One day, Sonic the Hedgehog’s friend Amy was exploring some ruins.  That’s when she came across Lyric, an evil cybernetic snake who is searching for shards of a powerful crystal so he can take over the world.  Amy fought him with all her might, but he ended up hypnotizing her and kidnapped her so she could help him find the crystals.  Now it’s up to Sonic and his friends to save Amy and stop Lyric’s sinister plan.  Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal for the 3DS is a 2-D platforming adventure.  And it’s totally different than the Wii U version.  The Sonic Boom games are also based on the new computer animated series airing now on Cartoon Network.

While the Wii U Sonic Boom game is a 3-D platforming adventure, the 3DS version is more like the classic Sonic games.  You’ll collect rings and spin dash around loops and ramps.  But there are a few more adventure elements in this one.  On the bottom screen you can view a map of the area, to spot any secret treasures or items that may be out of the way.  Each level has hidden crystal shards to find and blueprint pieces to take back to Tails’ workshop for upgrades.  Because of this, the pace of the gameplay is a little bit slower than your typical Sonic game.

During levels, you can switch between each character on the fly and use their special skills and abilities.  Sonic can do a jump dash in different directions that can break special blue blocks.  Tails can glide and ride air currents upward.  Knuckles can burrow underground, and newcomer Sticks can throw her boomerang long distances.  Each character also has an electric ‘enerbeam’ that they can use to swing across gaps and grab enemy shields like a grappling hook.

After completing a level, you can earn emblems and tokens depending on how fast you made it through the level, how many rings you have, if you collected all the secrets, etc.  The only problem is that you must have emblems to unlock new levels, and by the second world you won’t have enough to move on unless you backtrack and try to complete challenges in the first world’s levels.  And that can get a little tedious if you just wanted to blast through levels.  However, while some Sonic fans may not like the slower gameplay approach, it’s still a decent little 2-D game.  Plus, you can unlock goodies in the Wii U version if you connect the two games together!

Kid Factor:

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal is rated E for Everyone with ESRB descriptors of Comic Mischief and Mild Cartoon Violence.  The only thing you fight are robots that explode when you jump on them, and if you get hit you just get knocked back.  Reading skill is needed for the text, and younger gamers might get frustrated at the tougher challenges.  But kids do love Sonic, so they’ll probably enjoy this game no matter what.

Tags: Game Reviews, Television