Sonic Dash

onic the Hedgehog made his first appearance in 1991 when he replaced Alex the Kid as the face of Sega. Since then, countless titles have featured him across many genres, from platform to racing to RPG, he’s proven to be a versatile character. In Sonic Dash, Sonic makes his debut in the endless runner genre which could be almost the perfect platform.

‘Could be’ because there is a lot of room for improvement here, but there is also a great deal of potential. Lets start with the gameplay, everything is controlled with a swipe or tap, and it sounds really simple, the track has 3 lanes and you can change lanes to dodge obstacles by swiping left or right, jumping is a simple upward swipe and if you swipe down, Sonic goes into a spin enabling him to duck under obstacles and this also doubles as an attack. The controls are simple but when the obstacles begin to get more complicated, it’s also very restrictive, I would have preferred tilt steering, this would give you the freedom to concentrate better on your jumps and spins and would reduce the amount of swipes you need to take at the screen, in some sections it’s like having a sword fight with an octopus.

Sonic Dash really looks the part, a lot of attention has been paid to the appearance, characters are well fleshed out and track is smooth with good visibility of distant objects. The backdrops are pristine, serene waterscapes with islands in the far distance, even the reflections look great. At the moment, there are only two track designs, both inspired by levels in the the original Sonic adventures, hopefully there will be more soon. You can also unlock extra characters to play as though this

is really only an aesthetic change, there’s no difference in performance from character to character.

The sounds effects are very similar to the original platformers where Sonic gained his popularity, the electric whine as you go into a turbo spin really brings back memories. The music is quite unremarkable but in this instance, that’s not so bad as you barely register it so even after long play sessions, it never gets too old.

There’s no underlying story here which is a bit of a shame because Sonic has more than his share of villains to add some motivation or urgency, I think some battle scenes could be incorporated to break up the grind of the endless run. The only real goal is to get a high score and save up your gold rings to upgrade your power ups. There is a daily challenge where you need to collect four puzzle pieces and you’re rewarded with revive tokens, boosts, rings and even premium currency. After five consecutive days, the prizes become random but more generous and you can even win a playable character this way.

At first you won’t be able to achieve scores of any real substance, but by doing the missions you can increase your score multiplier. Some are as easy as collecting a handful of rings but others require you to perform specific actions under the right conditions and can be extremely challenging. As long as your boost metre is full, your multiplier is doubled, you’ll sometimes want to use your dash to get out of trouble but this means resetting your dash metre and halving your incoming points for a time, it’s a good trade off and it appeals to your sense of greed. Through Game Center, you can compare your scores with your friends and there are also achievements to earn for those obsessed with trophies and points.

Sonic should be the perfect character to enter the endless runner genre but in Sonic Dash, I feel the developers have fallen a little short. A basic story would give a little more playability, perhaps a daily boss battle or race. The controls are simple but restrictive but the aesthetics are top notch, both the visuals and sound do the Sonic franchise some justice but it would be nice to have a few more track designs. It would also be good if the different characters had different abilities in game but fans of the series will still want to unlock their favourite characters, perhaps additional characters like Shadow will be available in future. As a runner, it’s not the best I’ve played but the potential is there and all in all, it’s still enjoyable to play. 3 Stars, but a few minor tweaks could easily make this a 5 star title.