Categories #Games, News

Sonic Runners Version 2.0 Released

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Author Adam Tuff
19 Comments

Friday saw a swathe of changes made to Sonic Runners with the release of the second version of the mobile app. Along with a number of superficial changes, a rather sizable overhaul of the game rules have been made.

runners2

The main game has been divided into Story, Quick and Daily Battle modes, and a number of rules have been alterations have been made with regards to roulette probabilities, promotion and rankings. A special character, ESP Silver is now available via the roulette or through 5 consecutive daily log-ins. All non event-specific characters are also now permanently available, with the character egg drop probability increased to 10%.

Some players will be pleased to hear the game recharge rate has been reduced to 15 minutes and that a maximum stock recharge of lives has increased to 5, however this is likely to have been implemented to compensate for the relatively short length of the timed game. The scoring system has also been revamped in order to compress the game duration while still allowing high scores to be achieved, without the player having to demonstrate incredible feats of stamina and runs lasting for many hours (for reference, to score around 50 million points in version 1 of the game could take around an hour).

Alterations to the game which will no doubt infuriate long time players is the significant reduction of Wisp power and item power-up duration, but even more so will be the significant weakening of buddy abilities, including those which many players will have purchased extra red rings in order to improve. A number of players via social media have also complained about game breaking bugs and crashes, along with in-game obstacles that cannot be avoided.

What are your opinions of the new version of the game, positive or negative? Let us know in the comments!

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Adam Tuff

With a decade under his belt, Adam is one of The Sonic Stadium's most seasoned writers, with interests in the music and merchandise of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. Adam is the co-organiser for the Summer of Sonic convention.

19 Comments

  1. OH BOY DID IT GET RELEASED!

    I don’t have Runners, but from what I can tell, people are deeply upset. Spike walls seem to be the new billiard ball puzzle now, what with fans wondering why the heck something like that would even be a thing in a Sonic game. Regardless of if they were intentional or not, they aren’t good to have and shouldn’t be there in the first place.

    Hopefully everything gets fixed ASAP, though I have a sinking feeling that Sonic Team has stopped caring about this game or wanting it to be a thing in favor of the 25th anniversary title.

    2. “Spike walls seem to be the new billiard ball puzzle now, what with fans wondering why the heck something like that would even be a thing in a Sonic game.”

      Things like those make wonder what kind of designers and programmers Sonic Team has and what they are thinking while creating such a cheap design choices. Yes they get paid, but is that really worth it or are they even aware of these flaws?

      1. I dunno. My most charitable, nice, guess is that the spike walls are there to prevent an earlier issue regarding games being falsely registered as hacked due to high point scores. (Story here: http://www.sonicstadium.org/2015/10/sonic-runners-might-be-unfairly-banning-users/) More realistically, Sonic Team probably just figures here that you’ll spend more red star coins if your games end earlier.

        Generally speaking though, I think Sonic Team can just be really, really dumb sometimes. A lot of their ideas sound good on paper but are terrible in execution or not as good as they seem. Of course, I still like Sonic Team, and it is capable of learning given the positive spike in quality after 06 (at least for the non-mobile titles). I think it needs to think through its ideas more– look at all the implications of its actions, do some risk management, etc. Also it needs to get a better publisher than Sega. Any publisher worth its salt would’ve vetoed the spike balls, or the billiard balls, or any of the other baffling design choices Sonic Team has made over the years. Sega never has and has imposed a lot of bad ideas over the years on Sonic Team. That speaks volumes in terms of Sega’s competency as a publisher. I think Sonic Team could use some positive executive meddling for once.

  2. it still lags a ton and frequently crashes, adverts appear more broken (double audio, restarting multiple times, freezing the game, crashing the game)
    its good to see more rewards as well as free chances at both roulletes and the hope of actually getting new characters – really annoyed that wisps are nerfed massivly. my lazer and drill wisps use to last close to 30 seconds…. now its 9 seconds – it makes inviciblility pretty pointless when its gone in a flash (which makes cheating the chapter boss a nope).

  3. Almost feel happy that I lost all of my Sonic Runners data with my tablet, as it seems to be a horrible game now.

  4. This update is amazing! its great now, so easy to play and more enoyable now.

    Over reactors are going nuts over 1 tiny little bug of spike balls,
    everyone needs to calm down, yes its a sonic game but u get one bug and the whole internet gangs up and gives a good game a bad name.

    1. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but online petitions mean absolutely nothing to corporations. They haven’t stopped Federation Force from becoming a thing, they actually hurt the initiative to get Sonic 3 Remastered started, they haven’t got a Dreamcast 2 or SA3 made, etc. Corporations do not consider online petitions to be reliable sources at all, and no wonder– people often sign them with very little thought and effort.

      Stealth of TaxStealth made a good post regarding this in response to the uproar surrounding the supposed cancellation of Sonic 3 remastered. Now, obviously, since the post is regarding the creation of a game rather than the removal of bad ideas, there’s some stuff that doesn’t apply here, but you should still read it. It gives a good rundown on why these types of petitions tend to fail. http://hcstealth.tumblr.com/post/123411796697/patreon-vs-sonic-3-remastered

      1. Then there’s the whole thing of bringing the two newest Digimon games to the West. That was thanks to an online petition and correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that involves a corporation.

        1. And I would believe that, but the Digimon case is the exception, not the rule. Most online petitions fail, and in a lot of cases the petitions are for stuff that has already been decided.

    1. The new update is a revamp of the original game. Think of it like Sonic Runners exiting soft launch, but bigger, in some ways better, and in some ways worse.

  8. Even more buggy and sluggish (framerate plummets when it Didn’t in the previous versions), nerf of absolutely each and everything, and unavoidable death at phase 5/6 unless you were clever enough to bring with you a Wisp/shield/invincibility.

    The latter is quite the greatest offender, now Sonic Team is openly saying “you’ve played enough, now die and don’t forget to stop by oup in-app store)

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