Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal

Interesting, funny and clever. Not the best Sonic game ever made, but it's definitely better than the Sonic Boom's Wii U version. If you need blue speed this year, this is your game.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal is bogged down by slow and repetitive exploration, but there are moments of great, fast platforming that call back to Sonic’s heyday.

It is fun whilst it lasts and is definitely deserving of a play through. This is Sonic, just not quite as he was previously known.

If you're a Sonic fan or you enjoy platformers, you can do an awful lot worse, and this may be one to grab should the opportunity or a bargain price arise.

As a Sonic game there's nothing positive here, but as a game, in general, it is a reasonable options for kids, particularly if they're fans of the TV series.

Despite the fact that this game has all the potential to entertain players, it bores them with repeatable stages all game long.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal is not that bad. Not as bad as the Wii U version anyway... But it's not really brilliant either. To be honest, the game from Sanzaru is rather well-realised and easy and precise to handle. But it becomes boring quickly: the four characters and the three kinds of levels available can't hide a real lack of good ideas.

At its core Sanzaru Games delivers a classic jump&run. But clumsy controls and a considerably slower pace than you’re used to from other Sonic adventures make it a tedious platformer.

Managing to screw up 2D Sonic is impressively poor. [Feb 2015, p.73]

And the wait for an outstanding, groundbreaking Sonic continues. Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal does not live up to the expectations due to a dull level design, a sub-par outlook and gameplay that is simply not compelling.

With more polish and a longer development cycle, Shattered Crystal could have been very enjoyable. Now it is just what it wants to be: An okayish tie-in to a new Sonic cartoon.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal offers some fun platforming and treasure hunting moments, but its tedious mazes and poor story ultimately make it a drag. This one needed more time with a level editor and less time spent forcing players to repeat content.

Sonic Boom: Crystal Shards could have been, if not a good Sonic game, at least a decent 2D platformer, with its pros and its cons. But SEGA and Sanzaru Games have inexplicably decided to kill their own creature by adopting a really cheap trick: in order to progress, it is necessary to play the same levels over and over again.

Quotation forthcoming.

Sonic has run faster in the past. Shattered Crystal is a boring and awkward game. Sticks brings new ideas that do not work in the end. Need these jumps in 2,5D? No thanks.

With a heaping helping of poorly written and unskippable cutscenes, Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal is a slog that never finds its footing.

The sorry "story" segments largely amount to random combinations of the four main characters trading bad jokes, such as running the difference between "who" and "whom" into the ground.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal ends up being a product that fails on the most basic design elements, perhaps due to lack of time, money or just love for the franchise. Its pursuit of innovation in gameplay mechanics is commendable, but everything turns into a disaster by notorious negligence on the development side.

There's almost nothing redeeming about it...The biggest problem with Shattered Crystal is the sluggish pace.