Knuckles Week 2024 TSS Review: Knuckles' Chaotix

[nuckles87]

It can be easy to forget how relevant Knuckles the Echidna used to be. There was a time when he was on all the marketing, at the center of Sonic game stories, and even headlined and starred in numerous comics. But Knuckles’ one big shot at true video game stardom came pretty early on in the character’s existence in April of 1995, a little more than a year after his introduction in Sonic 3: Knuckles’ Chaotix. Released exclusively for the SEGA 32X hardware add-on for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive, Chaotix was the Sonic franchise’s first 32-bit console game. Coming after more than a half-dozen Sonic games that utilized or built off of the formula that Sonic 1 established,Chaotix chose to completely upend the established formula in favor of something radically different, to mixed (if still interesting) results.

Knuckles’ Chaotix is built around a bungee cord mechanic that the game calls “ring power,” which links two characters together, allowing them to affect each other’s movement and momentum. The secondary partner character can act as an anchor, allowing the player to build tension in the bungee cord which, when released, can send the player flying in a direction. This is pretty handy for quickly building up speed to get up a slope, or to move between vertical platforms in a level. 

The levels are designed with this mechanic in mind, featuring plenty of slopes that can be best conquered by quickly building and releasing tension in the bungee cord, or vertical platforms that can be quickly scaled by using one character to pull up another. The levels themselves are much more vertically oriented than your typical Sonic stages, with the level goal usually placed at the top of the stage, requiring players to climb up to it. 

The ring power moves aren’t the only new abilities Chaotix introduces, though. Alongside it are two partner character moves: partner recall and partner throw. Partner recall allows the player to bring the partner character back to them at the expense of ten rings. This move is pretty limited in utility, mostly useful for freeing a partner character if they get stuck in a part of the level you don’t want to go into, or on the very rare occasion they glitch into the other side of a wall you can’t get to (though since this is a glitch, I’m not sure if this was intentional). Partner throw, on the other hand, is a versatile and essential move in Chaotix. You can use the move in concert with the bungee cord by throwing them up to higher platforms you otherwise can’t reach with a jump so that they can pull you up. The move is also useful as an attack: you can throw them at riskier enemies, or enemies you can’t reach yourself, in order to destroy them. It’s even possible to run and jump with your partner character in your arms, giving you some amount of protection against enemies and allowing you to play through them as you run, though you are still at risk of getting hit yourself!

Adding to Chaotix’s wide assortment of moves are several character-specific moves. Each of the game’s five main characters have some unique additions to their moveset, largely based around Knuckles’ own moves and meant to facilitate vertical movement. Knuckles himself can, of course, glide and climb, though the glide doesn’t feel quite as smooth as it did in Sonic & Knuckles. Vector can airdash in eight directions and climb up walls. Mighty can cling to walls and jump up them. Espio might be my favorite, since he can run up walls and even run along the ceiling, making him the most versatile climber in the whole game. Charmy, meanwhile, is the most broken character. He can’t spin dash or even spin jump, but he can freely fly through the air with unlimited staimina. Using hover, he can maintain a consistent altitude while flying around slowly, while air dash can be used to move through the air faster and destroy enemies.

The game’s final two characters, Heavy and Bomb, exist only as partner characters and thus can only be played in co-op. They basically act as “dud” characters in the game’s combi catcher character select mini game. Neither of them have any moves beyond a basic jump, and are much more useless then the rest of the cast. Heavy is invulnerable, but has a weak jump and will slow the player down due to his weight. Bomb is faster and can jump higher, but will explode when damaged, damaging everything around him including the player.  

On top of all these moves and abilities, Chaotix also has an eclectic assortment of power-ups. The basic invincibility, speed, and blue shield power-ups from previous Sonic games return, while the elemental shields from Sonic 3 & Knuckles are gone. In their place are some supremely odd power-ups: “grow” and “shrink” will make the character that hits them bigger or smaller. While larger, a character will have increased running speed and jump height, though they’ll also be more vulnerable to enemy attacks and when a partner character is already large, like Vector, they will become too heavy to carry. A shrunk character will have their jump height and running speed reduced, though their weight as a partner character will also become lighter, meaning they’ll have less affect on you while you’re jumping or climbing. There is also “change” and “swap,” which will change you into a different random character or swap you with your partner character, respectively. Finally, there is “combine ring,” which combines all of your lost rings into a single, larger ring when you get it, allowing you to quickly reacquire all of them if you can grab it.

