"No Chao?"

What is there not to love about Sonic? He is blue, fast, has a best friend who can fly using tails in his butt, and saves the world on yearly bases. Sure, he is a smart ass, and he does have the tendency to get thrown into Super Smash Bros. internet scandals, but other than that, he is squeaky clean. Let's face it though; Sonic has not had a great Side Scrolling adventure in sometime now. Sure Sonic Adventure 2 was spectacular, and Shadow the Hedgehog was fun, but not the same as the original Sonic that we all knew and loved since it was not at anytime side scrolling. So Sonic Team got together, and came up with Sonic Rush, the newest 2-D side scroller of the Sonic franchise.

Rush is pretty much the best way to explain the game in one word. Probably the fastest game on the DS no doubt about that. Hell, maybe even the fastest handheld game ever. Sure it's a stretch, but Sonic Rush will leave you breathless once you get going. The objective is simple, play two long fast paced levels, in which will leave you screaming and confused lots of times, and then fight a boss in 3D. The levels in between boss fights seemed kind of just, there to make you upset. Once Sonic gets moving, you will be going faster than any game I have played probably ever. I have played lots of games, but no other game truly made me go, “wow, where am I now?”

Fighting is… well difficult. The only way to kill enemies in the game, besides bosses, is to jump on their heads. Easy right, well not exactly. You see when going at 200 miles an hour, you don't really have a lot of time to, slow down and jump. I found myself near the end of the level lots of times, and losing all of my coins, because an enemy was standing in the pathway, and I couldn't jump, let alone see him. But, enemies aren't the only thing that will kill you. It is essential to move very fast, while not dieing by running off of platforms or just hitting an enemy and falling off of the platform. You will fall constantly, and it will become very old very fast. But, the boss battles add a very fun change of pace for Rush. Because now you don't have to move so fast. Instead, you jump, and jump, and jump some more, until you finally have jumped on Eggmans latest creation enough. But they are long battles, and require you to come up with a strategy quick, or you will die soon enough.

But Sonic Rush just doesn't feature Sonic as a playable character. You can also play as Blaze the Cat. Kind of like Sonic, from another dimension. She has arrived in Sonics world, to stop and find Eggman Nega, which is Eggman, but from her dimension. She also watches out for the Sol Emeralds, which are pretty much the Chaos Emeralds in her dimension. And now since the Sol and the Chaos Emeralds are missing, it's up to Blaze and Sonic to find them, and return them to their rightful place. It's not much of a great story, and is a little confusing, but it's still okay. Rush takes the player through 7 different areas to play. 2 levels in each zone and a boss battle at the end, and with the addition of Blaze the Cats levels, that equals up to 28 different levels to play as, even though they are the same levels for both characters, just different heroes to use.

The music for Rush is pretty generic really. Unlike Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic Heroes, this game doesn't feature a nice mix of soundtracks. If you loved the original Sonic Genesis music, you will love these. They are not the exact same as the Genesis, they do have a new spin to them, like an added retro style to make it more up to date and not as bland, but in no way is it something to rock out to or anything. It just didn't match the fast paceness of Rush to me. Characters do talk, and they do sound up to par with the Gamecube games in voice acting, even though that doesn't say much.

Defiantly one of the best things of Rush though, is its graphics. Do not let the screenshots of the game fool you, Sonic Rush looks outstanding. It makes the transition from 2-D to 3-D near perfectly, and I was impressed without words by how great it looked. The constant running and screen changes, did not affect the game graphically at all. All boss battles are in 3-D, which was very cool to. It all looked outstanding, and was very impressive for its first DS debut. Characters were colored like they are in the console Sonic games, and impressed me with that. It's a very bright and carefree game, so don't expect the dark angry look like in Shadow. Instead it's more like well, the original Genesis game.

Sonic Rush is a good game for the DS without a doubt. It is very fast paced, and will leave you dieing a lot if you're not careful. Bosses are tricky, but are actually pretty easy as soon as you learn their battle techniques. With two different playable characters, Rush should have you playing for some time, even though its action does not nearly last as long as say Advanced Wars DS or Mario Kart DS. Rush looks amazing, and sounds average enough. It's as good buy for your collection, just make sure you're not playing this on a stressful day. The only thing that made me truly sad about Rush, besides the constant dieing, was no Chao gardens. Why oh why wouldn't you add such hours of fun? It could have made Rush outstanding. Oh well, Rush is still good, even though Tail still sound girly.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/05