"Sega. Sonic. Yuji Naka. How could you?!"

Released in November 2000 in America, December 2000 in Japan, and March 2001 in Europe, Sonic Shuffle was Sega's rushed, clumsy, confusing parody of Nintendo/Hudson's hit Mario Party series.

'Super' Sonic He Ain't

Oh no! A fairy creature thing's world is being destroyed by another evil fairy creature's dark powers or something, destroying her precious dream world utopia. Now Sonic and his friends must obtain the precioustone and defeat the evil fairy thing Void while also avoiding Eggman in the process. Pretty lame story, eh?

Anyways, The point of Sonic Shuffle is like that of Mario Party, but instead of 4 people going after stars, 4 people go after Precioustones, stones with magical powers or something. To get one of the stones, you move around the board by picking a random card which determines how far you move. Doing this you can move from 1 to 6 spaces a turn. If you get a 'S' card you can use a special attack: for example, Sonic spin dashes. Along the way to the Precioustones you will gain rings to buy items at shops to thwart your enemies/friends with, play mini-games, witness mini-events, and even get tortured by Eggman. Once you get to a Precioustone, you have to battle an enemy with a set amount of HP. If you hit it for more damage than the amount of HP he has or equal to, you get the precioustone. The game ends when all the precioustones are collected on the board.

Sounds like fun, ne? Well, it's not. The boards are way too big and confusing, the CPU is cheap, the mini-games take a long time to learn and are difficult until you do so, the secrets in this game suck, the one-player mode is unbearable and takes several hours to pass a single board, and there are loading times literally EVERY TIME something happens. I kid you not. It will take you a VERY long time to learn and cope with the many problems in Sonic Shuffle.

The Other Side of the Cards

However, not everything in the game is bad. The graphics, for example, are wonderful. The characters are animated in the same design as the ones in Jet Grind Radio, and it looks great. The environments are big and beautiful, and the mini-game arenas are equally as impressive.

The sound is also good. The voices are the same annoying ones from Sonic Adventure (except you can't choose Japanese voices this time around), but the music, though not usual Sonic music, fits the mood very well, as do the familiar sound effects. I'll admit, though, that I laughed the first time I heard Eggman say, ''What EVIL invention should I use this time?'' It's plain hilarious. He by far has the best voice in the game ^_^

The controls are also good...once you play the mini-games a few times. This game isn't like Mario Party where you play a mini-game ever round...sometimes several rounds can go by without a game in Sonic Shuffle.

Bored Game

Despite nice graphics, music, and control, horrible, difficult gameplay and frustrating boards/mini-games bury this game. A rent for die-hard Sonic fans only. Everyone else should stick with Mario Party for decent entertainment in a party video game.

Graphics: 9/10; Good. VERY good.
Music: 8/10; Great music, annoying voices.
Control: 7/10; OK once you play some mini-games.
Gameplay: 2/10; Terrible. Just terrible. Somehow Sega took Mario Party and made it a chore. WWWWHHHHEEEEEEEEE.....
Replay value: 1/10; Hard to like, even harder to get friends to play. Since party games are boring by yourself...hence the 1 in replay.

Overall (not an average) 2/10; C'mon, Sega, I know you can do better than this! If this game was made by Traveler's Tales I could forgive you, but I can't this time. Sorry.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/02, Updated 02/13/02