When browsing through the forums earlier, I noticed a new link in forum member Mercury‘s signature where he linked to a post on his blog reviewing several of the games presented at this year’s Sonic Amateur Games Expo. Among the games he gave feedback on, he praised one heavily in particular–Sonic Axiom, one of the later entries into the expo, having appeared on the second day of the event as opposed to on its premier; as a result, I–and assumedly others–ended up missing out on this little underrated gem. By his suggestion, I decided to give it a shot.

What I found after a few hours of play was an extremely solid fan game that, despite its issues, was graphically stunning (despite its re-use of existing Sonic level graphics), fun to play and–most importantly–complete. Or, well, as complete as it can get as a work in progress.

Featuring 5 fully playable levels, some pretty great level design, fantastic music choices ranging from remixes to original music, and a mix of familiar and innovative level tropes and gimmicks, Sonic Axiom does what few fan games seem to accomplish these days–pure, completely unadulterated fun, totally in the Sonic spirit.

The abundance of one-level demos in the history of the Sonic fan-gaming scene has proven to be both underwhelming and tiring over the years; Axiom delivers by offering the experience of a full game despite not having even reached completion yet! I felt that I could fully appreciate the game having been given more than a fair taste of what its creators had to offer. While there are a few things that hold the game back–the use of the outdated and rather wonky Sonic Worlds engine, the poor performance of some of the additional level elements, the natural performance and space hogging of MMF/Game Maker games–Sonic Axiom provides a Sonic experience that many of us haven’t seen in a long, long time.

Check out Axiom‘s SAGE booth this year here, where you can download a playable demo of the game.