sound border is the latest entry in sound series, with Sega focusing heavily on this new installment in the decades-long franchise. Like other notable Japanese series, such as Legend of Zelda, sound Set in an open world, arguably one of Sega’s most experimental titles in the series. While there are a lot of great ideas that go into this eclectic hybrid open-world platform, it doesn’t always work out. That said, what Sega has attempted is an ambitious step forward in the series in the race to try something new.
the story of sound borders is pretty stock and standard. Sonic and friends are swept into an alien world after investigating the disappearance of the Chaos Emeralds. (This remains a major plot device in the series.) After being sucked into this alternate dimension, Sonic is tasked with restoring his friends from their mostly entity forms. their present. They are stuck somewhere between Cyberspace and reality. Its narrative is typical fare. Sonic needs to recover the Chaos Emeralds and save his friends. But it makes a difference in its open world gameplay.
The world map In sound border feels surprisingly sparse. A handful of trees dot the horizon or sometimes break through the sparse fields of short grass. The palette also has few advantages. The landscape has washed out green, brown, and gray patterns. Of course, there are ruins scattered throughout the map (with the same muted color scheme), and more fun, sleek futuristic platforms and railroads that make up short environmental puzzles. But these feel like they’re more or less randomly placed around the map, rarely leading me anywhere that matters or to the Portal. These “doors” will lead me to the more focused content the game has to offer.
My experience with the open world was almost empty, with textures popping up continuously as I ran at breakneck speed through the aforementioned areas dotted with a few rails, bouncing pads, and platforms here and there. There are also world bosses that appear at specific points on the map. These require you to flick through color-coordinated hoops to increase your speed in the case of Asura, or timed using your currently full speed to approach a weak point in your body. body it.
Everything is relatively simple. The more challenging aspects of the game are mostly found through its general difficulty selection or complemented by Sonic now having to unlock skills through the purchase of Skill Pieces. Acquiring these skill points isn’t really that hard, but it’s more or less boring getting them than it used to be. sound most of these unlockables are tied to story progression in the form of items. It is not serious in sound borderbut it also brings the current combo-based battle to a lull pretty early in the game, as you’ll unlock the best stuff later.
But where? sound border The real shine isn’t in the open-world exploration or the mostly thoughtless combat. It is in the small, limited Cyberspace segments. Cyberspace levels in sound border Comes in two forms – the classic side-scrolling platformer level from before sound 3D train ride games and problems found in Adventure title. Both of these level types are awesome! They are often associated with a lively scene and fast-paced electronic music punctuated by vocals that feel like they were taken from R sound. Due to their limited nature, these levels provide a sense of brevity in the experience they offer. It makes them perhaps one of the best parts of the game. The music is excellent all around and also one of the stronger points.
There are a number of other activities Sonic can also participate in, such as fishing with the infamous (or beloved, depending on who you talk to) Big the Cat. This is one of my favorite pastimes, mainly because I just love fishing and it involves a little more than I expected. You can also get some pretty good bonuses. This makes it more than just a leisurely activity to do on the side if you’re getting a little tired of running back and forth across the map. There is also a “pinball mini game” which is also quite interesting.
Unfortunately, outside of these coolest game segments sound border suffered major performance issues on the Nintendo Switch. Apart from the textures popping up and the environment not loading properly, the loading times are quite long. There are also cases where I would challenge a world boss and when attacked, big problems would arise. I’ll be trapped underneath it until my invincibility wears off, which will lead to a protracted game over, or I’ll thread a rubber band through it and sometimes under it. thing. Coupled with long load times, this is becoming increasingly annoying. I do not recommend this version of the game for this reason, coupled with the fact that playing the game in handheld mode is not ideal. The camera is so behind Sonic that it can be hard to really see things clearly on the map if you don’t rotate the camera around to try and zoom in.
sound border is a game made up of thousands of different interesting ideas, all connected in a way that will make something cool. But for all it manages to accomplish and for all the great ideas that lurk beyond the horizon, sound border The slide stops when it sprints to the finish line. The result is a fragmented and sometimes disjointed mess. Coupled with the performance issues, it makes this a hard game to recommend, even if it has a lot of really fun gameplay that makes me excited to see what the developers come up with next. follow.
sound border available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Windows PC and Nintendo Switch.
