Sonic Rush

"One of the fastest games ever"

This is definitely the fastest and most difficult 2D sonic yet! True to the name, this game really is a rush: Sonic blazes along at lightning speed with a trick system that is both great fun and integral to the gameplay too. Blaze is slower but is able to hover and trick jump higher, and her story is a nice parallel to Sonic's one.

This game is quite punishing tho: you have to beat both acts and reach the boss with a starting 3 lives (normal difficulty) in order to be able to replay from there, if not, you begin all the way back at the start of the zone. This can be especially frustrating in the more difficult zones like the 4th carnival and the 6th in the air, but the more you replay the better your co-ordination, reflexes and performance gets, which brings me to how much fun it is!

You can pull off some off-the-hook tricks and crazy stunts all over the place, and it all moves along at a very good framerate, with minimal slowdown when too many effects come into play (ie. losing tons of rings at high speed!) The game tho hard on first playthrus does get better as you press on, and damn does it loook cool blazing thru the later levels! Also of special mention are the bosses (which is what made me contemplate playing the game after being dissappointed by New SMB's offering) which require some finesse and skill to best. The 3D rotation effect like with the bosses in Klonoa 2 (for PS2) are very impressive here.

I have to say the game itself is surprisingly lengthy for a Sonic game, with the acts taking about 4-5 minutes to complete (after numerous repeats of course!), and the bosses take quite some time too, since strategy does need to be employed as well as some seriously quick actions! The latter half bosses beat me a lot, but heck they were a lot of fun, and for the last boss I actually had to resort to putting the difficulty down to easy (on my first playtrhru of course!) so that I could beat him!

Now it may seem like the levels take a long time to complete, but you won't even realise how much time flies. Thruout the acts there's so much on-screen hazards and so much action & speed that the whole time you really are gaping in awe (or at least I was). The later levels which include neat contraptions like cannons, rockets, parachutes, hanggliders etc... to help Sonic get thru are pretty neat and seamlessly integrate into the speed of things. Then there are the special stages which are pretty addictive, just like the old Sonic 2 and Sonic 3D ones, only now you have some stylus control.

Now onto Blaze, who plays out a parallel plot going thru zones in different orders. She actually does play quite differently to Sonic, albeit subtlety, but her boost jump allows her to easily reach higher up platforms leading to alternate routes thru the zones, and her hover ability makes some situations and bosses more sedate. If anything, she's the easier character of the 2, so it's nice that you unlock her early on so that those who have trouble keeping pace with Sonic's speed can still progress thru levels to gain more experience.

And I simply love the music: catchy, extreme beats, really makes you wanna go go go! It's definitely a new-style for Sonic, but it matches the on-screen action extremely well. Also of high mention is the sound, which is crisp thruout, and all the voice samples are very well done and (in boss battles especially) really do add to the intensity of things. Therefore I'm very thankful for Sonic Team for including that great thing known as a Sound Test!

As a nice bonus, you can also play multiplay games with just single card download play, and while it's not much, it's still a nice fun diversion to have.

Now most gamers who have difficulty with some reaction-based maneuvring will have to endure repeated bouts of the same parts of the same acts. This will prolly cause some frustration into how it's so easy to have instant deaths and having to begin the whole zone again from the very start. But for those who are more seasoned, this issue is minimised and overall the experience is thrilling rush.

This is a great piece of old-style Sonic action, which imo is much more exciting than old-style Mario.

VERDICT - 8.0/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/21/06, Updated 10/08/07

Game Release: Sonic Rush (US, 11/15/05)