After a run of games of almost Ed Wood-like quality, Sega is finally trying something a little different with Sonic the Hedgehog. They have decided to implant Sonic and his ever-expanding cast of furry friends into an RPG, and handed the developmental reins over to Bioware, one of the leaders of the genre. One could almost feel safe making the assumption that this is an infallible formula – a talented developer and a much loved character brought together should make Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood a great game - but the final result is actually a little disappointing.

Sonic Chronicles is set shortly after Sonic’s most recent defeat of Dr. Robotnik (or Doctor Eggman), which has brought about an unprecedented time of peace. While enjoying a vacation from fighting the forces of evil, Sonic is contacted by Tails, who reveals that Knuckles was kidnapped by a group of mysterious creatures while protecting the Master Emerald. In addition to Knuckles’ disappearance, trouble has broken out in Central City, which is being attacked by forces unknown. Guess who gets to save the day.


Bioware makes an admirable effort in trying to make the best of a bad situation with regards to the world of Sonic and the characters involved. They have tried to capture the spirit of the recent games without making the characters too grating, while trying to revive some elements of the earlier games (like Dr. Robotnik actually being a viable enemy) and re-tooling the setting. They would have succeeded too, were it not for Sonic Chronicles’ shallow and uninteresting narrative. You can almost forgive Bioware for it - few people could effectively write a meaningful story about a blue hedgehog and his furry companions, since they are effectively relics of a time and genre that didn’t require much story to motivate players in their quest. The game’s visual design is more inspired than recent Sonic efforts, thanks to some beautiful watercolour backgrounds and 2D comic-style art, but the 3D graphics in the battle sequences are not quite up to the same standard. The conversational dialogue is quite good too – it is a testament to Bioware’s talents in their pet genre – but the choices made available to the player have little effect on the direction the game takes.

Those expecting a more traditional Bioware approach are going to be disappointed in Sonic Chronicles. The game is more a linear J-RPG style experience than Bioware’s usual more free-form games, though that’s not to suggest that there isn’t a few of their influences in there. Main quest missions are executed with a disturbing lack of variety and challenge, with most focused on fighting a series of enemies, hitting a switch, or battling a boss. Unlike most J-RPGs, Sonic Chronicles does feature a substantial number of side quests, but many of them are inconsequential, tiresome fetch quests.


Players can be forgiven for thinking that Sonic Chronicles is good in the early stages of the game. The game has some degree of success in trying to marry traditional Sonic gameplay with RPG exploration. You’ll move Sonic around the screen with the stylus – the distance between the tip of your stylus and Sonic determines the speed at which he moves – collecting rings (the game’s currency), finding characters and solving puzzles. Puzzles mostly focus on getting past a certain obstacle using one of your team’s abilities; you will need Sonic to run through loops, Tails for flight, Amy for smashing blocks and so on. Character abilities could have been made a little more cohesive with regular navigation – for example, you cannot just run through a loop with Sonic – you have to press the little icon that pops up on the screen, or press the shoulder button before he will do it. Many of the locations in the game are named after zones from older Sonic titles, such as Green Hill Zone and Angel Island Zone, which ties the game into the Sonic world rather nicely, but seems to be more for nostalgic value than anything else.

Sonic Chronicles’ battle system also seems pretty pleasing in the early stages of the game. Monsters are represented on screen during navigation, so there are no random battles, but they do respawn quite frequently to facilitate levelling up. Like many RPGs, Sonic Chronicles will give the players or enemy advantages based on who got into the battle first, though it ups the ante with chase sequences, where you need to chase down the enemy while avoiding obstacles and hitting the turbo pads before you can fight. Battles mostly conform to the J-RPG archetype, though everything is driven by the touch screen. Characters are not restricted to a single move in each round of battle either; they will usually attack the opponent as many as 3-4 times. If you choose to do a POW attack (Sonic Chronicles’ version of magic) or use an item, you can choose a second option from the menu.


POW moves set Sonic Chronicles’ battle system apart from the rest of the J-RPG pack. Rather than just sitting back and watching the magic unfold, players can perform a series of rhythm taps on the screen to power up their attacks. It graciously borrows the game mechanics from Inis’ Osu Tatakae Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents games, but more active participation in RPG battles can only be a good thing. The system works the other way around as well; when an enemy launches a POW move, your tapping serves to nullify the effects of their offensive. There are POW moves which will have characters team up to perform more potent attacks or stat boosts. Levelling up your characters gives you points to spend on vital stats as well as upgraded and new POW attacks. Chaos also make an appearance in Sonic Chronicles, with eggs scattered throughout the different areas of the game. The role of a Chao is a bit different from normal – rather than being the cute and cuddly virtual pet, they’re more like the mags from Phantasy Star Online, granting players extra abilities and stat boosts. There are forty different Chao, each with its own specific ability.

The biggest issue with Sonic Chronicles is that the charm of its gameplay systems disappears rather quickly. You’ll quickly grow tired of having to chase enemies down before battle, and performing rhythmic taps to power up your attacks. The game’s variety is severely limited; it shows its best stuff in the early chapters, and drags you along through large numbers of repetitive objectives to an unfulfilling end game. That’s a real problem when the game ends up being good for the first 3 hours, and a total drag for the remaining 12.


Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is a noble attempt at producing an RPG in the Sonic the Hedgehog world, but the truth of the matter is that the characters and setting do not effectively lend themselves to this type of game. It feels like Bioware has restrained themselves to the existing Sonic mythology, rather than trying to build upon it. The game dashes out the door with gorgeous visuals and intriguing gameplay devices, but trips over its shoes before it can offer up anything truly compelling, resulting in what is really just a rather tedious and repetitive RPG experience.