rather that Mario didn't invent gravity gimmicks. It, like all other games, iterated on existing ideas. Everything is derivative to an extent. Mario didn't invent side-scrolling, GoW didn't invent hack n slash, and COD didn't invent military shooters. So why is it a problem that Lost World didn't invent Planetoids?
The music note was a carry over from being on the Wii U. On the Wii U it was only controllable from the touch screen and you had to tap where you were going. Tapping on the notes that appear made you fly towards it rather than crappily bouncing a couple steps forward.
My biggets problem with this game is the automation. It's so bad to the point where is frustrating to me. Something that i wish Sonic games have is a parkour system, and this is the only game that have and also does right, but, it becomes pointless when the game puts springs and dash panels everywhere.
I actually quite like t his one legit. I enjoyed the 3d tube exploration and i think the levels are more hit than miss. It was an interesting attempt at something new and i think it does a good job. I can absolutely see why ppl would hate this game tho. There is a lot wrong with this game too. And for some those negatives are too much and yea i get it. For me tho the positives def outweigh the negatives. Def a B Tier sonic game from me
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We made it folks OH MY GOD lost world is definitly my least favorite 3d sonic game after secret rings I can't believe the fact that I enjoy Sonic forces and sonic 06 and even sonic 4 more than it
