Mactendo Reviews Something: Sonic and the Secret Rings (Wii)

Okay, yeah, long time no see, let’s get right back into the swing of things.

Graphics:

This is the best game on the Wii so far in terms of looks. The graphics are superb, shiny, and bump-mapped, and in some levels (Night Palace) the graphics are a privilege to look at. The graphics ultimately are a huge reason for one to continue onward playing the game, because you just want to see what they throw at you next. In the Party Mode, however… ehhh, not so much. The graphics look like an N64 game reject, besides the character models. Quite frankly, these are the ugliest backgrounds I’ve seen in years. Slash that, these are the ugliest backgrounds I’ve seen in a decade. Pilotwings 64 looked better than this. Then again, as I’ll mention later, I don’t count the Party Mode as part of the game (just like I don’t count Sonic ‘06 as part of the official canon).

Sound

The music is a mixed bag. There’s no in-between here either, it’s either great or horrendously bad, and an abomination to all video game music before it. In a Sonic game, you’d at least expect decent music in every level. Hell no. The theme music gets irritating (you’ll soon find that out) after a while, too. The first 2 levels have decent music, and then the 3rd level (Dinosaur Jungle) makes you want to rip off your ears so you don’t have to listen to it anymore. Combine that with Sonic’s latest companion/helper character Sharah (think Omochao only it can perform “MAGIC!!!”.) and her incessant fucking nagging, and you have the most annoying level in any Sonic game to date in terms of sound. The music for the level is basically the Village People annoyingly screaming the name of the level over and over then saying “Get funky!” with a horrible drum kit on repeat in the background. After that, it’s pretty much mediocre, with the exception of the last 3 levels, especially Levitated Ruin. I love the music in Levitated Ruin, and that level should have been the mold for all the others. Now, sense this is still a Sonic game (though it really doesn’t seem like one as you’ll read later), I have to complain about the VA’s. Everyone does, and everyone will until they fire at least one of these stupid anime morons (start off with Amy Palant [Tails] and the dude that played Yu-Gi-Oh [Knuckles, who used to be BLACK], and maybe I’ll be okay with you again). Thank God they included the Japanese VA’s – they’re much better at playing their characters, and sense you can’t understand them, they’re not as annoying in-game.

Story

Okay, so yeah, I’ve never been a fan of the fact that Sonic games now have a confusing as all Hell canon to follow (is she a queen from the future or a princess from another dimension?), and the good thing is that since this game is in a dream, you don’t have to worry about canon at all. That doesn’t make the story any less goofy. It’s a Sonic game, it should be animals placed in robots by evil fat man. This time, it’s about a book. Sonic is sucked into that book, and meets clones of the actual Sonic characters on the way. And also, there’s some big dude. And instead of Chaos Emeralds, there’s these ring things. Whatever.

Gameplay:

Woop! A Sonic game that doesn’t make you want to castrate yourself! INCREDIBLE Sega! Absolutely astonishing! Kudos! However, it does need work – there’s a lot of times when you start to wish for more precise control, and I believe this is the beginning of a good line of upcoming Sonic games, so there is time for them to iron out what could be a perfect Sonic control scheme next time. It’s a fun game, albeit hard in some points, and the boss battles are incredible.

Sometimes, it becomes repetetive (don’t all Sonics?), and other times, it becomes annoying (get to the end of the level with 0 rings… and right before the end, we’re going to put 300 rings. there! how’s that?!). Then again, it’s a tradeoff – the boss battles are, well, just that – pretty boss. Much like Sonic Rush’s boss battles, which I’m a big fan of.

Overall: 4/5 – it’s good, but it needs work. Solid effort, definitely at least rent this thing. Oh, and don’t go into the multiplayer part – at all. I’m just counting that out of my review, as I consider that part of the game an even worse sequel to the absolutely horrendous Sonic Shuffle. Namaste.