Once bitter rivals, but now partners in crime, it seems Nintendo and SEGA have well and truly buried the hatchet. Since the Wii came on the scene, the pair have shared a fairly close working relationship - a relationship which bought Nintendo's console more than a handful of exclusive titles, from the sports mini-game themed Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series to more traditional platformers like Sonic Colours. While the sales of Nintendo's newest console, the Wii U, may be worrying other companies, it seems Sega have faith in it's old enemy, having pledged to support it with three exclusive games. Since the announcement was made, we've seen the first screens of Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, and now, the first details about an exclusive platform game, Sonic Lost World, have been revealed.
While all we had to go by to begin with was a picture and a name, SEGA have now released a trailer, and a few screenshots of Sonic's latest outing to tell us a little bit more about how the new game will work. In the trailer, which you can watch below, we catch glimpses of Sonic facing off against a bunch of new baddies known as the 'Deadly Six' - a small blue sensei with a wooden spoon, an angry yellow blob, a big bashy red minotaur, a scrawny pink devil, a green haired cat woman, and a spindly emo with giant blue lips. As is traditional, the nefarious Dr. Robotnik plays a part in it all, with a high speed chase between the old enemies kicking off the whole discovery of the floating 'Lost Hex' islands in the sky, where the deadly six emanate from.
What's the betting they're working with Robotnik?
With more than a hint of Mario Galaxy to it, Sonic Lost World looks set to be an intriguing, if somewhat confusing, blend of 2D and 3D gameplay, with the speedy blue hog jumping and running around taking 3D worlds suspended in the air at one point - before switching into a more traditional 'run very fast from left to right' 2D perspective. Taking the perspective switching action of recent games Sonic Generations and Sonic Colours, but turning it up to 11, you'll be whizzing around loops that switch between being 2D and 3D, and running around giant cylinders in the sky, in a way that bears a striking resemblance to a long lost Sonic game of old. With a distinctly similar style, and some similar ideas, long term Sonic fans are musing on whether Sonic Lost World is actually the modern-day reinvention of the long-awaited Sonic Xtreme, a game which was originally in development for the ill-fated Sega Saturn in the mid-90s before being unceremoniously cancelled when the system flopped. Featuring Sonic running along a number of cylindrical levels which would rotate as you ran up their walls, it does seem to share more than a few similarities with the new Lost World game, as you can see for yourself here...
Perhaps the biggest issue in the Sonic games of the past was the blue blur's iconic speed - speed that could see him careering off course with the slightest nudge of the analogue stick. This time, though, Sonic Team are going to great lengths to make the controls feel that much more natural, introducing a three-teir running system, whereby the hedgehog walks with a push of the analogue stick, runs when you hold down a trigger and balls himself up to go even faster when you hold down the other trigger too. Another new introduction is the 'parkour' system, where hitting an object at full pelt wont make Sonic grind to a halt - instead he'll run up over the top of the obstacle, providing you've got the run button held down.
Rolling around at the speed of sound...
With the game in development for both the Wii U and the 3DS, it seems each version will be getting its own special features, too. While details are thin on the ground about the 3DS version beyond the fact that it'll be the first 3D Sonic game on a handheld, the Wii U version will have support for a form of two player co-op, with one player taking control of Sonic with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck combo while the other helps out using the GamePad, (presumably much like in Mario Galaxy, where a second player could help collect stars, or stun enemies), while, when playing in single player, the GamePad can also used to access special 'Colour Powers', which can unlock secret shortcuts and areas.
From the trailer below, it seems Sonic Lost World will be available before the end of the year - but when exactly, we don't know. What we do know is that things should get a heck of a lot clearer in the coming weeks, with Sonic Lost World being shown off at this summer's E3 conference - so stay tuned.
