Sonic's 1st RPG is a hit
Back in the 1996, the swan song for the SuperNES was Super Mario RPG: The legend of the Seven Coins. It was made by RPG master, Hirnobu Sakaguchi. Fast forward 12 years, and Mario’s ex-Rival, Sonic the Hedgehog, makes his RPG day bue on the D.S in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Create by Biowares new Hand-held division; can Sonic’s first RPG be a hit? Let’s find out. The story starts with Sonic and friends defeating Dr.Eggman. When running around, Sonic gets a call from Tails saying the Knuckles has been Kidnapped, and Sonic and the remainder of his friends must find out what’s going on. Thanks to Biowares sharp written, the story is interesting, and nails the Sonic Universe. Gone are the convoluted stories of what Sega makes. There’s not even a mention from anything from Sonic Heroes on. The only thing from Sonic Heroes that mentioned is Omega, and that’s it. There’s also the branching Dialog system Bioware is known for and it’s used well. Despite some twists that can be seen from a mile away, it’s mostly a good story. Sonic Chronicles gameplay maybe a standard Turn-base RPG’s, but there are Unique features that makes this game stick out from the rest. First is that enemies can be seen on screen. The Combat maybe turn-base, but the POW moves help the game stand out. When doing one, you use the styles and follow the Circle, or tap when you have to. It helps make the game unique, and keeps the action going. When leveling up, you can increase your Attack, speed, POW moves, and chance of doing extra damage. The menu system is a little dis-jointed, but still nice to use. You can equip items and Chao. Items increases health, attack, and so on, and Chao gives your character the ability to increase health, POW meter, and more. The game isn’t perfect. 1 problem is that since of the Levels are huge, you can get loss. Also, early on, the styles controls in battle can be a bit frustration. But, despite these problems, Sonic Chronicles has enough personality to make it stand out from the other RPG’s. Dark Brotherhood has a good presentation. Everything has a cool hand drawn look to it. Environments look great, and character models look good. The music great with some great Guitar Riffs and some re done music from old games. There’s no voice acting, but due to the amount of bad voice acting theses characters has had and stupid fan boys arguing about them, it’s a blessing from Biowere not to use any at all. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is a good game. It has both a Nostalgic feeling, and the feeling of a good game. It’s a must buy for RPG fans and Sonic fans.
