Certainly, there are loads of good things to look forward to. It's a traditional top-down RPG with turn-based battles, incredibly cool looking, hand drawn environment graphics, stylus controlled movement, character switching for hopefully clever puzzles, and promises of a massive storyline with refreshingly deep characters and hopefully an especially well written script for once. With Sega, now more than ever, it's often fair to treat particularly exciting little features with suspicion, because the little things often don't quite turn out as expected in the end. Especially when it comes to connecting with the past games (remember when they told us STH '06 would be full of little warm, fuzzy throwbacks? There were like three or four, and all from Sonic Adventure 1 and 2). I must confess to not ever having played a Bioware RPG, but supposedly they're pretty good at them, and I've no particular reason to mistrust promises of the reappearance of classic tunes and environments. They already boast Green Hill, Mystic Ruin and Emerald Town (an odd choice that last one, but I'll go with it), although I'm yet to be convinced that they will be the very same areas, or just ones that look like them. The hints of a story twist involving Eggman that "goes back to the franchise's early days that Sonic fans will not expect" is highly intruiging. As is their desire to tie up certain loose ends that our Sonic Team writers, God bless em, have managed to accumulate over the years. It sounds like they know their stuff, or at least have done their research.
In terms of story and characters, there isn't much better that a Sonic fan can look forward to than this kind of depth and these kind of promises from good writers. I know that's what most of the Sonic community seems to crave above all else, and it's all well and good, but my anticipations can go higher than this, because my most craved aspect is good old Sonic platform gameplay and level design, and I don't really need any plot at all. Of course, this is an RPG - a spinoff, and I guess I was hoping for more of a clever mix of RPG puzzle-solving and Sonic platforming, as traditional Sonic platformers are what I care about above all else. I've always been a bit put off by those turn-based battles in RPG's, which seem a bit complicated and lacking in intensity. That said, I guess I did enjoy Pokemon though.
Still, I was playing Zelda, Phantom Hourglass recently, at a point where you can control a Goron, who rolls around with speed and is able to jump and roll into enemies that are tapped with the stylus, very much like Sonic. It was controlled in such a precise way that I thought it'd make a far easier and more fun way to deal with minor enemies in Sonic Chronicles, and allow for more of a focus on Zelda-esque puzzle solving than leveling up and turn-based skills and things. That, I'd be more interested in. And as for leveling up and altering different attributes, well, they tried it in Secret Rings, and personally, I just couldn't be bothered faffing about with them. Maybe in the context of an RPG, it'll make more sense.
Still, there's much to be excited about, even for those sceptical about Sonic in an RPG. At the very least, we seem to be much more assured of quality, and effort in getting things just right for this one, so, using Bioware's popularity, it could well prove to be the big critical success we need. And if the next primary Sonic platformer (which I estimate to be unveiled at some point this year) is successful, Sonic could still be able to improve his reputation in the gaming world yet.
Comments 3 Comments have been posted.
#1. Comment posted by Marx Chaotix on Thursday, 7th February 2008, 11:09pm
#2. Comment posted by Anonymous on Sunday, 17th February 2008, 7:34pm
#3. Comment posted by Anonymous on Sunday, 17th February 2008, 7:38pm