Developer: BioWare

Publisher: Sega

Release Date: Sept. 30, 2008

System: Nintendo DS

ESRB Rating: E

Official Web site

0:00 I went from being a rampant Sonic fan to a smoldering Sonic fan around the time of Sonic Adventure. Still, the RPG elements and participation of BioWare in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood were enough to at least get me curious.



0:01 In the intro cut scene, lots of quick cuts. Sonic runs. Tails flies his biplane. There's a spaceship. Amy, Knuckles and Tails stand with Sonic. Cut to some in-game footage of some unimpressive 3-D boss battles. The overworld map is much nicer looking, with a cel-shaded Sonic running over a hand-drawn landscape. All four of the main characters stand looking out to the middle distance. I love the high-energy guitar music. Bwreeoow!



0:02 Seems the last guy who rented this game only got to Chapter 1. Not a good sign... New game for me, though. "Some Time Ago..." in Eggman's Floating Castle over Metropolis. The huge ship fires on the city. Sonic and team board from their own mini-ship and attack. "You'll never defeat me," "We'll see about that," etc. Big explosion and the ship starts to go down, causing a huge explosion to engulf the city. Sonic and team fly off on the biplane, apparently unconcerned about the carnage they've left in their wake.



0:03 Present day, on the other side of the world, Sonic gets a phone call as he runs through a field. "CHAPTER 1: HOSTILE RECEPTION." Like, phone reception? "Sonic, you made it, I'm so glad to hear from you." "I'm here, Tails, what's going on." Knuckles has disappeared with the Chaos Emeralds, that's what's going on! Amy's gonna come help Sonic find 'em.



0:06 The touch-screen controls kind of remind me of the DS Zelda game. Touch a place on the screen and Sonic runs over there. Little icons pop up occasionally to let me jump to ledges, speed around loops ... that kind of thing. There are a bunch of rings lying around for me to collect. Pretty mellow so far.



0:08 An old guy is tired and needs help with his chores. I can respond with "I have important things to do," but knowing RPGs, he'll just keep asking until I agree to help him out. So I skip it.



0:09 So the old guy has me walk over to a wood pile to tap the L button when an icon appears overhead. There's not even any timing element to it ... I can just tap whenever I want. That's it? Chopping three logs earns me a POW Candy, which provides "PP + 5" ? whatever that means.



0:10 I access my inventory by clicking the shoe icon on the pause screen. Because I keep my inventory in my shoes? I guess I must ... I'm not wearing any other clothes, after all.



0:11 "Ah, Green Hill Zone. We've had some good times here, haven't we Tails?" "Good times? Like Eggman turning our animal friends into robots and pitting them against us." "Yep, good times." Witty!



0:12 Quote of the moment: "Sonic, look out. That armadillo looks angry." How can you tell when an armadillo is angry?



0:13 My first battle, with "Enraged Armadillo." The battle is divided into rounds for some reason. Basically I choose "Attack" and the game automatically does the whole back-and-forth RPG battle thing. I get graded on my battle skills: An "A" for my efforts! I earned some "Crazy Beans" too. They affect me in "unpredictable ways," says the game. Don't do drugs, kids.



0:14 A mysterious man in black throws crates in my way, but Amy comes along and smashes them with her huge yellow hammer. She casually mentions she has a boyfriend named Dexter now. Not this Dexter, I hope.



0:15 "I totally could have jumped over those boxes," says Sonic. "Well, of course you could have. But now you don't have to," replies the cocky Amy. This game is really self-aware. I love it!



0:16 I like the subtle branching dialogue trees that let me blast through to the action or delve deeper into some well-written conversation. Amy is mad that I'm not more jealous of her boyfriend, for instance. Each dialogue choice has a little picture next to it to indicate the mood. Emoticons come to RPGs!



0:17 A Chao hatched in my Chao garden. That is all.



0:19 A battle with a security drone preceded by a simple jump pursuit mini-game. I have to tap Amy and Sonic to jump over boxes as they run across the bottom screen. Seems a little slow ... will probably get old quickly.



0:20 A quick note on presentation: I like the bouncy music and sound effects, but I don't like the jittery scrolling when I run at full speed.



