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Sonic and the Secret Rings  Hot PDF Print E-mail
Game Reviews Nintendo Wii
Written by NexGen   
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Editor's rating
7.0
out of 10
Reviewed by:
#1 Reviewer
View all my reviews
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Average user rating: 7.0 
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Ratings
Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 8
Sound: 5
Value: 6
Tilt: 7

Sonic takes a giant leap forward, but falls short of his old school installments.

 




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Sonic and the Secret Rings



Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Sega
Platform: Nintendo Wii
ESRB: Everyone - Cartoon Violence


Introduction

Over the past several years, the Sonic franchise's group of fans has been quickly dissipating due to Sega straying too far from the original concept. Recent Sonic installments have been focused around other characters like Shadow and Knuckles more so than Sonic himself. The usual Sonic game consists mostly of speed, though now they are based more on enemy bashing and puzzle solving. That was a sad turn in the Sonic franchise...

Then the Wii remote comes along. Sega, hearing about this new innovation, decides to try their luck with an old school Sonic game, which definitely pays off in the end. Instead of a three-man squad, Sonic ran solo this time.


Story

Even the casual gamer should know how important the storyline of a game is, but apparently the Sega team is lacking that knowledge. This time around, the story falls into the below mediocre category.

Sonic's goal in this game is to stop the evil villain, Erazor Djinn, from erasing all the pages of The Arabian Nights, a book that he is from. Erazor Djinn got tired of just being in the book, so he emerged from it and started absorbing the pages of it. Despite a rather cliché name, he is a lot more menacing than Doctor Eggman.

The game begins with Sonic waking up in bed to find a book on his bedside table. A female genie named Shahra appears out of it and explains to Sonic his mission, which is to stop Erazor Djinn. Summoning a ring out of nowhere, Shahra gives it to Sonic and asks him to put it on then rub it. After doing so, Shahra tells Sonic that she will grant any of his wishes. He then asks her to transport him into The Arabian Nights.

Score: 2/10


Characters

Sonic's personality in this game is rather annoying at times and also a bit cliché. He's a stuck up little hedgehog most of the time, though he occasionally shows a serious side.

Some of the characters from other Sonic games appear in this one as well, though with different names. Some examples are Tails and Knuckles. Tails is known is Ali Baba, and Knuckles is called Sinbad. However, both of them only play minor rolls in the game, though.

Score: 5/10


Knuckles depicted as Sinbad


Controls

The controls are basically the same as any other racing game, except you don't have an acceleration button. Instead, you move forward automatically. You can tilt the Wii remote left or right, depending on which direction you want to go. You can also tilt it towards yourself to brake, and even back-step if you want. Tapping A quickly will initiate a quick jump, and if you hold it down, Sonic will begin to charge up and when released, jump really high. While in the air, if there is in enemy near you a red circle will surround it. You then thrust the Wii remote forward, which will have Sonic attack it.

These controls feel rather natural, and are a big step up from just button mashing. Some people worry about it being hard to adjust to the new control scheme, but it's quite the opposite.

Score: 8.5/10


Game-play

Think the original Sonic the Hedgehog in 3D. Update a few things here and there and you get this.

No more fidgety camera you would get when playing those older 3D Sonic games, because this time you're going on a straight path. Fortunately, I have yet to come across those annoying glitches that randomly propel you into the pit that the old Sega Genesis was more than happy to give you. Though that may have been fixed, it gets rather frustrating when you intend to lock onto one thing, and you get locked onto something else, which then drops you to your doom.


Watch out Sonic, I think I saw Big Bertha!

To get to the boss battles, you have to win a certain number of challenges. Each time you win a challenge, you unlock another one. Some of them include races against a little genie (think Navi from Ocarina of Time), getting a certain number of rings, and even not collecting any rings.

Another benefit of winning a challenge is gaining experience points. Once you gain enough experience, you level up and gain a new ability like your max speed increasing or being able to brake faster. Some of these challenges are so difficult they'll have you pulling your hair out. Literally.

