Topic: Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

[Smakian]

Played this this weekend and I had a surprisingly enjoyable time with it. The stylus control was fairly well executed, special actions like climbing ledges or performing special moves (sonic dashing, tails flying, etc) were performed by tapping context-sensitive buttons that would pop up. The combat had a lot of Paper Mario-esque different minigame actions attached to special moves, which took me a bit to figure out as the demo did not include the corresponding tutorials. Also got a good taste of the running away minigame, as the enemies around me were low level and usually tried to bolt. It featured all four party members running after the fleeing enemies, with me having to tap each character to leap hazards along the way. If I missed too many jumps, they got away. If I caught them, combat resumed and I got a free attack round.

I also got a chance to have a little dialogue with an NPC and tackle a simple puzzle that involved splitting up my party to depress four buttons and lower all four sections of a bridge. The Sega guy next to me promised more complex puzzles later on, a lot of dialogue and story in the game, and at least 15 hours of play. Overall, I was impressed, and suddenly this game is quite heavily on my radar. What I saw was simple, but it was good simple; a solid foundation. If the quality there scales later in the game, and Bioware has crafted a decent story to drive it all, then this could very well be for Sonic what Super Mario RPG was for, y'know, Mario. Now that I think about it, the stories seem to have some suspicious parallels...

[KDR_11k]

Now that I think about it, the stories seem to have some suspicious parallels...

Meh, all japanese RPG stories have strong parallels (and I bet Bioware is going for a japanese style for the game or even letting Sega write the story).

[BeautifulShy]

A interview
Sounds good Smakian. I will keep a eye on this.

[Smakian]

Now that I think about it, the stories seem to have some suspicious parallels...

Meh, all japanese RPG stories have strong parallels (and I bet Bioware is going for a japanese style for the game or even letting Sega write the story).

Yes, but this isn't the more common, "main character, cute princess, hot worldly girl, gruff mentor, silver-haired bad guy" type, but the slightly rarer "random invaders from another dimension, often used when making an RPG with established characters".

[Nick DiMola]

If anyone gets this, let me know how it is. I really want it, but since Persona 3 FES is currently owning my life so I can wait and see how it pans out before jumping on it day 1.

[NWR_Lindy]

I'm getting it for review, so I'll let you know.

[TofuFury]

Are there any other people playing this game? I've had it since the day it came out. Life has been keeping busy the past two weeks, so I haven't been able to play it lately, but for an RPG it's pretty solid. Sonic Chronicles has a great mix of Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger, though it doesn't reach the legendary status of either game.

The stylus control works well, though some of the pow moves are annoying to pull off. It's rare for me to pull off any pow moves with Cream. It would've been nice if Bioware made the first level of pow moves easier to pull off, then increased the difficulty the more they leveled up. Plus, when you miss, you have to keep watching the animations of the move until it's finished. If only there was a way to skip it once you miss.

Also, I wish that Bioware would've put more cash in the game, or made the items you can equip cheaper. What's the point in having items to buy if in the event that you do, you'll go broke without a chance of getting more cash? Thankfully, you don't really need them to progress.

Other than that I really like the game. I hope it leads to more games in the series.

[Peachylala]

Sega Nerds has had their review up for a while. They thought it OK.