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« on: March 25, 2007, 03:38:59 AM »
Alright here we go folks.
Game: Sonic and the Secret Ring
System: Wii
Date: 3/25/07
Reviewer: Ceric
Where does everyone want to start? Oh I know controls.
Controls Part 1:
Initially the controls I'll admit take some getting use to. Sonic starts out "slow" for Sonic. In fact you sort of feel like your wading though mud. Initially. You use the Wiimote in Excite Truck style with it on the side.
1 Brakes/Cancel
2 Slides/Jump/Cancel
Up Speedbreak(Go real fast)
Down Timebreak(Black and White time slows down)
Note: The breaks you don't get till later when you get a soul gauge.
That's all I'm going to say for now.
Levels:
Mostly they consist of you getting from point A to point B while achieving some goal. Point B can be the goal itself. Some of the choices that were made are infuriating. (The scene where the dinos are chasing you and it goes to a front view or in my case anything that includes switch rails.) Also the levels themselves are difficult with the wrong skills equipped. In general these are the missions:
Paragraphs: The Lost Prologue Tutorials
Go for the Goal: Basic head to the Goal
Beat the Clock: Get to the Goal before Time is up
Head to Head: Get to the Goal before Uhu does
Rampage!: Defeat a certain number of enemies
Stealth Attack: Don't defeat enemies
Collect Rings: Get a certain amount of Rings
Chain of Rings: Get a certain amount of Rings in a row
Hands Off: Don't finish the mission holding Rings
No Pearls: Don't touch a single Pearl
Diehard Challenge: Don't die
Perfect Challenge: Don't take damage at all
Special Challenge: Varies, read Mission objective
Boss Battle: Defeat the Boss
Personally I find Chain of Rings, Stealth attack, and Stealth Attack Extreme(aka No Pearls) to be the hardest. Though initially Head to Head will be for most people.
Visuals:
The game looks nice and has good physics for the most part, there done by Physx by Ageia (its in the credits). I'm doing a review of a stand eventual so I've be monitoring how hot my Wii gets, by feel. This game tends to keep the Wii cooler then all the other games that I've played. It never really hiccups and everything looks nice. My biggest complaint would be that the form Sonic is in for the last boss fight he has no eyes, which he has the rest of the game.
Also there are cutscenes done in a comic book style. Which I liked.
Sound:
Rings sound like rings. Cheese Rock sounds like Cheese rock. The main theme of the game will annoy you because it plays through all the menu screens. Also the Japanese voices I enjoyed. I heard the voice acting was bad so I played it with Japanese voices and English subtitles. The advantage is that the voice acting has more feeling to it but the disadvantage for me was that the game took me longer because I miss hints, not paying attention to the text. I couldn't get into the little bit I did play with the English voices.
Special Controls:
Wiggle. SHake. WIGGLE. Its very tiring. The last level you have to wiggle the controller to charge up your soul gauge so you can speedbreak to stop a ball of energy, really the only time in the game you have to use your soul gauge abilities. It gets tiring. You also move the Wiimote forward to attack enemies and when there is a really long chain of them and you have to redo a level it sort of gets to you.
Skills:
As you beat levels or replay levels you get skill points. These points help you level and the level then give you new skills, more rings, more soul, and more points to equip skills. This was a stroke of brilliance for this game. As a mentioned earlier the right skills can take a level from insane to easily manageable. For example: on No Pearls level I dequip all my skills that involve collecting pearls, homing onto enemies, and speed. Thats right speed. Sometimes you need to take it slow to win.
Where I am at:
I'm level 43, I've beaten all of the missions that you can before you beat the last boss. Beat him and went back and cleared all the missions for the four worlds after the first one. I still have four more worlds that have a few missions each to completely beat before I complete every mission in the game. I only mention this because I'm going back to controls from this perspective.
Controls Part 2:
Sonic is silky smooth. As you level up you get skills that gives Sonic different attributes. Now my Sonic when fully skilled up feels like containing a bull that wants to go at full speed. If Sonic was initially like this I wouldn't have the skills needed to use this type of Sonic. As I mentioned before you don't always want Sonic totally sped up and the skills let you do that. Even slowed down to his original speed he is pretty responsive thinks to the skills that up his left to right speed on ground, in air, and sliding.
Multiplayer:
Just moved so I don't have anyone to play with.
Conclusion:
Well there were times in this game that I wanted to toss my controller, about anytime when I had to do lots with rails. Though for the most part I worked though those times by levelling, a different skill set, or tenacity. I was really stuck after I initially got to the Pirate area. Then the game just "clicked." All of a suddenly I had gotten 4 more rings and though many many missions in one 4 hour sitting. The fact that I've beaten the story aspect of the game and I'm coming back to clear all the additional missions says something. I'm not the perfect type but they taunt me and I know I have the skill to do them even though they are difficult. Which makes it worth it.
Also I'm tired of Sega running the credits before the true ending. Besides that annoyance the true ending is actually pretty good. Do I think the controls could use a little more tweaking: Yes. Would I trade all of my relatively useless Soul abilities and skills for one that would attract rings: In a heart beat. Would I buy/rent the sequel: You bet.
After I beat all the missions I'll probably not come back to this game. So the replayability for me is not that great. Though I just found out that Big the Cat is in the game in some of the levels and I'll probably try to chase all those down. If you are a perfectionist and need to unlock everything this game could probably easily last about double what it did for me.(According to the save time stuff about 25 hours at this point.)
Overall I give this game a 7 or a 6.5. So I'll split the difference and give it a 6.75. I really enjoyed the game now. It started slow but now that I'm at the end point I can say I welcomed the challenge. In fact I truly beleive that out of all the Wii games I've played, except for Marvel Ultimate Alliance, this has been the only one that I've beaten and haven't felt that I'm doing it out of a sense of duty and that the ending must be good.
Now I think I'll try to wrap up my loose ends before I return it.
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