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Sonic Runners (iOS/Android) |OT| - Stealth releasing things like it's 1995!

Oreoleo

Member
Guys I think the list of supported phones is just the phones Sega actively tested the app against rather than a comprehensive list of every phone the game will run on. It's a guideline. Like PC game recommended system specs.

Edit: Or yeah maybe you just aren't in Japan/Canada and didn't bother to read the thread.
 
No sweat. Do you have iTunes installed? Because (annoyingly), clicking the Apple link forced iTunes open rather than showing the app on a web page.

Nope, Android person. Never thought I'd have a smartphone actually, just got it in summer 2013 for the first time ever. It's been pretty darn handy. I just grab whatever's free on Google Play and Amazon, got most Sonic games this way as pure time wasters. :p
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
This works fine on my Nexus 7, but I dunno if it's because my Internet isn't very good, but loading stuff for the game takes a while (and the default load times are pretty lengthy).

I think the game looks nice, but the first Act's look feels like it outstays its welcome after a while endlessly running in other acts in a zone. Sonic's handling feels pretty good for an endless runner, so in terms of handling, it's up there with Rayman Jungle Run and Rockman GoGo! to me. The control feels okay, even the wisps (which are very helpful in racking up some decent scores). Chao are used to boost scores or for certain perks, and you can buy some perks before you start an Act. The music's decent, though I'm not sure if it loops well.

The script feels pretty dry so far, so I hope it livens up later on. I just don't have time to play more today.

I really have to echo the complaints about F2P/IAP garbage being constantly shoved in your face, though. As soon as it suggested that I post on Facebook about something, it did it twice, then gave me a tooooooooon of notifications about buying stuff or whatever, and proceeded to ask me after some stages if I wanted to post my score to fb. It seems pretty persistent about trying to tie the game to social media, and feels slightly more designed around IAP than trying to stand on its own and bringing IAPs in only as support if required.

It's been a looooooooong time since I've played a mobile game like that. I came off of FF7 G-Bike, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, Tales of Asteria, Tales of Link, rainblocks, Brave Frontier, Pazudora, Rockman GoGo!, etc, and they barely ever, or even never, pester me like that, so having this happen was incredibly stunning. It's stuff like the kind of persistence in Sonic Runners that deter people from playing mobile or even give the platform's games a bad name in general when a lot of games on the platform have moved past this. Having not played a mobile game that did this in a while, I guess I was really surprised and disappointed. I was really looking forward to this and was hoping that it wouldn't be dripping with IAP like some media had implied.

I'll play more tomorrow night, but I'm just... surprised, that's all. I really like mobile platformers and endless runners, so Sonic Runners being the way it is comes as a surprise. (Though I am being told that Crazy Taxi and Sonic Jump Fever were just like this so I guess it was very much expected for those better-versed in Sega's mobile ventures.)
 

Flambe

Member
In Canada, incompatible with Note 3. Though all this Facebook/f2p talk is rapidly killing my interest anyhow =(
 

Alphahawk

Member
So I'm not seeing it in my App store (Ios) searching for Sonic Runners just brings up Sonic Dash and a Penguins of Madagascar game.
 

Reknoc

Member
Grabbed this off the japanese appstore. First off the game cuts my music off which is already a major no-no for me, especially when what it replaces it with to play through the second download, and the initial loading and the rest of the game, is some uninspired bland shite that'd be at home in some PS1 era offbrand extreme sports game. Oh but maybe there's an option for this? Well options are blocked off, the game wants to you to do the first level, and then it wants to do the first boss, and then it wants to show you its gambling mechanic and then it wants you to do the second stage. Then, after all of that, before you can access the options, the game shows its true Colours (huuur). First the game wants to you to log into facebook, and you'll say no because why would you want to, but the game doesn't take the hint "hey you finished the tutorial you should post it on facebook" "hey you finished a chapter, why not post it on facebook" "hey want some red coins and amy rose? spam your friends with game invites!". Anyway, eventually I got into the options and you can turn the music off so you can listen to your own stuff (take notes Square-Enix)

The game itself seems pretty fun though, responsive enough and the levels are decently designed for an endless runner. The only thing I don't especially like are the Wisps, Laser was alright, but I didn't get Drill, seemed pretty terrible.

Too much text though, the game seems to constantly stop you for story scenes I couldn't care less about, thankfully there's an instant skip option but sadly there's not a "I really don't give a fuck stop bringing these event scenes up" button as far as I could tell.
 

Piccoro

Member
Not compatible with Xperia E3 running Android 4.4 :/

EDIT: It's because of region lock. I'll have to wait for it to come out in EU.
 

Robin64

Member
So I'm not seeing it in my App store (Ios) searching for Sonic Runners just brings up Sonic Dash and a Penguins of Madagascar game.

Yeah, not up on the UK store. Guess it's another one of those staggered region releases that are so popular.
 

HUELEN10

Member
This game is a piece of shit.


