I'm fortunate to have iPad parents who let me have a couple of older models they'd just replaced so I could finally play this Apple Arcade exclusive Sonic title despite not being a big fan of Apple products and certainly not wanting to buy my own tablet just to play one mobile game. But Sonic Dream Team was worth the wait! It's a pleasant romp with the largest playable cast for a Sonic platformer in uh, quite a long time actually, with a whopping seven now that the Shadow update is out. Besides the mainstay crew of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Shadow, Rouge and Cream also made the cut somewhat surprisingly. Rouge also showed up in the Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Prime, and Cream plays a major role in the plot of Dream Team, being pure of heart enough to qualify for her dreams becoming reality, which Eggman tries to hijack. These B and C-listers becoming more prominent in recent releases gives me hope that Sega is becoming more comfortable with Sonic's expanded cast again after a very long stint minimizing them.
Dream Team's levels are about as extra wide as you might expect from a game designed to be played with touch screen input, to the point where sometimes it feels like your characters shrank in the wash or something, but despite the limitations of the platform the game controls very smoothly with solid moment-to-moment flow. Progression follows the usual Sonic template: your first mission for each level is simply playing through the entire thing and reaching the goal, with subsequent missions assigning you specific tasks for a smaller chunk of the level like running through checkpoints in order or finding six crystals scattered around. The playable characters were initially split into three types, Sonic and Amy as the speedy light-dashers, Tails and Cream as the high fliers, and Knuckles and Rouge as the gliding climbers, until a later update added Shadow who can slow time and teleport with his Chaos powers. Some missions restrict you to a specific character type but otherwise you can tag out at will, even mid-jump, which honestly is something I'd love to see in a mainline Sonic again. Maybe something less Heroes and more like Mystical Ninja or DK64 (Tag Anywhere!), or Sonic Boom but more thoughtfully implemented. I also loved the quarter-pipe level objects that let you do these slick curved jumps straight out of a skating game. The levels in general are pretty stylish despite their relative simplicity, and they're really something to look at. I know they're operating on different scales, but honestly Dream Team kinda makes the recent mainline games look bad with how vibrant and unique each zone looks. Like compare the bonus zone Sweet Dreams to really anything in Sonic Frontiers. Dream Team's biggest weakness I think is an unfortunate consequence of being a mobile game. Though part of Apple's more curated Apple Arcade suite of games that are supposed to be like, real games not laden down with microtransactions and other typical mobile game garbage, it does have a Daily Mission you can play to earn experience for unlockables on a season pass. And naturally unlocking Shadow for use outside of these dailies requires earning a ton of experience, maybe probably more than you could actually earn in a month of playing which means re-upping your Apple Arcade sub. There aren't any actual in-game transactions, but still that kinda thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Which is a bit of a shame given how delightful the rest of the game is! Maybe someday it'll be free of the mobile mines.
Game Number: 15
Year Played: 2025
Platform: Mobile