Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

Genre: Platformer / 3D Platformer

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

.

Review:

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, released on Wii U in 2014, is generally considered to be the worst Sonic the Hedgehog game ever made. I can conclusively say that this is wrong, and anyone who thinks this needs to go back and replay Sonic Blast on the Game Gear (or better yet, don’t do that and trust me when I say it’s bad). Having said that, I can certainly see why this game received so much hate when it released, and that is because, believe it or not, this is not a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

Rather, this game is based on the Sonic Boom animated television series, its own spin-off property. And while this may not seem like an especially noteworthy distinction, this game’s roots as a licensed game based on a TV series that was itself inspired by the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise actually shows in multiple areas.

When you think of Sonic the Hedgehog, what comes to mind? Most likely, you think of blasting through various colorful worlds at high speeds, a focus on Platforming and careening around the game’s levels, occasionally bouncing from enemy to enemy almost as stepping stones as you go from point A to point B. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric doesn’t really focus on any of that. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what this game considers its core focus, because it shifts frequently throughout the game.

I can tell you what is most certainly not the focus here, and that is speed – Rise of Lyric is a slow-paced, plodding Platformer, a descriptor that runs completely counter to everything Sonic the Hedgehog represents.

There are brief sections that do feature high speeds, Auto-Runner areas that have you automatically moving forward and simply dodging left and right to get rings or avoid obstacles, almost like classic Sonic bonus stages. However, not only are these sections short and mind-numbingly simple, but these areas feature some absolutely atrocious framerate issues. My jaw dropped at seeing this – a Sonic game where you almost never go fast, and those rare occasions where you do make the framerates shudder into a slide show. Just who the heck thought this was acceptable?

The majority of the game takes place in either traditional 2D Platformer sections or 3D Platformer sections, having players swapping back and forth between Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. However, while these characters look like the Sonic characters we all know, and they have some of these characters’ core abilities, the way they play doesn’t feel like the characters we know. In fact, these characters control more like “generic Platformer character 1-4”.

Even more strange is how the game’s level design and world design seem to have the aim of making everything progress as slowly as possible, with 3D areas full of switches that need to be hit to progress, and 3D areas that will have you mulling around trying to find the correct path to proceed, often while you struggle with the terrible camera.

Oddly, you’ll find long stretches of time without any enemies, suddenly broken up by a forced combat encounter where your four characters use melee attacks to fend off enemies and… again, this feels nothing like a Sonic game. Seriously, remove the Sonic characters and rings and replace them with some other characters, and you’d never even know this was supposed to be a Sonic game.

Even if you look at this outside of the context and expectations of what a Sonic game is… it’s still a pretty mediocre Platformer with some bad pacing issues, imprecise platforming, uninspired level design, and a character-swapping mechanic that just slows everything down. Any time you approach a wall that needs to be climbed, you swap to Knuckles, then you swap to Sonic to spin up a ramp, then Tails when you need to make a long jump, and then Amy when you need to jump high… but there’s no strategy or cleverness to any of this, it just adds one more step that players have to do, slowing down the slow-paced game even further.

The presentation here is fine, save for the terrible performance issues. The world is colorful if a bit repetitive, and the characters animate well enough. The music is a bit dull and brings down the tone of the game to make it feel more like a slog, but I suppose at least it isn’t generally annoying. However, there is one bright spot here – the writing is delightful.

Oh yes, about that – this game is very story-heavy. You seemingly can’t walk two steps without a cutscene or hearing the characters babble at each other. I commend the game for having clever writing for this story, and good line delivery, but… who ever played a Sonic game and thought “I wish this action kept getting interrupted so we could hear more story!”? It’s particularly frustrating when you’re moving around in one area to try a difficult jump or collect items, and the characters keep repeating over and over again that you should really check out this thing over here! Hey, how about that thing over there? I bet you could do something with that thing over there! Wow, that thing over there is interesting! Ugh…

In the end, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is a deeply flawed game that doesn’t seem to understand what makes for a good Sonic game, and for that matter seems to have some pretty bad misconceptions about what makes for good games in general. The slow, plodding pace and horrible framerates are honestly embarrassing for a Sonic game, and Sonic fans in particular are likely to see this game as not just a disappointment, but an outright betrayal of what a Sonic game is “supposed” to be. For those who can put aside those expectations… well, this is still a pretty mediocre Platformer with serious issues, but it’s not devoid of fun. It’s not terrible, it’s just… not very good.

tl;dr – Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is not really a Sonic the Hedgehog game, but rather a game based on the Sonic Boom animated series. This might not seem like it would be a huge distinction, but it makes a world of difference, as this game was seemingly designed by people who have no idea what makes a Sonic game work. It’s slow, plodding, has terrible pacing, bad frametrate issues, and a huge fixation on its story. This game isn’t without its bright spots, but as a Sonic game it’s a massive disappointment and as a Platformer it’s mediocre.

Grade: C-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, Ilya Zverev, Connor Armstrong, Eli Goodman, K.H. Kristoffer Wulff, Stov, and Gabriel Coronado-Medina. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}