Sonic and the Secret Rings

"Bored of the rings."

There is little more I cannot stand than people who gripe and moan about how glorious the “old days” were and how modern culture is tasteless in comparison. Yet the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is one that, regardless of nostalgic value, was infinitely superior before the turn of the century. The blue blur's contemporary outings have all been glitch-ridden romps featuring horrific camera angles, children's book storylines with grade-F voice acting, and a plethora of unnecessary side characters who embark on tedious tasks like fishing and jewel-hunting. Most importantly of all, Sonic himself has had the spotlight stolen from him by such cheap knock-offs as Shadow and Silver. Through Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sega planned to revitalize the hedgehog with a fresh formula starring Sonic only. Built on rails, Sega hoped to eliminate any camera issues and focus on the primary fundamental that the franchise was built upon – speed. The end product, however, is a shoddy creation that may very well be even more disastrous than the hedgehog's previous 3-D outings. Sonic's return to glory? Oh, how you people make me laugh.

Apparently sick and tired of having Robotnik steal the Chaos Emeralds time and again, Sega has taken a chapter from the story Arabian Nights and adapted it into Sonic's world. One night, Sonic hears a voice calling from the book. A genie suddenly emerges from the novel, exclaiming that the world inside the book is in peril. Apparently there's this evil purple genie named Erazor who is plotting to erase all the book's pages, and once finished, plans to extend his evil into Sonic's world. The friendly genie calls out for Sonic's assistance, promising to become his loyal slave for whatever “purpose” he desires. Sonic requests that the genie transport him inside the book in order to stop Erazor's book-burning frenzy. But upon a fateful first encounter with Erazor, the villain strikes a flaming arrow through Sonic's chest, proclaiming that if the flame burns out, Sonic will perish. If he wishes to survive, Sonic must seek out the Seven Rings and utilize their power to extinguish the flame and stop the bad genie. Unfortunately, even greater troubles lurk beneath the game's surface…

What sets Sonic and the Secret Rings apart from the previous few titles is not only the unique control scheme, but also the fact that the game is built entirely on rails. A lengthy series of tutorials at the beginning will ease you into this system. The Wii remote must be held horizontally, and by tilting it from side to side, Sonic will move right and left while automatically moving forward. Certain other motion-related actions, such as pushing the remote forward rapidly, will initiate abilities such as the homing attack. Other special abilities, including the standard jump, are activated through the buttons on the controller. However, this control scheme comes with its immense share of problems. For one, the controls are very loose and inconsistent, have a tendency to be unresponsive with direction and attacks. The homing attack in particular is broken, for which you must wait for an enemy to turn red before initiating. Often times it will not properly lock on to a target, thus causing your ultimate demise. You are able to obtain tighter controls later on through the game's level-up system. That's right, good control is something that you actually have to earn, which means Sega intentionally gave players bad control. Unbelievable.

Backwards movement is perhaps the greatest nuisance with this control system. Executed by tilting the remote toward yourself, Sonic will slowly tip-tow in reverse blindly. This is blind to the player, as well, as the camera makes no adjustments while Sonic is moving in reverse. Often times, you will blindly back into an enemy or spiked object that will either cause your death or the loss of all of your rings. Moving in reverse is often a necessity due to Sonic's tendency to become trapped behind walls or other objects, and backwards movement is the only way to set him back on course. Executing jumps is another true nightmare. By holding down the ‘2' button, Sonic will hit the brakes and charge the magnitude of his leap. This is needlessly difficult to time accurately and can often send you plummeting over the edge or into an enemy before leaping. The jump also has a delayed response at times, not executing itself when told to. In addition to good control, speed is also something you have to earn through the level-up system. Sonic will creep at a snail's pace throughout the first few worlds until you achieve enough points to finally obtain that sense of true Sonic speed, and even then, it's marred down by all these other setbacks.

The game's worlds expand numerous environments, ranging from prehistoric jungles to floating ruins to ragged pirate ships. Each stage is divided into a series of missions. In addition to merely completing a stage, you will also be required to embark on a series of monotonous and mundane tasks around each one. Your first mission in each stage will generally involve merely reaching the end, which is simple and enjoyable enough. But in order to successfully face the boss and pass on to the next world, you must complete a series of five or so more missions in the stage. These objectives range from simple tasks like collecting a certain amount of rings or defeating all the enemies in the area, to completely ludicrous goals such as not running into any jars on the course, breaking five genie eggs, or not defeating any enemies. As you may imagine, these goals become unbelievably redundant and monotonous. This is the type of tedious labor that Sega should have focused on correcting rather than emphasizing it more so. Whatever the hell happened to returning to the high-speed platform action that Sonic is all about? What good is done in the basic missions is unfortunately canceled out by poor level design and extreme repetitiveness.

In spite of the game being on rails, somehow Sega found a way to make the camera just as atrocious as in past 3-D titles. As stated earlier, much of the camera's frustration stems from backwards movement, in which the screen will continue to face forward. But the problems are deeper still. Each of the angles are pre-set, meaning there is no freedom whatsoever with the camera. With the inability to shift the camera to a convenient position, it becomes difficult to see certain objects or where Sonic is headed. But if the single-player is too aggravating for you, a quirky multiplayer mode in the vein of a traditional party title exists. While this mode is essentially one big waste of time, it's still probably more fun than anything you'll find in the game's single-player. The multiplayer aspect of the game is introduced here, in which players can partake in a board game featuring a series of mini-games in a possible nod back to Sonic Shuffle. The bad news? In order to play many aspects of this mode, you must first unlock its material by playing through the single-player mode. Ugh.

While the game may not be as visually pretty as the 360 Sonic title, taking into consideration the system's graphical limitations, the game does appear somewhat sharper than the previous generation's outings, particularly the character models. The textures are vibrant and thoroughly saturated, while the environments appear rich and full of character. It's a crying shame that the same praises cannot be said about the audio. Now, I for one thought the soundtracks of the previous 3-D Sonic titles were fantastic, regardless of the quality of the gameplay. The moment you select the game disc channel, you will instantly be treated to the game's main ear-bleeding heavy rock theme. While some of the instrumental is nice, the horribly choreographed lyric-based themes will make you want to clog your speakers with silly putty. “Dino, it's a jungle!” “Who is gonna rock the place, place, place!” I cannot say much better about the voice acting, either. About the best thing I can say about the dialogue and acting is that it isn't any worse than in previous Sonic titles featuring speech. And no, that's not a compliment.

Don't get me wrong, Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 was an awful, awful game. Yet I daresay that Sonic and the Secret Rings manages to be even worse. The controls are completely broken, the game's mission system makes the experience an incredibly tedious and repetitive one, and the camera is truly unforgivable. A faulty level-up system and some truly gut-wrenching audio complete the package of pure wretchedness. Perhaps the saddest thing is that Sega actually had an effective and innovative formula ripe with potential that they could have started fresh with. Unfortunately, repetitive missions and a flawed level-up system add too much sour flavor to this concoction. If Sonic Team has any trace of talent left in their bones, it's certainly not evident here. Perhaps the time has come to put this hedgehog to sleep for good. I hate sounding like a nostalgic nut-case, but damn, if Sonic hasn't truly been put through a plethora of misery for the last decade. Maybe Sega will one day wake up and realize what made Sonic such an iconic figure in the first place. Until then, I give up on this hedgehog.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/28/08

Game Release: Sonic and the Secret Rings (US, 02/20/07)