Sonic Chronicles Preview: The First Chapters

When SEGA announced they were to take the storyline of Sonic the Hedgehog and expand upon it by means of a Role Playing Game, fans the world over went quiet. Could even the pedigree of BioWare, famed for their work on Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect, really take a series known for its rather light base storyline (controversially expanded upon and, yes, clusterfucked ever since Sonic Adventure 2) and make something interesting and engaging out of it? More to the point, could this be a game both younger Sonic fans and older fans enjoy?

At the Sonic Chronicles Community Day we had a chance to sit down with an advanced build of the game, play through many of the features and discover whether this is really shaping up to be something for the fans or just a glorified fan fiction.

From the moment you load up the game and watch the opening sequence you get an idea of exactly how this game is presented - using a comic book style animation, the cutscene briefly introduces the plights of Sonic against Eggman (for those who haven't paid attention the last 17 years). The story is set two years after Eggman is finally 'beaten' and disappears forever, however strange events happen after a time of peace that could lead to a greater threat rearing its head.

After seeing Sonic blast into Green Hill Zone (with a classic spinning circle for his running feet) he meets with Tails who tells you that Knuckles has gone missing. As you start to plod about looking for the dozy echidna, you learn that a group of alien-like creatures called 'Marauders' have kidnapped him for one reason or another.

As the story progresses you advance on to different 'Chapters' in the game, which are introduced with wonderful artwork that spans both screens of the Nintendo DS. It's stuff you'd expect to see on a Star Wars DVD box, with a huge Knuckles head floating in the air in space while the main characters strike poses below. Oddly enough, it works really well.

When the game kicks off, you get thrown into a conversation with Tails, and later Amy. These conversations serve to provide you with information about the story and sometimes contain handy hints which are useful, but a lot of the dialogue is entertaining fan service based on your responses.

The beauty of it is, although the chatting is useful, it's not necessary to wade through pages of text if you don't want to - a Sonic head icon allows you to finish a conversation in the quickest fashion and get back into the action. But if you want to learn more, Question marks and Exclamation icons allow to form a different take on whatever someone is saying.

Perhaps the best conversation piece is Sonic's attitude button - this is in the form of a Sonic head winking. Whenever this appears, you can have the blue blur reply in a sarcastic way or generally be a bit of a bastard. During an explanation of how to use the conversation system by Tails ("Sometimes asking questions can be really useful so try it sometime Sonic!") we got sarcy and asked him what his favourite colour was. For fans who really want to explore Sonic's character, it's an awesome addition that not only shows off how much of a dick you can be but can also show some allies' true opinions of you.

The dialogue is really good too; early on in the game you cross paths with Amy, who informs you that she has a boyfriend called Dexter that is much better than Sonic - yet when you meet the flirtatious Rouge, the pink hedgehog is quick to get jealous. Another chat with Tails sees Sonic reminisce about Green Hill Zone, leading to a confused response from your friend: "Good times? You mean the countless occasions where Eggman's turned our animal friends into slave robots and we had to fight them all?" BioWare brings up many aspects of Sonic's past without being patronising in the slightest.

Gameplay is set up in two major segments; adventuring and battling. Controlling characters on the world map will be familiar to anyone who's played The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - the touchscreen is used for all direction, while certain character-specific actions can be executed using either any shoulder button or by pressing a virtual button on the touchscreen.

The maps are vast and varied, but sometimes it became confusing as to where we exactly had to go - a basic representation of the world you are in sits on the top screen, showing you objective markers and a fog so you know where you've been before. For example in Central City, getting behind a block of houses meant finding an underground subway that only Sonic could use. Perhaps it was due to the fact that our time with the game was cut short and we wanted to see as much as possible, resulting in plenty of questioning after five minutes of roaming where to go next.

You can have up to four characters in your party at any given time, and certain characters have skills that are unique to them, so switching between them on the world map is a must if you want to get anywhere. Sonic can take advantage of loops and tubes, Tails and Rouge can fly between gaps and Amy can smash obstacles with her Piko Piko Hammer. Savvy use of a certain party is certain to earn you special bonus items on the field, such as stat raising objects and equipment.

The bottom of the touchscreen features a quick-menu, that has options to save your game, use any items you've collected and access a journal detailing your next objectives in case you forget. SEGA wanted us to play the main game and told us to avoid an option we've not seen before - a Chao Garden. Various purple spotted eggs found in the world map seem to be linked to this side of the game, as every time we collected one we kept spotting an info screen informing us of a hatched Chao...

