Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice

Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice followed Shattered Crystal two years later as the second handheld entry in the Sonic Boom brand, again made for the Nintendo 3DS by studio Sanzaru Games, this time with the clear ambition of fixing the weaknesses of the first game and offering more polished and varied platforming action with richer level content. While the home-console branch of the Sonic Boom brand never got a follow-up after Rise of Lyric, the handheld series continued, and Fire & Ice became its final entry.

The game added a new mechanical element in the form of switching between fire and ice forms of the characters' abilities, which opened alternative paths through levels and affected battles with enemies - the ice form slowed and froze water and enemies, while the fire form destroyed obstacles, melted ice, and unlocked shortcuts unavailable with the other form. The level design was more varied than in the previous game, contained more hidden paths and collectibles, and made better use of the 3DS's stereoscopic 3D to distinguish foreground and background in more acrobatic sections with platforms and elevators. The control scheme stayed faithful to its predecessor, but the new elemental abilities gave the Sonic Boom series on 3DS some much-needed variety and deeper motivation for replaying levels for the sake of collectibles. The game thus felt like a more mature and content-richer sequel to the first handheld entry. Besides the solo campaign, it also offered a co-op mode for a second player, letting two people control different characters at once on a shared screen.

Why play it: For players who liked Shattered Crystal, this is a more mature sequel with more inventive level content thanks to the fire and ice abilities, without giving up the accessibility and compactness of a handheld platformer.