The boss fights are interesting. It continuously moves backwards away from you while you chase after it, trying to hit its hidden soft spot. The first boss, for example, is a giant scorpion. It has a total of six eyes, though only three of them are in plain view. You have to do a hit combo by first attacking one of its visible eyes, hit another now-visible eye, then move on to the one on its face.

After defeating a boss, you get one of the seven World Rings. After collecting all of them and beating the game, you get a neat little extra, so make sure to collect them all.

Score: 9.5/10

Graphics

The graphics for this title are rather nice compared to other games released so far, though in my opinion that isn't saying much. There are some nicely done cut-scenes throughout the game, but unfortunately most of the cut-scenes are more like a picture book, so that little bit of ecstasy you may experience from watching the intro will soon disappear.


Erazor Djinn in one of the more eye-pleasing cut-scenes

The in-game graphics are quite nice, actually. Once you get used to the lack of anti-aliasing you can fully enjoy the lush environments the Sega team put together.

Score: 8/10

Sound

The theme song is just one of those things that gets you saying “What was Sega thinking?”. Then you realize they weren't thinking. Though the theme was a dud, they made up for it with their good sound effects. Instead of just bringing back the old sounds like other companies like to do, Sega decided to go 21st century and bring in some new sounds. Remember those nightmares you would have with that ringing sound that Sonic makes when he loses his coins? Me neither, but that sound could get pretty annoying.

Unfortunately, the voice acting completely ruins everything else. They are unfitting and over exaggerated at times. Tails is especially horrible, since he sounds like a little kid from a bad anime show.

Score: 4/10


Multi-player

The multi-player mainly consists of party-style games intended for a full group of people. Much like Mario Party, if you will. Having a choice between eight characters(four of which you unlock), you have to pick four, whether you're playing by yourself or with three others.

The mini-games take full advantage of the Wii remote. For example, in one of them you're a violinist. Your character will play a tune, and then you are to repeat it by moving the remote the same way your character did before. This particular game is fun, but some of the others are far from. One of them has you and another character falling from the sky with an umbrella collecting coins. You are to hold the remote in an upright position and tilt it in the direction you want to go. A yawn fest, actually.

Some of the mini-games are much like some from other party games. One of them is similar to Shy Guy Says from the original Mario Party on Nintendo 64. Despite the similarities between some games, they can be rather entertaining, but this is if you other people to play with.

Score: 6/10


Conclusion

Basically, Sonic and the Secret Rings is a fun game that fans shouldn't miss. Maybe not quite worth $50 unless you're a big fan, the average gamer should probably wait until a price drop before picking up this title. If you're still not sure about this, drop by the video store (or Gamefly) and rent it for a few days. The worst that'll happen is you'll lose a few dollars.

Overall score: 7/10


Credit to Wikipedia and Google Image Search for images
Editor review : Is the blue hedgehog on his last run? Don't count
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Overall rating
7.0
This game is an interesting one. It attempts to dig the Sonic franchise out of the pit it has been digging for itself for years. Does it succeed? Sort of.

Gameplay:
-This game uses the Wii Remote similar to racing games that are currently on the Wii. You hold it like a traditional controller and tilt it to side to side. Overall this mechanic works well and is effective. One area where it does have problems is in the other motion sensing mechanics. It can be difficult to get the timing just right on attacks and this can be a problem for some.
-This game does start off very slow and you may feel bored for the first 30 minutes but as the game progresses and you learn more skills the speed really picks up and becomes interesting. This game does give a great sensation of speed and this really adds to the games overall atmosphere.
-One area of concern is the variation of difficulty. Some levels many people will find extremely easy while other levels people will find frustrating. This is confusing because this does not occur with the progression of the game but it happens seemingly randomly
Gameplay Score:8

Graphics:
-The graphics in this game don't stack up tho those of games on rival consoles it does have some of the best visuals invariable on the Wii thus far. The environments are rendered well as well as the creatures that inhabit the game.
Graphics Score:9

Sound:
-This game has some of the cheesiest voice acting of any game I have played in years (excluding C&C 3 which is horrible) and it really does take away from the overall gaming experience. Because of the voice acting it often makes you feel that you are playing some low end kiddie game.
Sound Score:6