The Battle system works differently, and plays like a cross between a Grandia game and Elite Beat Agents. Your current party lines up against an army of potential badniks, and the fight is split into "Rounds". At the start of each round you get the chance to assign commands to each character, ranging from attack, defence, using items and special moves (known as POW moves). Once orders are set, everyone's speed is taken into account and timeline of actions play themselves out.

During this time you will need to interact with your Nintendo DS depending on whether you are trying to pull off a POW special move or defend against an enemy's POW. POWs are stackable abilities that characters can purchase with points they earn from levelling up. Using them in battle uses PP, and their chances of connecting are dependant on whether you can input certain rhythm commands in time. You will either need to tap the screen in various areas in rhythm or touch and slide a big button across a path in order to execute or defend against a special move.

Some of the moves can be devastating and represent each character quite well. Sonic can obtain an Axe Kick where he Sonic Battle-kicks his enemy in the face, or can use Fastball, a combo move with Amy where Sonic is smacked with the Piko Piko Hammer into a badnik at great speed. Some of Amy's moves, Tantrum and Low Blow, dealt heavy damage if connected and Rouge's Distract move lowered an enemy's stats by having her... er, apparently use her assets to her advantage. Tails had health POW moves and other support moves such as Tinker, which drastically lowers a badnik's strength.

It's a great use of a battle mechanic, but we sometimes felt that the timing was a bit unforgiving in its POW attack and defence. The rhythm taps consisted of an inner circle (the target to tap) and an outer circle closing in (the two circles touching is the indication to tap), but sometimes it's unclear and disorienting to prepare for an onslaught of four to six taps.

In other cases, we thought we were tapping in a consistent rhythm but the game found we were ever so slightly out, losing out on the final tap - in most cases, if you even get one of these taps incorrect, it could mean the difference between an enemy missing or dealing heavy damage. There didn't seem to be a middle ground for getting most of them right.

It's a small niggle in a system that can otherwise provide some interesting scenarios. The most interesting thing is the Flee command - if you tell Sonic and friends to turn tail and run, a Chase sequence appears where your party begins to run away from the right side of the screen to the left, with the enemy in hot pursuit. In order to successfully escape, you have to guide every character out of the enemy's range, including hitting speed ramps to gain a greater distance. Tapping each character makes them jump, which helps you avoid crates lying in your path - hitting a crate slows you down and allows the enemy to continue their chase.

The cool thing is that this can be flip-reversed, and you may end up chasing an enemy that's realised they've bitten off more than they can chew. It's something we've not seen before in an RPG, let alone a Sonic game, and is very interesting. Depending on how well you play, you get a rank (up to A) for your battle results and points are awarded to each participant.

As with any RPG game, there are side quests you can take part in too. None of the ones we engaged in resulted in anything superb in return - defeating all of the robots in Central City (because apparently the GUN troops can't be bothered) earns you the odd item for use in battle. Some, like a chap by a construction site, ask you to set up a pipe system which you can use later to explore other areas of the map. In Central City, you get to meet the GUN Commander again (albeit in cartoony form) who gives you missions pertaining to the main story as well.

So there is plenty to do here, and we can't wait to see what else the game has in store - not just because the game promises to be so big, but because it's evident that BioWare have been doing their homework here. One look at the World Map and you can see areas to explore that hark back to past Sonic titles: Green Hill Zone, Angel Island (with connecting Mystic Ruins) and Central City (Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Battle) to name a few.

We didn't hear much of the music in the game (due to the background noise mostly) but one track that did jump out at us was a remake of Diamond Dust Zone (the Jun Senoue version) as the theme for Central City, which made us grin big grins.

In every nook and cranny there's something from a past game, from the occasional Swatbot* enemy to the 'bling' SFX from the intro to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 being used for item collection and other random sound effect revivals. There'll be over seven characters in the game with their personalities open for BioWare to use to the max - ones we didn't get to see but know are in there include Shadow, Knuckles and Big, with references to Chaotix members Vector and Espio along the way.

(* That's no typo... there actually are Swatbots in this game.)

There's still a few months to go until Sonic Chronicles reaches store shelves, so we hope they can find time to refine the battle system a little bit and make it more forgiving (or clear) during the touchscreen tap/slide elements. What we have played so far looks incredibly promising, although we still don't really know how the rest of the story will pan out. BioWare have impressed us so far, but we hope that the story remains as entertaining and respectful to the Sonic franchise as it did during our playtest.