Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal
North American box art, featuring from left to right: Knuckles, Sonic, Sticks, and Tails.
Developer(s)	Sanzaru Games
Publisher(s)	Sega
Director(s)	Bill Spence
Producer(s)	Jenny Huang Omar Woodley
Designer(s)	Mat Kraemer John Hsia
Writer(s)	Ken Pontac[1] Warren Graff[1]
Composer(s)	Richard Jacques
Series	Sonic the Hedgehog
Platform(s)	Nintendo 3DS
Release date(s)	NA November 11, 2014 EU November 21, 2014 AUS November 29, 2014 JP December 18, 2014
Genre(s)	Action-adventure, platform
Distribution	Nintendo 3DS Game Card

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal is a 2014 action-adventure video game published by Sega, developed by Sanzaru Games for the Nintendo 3DS.^[2] Along with its Wii U sibling Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, Shattered Crystal is a spin-off of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog franchise and is a part of the new Sonic Boom franchise, which consists also an animated television series, whose games serve as its prequels, a comic series by Archie Comics, and a toyline by Tomy.^[3][4] The two games together formed the third and final part in Sega's exclusivity agreement with Nintendo, following Sonic Lost World and Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games back in 2013. Both games were released on November 11, 2014 in North America,^[5] on November 21 in Europe,^[6] and Japan on December 18, 2014.^[2][7][8] The game was retitled Sonic Toon: Island Adventure (ソニックトゥーン アイランドアドベンチャー, Sonikku Tūn: Airando Adobenchā) in its Japanese release.

Plot

The game's backstory is explained in a comic tie-in included in the game: millennia ago, the evil serpentine cyborg, Lyric the Last Ancient, attempted to conquer the world using a powerful crystal. However, his fellow Ancients destroyed the crystal and detained him in stasis. In the present day, Lyric escaped from his imprisonment and began searching for the lost fragments of the crystal to obtain ultimate power. While working, Lyric was confronted by Shadow the Hedgehog, whom he captured using a mind-controlling device. Meanwhile, after rescuing Sticks the Jungle Badger from a rockslide, Amy Rose entered a set of ancient ruins to collect research. She finds a secret ancient language and manuscript detailing the history and whereabouts of the crystal, but while trying to decipher it, she is ambushed by Lyric, leading to the game's opening scene. When Amy disengages to contact Sonic, Lyric, taking advantage of the distraction, incapacitates and captures her.

Together with Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, and Sticks, Sonic traces Amy's footsteps in hopes of saving her from Lyric's clutches. Along the way, they encounter Shadow, whom Sonic proceeds to defeat in a race, freeing him from Lyric's control; Shadow promptly leaves to take revenge on Lyric for using him. Meanwhile, Lyric interrogates Amy to get the translation of the manuscripts she found. Sonic and company eventually catch up with them and rescue Amy before confronting Lyric aboard his airship. Refusing to concede defeat, Lyric attempts to destroy them with an experimental weapon, but Shadow intervenes and sends Lyric falling to his apparent death through a floor hatch that Sonic opens. As Sticks makes a long, disorganized speech about teamwork, Shadow, calling himself superior to Sonic (being his arch-rival), goes his own separate way. Sonic and his friends return home as Sonic and Knuckles argue over whether their group is named "Team Sonic" or "Team Knuckles".

Gameplay

Shattered Crystal is largely a side-scrolling platform game, which features a stronger emphasis on exploration compared to previous Sonic titles. Through the course of the game, players gain access to four playable character, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Sticks, and can instantly switch between them during gameplay. Each character is able to use a homing attack to home in on enemies and an Enerbeam which lets them swing across gaps and remove enemy shields. Each character also has unique skills required to access certain parts of each stage. Sonic is able to perform a mid-air dash which can break blue barriers, Tails can fly up air currents and use various gadgets such as submarines, Knuckles can climb on walls and burrow underground, and Sticks can throw a boomerang that can be controlled mid-flight. Throughout each stage, players can locate crystal shards, required to progress through the game, as well as parts that can be used to buy upgrades.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Development

