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CONSOLE: PC DEVELOPER: Hardlight PUBLISHER: Sega
RELEASE DATE (NA): December 3, 2014 GENRE: Runner
// review by FlagrantWeeaboo

Dash to the trash!

Freemium bullplop has seeped into the world of PCs, where it certainly doesn't belong nor ever did. Now on your tablet-style interface desktop PC operating system, you can download "apps" from the Windows Store, which is like going backwards five hundred years.

Speaking of which, Sonic Dash is one such free-to-play ported-from-mobile low grade shovelware experience. The last time I checked, my PC isn't a mobile phone or tablet. It's a state-of-the-art laptop which can run the latest Steam games on graphically intensive settings. Why is Sonic Dash on my laptop?

I'm more just pissed off with myself for downloading it.

This is one of those endless runners, the genre Pepsiman pioneered quite frankly ages ago. Your character scutters off at a fast speed, en route to slam into objects and scenic fixtures unless you guide and babysit them and do all the work.

The game comes with only Sonic the sad looking wreck available, while the other characters are locked behind a pay wall. You can grind for a few hours to unlock most of them, but do you think anybody is realistically likely to do that?

Sonic can be upgraded by spending "rings", and characters can be unlocked by spending "red rings". Each can be earned (albeit slowly) by playing or purchased with real useful tangible money that we need in order to survive our everyday lives.


Gotta spend fast! Gotta go broke!

The game does assure us that wasting any of our real, vital, limited money will result in the removal of all non-SEGA adverts from the app. I said I wanted to buy a character pack and then backed out. The adverts no longer appear. I'm a genius.

Where this game has a decent edge is with the respect paid to the license. Sonic Dash cribs visual cues from Sonic Generations, Lost World, and Sonic Heroes — and borrows aspects from throughout the entire series. The main gameplay takes place in the often-used-in-third-party-entries Seaside Hill from Sonic Heroes and features gameplay elements from all over.

There are objects you need to jump over or spindash underneath, there are robots to destroy with the trusty spindash, and there are rings to collect and completely identical bosses to defeat. It plays like a mobile game, it has the content of a mobile game — it's a darn mobile game being played on a PC.

Sometimes the controls simply stop working. The cynic in me believes this is an attempt to get me to shell out for purchases, but it's likely just because this is a crappy cashgrab exercise so therefore they don't care about the quality of the game. (It seems that it's far too easy to click off the game window, and then the controls will no longer function as intended.)

Occasionally, special events run where you can get more characters. When I started playing, I had less than a day to unlock Hello Kitty. Yes. I naturally failed, because collecting 600 bows in five-ish hours isn't possible unless you want to lose your sanity drip by drip. This game isn't worth that, so it can piss off.


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