Value:
This game is extensive. It has a considerable amount of single player game time as well as numerous, if limited, minigames. The problem with this content though is that what is there is used over and over again. So there is actually less content then the time to completion may portray.
Value Score:7
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful

Feels a little dumbed down, Not for the hardcore g, Thursday, 22 November 2007

Written by NexGen   -  View all my reviews  - #1 Reviewer

Overall rating
7.0
First the gameplay. I rated this a 7/10 because basically much of the gameplay revolves around strafing left and right, I say strafing because you don't so much turn sonic as much as he is simply running forward and you guide him to run forward a little to the left/right of where he was previously running. Unfortunatly there are little hills/obsticals that block your strafing meaning you are running along a little ribbon of a path, and you can guide sonic to run forward anywhere along that ribbon... Yeah theres not really a whole lot of options. There are some cool attacks and you get ring upgrades, and some levels seem partially inspired, for example in this one level you return dino eggs to their nests, and there are actually branching paths, which is quite different then the norm. If you are used to Sonic Adventure 2 (or 1) what with the exploration and freedom then this isn't partictularly the game for you. SA2 was always mostly linear, but you didn't feel constricted like you do in SatSR. SA2 had nooks/crannys to explore and secrets to find, you collected alot of upgrades and parts, chaos were a large part of the game (one of my favorite parts) and the story seemed plausable, in a goofy sort of way. Well in SatSR, you run run run, jump, attack, then run some more, the mission objectives are sometimes more varied then in SA2 (while playing as Sonic that is), but there aren't chao boxes to find, no secret melodys to discover, no hidden part of the level where the lost chao resides. No intregue at all it seems. And the story seems pretty dumb with lousy cutscenes. Perhaps my ideas are skewed as I was hoping for a SA3, and it is probebly fun for people who are used to video games with the 'dumbed-down' gameplay.

Now for the graphics, in terms of Wii graphics SatSR rates fairly well. When you get hit and you have rings then you don't die, but after you are hit the rings don't bounce out of you like in SA2, instead a collection of 10 (or so) rings appears on your HUD and slowly dissapears. It looks almost like the devs accidentally drew the rings on an orthographic projection, instead of drawing them using the normal 3d perspective. It doesn't look so good. That and a couple other things make this an 8, along with really good looking games in the works (mainly Galaxy, and MP3).

Sound, now this part of SatSR really kinda sucked. Not so much the sounds, they were fine, but the music. The music wasn't good at all. SA2 had cool, goofy but cool music. Where as I just wanted to turn the music off in SatSR. SA2 had a wide range of music, from rap when you are playing as Knuckles to Rock as Sonic, some non vocal pieces as Rouge, and others, and all of it was made just for SA2. In SatSR it seemed that they recorded 1 piece of music for the entire game.

Now value. I didn't buy SatSR to play multiplayer, I'm buying Mario Party for that so I'm leaving the MP aspect of SatSR out of this (I also didn't play the MP part of SA2:B either). The game has good value, there are some cool things to pick up, some levels have multiple missions, and there are little pickups to be found, the value isn't horribly bad, but it is far and away distant from the value in SA2, SA2 for one had Chaos. Without chaos SA2 would have been a neat addition to my Game Cube library, I'd have beat the storys (which are fun), and been on my way. But with Chaos SA2 has TONS of replay. In fact I've played more SA2 on my wii then SatSR. There are so many things to do, so much expirimentation to be done, so much fun to have, and so much replay value in SA2 that is lacking in SatSR. If chaos are your thing (they are alot of fun), then you find yourself doing all the missions pushing for that A rating, searching for all the secrets, and you get rewarded for it by getting powerful chao which you can race/fight/grow.

And finally Tilt. I've basically told you my views of this game in the previous sections. I'll just say a little more. I hope that enough people buy this game that Sega makes another Sonic game, and I hope that few enough people buy this game that Sega makes another Sonic Adventure game.

Thats all.
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