Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1-2 Competitive Minigames (Local Wireless)

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Review:

Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2016, is a Platformer based on the Sonic Boom animated television series and a direct follow-up to 2014’s Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal on Nintendo 3DS. As such, it features similar gameplay, but with a number of distinct changes made to improve upon its predecessor.

Right from the start, this game’s presentation has been clearly improved, with more detail in the game’s 3D environments. In particular, the water effects here are fantastic, with watery blocks distorting the space within and behind them in a way that’s impressive to behold. This is backed by a decent soundtrack, though nothing memorable or especially noteworthy.

As with Shattered Crystal, the core gameplay here is good, although I still have a few nitpicks here. Like the previous game, swap between multiple characters (Sonic, Amy, Tails, Sticks, and Knuckles). Each of these characters has a unique special ability needed to get past some obstacles, which can be somewhat annoying whenever you reach such a roadblock. What’s more, all of these characters now have “fire” and “ice” forms players swap between by pressing R, meaning that permutations of obstacles players face can require even more swapping around than the prior game. The prior game’s energy grappling beam thing returns as well, but this time it seems to only be used to grapple on to specific floating tether spots, and isn’t needed to defeat enemies.

On balance, I think the fire and ice swapping works well enough and doesn’t necessarily slow down the flow of the game, but the character-swapping definitely feels like it has worn out its welcome, especially now that the presence of five playable characters means this character-swapping can no longer be done with D-pad shortcuts, and must instead be done using the touchscreen.

While this is bothersome, for the most part the gameplay here is still excellent, flows well, and while it doesn’t necessarily feel like a classic Sonic game, it still fits Sonic reasonably well and works as a solid Platformer in its own right.

However, the real improvement here has to be the changes made to the level design and goal structure. While Shattered Crystal had overly-large, repetitive, mazelike levels, Fire & Ice keeps its levels fairly short, and while they can still feel a bit repetitive, that “samey” feeling is reduced immensely by the change in structure. Additionally, while there are still hidden secrets, the shorter length of the game’s levels makes these secrets far less burdensome to find.

I know the reviews for Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice are generally unkind, but I think much of this may very well be due to the “Sonic Boom” stigma – the two former games to bear the name of Sonic’s animated series both had severe issues that left a bad taste in gamers’ mouths, and the gameplay similarities Fire & Ice had to Shattered Crystal in particular likely didn’t help matters. However, despite that it still has a few major flaws, I would argue that Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice is an excellent Platformer, even if it may leave something to be desired as a Sonic the Hedgehog game. Its core gameplay remains good, and the improvements to the level design, pacing, and visuals make this a far superior game compared to its predecessor. If you’re a fan of Platformers, this one is well worth getting.

tl;dr – Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice is a follow-up to Shattered Crystal that improved greatly on its predecessor with shorter, better-paced level design and improved visuals. The character-swapping mechanic is still a bit cumbersome (arguably more so this time, even), but overall this is a solid Platformer.

Grade: B

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