Sonic Boom features a cast redesigned for Western audiences. From left to right: Sticks, Knuckles, Sonic, Amy Rose, and Tails. Sticks, a jungle badger portrayed by Nika Futterman, was announced by Sega on May 29, 2014. Sticks will join the cast of Sonic Boom as a main character.^[13]

On May 17, 2013, Sega announced a worldwide agreement with Nintendo for the next three games in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series to be developed exclusively for Nintendo devices.^[14] This included Sonic Lost World and Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.^[15] On February 6, 2014, Sega announced Sonic Boom as the official title for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The game ties in with Sega's Sonic Boom franchise, which includes a television series and other merchandise, and will be the third release in Sega's exclusivity agreement with Nintendo.^[16] The franchise is designed for Western audiences^[17] and will serve as a prequel to the television series. Sega announced the game to feature Sonic's traditional speed alongside a new exploratory game mechanic called "Enerbeam". Sega of America's marketing director Marchello Churchill explained that the new franchise was not designed to "replace modern Sonic".^[16] The Western developer's CEO explained that Sonic Boom‍‍ '​‍s Sonic is "very different ... both in tone and art direction".^[16]

San Francisco based game studio Sanzaru Games developed the game under supervision by Sonic Team^[16] and long-time Sonic game designer Takashi Iizuka.^[17] The two versions are not identical, particularly in their environments and enemies.^[16] Sega outsourced the game to Western developers in order to increase the game's appeal in Western markets, culminating in a separate westernized Sonic franchise.^[17] The video game concept came after the television series plan.^[17] The game remains a separate continuity to the main series, and was originally not intended to be released in Japan.^[18] However, it was later revealed that the games would be released in Japan, under the name Sonic Toon (ソニックトゥーン, Sonikku Tūn).^[19]

British composer Richard Jacques composed the music for the game.^[20] Jacques was selected because of his experience with previous Sonic games, including Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R, and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 47.45%[21] Metacritic 47/100[22] Review scores Publication Score Destructoid 2.5/10[23] GamesRadar [24] IGN 4/10[25] Slant Magazine [26]

Unlike with previous games, Sega did not provide reviewers with advance copies of either Shattered Crystal or Rise of Lyric; they could only begin reviewing once the game was on sale.^[27]

Shattered Crystal received mostly negative reviews, but slightly more positive than Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. The game holds a score of 47/100 on Metacritic^[22] and 47.45% on GameRankings.^[21]

Chris Carter of Destructoid was very critical of the game giving it 2.5/10 and felt that while the Wii U version had "some redeeming qualities", the same could not be said for 3DS version. He criticized various aspects of the game such as the "sluggish pace", "terrible dialogue" and mostly the repetitive gameplay. He concluded the review by stating "Rather than let you actually play, Shattered Crystal is content to make you wait, wait, and wait some more before you get to the decent (but flawed) platforming. The design is maddening, especially when coupled with the poor dialog compliments of the new Boom universe."^[23]

Scott Thompson of IGN gave the game 4.0/10 finding the gameplay linear and "simplistic" whilst also criticizing the slow pace of the gameplay calling it "monotonous." They also found the story "poorly written" and found the humour to be "painfully unfunny." They concluded their review by stating that the game was "a mess of gameplay styles that never feel comfortable with each other" and deemed it as "a slog that never finds its footing."^[25]

Dean James of Attack of the Fanboy gave the game 2 stars out of a possible 5 stating that "While not as bad as its Wii U counterpart" they felt that it was "an extremely shallow experience with a level locking system that will frustrate the player to no end."^[28]

Becky Cunningham of GamesRadar was more forgiving of the game giving it 2.5/5, stating that the game "offers some fun platforming and treasure hunting moments, but its tedious mazes and poor story ultimately make it a drag."^[24]

Sega announced that the total sales of Sonic Boom (includes both Rise of Lyrics and Shattered Crystal) has shifted 490,000 copies as of February 2, 2015, making it the lowest-selling game in the franchise. ^[29]

References

External links

• Official website
• Official Sega website (Japanese)