Game info

• Title Sonic Dream Team
• Developer Hardlight Studio
• Publisher Sega
• Year 2023
• Platforms Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, Mac
• Genre Action

Sonic the Hedgehog is back in Sonic Dream Team! A game packed with non-stop action and thrilling adventures! Join Sonic and friends as they dive deep into a bizarre world of dreams! Unravel an original and captivating storyline while taking command of six dynamic playable characters. With their unique abilities, dash, climb and fly your way to victory against infamous Eggman! Get ready to race through mind-bending dream worlds that include wall-running, gravity changes, and more! Your mission: fight to rescue your friends and battle Eggman for control of an ancient artifact that can make dreams come true. Complete missions, fight bosses and find toys of your favourite Sonic characters to add to your ever-growing collection!

Player Select

There seems to be a lot of Sonic around at the moment, with his Playstation game out, appearing in various other games, and now this release on Apple Arcade. As iconic and nostalgic as the zippy blue hedgehog is, we do need to be careful about an overload for him. But for now, this is a new and different game, so let’s give it a try!

It’s in the Game

Compared to the full Playstation experience, this Arcade game is a lot smaller, simpler - fewer levels and that endless runner feel that fits well with Sonic’s personality but also adds a bit of accessibility for new gamers. Having said that, it’s still bright and punchy, fast and furious, and full of Dr. Eggman.

I’m not sure the balance of story to gameplay is right, I found myself skipping a lot of the cutscenes because they went on a bit too much, which in turn meant the story didn’t mean much to me and I was mostly just running for the sake of it. My fault, my poor attention span, but not helpful to the campaign.

Like most Sonic experiences, you really just point the characters in the right direction and hope for the best. A bit of jumping, the occasional power press, but otherwise it’s more luck than judgement… and for some reason I found this to be a bit less satisfying than in the full-size game. It looks good, and all the familiar characters are there, but it just didn’t grab me.

I tried playing this on my iDevices but ultimately realised the controller and TV option was the best, so playing through the Apple TV became the default choice. You can sync across all the devices though, which is always a fun little bonus when you want to dip in whilst not in front of your big screen.

Thoughts

It’s probably not a game I will revisit very often, but it’s always nice to know its there - a chance to dash about a bit with Sonic and friends and see what mischief Eggman is up to. It’s more accessible than booting up a whole console to play Superstars but equally has less to offer so you really have to decide if that trade off is worth it. For me, probably not.

Rating: 2 / 5