|  Author | Topic: Sonic and the Secret Rings [ROTM] (Read 252 times) |
wildgoosespeeder
Link
![[image]](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a398/saladbar1/NA/Ranks/Link.png)
[M:4500]
member is offline
![[avatar]](http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/7236/wildgooseuu6.jpg)
Tiers are for queers!
![[msn]](http://i30.tinypic.com/2i234n6.jpg) ![[aim]](http://i25.tinypic.com/2wp5y0p.jpg)
![[homepage]](http://i27.tinypic.com/fc43fm.jpg)
Joined: Jan 2009
Gender: Male 
Posts: 728
Location: Somewhere
Karma: 6 |  | Sonic and the Secret Rings [ROTM]
« Thread Started on Feb 1, 2009, 10:59pm » | |
![[image]](http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/1835/satsr.png)
This is Sonic's first game on the Wii. Back when I was subscribed to Nintendo Power Magazine all the hype began back in the August 2006. The working title was Sonic Wild Fire. Based on the reviews of the previews, this game was most anticipated. If you were to play it on it's release date on February 20, 2007 this game would be somewhat of a let down.
Story: 6/10
First we find Sonic sleeping. Then he wakes up because he hears a strange voice. He grabs for the ring and it starts glowing. Then Shahra comes out of the ring. Sonic is startled. Shahra tells Sonic not to fear. Shahra tells Sonic to look at a book. Sonic notices that there are no words on it. Shahra then explains that the world of the Arabian Nights is vanishing all caused by an evil spirit called the Erazor Djinn. He didn't want to be in the world any longer. The book seems to have power so the Erazor Djinn wants to absorb it to become even more powerful. If the world of the Arabian Nights ceases to exist, the Erazor Djinn will then bring about havoc in Sonic's world. Shahra wants Sonic to stop the Erazor Djinn. Sonic is then granted the power of Shahra to grant simple wishes just by wearing a ring on his finger. Shahra says the contract has been sealed. Talk about the way the business world can rip you off if you don't read the contract or can't understand it! As master of the ring, Shahra is bound to protect Sonic. Sonic must rub the ring to summon Shahra to grant him a wish. As an unexpected test Sonic wishes for a few handkerchiefs because he starts sneezing. Then Sonic is covered head-to-tow in handkerchiefs. Shahra feels a little foolish granting the wishes of some immature hedgehog. Before they go into the book, Sonic didn't want to be called "master" but rather his famous name "Sonic the Hedgehog". Shahra then wants to call him "Sonic the Legendary Hedgehog". Then they both set-off on a magic carpet into the book of the Arabian Nights.
OK the first thing that catches my attention is "What ever happened to the classic plot of Eggman? Where's Tails? Where's Knuckles?" At first I was thinking this is just like the Super Mario Bros. 2 confusion where Japan gets the Super Mario Bros. version just with enhanced game play and graphics and North America and Europe get Doki Doki Panic Mario.
[spoiler]
Turns out that they will be appearing later in the story as characters in a play of some kind. Eggman is King Shahryar, Tails is Ali Baba, and Knuckles is Sinbad. Sonic gets confused and calls them by what names he's familiar with.
[/spoiler]
Game Play: 5/10
You start the game by selecting the Lost Prologue. After the cut scene you start off in training-type levels to learn the basic operations of Sonic. I'd say this is mandatory because the controls are stiff, jerky, and at times unresponsive. Later you will unlock more missions which is more specific controlling when you equip rings to Sonic.