1. It requires an Internet connection to play, and if the serves are down, you also cannot play at all.

2. Assets are extremely unpolished and the game's menus and art look hideous on a tablet.

3. There is no option to disable social integration nags.

4. You can't de-equip partners

5. Sonic has a TRIPLE jump now.

6. Freaking wisps are non-optional and are actually power ups in-level instead of mere boosters.

7. This is, by far, the worst Sonic design in years IMO.

8. Stamina meter.

One thing I will say is that the soundtrack is splendid. Otherwise, this is a greedy color version of Sinic The Sketchhog.

This is literally just that game with an extra jump and more pop.
 

Robin64

Member
Well, uh. That sounds like I'm not missing much by it not being on the UK store yet.

I thought that was a damn Sonic Team game. The people that can't get Sonic wrong!
 

MrBadger

Member
Well I can't find it on the app store yet. Anybody got some decent gameplay footage? Also is the music hype as fuck?
 

Pila

Member
This game is a piece of shit.


1. It requires an Internet connection to play, and if the serves are down, you also cannot play at all.

2. Assets are extremely unpolished and the game's menus and art look hideous on a tablet.

3. There is no option to disable social integration nags.

4. You can't de-equip partners

5. Sonic has a TRIPLE jump now.

6. Freaking wisps are non-optional and are actually power ups in-level instead of mere boosters.

7. This is, by far, the worst Sonic design in years IMO.

8. Stamina meter.

One thing I will say is that the soundtrack is splendid. Otherwise, this is a greedy color version of Sinic The Sketchhog.

This is literally just that game with an extra jump and more pop.

Oh boy. :(

I guess I'll just replay Lost World, thanks for your impressions.
 
Played this for an hour now and deleted it right after. While I like the design, the game is just another one of those tap to jump over obsticles and collect things. Too boring and too much clicking around in menues for my taste.
 

XavandSo

Neo Member
Released on my birthday, but incompatible with my Xperia Play. Damn you Sega.

EDIT: Didn't read above, let's hope it's just a region lock thing.
 

NTom64

Member
Level music is pretty good. Noticed a reused tune here and there though (like some cutscene music from Colours).
 

Tunesmith

formerly "chigiri"
Thread title / OP should probably state that it's a soft launch, not a full launch. So supported territories and devices is limited.
 

Pietepiet

Member
Sideloaded it onto my phone and I'm actually having a lot of fun with it! The gameplay is simple but fun, and the presentation is solid. It's very cute!
Yes, there's a bunch of IAP stuff and Facebook popups and if you get annoyed by that kinda stuff then I'd suggest staying away. Personally I'm not too bothered by it.
[EDIT] I dunno, maybe it's my thirst for a new Sonic game. But I legit like this. It's cute and looks nice and it's so much better than Boom was...

Excellent soundtrack too.

Z3 Compact btw, runs fine.
 

Village

Member
This game is a piece of shit.


1. It requires an Internet connection to play, and if the serves are down, you also cannot play at all.

2. Assets are extremely unpolished and the game's menus and art look hideous on a tablet.

3. There is no option to disable social integration nags.

4. You can't de-equip partners

5. Sonic has a TRIPLE jump now.

6. Freaking wisps are non-optional and are actually power ups in-level instead of mere boosters.

7. This is, by far, the worst Sonic design in years IMO.

8. Stamina meter.

One thing I will say is that the soundtrack is splendid. Otherwise, this is a greedy color version of Sinic The Sketchhog.

This is literally just that game with an extra jump and more pop.

You convinced me at 1
 

Pietepiet

Member
You convinced me at 1

Yeah, that point is definitely annoying.

I feel like the right way to go about this game is to not treat it as a big Sonic title, cause it really isn't. It's a small spinoff thing to kill a few minutes at a time. I went into it with that in mind and I'm pleasantly surprised by it
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Incompatible with essentially every android phone on the market. Lol Sega.

In Canada, incompatible with Note 3. Though all this Facebook/f2p talk is rapidly killing my interest anyhow =(

Wait, so it's compatible with the HTC One X (M6) but not the HTC One (M7) or HTC One (M8)? Are we for real right now?

There's a "Streamlined Mode" setting in the options that's supposed to increase performance but it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on my Z2.

There's a lot of hitching on my G2, pretty irritating.

The game is pretty laggy on my Z2

And people are wondering why people like me, who already don't like PC gaming for the lack of guaranteed performance and compatibility on every machine hate phones as gaming platforms, too. Even if I could get all phone games as always-offline retail games, I'd now be scared as fuck to even try playing anything on a phone. If this is the future, I want to keep on living in the past.
 

HUELEN10

Member
You know a Sonic game is truly shit if not even huelen can muster the will to defend it.
Huh? I've denounced too many a Sonic game recently.

Colors, Lost World, probably Rise Of Lyric (I am at the part where it apparently falls apart), and this is just the latest in a bad string of Shitty Sonic games (colors isn't shit, but it's part of the problem). The last good Sonic game we got is 4:2, and that sickens me; that was nearly 3 years ago!
 

NTom64

Member
Huh? I've denounced too many a Sonic game recently.

