"Not Exactly Playing With A Full Deck"

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends have appeared in a ''party'' game. For those of you not familiar with this particular genre, let me provide a brief history.

A few years ago, the developers at HAL Laboratories made an interesting experiment for the then not yet aged Nintendo 64. Mario and his friends were the stars, and they had to roll dice to travel around a gameboard, collecting coins to buy stars. The person with the most stars at the end of the allotted number of turns was the winner, the ''Superstar''. Coins were earned by playing the simple but addictively fun mini-games that occurred after all four players had taken their turns. All in all, it was an unambitious little escapade spiced up with fun mini-games and coloured with the familiar Mario characters. The game, simply named ''Mario Party'', was a hit, and HAL churned out two sequels before the Nintendo 64's run was through, adding small improvements and features but keeping the formula intact. Several other companies have attempted to cash into this new genre with lacklustre efforts, ''Tweety's Magical Gem'' being the most egregious example.

Now, the Dreamcast can certainly handle an impressive amount of graphical and aural splendour, and Sonic and his buddies are certainly as charismatic and well-known as the Mario gang, but does this game reproduce the fun?

The story, as with the stories of the Mario Party series, is inane: Shortly after the events of Sonic Adventure, Sonic and the rest of the gang are transported to Maginaryworld (oh brother), the Land of Dreams. The Precioustone (look, I'm just reporting this), from which all dreams are spawned has been shattered by a mysterious being named Void. With a fairy named Lumina Flowlight (I'm not even going to comment) as their guide, our heroes must reassemble the shards of the Precioustone before people stop having dreams! Or something like that.

Our heroes include Sonic himself, along with Tails, Knuckles and Amy Rose. Later you can play as Big the Cat, E-102 Gamma (back from the grave, I guess), Super Sonic, and a Chao (!). You can play in two modes: Story and Versus. In Story mode, you must choose one of the original 4 and play through all the boards one by one, getting first place to continue. Versus mode is where the real fun begins, as up to four players can grab a controller and tear apart a game board of their choice. The only real reason to play Story Mode is to earn rings, with which to purchase new characters and features, like a free-play mini-game machine.

On the boards themselves, Mario Party veterans will recognize direct steals from this game's spiritual predecessor. The Precioustone shards are the stars, and rings are coins. There are spaces which give or take away rings when you land on them: yes, oh, my brothers, they are even blue and red. There are stores to buy jewels (i.e., items), and a place where Void will steal other players' Precioustones, just like Boo. The main difference is in the movement system: instead of the reliable dice, each player is given a series of numbered cards. Draw a card, and move. You can pick from your cards or your opponents' cards (which you can't see). Once all cards are drawn, they are shuffled and redistributed. You also use cards to battle monsters for prizes. You must draw a higher number than them. Since precision is key, you must land directly on the Precioustone, rather than going by it. You may also move in either direction at any time.

The mini-games are also somewhat different. You don't play them after every round of turns, but when a player lands on an ''event space''. You could play as many as 30 or as few as 2 mini-games in a game. The mini-games themselves are varied, but only a few of them are actually, truly fun. The trampoline game and the guitar game, for example. The rest seem rather formulaic.

GRAPHICS

Sonic and friends are cel-shaded, a design choice that I, for one, appreciate. The backgrounds and boards are three-dimensional and beautifully detailed.

CONTROL

I have no problems here.

SOUND

Most of the original voice actors from Sonic Adventure return, and the sound effects create the atmosphere of another world. The music is varied, but is pleasant rather than rousing. Compared to the astonishing soundtrack of Sonic Adventure, this seems half-baked.

CONCLUSION

This is not for the casual gamer, as a full board game alone could take more than an hour. As for the gameplay, I personally think that the board game engine and AI could use a bit of improvement, and maybe the mini-games could be re-evaluated, but overall it's a good first attempt. Remember, the original Mario Party didn't get it all right the first time, either. Now that Nintendo has started publishing Sonic games, I wonder a crossover with Mario Party could be in the future. We'll have to wait and see.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/05/02, Updated 03/05/02