For a while we thought Sonic was a goner, a blue hedgehog-shaped smear on the tarmac of gaming history. With Sonic Team's every attempted step forward, his scores plummeted down. Multiple characters exploring 3D environments? Say hello to the 70s. Big the Cat? It's the 60s for you. Sonic with guns? He's practically hibernating in a nest of 50s. With Secret Rings, the team has finally realised that the only way forwards is backwards and - not to come over too Riddler-like - in Sonic's case the only way backwards is forwards. At breakneck speeds.
Essence of hog Filter him down into his purest form - the original Sonic on Mega Drive - and you'll find little more than the urge to move forwards. Speedily moving from the left of the screen to the right, Sonic was about distance covered and little else. In Secret Rings this purity of motivation has been gloriously rediscovered, with Sonic sent zipping along, jumping obstacles and bopping the occasional baddie on the head like it was 1991.
Despite the 3D expanses visible in these screenshots, the game dictates how you progress with an invisible racing line that Sonic doggedly, or hedgehoggedly, adheres to. At first this is slightly befuddling. Preparing for incoming landscape only to see the blue bullet veer off in a new direction makes you feel a bit helpless, and with control largely limited2 to tilting the remote to steer, a few suspicions are raised of how much actual game playing is going on.
Spend some time in Sonic's well-worn boots and these suspicions are unfounded. Any developer trying to capture speed has no choice but to take some freedom out of the player's hands; left to our own devices it's unlikely we'd find the most aesthetically pleasing or challenging route through the landscapes - and this is what Sonic Team achieves by putting the game on the rails.
Secondly, gameplay is not a simple case of running from one end to the other. An objectives system akin to Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam is in place, forcing players to rerun particular sections of the overall track with different goals to complete. Collecting X amount of rings, killing a certain number of enemies, beating the clock - these objectives are the very challenges that gamers in 16-bit days would delight in imposing on themselves once they'd completed the game and wanted to stretch out the playing experience. In paying homage to the fan tradition of repeat runs, Secret Rings reveals itself to be the first Sonic title since the early nineties glory days to actually take the time to think about what made Sonic so popular in the first place.
Completely new, however, is the ability system. With an RPG-ish vibe Sonic can stock certain skills that affect how he handles. From simple speed increases to more minor tinkering with Sonic's skidding distances, the idea is to equip Sonic before each task to give him the best fighting chance. While some tasks are impossible without certain skills - such as homing attacks to bop across an enemy-filled gap - outside of these move-set altering abilities, many of the 99 skills available feel slightly superfluous; minor adjustments that rarely affect gameplay. Once Sonic has amassed the core set of more obviously 'useful' abilities he's one powerful hedgehog - but a skill-slot-limiting levelling system does a good job of keeping such a combo out of your hands until you're well into the game.
Knuckles biter This isn't to say that Secret Rings is a walk/blistering sprint in the park - another nod back to its Mega Drive roots is its old school challenge. Initial runs through the levels are easy enough, generous checkpoints and unlimited attempts easing us through. It's with later objectives that things get nasty, requiring perfect memory of obstacle and foe layout to even think about nailing the unimpressive bronze medals and near-godlike skills needed to unlock golds. Levels become mere chains of moves with left-left-jump-shake-tilt-jump-right-right-jump etched in your memory.
Sounds anal? Well, it's the secret to seeing the game at its best. Played by a perfectionist, Secret Rings is face-meltingly fast and beautiful to behold. It was designed to be seen at top speed and when he slows down Sonic looks plain wrong, his legs sluggishly slipping against the ground when they should be one continual blur. Likewise, nothing ruins the moment like missing a gate switch and having to stop and backtrack - albeit by only five meters - to hit it. Hitting the 1 button puts on the brakes and tilting the remote backwards makes Sonic reverse - a hideously clumsy action in a game obviously designed for going forwards. It doesn't ruin the game, but it ruins that particular run. Hit restart and make it all better.
