As a long-time fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, there are three key things to understanding the series. The characters, the scene and the adventure that can be found in between. As an international traveler, games like Pico Park are perfect for hanging out with my long-distance friends, getting to enjoy overcoming obstacles while spending time together. These “obstacles” include times when we decide to get dirty and find each other naturally.
At the Summer Game Fest, there were a few new surprises about Sega’s famous mascot. It only makes sense, he turns 35 this year. Aside from the reveal that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was getting a second year of DLC (I still can’t wrap my head around the Neon Genesis Evangelion combination of all things), Sonic Pico Park it was announced. It combines two great things together, the style of Sonic the Hedgehog and the chaos of Pico Park, by using the unifying feature of platforming.
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For those who don’t know, Pico Park is a puzzle-platformer made by Teco Park. It is known for simplicity in its construction while using its simple instruments to create challenges that have many friends shouting and laughing.
On the other hand, Sonic the Hedgehog games are known for level design that encourages building momentum, loop-de-loops and famous rings that Sonic and his friends collect in every adventure.
Some of these things aren’t exactly the same at Sonic Pico Park, but what the crossover does have the potential to be a fun ride to share with your rag-tag group of friends.
Pico Park Fits Sonic Like a Glove
DualShockers had the opportunity to play Sonic Pico Park at the Summer Game Fest. All we got to play were a few short tutorial levels, but it was enough to get a good idea of what Sonic Pico Park aims to accomplish. The first level taught us how to jump in the usual Pico Park fashion, but we also learned how to Spin Dash. Spin Dash is the first Sonic mission introduced. Don’t worry, Sonic Pico Park is also a lot faster than Pico Park players might be used to, even if it’s slower than Sonic fans might like.
As most people do when playing the first level, we all mash buttons to find items before playing. We noticed that Tails and Knuckles retain their trademark flying and diving abilities. I even took my tail by jumping into his hands. We can say that these features were added so that these characters could live in the world of Pico Park. Then we found walls that could only be broken through by Spin Dashing, and a platform that could only be reached by stacking on top of each other; a first taste of how well these machines can come together.
The next level taught us how to control our Spin Dashes and how to use them to go up the slopes. We also discovered that there is a chance to be able to ride a Spin Dash if you stand on it correctly, which should be a fun way to cheese some challenges in the full game.
There are lots of fun things you can do with the characters you don’t control, like Spin them off the pillars, stack them together to create walls and stick to the person Tails is holding from the side.
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New to the exciting Pico Park is Sonic’s Rings. They protect you from being damaged by falling into certain pits, marked with a spiky line, and real spikes. If anyone gets hit except for one, you’ll hear the familiar sound of losing life from the Sega Genesis Sonic games and you have to start leveling up. This quickly became interesting because the game told us that you could Spin Dash to steal a ring from your teammates, and trying to make sure we all had the same ring was the best way to use an excuse to be a bully.
We also have to run on the blocks faster than they fall under us, loop-de-loops and springs. This was just a media preview, and I’m sure there will be more exciting mechanics in the full version if the original Pico Park was anything to go by.
When we finished about eight levels, we left Sonic Pico Park. We had a lot of fun finding Pico Park mechanics with a Sonic twist on them. The sprite work on the characters is insanely adorable. Everyone we played with seemed to enjoy it, too, and we all had a blast playing it together. I personally can’t wait to see what this little game has in store, and that could be quite the deal. It’s a desire to stop fans before the next big thing for Sonic happens outside of this anniversary year. At the very least, it will be a good one that will amuse players of all ages, and hopefully give them good memories with their friends.
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