Preview: Sonic Pico Park Delivers on Co-op Classic Platformer Chaos

As a life-long Sonic the Hedgehog fan, there are three things that are important to understanding the series. The characters, the platforming and the adventure that can be found in-between. As an international traveler, games like Pico Park are perfect for hanging out with my long-distance friends, getting to enjoy overcoming obstacles while spending time together. These "obstacles" include the moments when we decide to mess around and get in each other's way naturally.

At Summer Game Fest, there were a fair few new surprises regarding Sega's famous mascot. It only makes sense, he's turning 35 this year. Alongside the reveal that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was getting a second year of DLC (I still can't wrap my head around the Neon Genesis Evangelion collab of all things), Sonic Pico Park was announced. It merges two great things together, the style of Sonic the Hedgehog and the mayhem of Pico Park, through the uniting factor of platforming.

For those who don't know, Pico Park is a puzzle-platformer made by Teco Park. It's known for being simplistic in its design while also using its simple mechanics to create challenges that have plenty of friends yelling and laughing with each other.

On the other hand, the Sonic the Hedgehog games are known for level design that encourages building up momentum, loop-de-loops and the famous rings Sonic and his pals collect across every adventure.

Some of these things aren't exactly the same in Sonic Pico Park, but what the crossover makes has the potential to be a fun adventure to share with your own rag-tag group of friends.

Pico Park Fits Sonic Like a Glove

DualShockers had the chance to play Sonic Pico Park at Summer Game Fest. What we got to play was just a few short tutorial levels, but it was enough to get a good impression of what Sonic Pico Park aims to achieve. The first level taught us how to jump in typical Pico Park fashion, but we also learned how to Spin Dash. The Spin Dash is the first Sonic mechanic introduced. Don't worry, Sonic Pico Park is also a bit faster than what Pico Park players might be used to, even if it might be slower than some Sonic fans might like.

Like most people do when they play the first level, we all mashed buttons to figure things out before actually playing. We noticed that Tails and Knuckles kept their trademark flying and gliding abilities. I even got picked up by Tails just by jumping into his hands. We could tell that these aspects were added to let these characters remain in the world of Pico Park. We then found walls that could only be broken by Spin Dashing, and a platform we could only reach by stacking on top of each other; the first taste of how well these mechanics would fit together.

The next level taught us how to control our Spin Dashes and how to use them to go up slopes. We also found that there's a chance of being able to ride on a Spin Dash if you stand on it the right way, which should be a fun way to cheese some challenges in the full game.

There are a lot of fun things you can do with the characters you don't control, like Spin Dashing them off ledges, stacking together to create walls and clinging to the person Tails carries from the side.

New to the Pico Park dynamic is Sonic's Rings. They keep you from getting damaged by falling into certain pits, marked with a spiky line, and literal spikes. If anyone gets hit without one, you'll hear the familiar sound of losing a life in the Sega Genesis Sonic games and have to start to level over. This got fun fast because the game told us that you could Spin Dash to steal a ring from our teammates, and trying to make sure that we all had one ring became the best way to use the excuse to be a bully.

We also got to run along blocks faster than they could fall from under us, loop-de-loops and springs. This was only just a preview to the press, and I'm sure that there's going to be even more fun mechanics in the full version if the original Pico Park was anything to go by.

When we finished roughly eight levels, we moved on from Sonic Pico Park. We had a lot of fun figuring out Pico Park mechanics with a bit of a Sonic twist to them. The sprite work on the characters is insanely charming. Everyone we played with seemed to have fun with it, too, and we all had a blast playing it in co-op. I personally can't wait to see what this little game has in store, and that might be the catch. It's an appetizer to hold fans off before whatever the next big thing is coming for Sonic outside this anniversary year. At the very least, it's likely going to be a good one that'll amuse players of all ages, and hopefully give them great memories with their friends.