10-05-2008, 08:45 AM
A "LMX" Review
Yes, I said I swore off Sonic games after the embarrassment of Sonic and the Secret Rings (what a horrible game) but it was when I heard there was a new Sonic RPG game coming to DS that I started paying attention. Furthermore, when I heard the developers at BioWare were making it, I decided this was a game an exception to the ruling of your typical Sonic game. It was a long wait, but now it’s out and it is completed and left with a rather ambiguous ending. So what did I think of the game? Well, that is what the review is for. But if you want to know what I did think of it right now, the game itself is a simple passable RPG for the DS, nothing too special (Like World Ends With You was) and it’s nothing too bad. It’s just your typical RPG game. And it is a game, which will be overshadowed by already great RPG’s (World Ends With You, Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger to name a few).
Loops are as present here as they are in any other Sonic game.
So without further delay, let’s dive straight into this review with the meatiest part of the RPG genre, the storyline. Now as Sonic games are generally platforming games, the storyline’s are often less than stellar. But in that genre you don’t need a great storyline to be successful (Hell, look at Mario. He’s been saving the same Princess for 20 years) but in an RPG, it is essential that the story is deep and can suck the gamer in. This begs the question, how have BioWare worked a deep, or at the very least, engaging story into the Sonic franchise. In short, they have done a decent job. They have given Sonic and friends a new life, but the story itself isn’t much to ride home about.
This isn’t to say there are not highlights. Now be warned, there might be some slightly plot spoiling things in this review. But I’ll try to avoid it for the most part. When you meet Eggman in Sonic Chronicles, it’s very interesting. I found this part of the storyline when he was travelling with you very interesting. Mostly for the same reason that it was interesting to see Mario and Bowser working together in Super Mario RPG (I’m surprised I lasted this long without bringing this review back to the Mario RPG entry). The story of a villain greater than Eggman coming along was something we also should have coming. I won’t spoil the background of the villain, but it’s a being known as Ix. And he wishes to restore his species place in the world and to do so he of course plans on using the Chaos Emeralds (Surprise, surprise), so naturally this drags Knuckles the Echidna into the thick of things. I’ll stop here, as I’d consider stuff beyond what I’ve said as spoilers. Sonic fans will thoroughly enjoy the storyline but I regret to say that the typical hardcore RPG gamer will find a somewhat empty experience here. And even worse, people coming off the Mass Effect high won’t find quite the same magic here. But don’t give up on it though; there is a turning point when you reach the section of the game when you need to go to Angel Island. It picks up somewhat at this point and you should be able to ride the rest of the game out.
Characterisation was another huge part of the RPG genre, so when this game was announced a lot of Sonic fans were instantly attentive to the idea of seeing their favourite furry creatures meet a real character-driven game. And it is here where I felt the game lacked the most. I’m not a dedicated Sonic gamer, but I’ve played my fair share and although I didn’t expect them to change any of the characters for the game (That would have angered fans, obviously) it almost feels like they didn’t really make much of an effort to develop the characters further either.
Don’t you get an attitude with me, young man.
This is probably only a small problem for some, but I felt that the lack of character development harmed the story progression. The only hint of character development was shown in the moments when Eggman was with your party. As he witnessed Sonic and co. taking down his old robots and being general do-gooders was intriguing to him, and he had some interesting pieces of dialogue at these points of the game as well. To which Sonic would be able to respond in a number of ways, here’s the next section where the game kind of fell over. Mass Effect is known for it’s freedom, and this continues in conversation where you could choose different branches to take the conversation to different places and cause different reactions. Well this feature is hinted at in Sonic Chronicles as there are different responses you can give, but in the end they all come full circle to the one single same response.
To me, this kind of defeated the purpose of even offering the branches. For example at least once every couple of chapters Tails will remind Sonic he should “save his game”, because you know… we don’t know to do that. And you are given the option to scold Tails and tell him that you know how to save your game, and he will just cop it and be like, “Oh… okay Sonic.” He acts as though its nothing, it’d be interesting to see him react to Sonic acting like a jerk. But no, nothing of such happens in this game. When you are rude to Shadow or pick on Knuckles for not being able to fight off the Marauders, you simply continue on with the game. Maybe it’s just my inability to see the changes in the characters but throughout the game Sonic will maintain his arrogance, Tails will stay just as clever but cautious, Shadow will continue being stand off-ish towards everyone, Knuckles will continue being headstrong and a lone wolf, and Amy will continue to dote on Sonic while professing she has a boyfriend. Oh dear, oh dear. But apart from that, the unchanging characters won’t get on your nerves.
