Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Two great tastes that taste great together?
5/22/2008 4:31 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

What do you get when you combine one of the world's most celebrated game studios specializing in RPGs with a beloved blue spiky-haired hedgehog? The answer, of course, is Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, a portable role-playing game for the Nintendo DS created by BioWare (Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic), to be published by Sega this fall.

Crispy Gamer spent some hands-on time with the game at a pre-E3 event in San Francisco, and though the developers wouldn't answer all of our questions, specifically about the story and characters, we liked what we saw and played.

In this first-ever Sonic RPG, our hero bands with his pals to defeat a menacing evil that's disrupting life on this once-peaceful world. Yes, the tale sounds awfully trite so far, but we'll trust BioWare not to let us down. BioWare has a well-deserved reputation of delivering a decent story; we'll know more about the story by E3 in July, we're told.

In any event, this Nintendo DS game is played from an angled 2-D top-down perspective, with Sonic and up to three friends in your party controlled via the stylus on the bottom touch-screen. The top display is reserved for a map of the area, or during combat, character stats and other information (more on this in a moment).

We played through Level 3 in the game, called Mystic Ruins, where Sonic attempts to rescue Knuckles, who is held captive somewhere in this dark, outdoor jungle-like level. The first step is to pick friends to join your party, specifically those whose skills can help your quest. For example, one of our three extra characters was Big, a chubby cat with invincibility as his power, and therefore he was able to walk through poisonous green smoke that obscures some paths. Along with Sonic, who enjoys fast speeds, we rounded off our party with Tails, who can fly, and Amy, equipped with a big hammer, which is convenient during battle. She can also blow a kiss to other party members to give them extra strength. Changing from one controllable character to another is as easy as tapping on the character's face off to the side of the screen.

The two available BioWare reps said they couldn't reveal how many characters will be in the final game (Sega originally confirmed 11 when the game was announced), nor would they tell us how many were classic Sonic characters versus all-new ones. Sigh.

The 3-D combat is handled in a turn-based fashion, therefore you'll find yourself facing, say, three big centipedes or a giant worm, and as with many other RPGs, your party will take turns walloping the enemies with that character's main weapon or with a special attack, and you'll see the damage done as hit points. Some attacks require real-time stylus work, such as accurately tapping inside fast-moving circles, drawing a pattern or tapping the screen quickly. You can also use up your turn with a defensive move, by using an item such as a healing potion, or by fleeing the scene.

In order to fuel your power-up moves and enable new abilities, players must find and collect "Chao" (pronounced "chow") in the game. You'll be able to wirelessly trade Chao with other Nintendo DS players in the room via Wi-Fi in order to unlock everything.