Sonic Pico Park is pure chaos

I’ve never played Pico Park, but slap Sonic on something, and I’ll be interested. At a recent SEGA event in LA, I only got to play Sonic Pico Park for a few minutes with some kind folks running the event, but it was a lot of fun! If you’re unfamiliar with Pico Park, it’s essentially a co-op puzzle platformer where you need to get your entire team to the end of the stage. Sonic Pico Park adds some Sonic flavor on top of that, both visually and mechanically

You can choose to play as the typical Pico Park cat things, Sonic characters like Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, Tails, and Shadow, or the Pico Park cat things with some Sonic flavor. Character choice here isn’t just cosmetic, though; some characters have special movement abilities required to clear some stages. For example, Knuckles can glide, and Tails can fly. If you need one of these abilities but don’t have that character, you’ll be provided with a special door so someone can swap.

In one of the levels I played, Tails needed to carry the other players across a big gap filled with hazards along the way. He can’t carry the team forever, though, and will slowly descend with too many people in his arms. This was just in World 1, so later on in the game you’ll probably see a lot more challenges like this.

Aside from character-specific stuff, you’ve also got more general Sonic hazards and tools. Everyone can spin dash, which you’ll need to bump your friends and navigate loop-de-loops, and there are springs scattered throughout stages that can help or hinder you. Yes, there are plenty of opportunities to run into a spring and immediately get everyone killed, so you can torture your friends at any time if you want.

Just before my short session, I was able to watch a few other people finishing up theirs, and they sounded like they were having a blast. When this comes out, I’d love to get a group of friends together for some mayhem; actually clearing any stages seems secondary here.