I got a chance to play the Wii U version of Sonic Boom E3 2014. Subtitled Rise of Lyric, the game is being developed by Big Red Button Entertainment, while the 3DS game is being made by Sanzaru Games.

While both games have separate stories, they are both connected to the new Sonic Boom television show set to begin on Cartoon Network this fall.

The Wii U version of the game, while fun, just wasn’t as fun to me as the 3DS game.  The levels were open and well designed, with a focus on learning to play with little to no tutorial. This is a feature that isn’t really in many games these days, and one that I love. However, the actual gameplay and combat felt a bit shallow to me, and the camera kept getting stuck on the environment and also felt just a bit too close for comfort.

The Wii U’s gamepad can be used to find secret areas and more rings, but I rarely used it, constantly forgetting about the feature.  This may not necessarily be the games fault though, as I’m not really a fan of a game pulling me out of the experience to look at a separate screen entirely too then look back up and keep playing.

Again, that’s just my personal opinion.  Platforming was a bit strange too, as Sonic and Knuckles, (the two characters I had available for the demo) seemed to be too “floaty” when I jumped and were very hard to move in midair.   I’m going to wait on this one for now and see how it improves over time.