Sonic Chronicles The Dark Brotherhood
October 30th 2008 15:35
You probably know by now that this reviewer is crazy about RPGs (Japanese RPGs for the most part) and Sonic, the hedgehog video games.
I feel that while the gaming world is busy playing the likes of Call of Duty, Halo, Elder Scrolls, God of War, GTA and the many bullet spraying FPS games, I still game like it is the ‘90s and review RPGs and Sonic games for my own pleasure and for anyone out there who still cares.
Today Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (Sonic CTDB) is under review, the latest release for the Nintendo DS, marketed as the first-ever Sonic RPG. While some other Sonic games did indeed feature light RPG elements, this one, however, is a smarter RPG.
The game has been developed by Bioware, the company that created several much-admired RPGs such as Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur’s Gate, Jade Empire and the recent Xbox 360 hit Mass Effect. Whether you are a Sonic fan or not, the fact that Bioware developed Sonic CTDB should hopefully turn some heads.
The game opens up with yet another battle between Eggman and Sonic, which ends with Sonic and his friends emerging victorious and blowing up Eggman’s base once again. After those obvious events, Sonic gets a call from Tails after a long time. Tails tells him about the mysterious alien race that has stolen the Chaos Emeralds and has also kidnapped Knuckles (guardian of the Master Emerald who tried to fight the alien race).
The story revolves around this new adversary and how Sonic works together with his friends to fight the new race. The fans of the series will be pleased by the story’s twist that comes in Chapter Four, when the pacing and character development/interaction occurs.
Like any RPG, you explore a virtual world and interact with its inhabitants, using a classic Bioware RPG conversation system that allows you to pick between several responses during a conversation. With some of the locations from its previous sequel, the exploration aspect works fine, and each character can use his/her unique abilities in order to fully explore an area for all its secret and amazing items. The game also features plenty of side quests and some light puzzle-solving elements.
The battle system is turn-based which enhances the use of DS touch screen. You pick four characters and take part in menu-based battles that essentially work the same way as the battles featured in a traditional turn-based RPG like Final Fantasy.
These battles become quite fun and interactive with the use of the stylus when performing POW moves, you mimic on-screen patterns in order to execute a special attack properly. And apart from character-specific special attacks, you can also perform some devastating and impressive team-based attacks depending on the team composition.
The character building is like any other RPG, where characters level up and earn points which allow them to learn new skills and can also acquire new items.
Sonic games are all about speed, but since Sonic CTDB is supposed to provide a deep RPG experience, the speed aspect had to be sacrificed for the greater good. However, during the flee/escape sequence of a battle, a small speed run, mini game takes place where characters run on their own and have to avoid obstacles to either catch the enemy or escape. This is not very fast or exciting but still a decent effort to capture the feel of a classic Sonic game.
Throughout the course of the game, you will collect Chao eggs which hatch into a unique Chao. Each Chao, when equipped, provides a character with unique enhancements. The Chao farm simply serves as an inventory for these creatures and there are several to collect. Sadly you cannot really raise Chao, like you would in a Tamagotchi game.
The graphics are nice, the game features beautiful hand-drawn backdrops and while the 3D character models do look a bit messy at times, they still blend with the 2D backdrops nicely. The game has a very western comic book look and the artwork is fantastic.
The music features many remixes of classic Sonic music but, overall, I found the soundtrack to be a bit forgettable and underwhelming.
Sonic CTDB is a wonderful blend of video games, and a fun and deep RPG adventure that makes good use of the Sonic license.
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