0:22 The battles are wholly uninteresting so far... I just choose "Attack" and I win. Also, there have been a lot of "misses" so far. I guess Sonic is fast, not accurate.



0:23 Already got my first level-up. I can add an extra point on top of the normal boost to one of attack, defense, speed and luck. I can also buy a "POW Move," which does more damage to more enemies.



0:26 A guy is just standing around and needs help with a bridge. But, he says, "You need four characters to solve this puzzle. Come back later." Did you just call me a character? Oh, it's on now!



0:29 I try out my "Fastball" POW Move on a wandering Armadillo and Wasp Swarm combo. This starts an Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan-style mini-game, where I have to tap circles as they narrow and move. Except there's no music and the frame rate's a lot jerkier, causing me to mess up. Not a fan so far.



0:34 Since the game keeps bugging me about it, I head to the Chao garden to see what's going on there. Apparently I can equip my Chao to create a shield of fire to protect me against damage. And here I thought it would just be a stupid virtual pet mini-game!



0:36 I have yet to do worse than an "A" ranking in a single battle.



0:37 Amy levels up, and gets her own POW Move. "Low Blow: Amy tries to hit an enemy at it weakest point, leaving it vulnerable." Hmmm ... I wonder what weak point the female character might target with a "Low Blow"... Hmmmm ... Hmmmmmm!



0:38 Boxing gloves are "not usable by robots"? I believe Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots begs to differ!



0:40 These battles are getting boring and slow. There's a lot of waiting for animations to finish, I notice. The POW Moves provide a little variety, but seem like a waste against the normal enemies.



0:41 Some battles are randoml "Ambushes" where either I or the enemy gets an early attack. I have no idea what causes this.



0:42 I'm getting the hang of POW Moves now. Amy's doesn't actually look like a "Low Blow"... just a normal overhead hammer strike, really.



0:46 The game is quickly reminding me why I find many RPGs boring. Here I am, wandering around largely empty environs, collecting occasional rings, battling the same enemies over and over. I have yet to even use a health item, because leveling up restores all my HP. Give me something interesting, game!



0:50 Aha ... as I approach a wooden bridge, the game tells me, "Now might be a good time to save." Do I detect a boss?



0:51 The black ninja thing that pushed the crates before tells me that's "far enough." Tails says it's a Marauder. The Marauder says this title is "quaint." My teammates warn me about how powerful this guy is. Maybe I should level up a bit first? Nah, but I will use some items to replenish my POW Moves. I even take some prune juice to increase my attack power.



0:54 The Marauder does a massive 10 damage per attack, and also steals back some health every time it hurts me. Still, he doesn't have much HP ... a few POW Moves and he's done before round 3.



0:55 Apparently he warped away right after the battle. How conveeenient. Tails has something to show me in his workshop. A 3-D cut scene of Sonic running seems to conceal some loading.



0:56 In Central City, I enter Tails' workshop, which is an HP-rejuvenating "Stronghold."



0:57 Tails tells the backstory about how Marauders overtook Knuckles. GUN, the Guardian Unit of Nations, is gonna help us out. It's like the UN, but with more firepower, I guess.



0:58 I love this old-school techno music in Central City. Reminds me of the original Game Boy.



0:59 Robots are tromping through the city, so we're off to more fighting. The game admits that "you'll notice you might miss some enemies a lot." That's because they're agile, apparently. Stronger attacks or POW Moves will hit them. Also, I need armor-piercing POW Moves for armored enemies. This is getting deep!



1:04 Wow, these robotic enemies are a lot tougher all of a sudden. Amy goes down and Sonic and Tails are close to death by the time I finally finish them off. I fail on a few POW Moves, causing them to do way too little damage. There are also new defensive tapping moves that I'm not prepared for. My first non-"A" ... a "C" in this battle.



Would I play this game for more than an hour? Yes.



Why? Seems to be a pretty clich?d RPG at heart, but the writing and presentation is decent enough, and the battles are actually getting hard. A good enough time-waster, it seems.



This column is based on a retail version of the game rented from GameFly.

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