Holy moly, Lost World 3DS really was the last Sonic game Dimps made. That one hurts. That one hurts a lot. I loved Advance 1 and 2, and Rush Adventure is one of my favorite 2D Sonic games to date. Knowing their career ended with Lost World 3DS... I mean that's just a knife to the chest.

The Aughts is what I was referencing, yeah, as that's what I always hear people refer to the lowest point in the Blue Blur's career. Personally, I think that for as much of a blow as that era delt, I still can (somewhat) respect it because A: the handheld releases were pretty consistently good, sans Advance 3, and B: even the worst of what came out of that particular point in time still had something that matters a lot to me: Soul.

Let me tell you about what I personally consider the lowest point in Sonic's career. I think there is no lower bar than what Sonic 4, particularly Episode 1, and Lost World offer. They are devoid of soul, they are hellbent on being cheap nostalgic romps through stuff you've seen before with no real flair or twist, and they achieve a level of mediocrity that even 06 didn't, and 06 is arguably the closest thing to a 3D roguelike platformer due to how the glitches ensure no two playthroughs will ever be the same.

Lost World 3DS sits atop a throne on that bar. The game has all of the trappings of Lost World on PC/Wii U, but now with an added layer of malice and tedium just to make things REALLY shitty. LW3DS doesn't even have the decency to kill you all of the time if you didn't instinctively know what it wanted you to do to progress, as while that would be annoying and around a 5-10 minute time loss, sometimes it'd rather be even more annoying than that and have you fall all the way down from the top of a vertical section you just climbed akin to "Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy". Sometimes you'll think you can save yourself, but you'll find the game was simply giving you false hope. It now requires you to kill yourself to go back to the earlier checkpoint, redo what you already did earlier, combat rooms and mcguffin hunts included, get the Wisp again, and then you can have a second attempt at what you failed at several minutes ago.

Lost World 3DS doesn't even feel like a B-team project like Generations 3DS did. It feels like it was made by someone who thinks Kaizo Mario level design is the funniest thing ever. I'd rather do ten consecutive rematches with the Fang Mech from Superstars than even touch a copy of LW3DS. Skip it!

Hey rare to see someone rocking the Xbox One, when you get to playing Gears 5 don't panic if you find Act 2 a bit boring. I think a lot of people drop the game around that point, and honestly for me Act 3 was actually pretty enjoyable.

Also will definitely get around to playing Hotel Dusk one of these days

Afraid I already beat you to the punch with that one. My Lost World revisit is complete, and by that I mean I played up through the 3rd world, got walled by the animal count needed to unlock another level, and said, "Man, I don't want to go back to ANY of the earlier levels." And permanently removed the game from my steam account. Fun fact: Rayman Legends, one of the best platformers of all time came out the same year as Lost World. What a difference in quality, huh?

As for the 3DS version, I have actually experienced that with a friend on their own copy. Regarding your interest in getting a copy of that release, here are my thoughts in simplified form: [Link]

In lengthier terms, Lost World 3DS manages to defy expectations by managing to be an even WORSE way to play Lost World, with its levels that last anywhere around 20-40 minutes on a handheld device! It is plagued with do or die platforming, a near total lack of a floor after the midpoint, and numerous pace-breaking, progress halting combat rooms that needlessly drag things out even more. If that's not bad enough, the game also features the worst special stages in the entire franchise, requiring gyro controls to maneuver around, and by extension making you both nauseous (I say this as someone who rarely, if ever gets motion sick, for the record), and look like a tool as you rotate your whole body repeatedly to navigate the courses.

My friend and I stopped at Sky Road Act 2, which took us 43 minutes to beat. Our rank at the end? B! 43 minutes is a B rank for that level! They expect you to be there for an eternity! And that's not even the last area of the game! Lost World 3DS is my choice for worst Sonic game I've ever played, with the vapid, soulless husk that was the Wii U/PC release being right behind it! DO NOT PLAY LOST WORLD 3DS! I would take any entry in the supposed "Dark Era of Sonic" over that any day of the week. I'm not kidding. Even Secret Ring's clunky motion control platforming was more bearable.

And today my sidekick Hamada is discussing a topic normal people would find interesting: Zack and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy! [Link]