Just as the game gets better as you improve at it, so do the stunning graphics. As Sonic dashes along translucent neon corkscrewing air trails in Levitated Ruins or sprints past the truly gorgeous undulating waves and lashing rain of Pirate Bay, it would take a fool not to give Sonic Team its due and claim that this is the finest-looking Wii game to date. Sonic Team are happy to let these vistas pass in a flash - a testament to their confidence that what's coming around the next corner is guaranteed to impress in equal amounts.
Single player mode is multiplayer friendly - the short task lengths welcome pass-the-remote play - and the 40 minigames designed specifically for four friends are a joy. Playing a violin with the remote, spiralling your remote like a canoe paddle and, our personal favourite, snatching away carpets when the genie on top leaps - you'll love it trust us - make for a simpler, sweeter and more addictive set of games than offered in Monkey Ball. Like Sonic himself, Secret Rings has some pair of legs on it.
So where has this hedgehog been all these years? In a manky leaf hibernation? Eating from a massive bowl of cat food? Wherever he was, it's done him good. This release simultaneously strips Sonic down and bulks him up, reminding us of the gaming glory that once was.
Polished and entertaining, but not without moments that make you scream and curse your clumsy playing. This is a great Wii start for a franchise we'd given up on years ago.
I suppose it's a sign of how bad things have actually gotten for sonic in recent years that someone like me who literally grew up with the franchise (games, toys, I even bought the comic which was and still is fantastic even though it was cancelled), has lost so much faith in Sega’s ability to make a decent sonic game.
I insisted on reading every review twice and then compared them with each other before even thinking about buying this game. Now a lot of reviews are in and most seem to be within the 75-85 score range, with only a few bad reviews (every game gets at least one bad review).
So will I buy this sonic game, this sonic game which has had a mostly positive reaction, a game which shows a mascot on the mend, a game which raises my hopes that sonic will one day appear in smash bros, and I will finally be able to kick that lazy plumbers bottom (he never does any plumbing, ever). erm no.
I insisted on reading every review twice and then compared them with each other before even thinking about buying this game. Now a lot of reviews are in and most seem to be within the 75-85 score range, with only a few bad reviews (every game gets at least one bad review).
Very true. From reading the reviews, it sounds like this is an essentially good core idea with some flawed aspects of execution, much of it related to the completely awkward mechanic for moving backward. The reviewers are saying "Best 3D Sonic ever," despite ranking it below Heroes and Sonic Adventure 2. This contrasts with reviews of more recent Sonic games that made them sound fundamentally bad at the core. Sounds like this new take has a lot going for it, and they could really make it great if they've worked out some of the kinks.
I've never been a sonic fan and considering most of sonic's 3d outing have been complete tripe i was interested to see how this would turn out.. Having read a few mixed reveiw it was time to judge the game myself and in all fairness this supasses all expections there is a few control issues name moving back but this doesnt effect the gameplay in anyway. I highly recomend you pick this game up..
I Personally gave up on sonic the hedgehog after sonic 2, when tails first showed up i think, i never was a big fan, despite growing up with both the nes/snes and megadrive, i found myself playing mario and zelda more than sonic, not because it was a bad game though, or bad idea, and now were in the 3d era ive found myself not likin 3d mario or zelda, TP sucks, and OOT is only worthy of wiping ALLTP bottom, hopefully this sonic game makes the grade
the last sonic game i enjoyed was Sonic Adventure - it had its flaws, but i was generally a big fan of it.
then sonic adventure came out and as a kid i wasn't willing to pay Ł30 for it despite the fact it was second hand and all other dc second hand games cost around a tenner.
anyway, i finally got it on the gamecube and I was shocked to find that they had messed with the formula so much it had crippled the game.
and what the hell was that soundtrack about, i got stuck really early on in the game on a knuckles level and i just remember it being something about:
"agenumnum, that's where i be playing.... blah blah blah, knuckles is wicked, knuckles is cool"
it was really embarrasing.
And following the disgrace that was sonic heroes - with an almighty glitch that meant i was stuck in a pit in the pinball table for about 45 minutes - I really can't be bothered with sonic at all.
Can anyone tell me how sensitve the tilting is? i know the pad can be VERY sensitive. Excite Truck is proof of that, i want it to be more lenient so i can do exaggerated tilts to move. not move one mil and he flies across the screen.
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