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Games Revisited: Sonic and the Secret Rings

Started by Sk8teland85, April 18, 2009, 04:23:35 PM

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Sk8teland85

After playing Sonic Unleashed for a week I decided to give it a bit of a break and go back and play the last Sonic game I bought for a home console Sonic and the Secret Rings. Now this was the very first 3rd party Wii game I owned and back when I got it I did have a fair bit of fun with it. Eventually the games flaws began to show up and my interest in the game began to wane more and more. But after Sonic Unleashed got me in the mood for Sonic I figured I might as well give this one another go and here are my thoughts.

It did take me a little bit of time to get used to the controls and such. Secret Rings uses the Wii Remote on it's side and to move left and right you just tilt the controller. To jump is done with the 2 button and to do a homing attack while in air you just thrust the Wii remote forward when you have a lock. The controls to me are a mixed bag, at first they are good for the stages since there is not much in the terms of precise actions so they worked well. The controls really only fall apart when it comes to doing precise actions like specific jumps and landings and such since they are just not sensitive enough to work.

Now once I got used to the controls I was able to pay attention to other details of the game like the visuals. For a Wii game from 2007 it does look rather nice. There are nice vibrant colors and varying locals which each have there own unique look to it. The game also runs very smooth with very little slowdown in the framerate. The cut scenes could have used a bit of work though, while I know they were going for a story book style they are just lacking to me.


One of the games many nice locals

As for the gameplay well it is also kinda hit or miss. The basic mechanics are sound and such. I personally liked the RPG like element of getting new skills by experience. I know some people did not like that too much though since it locks handy skills and makes you work for them. Also well done was the speed, once Sonic get going he can really get fast and the game does a great job conveying that sense of going very fast very well which is one thing some Sonic games have had trouble doing.


The sense of speed just can't be conveyed in still pictures

I can truly say I was having a blast playing the early levels again since the controls worked well there. The problem came in the later levels when I had to start doing more and more precise actions which as I said earlier are very hard to do with the simple controls this game has. I remember now why I got frustrated with the game in the first place, I was on a role blazing through levels and then all the sudden I get hit with levels that are just a pain because the controls are just not precise enough to do things easily. You have to keep playing many areas over and over until you get the timing just right to get by it. I did eventually clear it but still it was a bit on the annoying side.

After I got done my opinion on the game is still mostly positive. It is still a fun game to play but the control issues cannot be ignored. Now I do think the control issues would not have been as much of an issue if they designed most of the stages to work with them rather than against them. So again we have a Sonic console game that could have used some more testing and development time to iron out the minor issues that prevent it from being more than another decent game that had the potential to be great. Hopefully in the future Sega will take the time to make a Sonic game which is truly great rather than just rushing the game out the door before it is just right. I love Sonic and it just pains me to see the games of late have these minor issues that could have easily been fixed with some testing and refinement.