 Taken as a whole, all of these mechanics, moves and power-ups cause Knuckles’ Chaotix to (sort of) live up to its name: it’s an incredibly chaotic game, one that at times can become unpredictable and sometimes feels damn right random. While that can be fun, it also makes Chaotix a bit of a mess. Since you only have limited control over your partner character, their actions and affect on your own character’s physics can be unpredictable. Sometimes their own momentum will send them up to a different platform you didn’t want to go to, or won’t send them high enough, causing you to miss it. Sometimes their momentum will counteract yours in mid-air after bouncing off a spring, causing you to lose air and not get as high as you should have. Your partner character will hit enemies and objects you didn’t want them to, which can cause you to lose a ring your access to a power-up. While these issues can be managed with the game's partner moves, they can't be eliminated, and this sort of chaotic element is counterintuitive to platforming gameplay in general, never mind something like Sonic. 

The level design also seems to have been negatively impacted in order to accomodate this messiness. Chaotix’s levels are less tightly designed and often significantly more open than typical Classic Sonic stages. They have few hazards beyond enemies, causing many levels to lack a feeling of flow typically inherent to Sonic games. The levels can also at times feel more maze-like, which can make them easy to get lost in given that they often lack memorable geographical landmarks. Individual zones do have recognizable themes and landscapes, which make each of them feel unique, but they also tend to lack game changing gimmicks. So while Speed Slider plays like a rollercoaster and is filled with massive slopes, and Amazing Arena has players searching for a clock switch while navigating open internal areas, no levels have any unique gimmicks to interact with, like Mushroom Hill Zone’s pulleys or Oil Ocean Zone’s oil slides.

The game’s five zones are also divided into five acts instead of two or three, though little tends to differentiate these different acts aside the act 5 boss and the time of day, which changes throughout a playthough. On the whole, these levels just kind of feel...slapped together, like the dev team didn’t have time to design something more polished. The levels even have awkward level transitions, where the entire game will stop for a moment as you wait for an elevator or something to take you to another part of the stage. The mess doesn’t end with the levels either.

There is no way to simply select partner characters or levels in this game. As I alluded to earlier, partner characters are selected via a claw machine mini game called “combi catcher,” where a claw moves back and forth while characters are shifted around. Whether you can grab the one you want will at least partially depend on luck, and you’ll more than likely grab a character you didn’t want, especially the dud characters Heavy and Bomb. The level select, meanwhile, is attached to a roulette that moves so quickly that it’s nearly impossible to reliably select the stage you actually want to play. Neither of these features inherently ruin the game, but they needlessly take another aspect of it out of your hands, making it impossible to come at these levels with any sort of strategy.

Still, despite these issues, Chaotix is still enteraining. Yes, the gameplay is messy, and the levels aren’t as tight as other Classic Sonic games, but the game’s various moves and mechanics are still really fun to engage with. Since the levels are pretty open and not particularly challenging, you aren’t punished if your partner character throws you off. I love navigating the levels with the bungee mechanic and the various character moves. It can feel great to adeptly navigate between platforms, tossing your partner character other platforms so they can pull you up, then grabbing onto a wall or using one of your mid-air abilities to get somewhere else. At its best, Chaotix’s platforming is unlike anything that can experienced in other platformers. Meanwhile, the chaos introduced by your partner often amounts to little more than a few missed jumps or missing a power-up. Somewhat frustrating, perhaps, but not anything that’ll kill you or otherwise spoil the fun of the game. 

The bosses, likewise, are similarly lax in difficulty. Since your partner character also acts as an extra layer of health, death during the game’s boss fights are rare. The bosses themselves tend to be pretty simple, and don’t really utilize the bungee mechanic aside from Botanic Base boss. That boss will grab your partner character and suspend you in the air, and you must hit them while your hanging. The game as a whole is pretty easy for the most part, and since it doesn’t have lives, you’ll never even see a game over.

The only truly challenging aspect of this game is its bonus stages and special stages. The bonus stages are accessed via giant rings hidden throughout the levels and...mostly aren’t worth playing. Your rings tick down while you’re in the stage, acting as a timer, and rings are so sparse and difficult to collect you generally can’t use the stages to reliably increase your ring count. The only real benefit to these stages are the combi catcher and stage select item boxes, which can grant you the ability to more easily pick a partner character and stage if you are able to obtain them.

The special stages are where you earn the game’s collectible: Chaos Rings. These stages are essentially auto run 3D platforming levels, complete with platforms, obstacles, and bottomless pits. They each have two parts, which you advance through by collecting a certain number of blue spheres, after which you’ll get a chaos ring. They are easily some of the best special stages in any Classic Sonic game, only really outdone by Sonic 3D Blast Saturn’s special stages. They are fun, don’t feel nearly as cheap as the special stages in previous Sonic titles, but are also super easy to die in. You need quick reflexes to navigate through them without running out of rings (which, again, act as a count down) or being knocked into a pit by pinball bumpers. As with special stages, some memorization is required, though it isn’t nearly as reliant on this.