Visually the game is really rather pleasing, it features rather well constructed 3D models of the blue hedgehog on friends, and they are presented on very well designed cartoon-styled level maps. All of the classic zones that are present here maintain their typical feeling. Green Hill Zone still has the classic loops as well as the usual hills here and there, and Central City also maintains its style and look from Sonic Adventure 2. And at the same time the game introduces a host of new areas which look as though they would fit in perfectly to the Sonic universe, such as a place known as Blue Ridge Zone which features a windy path, several hills and ramps and a small settlement at which you can purchase supplies. Each area has a style that it maintains, and each style is very Sonic. That is to say they would not be out of place in one of the classic Sonic side-scrolling games. A massive positive and a real credit to the level design over at BioWare.
Left to area goal. Right to optional goal.
As I mentioned, the 3D models are relatively impressive as well, showcasing what the DS can do. And they do not look at all out of place on the stylish terrain maps either. The battle areas however look very bland and empty, and the enemies are not at all very inspiring either. Once again, Sonic’s staple enemies aren’t of the memorable variety but you’d still think (as an RPG game) there’d be enemies worth remembering. Unfortunately this is not the case, you’ll find yourself fighting Gizoids, Wasps, Eggman Robots, and various Robotic creatures in Green Hills Zone and Blue Ridge Zone, nothing memorable though. The game does not use cinematic, but instead stylish and somewhat comic book like scenes to progress certain points of the story. They work well and fit into the games design, unfortunately they lack voice acting, which is a point I will touch upon later.
If there was anything that was going to make or break the game, it was the gameplay. This game is completely touch controlled, meaning that you won’t be touching the d-pad or any other buttons. You navigate the menu, battle system and conversations all by use of the touch screen. You have the option to use the L or R buttons to move through conversations, which can sometimes be easier but I just stuck with the stylus, as it was natural by a certain point in the game. The touch controls work well for the game and the movement is very similar to Phantom Hourglass in which that you put the stylus in the direction you want Sonic to run. Another thing to note is that each character possesses unique abilities, which you’ll need to use throughout the game. This is both cool and incredibly annoying, as sometimes you’ll find yourself forced to use certain characters. And it can be very annoying it you don’t actually want to have that character in your team. For example when you reach Mystic Ruins and obtain Big the Cat, you’ll need to keep him out there to travel through the poisonous fog that fills the area. Which means you are stuck with him in your party for that area. However, one positive is that some characters double up on abilities and by endgame you’ll have several characters with Fly, and several with Stealth, and several with Speed. So that problem I just mentioned becomes nearly non-existent towards the end of the game, but when it is a problem it’s just plain annoying. I also noticed that the in game currency (Which is of course Rings) becomes very annoying, as each area has a Ring limit and you certainly don’t get extra Rings from enemies. So what Rings you get you’ll need to use them wisely. And with such expensive items, you’ll find yourself short on supplies at some points. Luckily chests can come packed with several items.
The battle system used in Sonic Chronicles is a turn based one, however this is where the speed aspect of the Sonic franchise comes into play. Based on how high the speed of a character is, they may get to attack multiple times in one turn. Which is a very beneficial system. For example, when you first start, Sonic attacks three times in one turn, compared to a character like Big who will only attack once. This allows you to dedicate one of Sonic’s moves to healing the party if you are in a tight spot and still allocate the other two actions to pure attacking. I quite liked this part of the game, however it can become a hindrance. Not because of the characters, but because of certain battle mechanics that will cause your characters to miss. Sometimes when you miss, you will miss a lot, sometimes it’ll happen a good six or seven times in a row and there is nothing you can do but hope you hit next time. And you can go away, level up and come back to say Green Hill Zones to fight wasps and you could still miss you as much as you did when you first started there. This can make a lot of fights very frustrating and can often drag them out. Especially because the enemies never really scale up too much, if you finish Blue Ridge Zone then for some reason go back to Green Hill Zone the enemies will still be scaled to a level one team. And there is the same amount of chance that you’ll miss, thus making them a general annoyance. Furthermore, when you’ve over levelled in an area, the enemies will only give out 10xp per battle. Which really means you will have to move onto the next area unless you feel like fighting hundreds of battles to gain that necessary 10,000xp points to level up. The escape scenarios are a homage to Sonic games almost as well, to prevent the enemy from escaping or for you yourself to escape you need to just run away, collect rings, jump over boxes so you aren’t slowed down and hit speed boosters to increase the odds of your escape. I liked this neat system.
