Summary
Sonic Dream Teamhas easily made itself at home among the roster of games on the Apple Arcade subscription service. AfterSonic Frontierssaw Dr. Eggman take a backseat compared to his daughter Sage andthe troublesome entity that was The End, the evil genius once again takes center stage as the villain Sonic and friends have to fight against. As Eggman tries to take control of a device called the Reverie, he aims to make his dreams into reality, essentially establishing Eggmanland faster than anyone could blink.
However, fans who come fromSonic Frontiers' The Final Horizon DLC intoSonic Dream Teammay feel a fair bit of whiplash between the two games. Tonally,Sonic Frontierstakes an entirely different approach, and has more room to explore its storyline and dive deep into its themes of perseverance.Sonic Dream Team, on the other hand, can be more accurately compared toSonic Superstars. In fact, both of them fall into a common trap with their narratives.
Sonic Dream Team and Sonic Superstars' Simple Stories Are Good But Not Great
Sonic Frontiers and the New Sonic Lore Initiative
Last year,Sonic Frontiersserved as a massive shake up when it came to what fans could expect fromSonicgames. Not only did its open-zone formula resonate strongly with many fans, but it delivered a hard-hitting narrative the likes of which hadn’t been seensinceSonic Unleashedwas first released. This was in part due to how Sega and Sonic Team have decided to put more effort into solidifying the timeline and lore of theSonic the Hedgehogseries at large, whichFrontierstook charge of establishing and setting up as the new status quo.
With this in mind,Sonic Frontierssets up an expectation that concepts and stories introduced after its release would also be as engaging and developed asFrontiers' narrativewas. ThoughSonicis a franchise built to keep up withMarioand is mostly targeted at kids, some adventures will be more lighthearted than others, but they still need to be handled carefully. For example, whenSonic Superstarscame around and introduced new,individualized powers to the Chaos Emeralds, there was a sense that the new abilities would be explained, yet this was never realized in-game.
Both Sonic Superstars and Sonic Dream Team Introduce New Concepts They Do Nothing With
The Chaos Emeralds are not even close to the only piece ofSonic Superstars' story that gets overlooked. The new 2D platformer also introduces a new character,Trip the Sungazer, who may as well be the last remaining member of an ancient race belonging to the Northstar Islands. She may have an overarching storyline dealing with going from being a foe to a friend with a budding rivalry with Fang the Hunter, but she has also broken the rule that only male hedgehogs can go “Super” single-handedly with a special dragon form that goes completely unexplained.
Just likeSonic Superstars,Sonic Dream Teamalso leaves a fair bit of its lore unexplained, but it does a far better job than the Classic Sonic game does.Dream Team’s Ariem explains a considerable amount of details about herself, the Reverie, andthe Dreamscapesthat make up the game’s entire premise and location of the game, but it’s unclear exactly who or what she is by the time the game is over. Other aspects of the lore are left hanging for fans to simply accept as they are, and the lack of exploration into Ariem leaves players to feel more emotions over the characters they already know than Ariem herself by the time the game ends.
Comparatively, lore-wise and in terms of how its story is written,Sonic Dream Teamis much more satisfyingthanSonic Superstars, which may have a sweet narrative but completely fails to deliver on what exactly is happening with many of its newer concepts. Still, it’s a step down fromFrontiers, and the games releasing back-to-back suggests a worrying step backward has been taken by the series in terms of storytelling. Though there’s nothing wrong with more simplisticSonicstories coming out in-between deeper endeavors likeSonic Frontiers, these tales should still aim to explain major developments as best as they can, asFrontiershas already proven that the franchise is more than capable of doing so.
Sonic Superstars
WHERE TO PLAY
Adventure through the mystical Northstar Islands in this all-new take on classic 2D Sonic high-speed action platforming. Play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy and harness all-new Emerald powers to move and attack in dynamic new ways. Navigate gorgeous, never-before-seen environments solo or with up to 3 other players and stop Dr. Eggman, Fang, and a mysterious new adversary from converting the islands’ giant animals into Badniks before it’s too late!
