Sonic Battle

"I'm starting to wonder if Sega is even trying anymore."

Sonic has been going down hill lately. His latest game, Sonic Advance 3, was perhaps his greatest success these past two years. Sega went through a dry spell after Sonic Adventure DX and they later announced two new games, Sonic Heroes and Sonic Battle. I heard multiple rumors of "seeing Sonic like I never have before," and they were right. I didn't see Sonic, but a bad double in his place. Both Sonic Heroes and Sonic Battle failed to impress me, and you should know why.

Story: 4/10

Eggman has awoken an ancient robot (I know what I said) and plans to destroy the world with it. When it doesn't work, he tosses it on the beach. Not much it can do there but rust. While Sonic is bored out of his mind, he walks to the beach and finds the robot. Then Shadow (!) shows up and demands to have the robot. Then it only gets weirder.

This game didn't follow any of the story lines of the previous games. Knux lives on Holy Summit, some new place we know nothing of. Rouge is a thief rather than a spy. Shadow suddenly appears and no one cares? It's all so out of place.

Controls: 7/10

The controls are moderate and easy to catch on to, but they become annoying after the game ignores any commands you've given. That's all there is to say, really.

Gameplay: 3/10

Okay. In story mode you have to go to a certain place to either find your self running to another or fighting. In battle, you're able to choose 2 of 3 special moves to use: Shot, Power or Trap. Shot fires a projectile at the opponent, Power blast your opponent with insane damage, and Trap lays a mine for the enemy. The first one you pick is for the ground. Second for the air, and third to make you invulnerable to that specific move.

As for the actual battles, they suck. You beat the opponent to a pulp using your moves, healing (more on that), and running. The battles are tedious and, at least for me, give you headaches. As for the healing, your character is able to heal his/herself by holding the guard button. Battles can rage forever if the characters have a high heal rate.

You're also able to pick up moves in the story mode for your robot, who can take any move from any character. You can make him either a feather weight or a juggernaut depending on how he's customized. I think this is the worst feature because his move set could kill an heard of enemies in seconds, making the fun factor go down.

Visuals: 4/10

Basically crap. The characters look like cardboard cutouts and the stages are a flat bit of nothing with stuff painted on and squares here and there. They obviously didn't work well here.

Sound: 8/10

Best feature in the game. The voices sound ike they should, though that isn't always good. Cream and Tails' voices are annoying, Shadow's isn't heard almost at all, Eggman doesn't sound like Eggman, and Knuckles sounds... I don't know. I have a lot of complaints for all of them.

The BGM is good. I liked how they remixed the Green Hill zone music for the hidden stage. It's pretty good, but a lot of the music hurts my head. I still don't know why.

Replayability: 2/10

There is a lot of replay value, granted you ever want to play it again. There are a number of Mini-games to try, but those, like the battles, are long and boring. There is a battle and challenge mode, but those are like story mode without the wandering involved.

Final verdict: 5/10

This game only shows what everyone has feared. Sonic may as well pack it up, unless Sonic DS and Shadow the Hedgehog are pretty damn good. I hope they are. I don't want to see Sonic go down like this.

Buy or Rent: Really, neither. But rent if you really think you need to prove me wrong. Good luck with that. If you buy, you really don't care where the money goes, do you?

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/31/05