Which is good, because unlike some other Sonic games, the attempts you get to earn all of them are limited. You only get 20 chances in total, and in order to get those you need to reach the end of each stage with 50 rings, which is often easier said then done. 50 rings will cause a large ring to appear over the end level sign post. If you get through the whole game without getting all 6 chaos rings, you’ll need to start the whole game over, because there’s no way to select levels in a completed save file. Why they didn’t go the Sonic 3 route and let players replay levels is beyond me, but this unfortunate oversight makes getting the game’s true ending and final boss needlessly difficult. I personally only got it by restarting my console before the game could save at the end of a level. 

Beyond the gameplay, Chaotix also has a very unique visual and musical identity, significantly shaped by the 32X. Visually, Chaotix is a gorgeous game, albeit also a bit busy. It is easily the most colorful of all of the classic Sonic sidescrollers, making full use of the 32X’s enhanced color palette. The game is full of pastel colors, and takes the abstract art style often seen in Classic Sonic to an extreme only surpassed by Sonic CD. The characters also look great: Chaotix boasts some of my favorite Classic Sonic designs. They all have unique and striking looks that really cause them to stand out from the rest of the Classic Sonic cast without feeling out of place. 

Chaotix also has some fairly impressive effects, clearly meant to demonstrate what the 32X can do. The game is filled with sprite scaling effects, and seeing characters grow and shrinking and rings launch towards the screen when hit all look great. The special stages represent the first instance of 3D graphics in a Sonic game, and while they certainly aren’t the most impressive 3D graphics on the hardware, they do run well and look good. Flat shaded 3D polygons are quite suitable for a Sonic special stage.

The soundtrack also sounds completely different from any other Sonic OST, thanks to the 32X sound chip. While the 32X’s sound capabilities aren’t generally well thought of, Knuckles’ Chaotix manages to use it to produce some really cool tracks like Door into Summer, Speed of Sound, and Evening Star. Since the game itself is meant to take place at a tropical resort, the OST often evokes a feeling of fun or relaxation, sometimes tinged with tropical vibes.

It’s unfortunate that Knuckles’ future as a lead in his own sub franchise was tied to this game. Released to sell a platform few people owned, just one month before said platform would be supplanted by SEGA’s true 32 bit effort, the Saturn, the game never really stood a chance. Even if Knuckles’ Chaotix had been great, it would have been ignored, but the fact that it wasn’t only cemented it as a game that simply wouldn’t find much commercial success. That 3D gaming was on the horizon, and 2D games would soon be viewed as inferior experiences, certainly didn’t help matters. And yet, Knuckles’ Chaotix occupies a unique place within the Sonic franchise. It was the first from-the-ground-up Sonic character spin-off, the first Sonic game to feature 3D visuals, and the only Sonic game for the 32X, which would be one more original Sonic platformer than the Saturn got. 

Critically, Knuckles’ Chaotix did solid in its day, but these days is viewed far more negatively by Sonic fans, with it being divisive at best. I can’t say I’m surprised: it’s very different from other Classic Sonic titles. It was the first Sonic game to break the one-button rule established in Sonic 1, and includes not one, not two, but three separate tutorials to teach players its mechanics. That complexity alone is probably enough to turn off some players. But I can’t say I agree with the people who don’t like it. 

Chaotix, for all its flaws, has plenty to offer people who want another classic Sonic experience. Its bungee mechanic and partner characters certainly aren’t for everyone and arguably even break the physics-based gameplay that makes these games so appealing. But when played on its own terms, I think the ideas it utilizes are pretty fun. When I first played Knuckles' Chaotix in 2004, I didn’t care for it at first. But eventually, as I realized what the tutorials were trying to teach me, the mechanics clicked for me. While certainly a lesser Classic Sonic experience, I think every fan of 2D Sonic ought to take the time to play through its tutorial, and then give it a chance. Maybe you won’t care for it, or maybe it’ll click for you like it did for me.

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[Knight Terror]

I love this game

[Shiny Gems]

Good, huh? I wasn't expecting you to give the game that kind of score; not that I think it is bad, as I like the game a lot, but I just wasn't expecting this kind of score.

It is still great that you found it good at most, though!

[castell-neath]

Another great review! Detailed, well balanced and well written. Thank you so much for taking the time to post it...really enjoyed it!

Would love to see a re-release of this after reading this. 

[veesonic]

Such a classic game, probably a case of "you had to be there". Surpised the review didn't mention anything about multiplayer, one of the few Sonic games where you can complete the whole campaign with a friend! I say that's where this game really shines.