"Fasten your seatbelts, hold on tight, and *insert another cliche here*! You're in for quite a ride!"

Introduction:
Sonic Rush is an excellent throw-back to the side-scrolling, platforming days of Sonic on the Sega Genesis. This game is about one thing: speed, speed, and speed. Or is that three things? Either way, Sonic Rush is a wild romp that will have you gasping for breath after you play.

Gameplay:
Sonic Rush starts out easy, but becomes rather difficult in later stages from my standpoint, and I have been playing Sonic games for quite a while. Despite this, Rush is an incredibly fun experience. In my opinion, I'd rather play a fun, challenging game than an easy, mindless one. Sonic is controlled exactly like he has been for quite a while…control pad to move, A or B to jump. However, Rush adds several new, exciting controls. After bouncing off springs, you may use B to perform tricks, or you can press R while grinding on rails to perform more tricks. But all these tricks are used for Rush's biggest innovation: the Tension Gauge. This gauge fills up as you perform tricks or defeat enemies, and by holding X or Y, your speed will dramatically increase and you will tear right through enemies until the gauge runs out. As for enemies, a lot of people complain about poor enemy placement, but EVERY Sonic game has suffered this. It is simply impossible to make enemies fully avoidable in a game where you are moving at such high speeds. You can use your tension gauge to eliminate fear of the unknown (as long as the gauge is usable), or you can just deal with it. Rings are easy to find, and excluding Boss battles, there have been very few times I've actually died due to running into enemies. And yes, there are bottomless pits, but again, every Sonic game has had them. They make the game interesting. Finally, bonus stages are quite fun. You run along a half-pipe, collecting rings and avoiding obstacles. You must collect a certain number of rings to pass and receive the Chaos Emerald. However, you use the stylus to move Sonic back and forth, which makes the bonus stages a lot more fun and intuitive.

Story:
What can I say? Typical Sonic story: Eggman wants to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds to rule the world and build his empire. This time, however, Sonic must save TWO parallel worlds. This is where Blaze the cat comes in. She is Sonic's doppelganger from the parallel dimension who is on a quest for Sol Emeralds, which are her world's version of the Chaos Emeralds. The parallel dimension story even comes complete with a new Eggman, although he is more similar to the original Eggman than Blaze is to Sonic. So the story isn't that great, but then again, it's on the same level as the other 2-D Sonic games.

Graphics/Sound:
The graphics are the BEST I've seen out of any 2-D Sonic game. This game really takes advantage of the DS's capabilities. Backgrounds (or what you can see of them as you are speeding by) are beautiful, and the characters have a very pleasant cel-shaded style. The bosses are rendered in 3-D, and they look great too. One of the first things that I noticed that pleased me was when I hit an enemy for the first time. 50 individual rings flew out of Sonic at the same time and bounced on the screen without ANY slowdown at all. Sonic Rush's handling of ring loss is the best I've ever seen over any 2-D Sonic game. As for sound effects, there are some nice voice-overs and your typical Sonic noises. I simply loved the music; it was very upbeat and fun. However, everyone's taste in music differs, so you may or may not like it. Either way, sound and music were extremely well done and quite clear.

Playtime/replayability:
There are 7 zones, each with two acts and a boss. Then there is an extremely difficult final boss plus an extra boss. You can play through the game again as Blaze, but her levels are exactly the same as Sonic's, just in a different order. Also, Blaze is basically controlled the same as Sonic, but with a few minor changes. It may seem short, but the best way to rate this on replay value is to say this: if you enjoy playing other 2-D Sonic games over and over again, you will certainly enjoy playing this one again. You can go to Time Trial mode to challenge yourself to get the best time, or replay the levels in game play mode to get the highest rank. Despite what some people say, the levels are NOT linear, there are indeed multiple paths in the majority of them, so they are also fun to explore. So it might not take to long to beat the game, but if you enjoyed the ride, you'll want to come back for more.

Final Recommendation:
If you enjoyed playing classic Sonic games for the Genesis over and over again, you'll definitely want to buy this game. If you are new to the 2-D Sonic genre, you may want to rent it first, as it is short, and you may not enjoy replaying it. This game can truly be called a Sonic game, and is extremely fun. It may even be more fun than (dare I say it?) Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/06