Colors, Lost World, probably Rise Of Lyric (I am at the part where it apparently falls apart), and this is just the latest in a bad string of Shitty Sonic games. The last good Sonic game we got is 4:2, and that sickens me; that was nearly 3 years ago!


*Folds arms*

How dare you.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Huh? I've denounced too many a Sonic game recently.

Colors, Lost World, probably Rise Of Lyric (I am at the part where it apparently falls apart), and this is just the latest in a bad string of Shitty Sonic games. The last good Sonic game we got is 4:2, and that sickens me; that was nearly 3 years ago!

I liked Colours and Lost World :(. Rise of Lyric is garbage though and I don't think it gets weaker later on. In fact, there are some nice small ideas in later levels (which does not change the fact that it's a turd overall).
 

HUELEN10

Member
*Folds arms*

How dare you.
Unleahsed was better, truer to Sonic (in a time where people were arguing what Sonic Entailed), yet this one got all the praise? Irritates the hell out of me. I do apologize though, truthfully it isn't shit; it's just watered-down Unleashed that gets more love, and that is just one of the many reasons I personally am not a fan.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Unleahsed was better, truer to Sonic (in a time where people were arguing what Sonic Entailed), yet this one got all the praise? Irritates the hell out of me. I do apologize though, truthfully it isn't shit; it's just watered-down Unleashed that gets more love, and that is just one of the many reasons I personally am not a fan.

I personally prefer Unleashed to Colours, because I love the arcade-style gameplay and can suffer through weaker parts, but Colours still is the better game overall. Unleashed has incredible Sonic levels and a great base-gameplay, but it is loaded with way weaker content like the Werehog and the overworld, whereas Sonic Colours is consistently good. Colours is also not just a watered down Unleashed, it combines the base mechanics of Unleashed with more traditional console-platformer.mechanics like optional abilities and hidden secrets, whereas Unleashed is pure adrenaline-driven arcade action.
 

NTom64

Member
Unleahsed was better, truer to Sonic (in a time where people were arguing what Sonic Entailed), yet this one got all the praise? Irritates the hell out of me. I do apologize though, truthfully it isn't shit; it's just watered-down Unleashed that gets more love, and that is just one of the many reasons I personally am not a fan.

It gets more praise because it handles better and it's not a 3 hour game stretched out to an 8-10 hour one through medal collection and tedious combat sections.

I love Unleashed, but Colours is a refinement of the style.
 

AniHawk

Member
Unleahsed was better, truer to Sonic (in a time where people were arguing what Sonic Entailed), yet this one got all the praise? Irritates the hell out of me. I do apologize though, truthfully it isn't shit; it's just watered-down Unleashed that gets more love, and that is just one of the many reasons I personally am not a fan.

doesn't colors have things like level design and pacing and replayability though.
 
Side-loaded it onto my Note 4. This could be decent, but it's not. Not yet. To make a similar Huelen-eqsue list...

  1. Lots of the bad things about F2P games. "Spam your friends!" "Here's an overbearing tutorial that takes ages to get through!" "Pay things for ability upgrades!" "Look at all these Red Star Rings on sale!"
  2. Speed feels hard to gauge. You don't have any control over it, and sometimes you suddenly pick up speed, even when you aren't on a decline. The jarring changes can throw you off, even though they don't seem like much at casual observation. There are occasional hiccups, too. I did notice an option to scale back the graphics in the configuration menu, but haven't tried it yet.
  3. The tutorial is, again, confusing long, and refuses to accept any input but the thing it wants to show you next, for quite a while. The game told me to "go accept my gift", then I couldn't do so for another ten or fifteen minutes.
  4. The level design ramps up suddenly in difficulty. Not impossibly so, but it suddenly expects very careful controls when, again, your speed throttle can be all over the place. (Which also makes it harder to recover when you hit an enemy.)
  5. It's not clear what the game wants from you sometimes? For example, I'm on a level called "Save the Animals!" You can specifically pick up the critters in levels. But do I need to do that to win the stage? Or just beat Eggman?
  6. Recycled music and chimes everywhere, except for the singular generic rock song it likes blaring in the menus. (At least, I don't recognize it.) One prize was awarded to me with I think a Sonic Adventure fanfare? That was slightly weird. I don't think it was remixed or redone, it was just a recording of the same fanfare used since 1998, maybe earlier.
  7. The camera doesn't show you what's next sometimes, staying too high up to show the ground dipping down. And it zooms in at the end of a section, and doesn't zoom out until the new route has already begun and routes are diverging. I've taken to blindly double/triple-jumping to catch the better high route.
  8. The game loves explaining most things, stopping the game dead in its tracks to do so, but I don't think it explained that you had to jump off the springboards with a certain timing to get their actual height, and that Sonic's double-jump ability is actually a triple-jump.
  9. Controls are too simple, too hands-off. You can't seem to control rolling. You don't even control activating the Laser Wisp, it just kicks in and doesn't care what you tap. There's an unfortunate amount of that sort of thing.

I know it's early on, but there's just something off about it.
 
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