Controlling Sonic as I said before feels stiff, jerky, and at times unresponsive. The control style is the Wii Remote on its side. The camera is always positioned behind Sonic when he is running. To move Sonic left or right you tilt the Wii Remote left or right. To make Sonic run you tilt the Wii Remote forward. This is where the disappointment starts. It takes Sonic a good ten seconds to reach his full speed unequipped with enhancement rings. You heard me right! Ten seconds. Yes I did time it. In other Sonic games it takes at max just two seconds for Sonic to reach full speed. Sometimes when I found Sonic getting close to an edge of a pitfall, I leaned him opposite of the pitfall. Then I found myself just jerking the Wii Remote around to try and keep Sonic stable. That just made it worse and I end up dying anyway. When running, holding the 2 button down will make Sonic start to slide. Releasing the 2 button will make Sonic jump. The longer you hold it down before releasing it, the higher Sonic jumps. While in mid-air after the jump you can do a homing attack. If an enemy is nearby or a breakable hazard, a green cursor will surround it. When it changes to red, shake the Wii Remote forward to make Sonic home-in. You can also do the homing attack without an enemy nearby, it really just extends his jumping distance when running. Homing attacks at times aren't responsive resulting in death most of the time. You can also jump while standing still by holding down the 1 button. The 1 button is your brake button. While holding the 1 button you can move backwards by tilting the Wii Remote backward. This is where things weren't thought of during development. While moving backward, you are navigating blindly. The camera doesn't adjust to where you can see what's coming up behind you. It's just luck whether you don't hit a hazard or not. Imagine backing out of a driveway in a car where you didn't look behind you. You wouldn't see cars or pedestrians passing by. You'd hit them and maybe even kill them. At some points in this game you are going to be against a wall to navigate a narrow passageway. Just tilt the Wii Remote left or right depending on what direction you want to go in. Just don't tilt the Wii Remote to make Sonic stop. The Soul Gauge allows you to perform Speed Break and Time Break. Pressing up on the D-pad activates Speed Break and down activates Time Break. Speed Break makes Sonic go supersonic speed, making him have a better chance passing obstacles that are too hard to time to pass. Time Break makes everything go frame-by-frame and the graphics turn gray-style. This allows for better reaction time. Most of the control scheme is like driving a car. What was Sonic Team thinking with this control scheme? Am I supposed to be driving a car or am I supposed to be controlling a hedgehog? Did Sega lay off the smart developers of the past Sonic games? What happened to just tapping the jump button to jump automatically? What happened to the longer you hold down the jump button, the higher Sonic jumps? Whatever happened to pressing the jump button while in mid-air to perform a homing attack? The Nunchuk accessory existed during development. Why not use the control stick on the Nunchuk to make Sonic move?
The World Select screen is pretty straight forward. You select one of the available worlds and then you are presented with the available missions. Excluding the Lost Prologue, there is the main mission which is get to the goal. There are also mini-missions. Most of them were good but there were some that just bothered me.
[spoiler]
Stealth Attack mission you can't defeat any enemy or else you fail the mission.
Hands Off mission you can't finish the level with any rings.
No Pearls mission you can't touch any pearls or else you fail the mission.
What is this? You can't defeat enemies, can't collect rings, or can't collect pearls? These are the dumbest missions I've ever heard of! What if in Super Mario 64 you can't collect coins or step on Goombas to complete your missions? You WANT to collect those coins and stomp on those Goombas. I can understand missions where you have a certain time limit or you can't take damage, but missions where you must avoid collectables and power-ups is a sorry excuse for a mission.
In the Hands Off mission if you accidentally collect rings, you have the option to have enemies touch you. If they harm you, you drop rings, but that's a different story which will be mentioned later.
Why did Sonic Team want Sonic to do this? It makes you think they want the Sonic series to die.
[/spoiler]
Before you start your mission you have the option to equip rings. Rings basically improve game controls and add new abilities. There are four slots of configurations, allowing for a more user-friendly environment. You can only select one configuration at a time. This really eliminates the need to remember what configuration you had previously when you want to change it, which is better compared to Paper Mario (N64) and it's badge system. The Customize screen looks similar to Paper Mario's Badges screen. It tells you what rings you have collected, the description of what the ring does, how many skill points it consumes, and skill points already consumed (used/max).
There are some helpful objects along the way. We all know what rings in the Sonic world are but there is a welcomed addition and that is the Rich Ring. This ring is silver, bigger, and has a star center. This is worth 20 rings. Fire Souls unlock game content and are usually placed in hard-to-reach areas. Only some missions have them and when a mission has one, there are three total per mission. Pearls fill-up your Soul Gauge by one unit and Rich Pearls fill it by twenty units. At first I didn't see any Soul Gauge. I felt something was wrong. I kept seeing these Pearls on the play field and I wasn't sure what they were for.
[spoiler]
Later in the game at the Evil Foundary, after you beat the main mission, you unlock the Soul Gauge ring. Equip it to have the Soul Gauge appear. This allows you to use your Speed Break and Time Break actions.
