A Huge Disappointment By GAMESPOT! Sonic Makes A Good Comeback In His Second Wii Exclusive Game!
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It's time for the Sonic and the Black Knight review! For the Wii!
Sonic and the Black Knight is the sequel to Sonic and the Secret Rings, although neither of the stories relate to one another.
If you've seen my Sonic and the Secret Rings review, you will know that I very much disliked that game, mainly because of the mechanics in the controls. Plus, the script and voice acting sucked. So, Sonic and the Black Knight is the sequel, did it suck as well? Let's find out!
The game starts out with a GORGEOUS CGI clip. Merlina, the girl you are focusing in on, is being chased by the Black Knight. She somehow summons Sonic to the rescue. Look! Chilidogs! I haven't seen Sonic Team show Sonic eating chilidogs since Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog! But anyway, Sonic decides to help and defeats the Black Knight's minions. Just as he's about to go after the Black Knight himself, Merlina pulls him back and they disappear.
The game goes into storybook form, like it is in Secret Rings. Only this time, the pictures take up the whole screen, and they're a little bit more animated. Merlina tells Sonic that the Black Knight is actually King Arthur, and that he is immortal as long as he carries the scabbard of Excalibur.
So now the game begins. You start out with the tutorial and uh…*GASP* What!?!?!?!?!? Look at this!!! You control Sonic with the analog stick in the Nunchuck!!! Oh happy day!!! This makes the game SOOOOOO much better!!! See I was not looking forward to playing this game because I knew it was the sequel to Secret Rings which I disliked. But making it so you control Sonic with the analog stick was such a smart move! Thank you Sonic Team!
And they even fixed the jumping mechanics as well! See, in Secret Rings, to pull off a small jump, you had to quickly hit the 2 button, but to perform a higher jump, you had to hold down the 2 button, which would make Sonic skid, and throw you off…well, it did for me. But with Black Knight, all you have to do is hold down the A button, and for however long you hold it down, Sonic will jump higher, without skidding. He will jump immediately, like he's supposed to!
Now, Sonic has a sword, which he uses to attack with. This was a huge controversy over the internet. People didn't like the idea of Sonic using a sword. I myself thought it was a stupid idea! But you know what? It works! To swing your sword, swing your Wiimote, just like in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Now, the only problem I have with this, is that this is the only way to attack. And with that said, you will be swinging your Wiimote, A LOT!
I thought The Force Unleashed had you swinging the Wiimote constantly! But it's like double overtime with Black Knight! With later levels, you might just want to get to the end ASAP, and avoid attacking enemies as much as possible!
Like Secret Rings, the game plays on rails, and this was another fact of why I was hesitant in playing this game. But since the controls are ALMOST perfect, I really didn't care that it's on rails! Usually, I like the freedom of virtually going anywhere, but I didn't mind it for the most part!
As you go through the story, you will meet, yet again, the bodies and voices of familiar characters. But this time around, I have to say that the script and voice acting were pretty decent! It wasn't really over the top, trying too hard, acting skills. I guess the voice actors had a little pep talk from the producers. Another smart move! Except, I think they forgot to mention it to Jason Griffith. He does an ok job, but I think he's still too off the wall with Sonic.
Do I really have to say it? Ok. The graphics are amazing! Sega, whatever you're doing, and however you create the visuals, please don't change it! You always do the right thing when it comes to graphics!
After you complete each level, you will get graded, from one to five stars, on how well you completed the level. The better you do, the more stars you get. And with the stars, come followers. Followers are used as experience. The more followers you have, the more skills you gain. The skills are not purchased though, as they are in Secret Rings, but are obtained by how many followers you have.
Also after each level, you can gain items. Some of the items can be helpful to you, while others, are only there as collectables. Believe me! There are A LOT of items you can collect!
The multiplayer mode has been changed up from Secret Rings. Instead of boring, frustrating mini-games, it's now a battle system. You and up to 3 other players can duke it out to see who is the best. This style of multiplayer is better than the mini-games, but it can also be boring because of the lack of speed, all of the levels are pretty much the same with a different color of paint, and the camera angle was a bit frustrating.
There is an online mode, where you can compete in time trials to see who can complete a certain level the fastest. You can also trade items with registered friends as well.
Along with the items, there are also unlockable movie clips, music tracks, sound clips, and more!
Sonic and the Black Knight is a huge surprisingly good game! It's SO much better than its prequel, Sonic and the Secret Rings! Along with its dazzling graphics, it has a good script, good voice acting, very good sense of speed, and it has GREAT controls, which made the game very fun to play!
But the downsides that I found were, the fighting controls were too repetitious, to the point where it began to hurt a bit to swing the Wiimote, the multiplayer mode was a bit shallow, some of the levels were WAY too short, the game itself was fairly short, and, whatever happened to Dr. Robotnik? He's not in this game! That's very weird.
But overall, this game was SUCH a nice surprise! This game gets a 3.5/5 with the title of Good.
-Frequenxy
Ratings:
0-1.5=Total Crap!
1.75-2.5=Bad
2.75-3.5=Good
3.75-4.25=Awesome!
4.5-5=Epic!!!