Slash = Drag the stylus across the screen. It’ll make Shadow happy.
Add into this the Chaos that you collect as you go, and you have a relatively deep but ultimately basic system. Certain Chaos will increase your odds of hitting (Which you will love), some will increase damage, some will make you hatch better Chaos, and so on and so forth. Chaos are a good thing to have on your side, pick the right ones for the right situations if you can figure out which suits which. There are even elemental Chaos for those feeling like figuring out the elemental weaknesses of enemies. There are several different classes, which offer different users. Speed obviously implies high speed stats, Power are your tanks and will dish out damage; Support will be the healer of the party. The classes are also useful for different reasons; you’ll want to mix and match to try them all out.
The battle system isn’t altogether awful, but you will find it slightly frustrating at times when a battle, which should have lasted one round, instead takes five rounds.
To perform your characters special attacks (or POW moves as they are called) you will be using a series of touch orientated controls. This sort of system is interesting, but unfortunately it lacks variety and ultimately can become boring and frustrating. Every special move relies on this, even a simple action like Cream trying to heal your party when it is in dire need of some HP. And if you mess up one of the touch commands you’d better believe you’re going to fail at healing. However it works in reverse on enemies and is quite good as if you are very skilled at it then you’ll be able to deny most enemies from even touching you with special attacks. This is very helpful, particularly in the final boss fight.
When it comes down to it though, the game will feel like a point-to-point RPG game for the first six hours. Afterwards it picks up for a bit and then becomes a collect the item by travelling from location to location kind of RPG. You may rest assured Sonic fans, there is fan service in this game, and there is a lot of it.
Sonic Chronicles has created a reasonable soundscape. Catchy tunes will accompany your trips around the various locales. It has been mentioned that there are even remixes of the classic Sonic tunes in this game, but as I’m not an avid Sonic fan I honestly wouldn’t recognise them. I have read about a couple though, such as Mystic Ruins featuring a remixed version of “Final Fight” from Sonic 3D on Mega Drive. It’s a great feature to have the remixed music there for fans to squeal in delight over but at the same time the game’s music will not bore a non-Sonic fan. Summed up the soundtrack is fun and very Sonic-like, and all round very well suited for a Sonic game. So my hat comes off to the composer of Chronicles. However the sound effects leave a lot to be desired in the game. A lot of the sounds are recycled and used constantly and there is a distinct lack of any voice acting. Which is somewhat disappointing after being spoiled by Final Fantasy IV’s quality voice work. But really, I ask myself if I’d want to hear Sonic’s annoying English voice and the answer is no. But Sonic fans that have somehow become immune to his annoying voice might be a little disappointed.
Well, at least he looks proud of himself. Pity the games still aren’t quite reflecting it.
Overall, this game is not a particularly amazing RPG for the simple reason that it feels a lot like a starter RPG for beginners. A lot of veteran RPG fans will find the game ease and breeze through it, rarely getting stuck. The game has a habit of throwing one puzzle at you per area where you must use every character in your party to accomplish a certain task. This can become tedious, but never fear you can buy hints for 30 rings each. Woo! In short, give this game a try, but if you are not enjoying it after the first few chapters then you probably won’t get too much of a kick out of it by the end of the game. And yes, judging by the ending, there is probably going to be a sequel. Want to know why? Play through to the end and you’ll see otherwise I won’t spoil it for you. But if you didn’t see it coming then please don’t tell me, because it was quite predictable at the moment when you lose someone.
PROS
+Sonic fans will get a kick out of this game
+It is the first Sonic game for a while that I’ve finished, and came out with some positive memories.
+Some interesting mechanics.
+Good music.
+Good level design.
CONS
-Annoying battle mechanics.
-Little character development.
-Story chugs along, sometimes struggling.
-Only really a starter RPG.
-Big the Cat sucks.
LMX NOTE: I too like Alex have started using the review system that WiiLoaded has set up. I would give the game a flat 7/10 if it was up to me, but 7.2 is okay with me. But despite this review, give the game a try. It might surprise you. It didn’t surprise me; Sonic continues to bare the curse. Mario RPG is far better.