[/spoiler]
The ring system in general is treated like a HP system. Instead of losing all your rings when you touch something harmful, you lose just some of them. If your ring count is 0 when you touch something harmful, you die. There is a limit to how many rings you can have at one time. What were they thinking with this ring system? What if in a Mario game you had a limit to how much coins you can have at one time? It would make it harder to gain lives, that's for sure. There is no life system which makes this game so much easier. It feels required to have in this game because the controls, like I said, are awful. You are going to die a lot in this game but you'll never get game over. When you progress in this game there are no visible checkpoints. It is just luck whether or not you reach a certain point to go back to. When you die in most Sonic games, you go back the last checkpoint passed.
There are Action Objects that help you reach areas that are otherwise unreachable. Springs are well known in all Sonic games. Some edges allow you to grind on them. Just jump on and you are grinding. Press the 2 button to regain speed. Warning, I couldn't jump off of them when I wanted to. I couldn't figure it out. Catapults are big spoons that fling Sonic a far distance. Just tilt the Wii Remote toward you and shake it forward. The harder you shake it forward, the farther Sonic flies. There are Flying Pots that make Sonic go vertical. You must perform a Homing Attack to get in. Once in, just shake the Wii Remote up and down to fly up. Tilting the Wii Remote left or right affects it flight path. To get out just press 2. There are round Air Launchers that make Sonic stay in the center in mid-air. It will contract and expand. Just shake the Wii Remote to launch him. The more contracted the Air Launcher is, the farther Sonic will fly. There are also Air Launchers with spikes but doesn't matter how contracted they are. They will launch Sonic with a set force. There are also Jump Carpets but I honestly don't know how these work. I never came across these. Either that or they are there but rare to find. That's a little bit of a concern for me.
At the end of each level you are rated on how long it took you to complete the level. Depending how fast you complete the level, you get a gold metal, a silver metal, a bronze metal, or nothing as a rating. What happened to the grading scale of A, B, C, D, or E/F? This was just a minor annoyance. Also there are bonuses that tell you how many experience points you get.
After you see the results you go to the experience screen. How much experience you earned from the level is added to your experience counter (experience earned/experience needed to level-up Sonic). You also earn experience just by completing the mission. Leveling-up Sonic unlocks more rings to equip, adds to his skill points, and allows for more rings to be able to have at one time. After the experience screen you get how many screens you have coming that tells you what you unlocked.
Graphics: 9/10
There are two things that Sonic Team really excel at in all of there 3D Sonic platformers and one of them is the graphics. For the most part the graphics are awesome. They fit the Arabian Nights environment quite nicely. In other reviews I've seen and read there was a problem with the cutscenes. Most of the cutscenes have a storybook-type animation to them. There are only two animated cutscenes in this entire game. People say this was "the lazy way out". That may be the case but I am going to have to disagree with them. They overlooked the overall theme to this game. I understand where Sonic Team was going with this. This game has a storybook theme to it and having all animated cutscenes would make this theme not sit quite right. Overall the cutscenes are designed appropriately.
Music: 9/10
Another thing that Sonic Team excels at is the music. In all Sonic 3D platformers up to Sonic and the Secret Rings, the rock and techno genres worked quite nicely for the game it was designed for. This game takes a slight spin to just a hard rock genre. During game play you will have mainly hard rock playing with a possibility of either Indian sounding music or a Piano sounding thrown into the mix. This works almost perfectly while playing. If the level looks exciting, the music is fast. It the level feels depressing, the music is slow. This really matches the free-spirited hedgehog we all know and love the best out of all soundtracks from previous Sonic 3D platformers. The storybook cutscenes just have Indian-themed background music which works just as well since our hedgehog is just talking.
Multiplayer: No rating
There is a multiplayer mode, but from previous reviews I saw and read, they are rather pointless to include in this game. I never played in the multiplayer mode because this game is better played alone. This section doesn't get a rating. If the developers didn't waste their time on the multiplayer mode, more welcomed additions and/or better developed game play could have happened. This includes the game play spoiler and the sloppy controls.
Replay Value: 5/10
The music, graphics, and the hedgehog bring the replay value up while the new story, the multiplayer mode, and the sloppy controls bring the replay value down. After you beat the game you just want to put it away forever.
