How to Play Sonic Utopia

This tutorial will quickly go over how to play Sonic Utopia and what the objective of the game is. While the game is still only a demo with only one stage released so far, there is a ton to find and see already. If the game keeps going along like this, we may have a truly great 3D Sonic game on our hands.

Controls:

Sonic Utopia comes with a manual that details the basic controls of the game. 

These controls are mostly self-explanatory, except for the "Down" button. Down effectively acts as the crouch button in Sonic Utopia. This means that when you're on the move, pressing Down will effectively roll sonic up and lets you attack.

While in game, pressing Jump twice will execute a homing attack on any nearby targetable items/enemies, and simply send you forward if there aren't any. While these controls are deceptively simple, the game itself is anything but.

In-Game Mechanics:

Sonic Utopia is different from most 3D Sonic games in that speed plays a crucial part in traversal. If you don't have enough speed, most of the map is locked off to you. 

On top of that, jumping and rolling on slopes can have dramatically different effects. Approaching a slope at different speeds and jumping at different angles can be key in unlocking most of the map. Most notably, you will have to execute these techniques in order to find the secrets of Sonic Utopia - The Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald.

Chaos Emerald and Master Emerald:

Fans of the series will be familiar with the Chaos Emeralds. In Sonic Utopia, these emeralds are hidden away in obscure places that require you to have an understanding of the game's physics. Once you collect all 7, you will transform into Super Sonic, giving you increased speed and invincibility so long as you have rings.

In Act 2, there is a Master Emerald hidden away in a treacherous underwater shrine. If you find it and press jump while you're on top of it, you will transform into the even more powerful Hyper Sonic. Hyper Sonic gives you all the powers that Super Sonic has, while also giving you the ability to fly as long as you hold the jump button down. This makes traversing the massive level a breeze.

Sonic Utopia is releasing fully with 6 stages soon, so stay tuned! In the meantime, we hope that this guide helped you enjoy the game more.