WiiNintendo

Yesterday, I got my hands on Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for the Nintendo DS. I’m not a big fan of RPG’s to be honest (except Pokemon and Paper Mario). I don’t know what it is about them, but I just get so bored easily and I can’t get into them. I’m not hating on RPG’s at all, I can understand why people like them. But when Sonic Chronicles was announced, I was intrigued. A Sonic RPG sounded too odd to me and I wasn’t sure how it would work. Recently, ONM (I think it was them) gave it a 93% so I figured now was as good a time as any to try it out. Sonic games are fun after all (or rather, were fun at one point).

RPGs tend to have plenty of cutscenes, as well as voice acting. Sonic Chronicles doesn’t really have either (at least, not as far into where I am). The story is progressed by reading text and though you have a few options as to what to respond with, it got boring pretty fast for me. But what of the battle system? The battle system isn’t bad actually. It’s easy to understand and seems like players can choose many different options for things to do. I actually am enjoying the battles so far. The POW moves are fun to use as well, since the strength of them is based on how well you perform some actions on the touch screen.

Sonic Chronicles is a Sonic game of course, and one of the questions I wondered before I played was how well Sonic would translate into a RPG. The answer is… fairly well. Every now and then, in battle, your enemy will begin to run away and you have to chase after them. A short mini-game begins and you use the touch screen to help you team avoid obstacles. Obviously the gameplay is a lot slower than what you would expect from Sonic, but this game does a decent job of incorporating the Sonic universe into the game in a way that makes sense.

From what I played (which wasn’t that much), I didn’t enjoy it much, but that is because it is a RPG and I just can’t seem to get into those games. Sonic Chronicles actually seems like a good RPG and I think fans will be pleased. This isn’t a review by any means since I only scratched the surface of the game, but what I did get to play is very promising for Sonic and/or RPG fans. This game hits North American store shelves next week, and I recommend renting it at least, unless you just don’t enjoy RPGs like me. If you have any questions about the game, feel free to ask me.

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