Overall score: 6.8/10
|
PLEASE PM ME WITH YOUR MESSENGER SCREEN NAME BEFORE ADDING ME TO YOUR BUDDY LIST OR ELSE I IGNORE THE BUDDY LIST REQUEST!
Firefox and AVGN aren't gods. |
|
nintendosquirrel
Tortimer
![[image]](http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a398/saladbar1/NA/Ranks/tortimer.png)
[M:2605]
member is offline
![[avatar]](http://www.maplewiki.net/images/f/f9/Chipmunk.PNG)
May or may not be a real squirrel
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 198
Karma: 4 | | Re: Sonic and the Secret Rings
« Reply #1 on Feb 7, 2009, 11:43am » | |
Should be a great review, but I can't really think of much that counts as a spoiler. The story is pretty...well for lack of a better term: like a sonic game.
|
![[image]](http://i25.tinypic.com/wqoj8h.png)
![[image]](http://i31.tinypic.com/2ebczrq.png)
![[image]](http://i43.tinypic.com/33vje3b.png) |
|
wildgoosespeeder
Link
[M:4500]
member is offline
Tiers are for queers!
Joined: Jan 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 728
Location: Somewhere
Karma: 6 | | Re: Sonic and the Secret Rings
« Reply #2 on Feb 7, 2009, 11:47am » | |
You will find out why it's a spoiler.
|
PLEASE PM ME WITH YOUR MESSENGER SCREEN NAME BEFORE ADDING ME TO YOUR BUDDY LIST OR ELSE I IGNORE THE BUDDY LIST REQUEST!
Firefox and AVGN aren't gods. |
|
nintendosquirrel
Tortimer
[M:2605]
member is offline
May or may not be a real squirrel
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 198
Karma: 4 | | Re: Sonic and the Secret Rings
« Reply #3 on Feb 7, 2009, 9:22pm » | |
Feb 7, 2009, 11:47am, wildgoosespeeder wrote:| You will find out why it's a spoiler. |
|
I've already beaten the entire story, but now that I think about it I think I know what you're talking about.
|
|
|
wildgoosespeeder
Link
[M:4500]
member is offline
Tiers are for queers!
Joined: Jan 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 728
Location: Somewhere
Karma: 6 | | Re: Sonic and the Secret Rings
« Reply #4 on Feb 8, 2009, 8:26pm » | |
I'm finally done with my review. This is going to be my ROTM contest entry. My Sonic Unleashed review was a test to see how well I write reviews and is really a response to redchaoschao94's review.
|
PLEASE PM ME WITH YOUR MESSENGER SCREEN NAME BEFORE ADDING ME TO YOUR BUDDY LIST OR ELSE I IGNORE THE BUDDY LIST REQUEST!
Firefox and AVGN aren't gods. |
|
nintendosquirrel
Tortimer
[M:2605]
member is offline
May or may not be a real squirrel
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 198
Karma: 4 | | Re: Sonic and the Secret Rings
« Reply #5 on Feb 8, 2009, 10:00pm » | |
Great review: very detailed. Although personally I would have given it a slightly higher score.
|
|
|
wildgoosespeeder
Link
[M:4500]
member is offline
Tiers are for queers!
Joined: Jan 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 728
Location: Somewhere
Karma: 6 | | Re: Sonic and the Secret Rings
« Reply #6 on Feb 8, 2009, 10:12pm » | |
It was mainly controlling Sonic which killed the score. The story also helps with worsening the score.
|
PLEASE PM ME WITH YOUR MESSENGER SCREEN NAME BEFORE ADDING ME TO YOUR BUDDY LIST OR ELSE I IGNORE THE BUDDY LIST REQUEST!
Firefox and AVGN aren't gods. |
| |
|
![[Home]](http://i43.tinypic.com/2llk941.png)
![[Help]](http://i34.tinypic.com/21ln68z.png)
![[Search]](http://i36.tinypic.com/ideuxh.png)
![[Login]](http://i37.tinypic.com/fy1lk6.png)
![[Search This Thread]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/search2.gif)
![[Send Topic To Friend]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/buttons/sendtopic.gif)
![[Print]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/buttons/print.gif)
Logged