Sonic Pico Park preview: a fun yet frustrating surprise new Sonic game

Sonic Pico Park is multiplayer pitstop between mainline entries

Sonic the Hedgehog is getting an all-new game this year, but it’s most assuredly not one anyone expected. Rather than a sequel to Sonic Frontiers or another retro platformer, Sega is teaming up with indie developer Tecopark for a spinoff of its multiplayer Pico Park series, aptly dubbed Sonic Pico Park. It’s a delightful little surprise that sees Sega joining a recent trend of licensing its biggest characters out to small studios with proven track records.

That low-stakes risk is already paying off. I went hands on with Sonic Pico Park at Summer Game Fest, playing through eight of its levels with a squad of four players. Though it’s not a radical reinvention of Pico Park’s winning formula by any means, it makes for a sweet treat for Sonic fans who need something light to hold them over until the blue blur’s next big adventure.

Sonic Pico Park is a puzzle platformer that can be played with two to eight players. Everyone must work together to clear increasingly tricky platforming trials across sets of levels. My demo took me through two trials, each consisting of four levels. At a glance, it’s more or less Pico Park with Sonic characters. It has the same lo-fi visuals, and puzzles that require teammates to coordinate with one another. Stack up on top of one another, move around while tied together, send one player ahead to press a button — all the Pico Park hits are here.

The fun twist is in how Tecopark works various Sonic staples into that idea. It’s not just the fact that you can play as Sonic, Amy, Tails, and Knuckles either. Some of the 2D puzzle levels I played featured springs that would propel characters forward. Those can be helpful for solving some momentum-based challenges, but some are also placed in some dastardly spots to create some hilarious chaos. In one level, my squad and I had to navigate a level while tied together. The biggest hurdle was that we all had to hop over a spring. If one person hit it, everyone went flying backwards into a well-placed pit. Tecopark gets a lot of joyful frustration out of that one Sonic item alone.

Rings also come into play in some puzzles. If a character grabs a ring, they’ll be able to survive a hit from obstacles like lasers that would otherwise zap them and force the team to start the level over. Some clever puzzles come out of one player grabbing a ring and running into harm’s way to hit a button, extending a bridge that would safely get the rest of the team to the other side. Other Sonic staples like loop-de-loops and end-level signs, like the ones that cap off levels in the original platformers, are just enough to make it feel hedgehogified.

Tecopark also went the extra mile to make sure that the Sonic cast’s signature moves work into puzzles. Characters can spin dash, which can be used to get across a row of falling platforms or break down walls. Tails can fly, and characters can grab on to him. A few great puzzles I solved involved our whole squad clinging onto the poor fox for dear life while he ferried us across a chasm. Though it would have been nice to see just a bit more Sonic theming in the art direction (Tecopark sticks with its minimalistic backgrounds as opposed to making stages look like Green Hill Zone), it’s great to see it expanding its puzzle chops with mechanics specific to Sonic.

I’m glad that Tecopark hasn’t dialed down its signature mayhem in that experimentation. My demo very quickly turned into a comedy of errors as my teammates and I tried to get on the same page. Sometimes a player would try to go rogue and run across a row of falling platforms, dooming the rest of us. Other times we fumbled around as we tried to jump on top of one another and form a usable staircase. There was plenty of frustrated laughter in those eight levels alone, which is great news for families looking for a co-op game that still leaves room for players to mess with one another. The great news from my hands-on demo is just that we’re getting another solid Pico Park game; the fact that Sonic and his pals are there is just a nice way to get there.