Sonic Chronicles: Suprisingly Good
I honestly think this is one of the weaker stories of the recent Sonic games, just because everything is rushed and while you can put it together, it's just not good enough, which I'll elaborate on in a bit.
So yeah, the story starts with Sonic, Knuckles, Amy, and Tails fighting Eggman. They take him down and he is presumed dead. A couple years later, we're with Sonic, who Tails has just contacted. Apparently, the blue blur has been gone for a while now, and when Tails contacts him it's the first time any of his friends have communicated with him since the last battle with Eggman. Tails informs Sonic that Knuckles and the Chaos Emeralds have been taken by a group called the marauders, and Sonic is called into action once more to help. After meeting Amy in Green Hill Zone and fighting some animals and old Eggman robots, Sonic meets up with Tails and Rouge and the gang sets off on a new adventure.
I'm not gonna get too into the story, because honestly, it wasn't done too well. As I mentioned before, lots of scenarios are rushed, and it seems the developers just went, "It's a handheld game, they're not gonna care about the story." Because of this, some things are just hard to buy, and there's a lot of plot holes and continuity errors, especially with the inclusion of Gizoids, which haven't been mentioned since Emerl in Sonic Battle.
The good story elements are actually in the character development themselves. With Sonic's disappearance, lots of characters have changed in different ways. Tails has grown up a lot, and has made something of himself as the smartest person around. The story shows that Knuckles actually ISN'T the last echidna, and we get to see a more contemplative and profound side of his personality, as opposed to the usual hardass hotheaded guardian we're used to. Rouge isn't quite as selfish anymore, and there are very few times in the game where those sides of her personality are even seen, showing her truly good sides. Amy's not as obsessive over Sonic, making her more bearable, Eggman's not as obnoxious, and even Shadow is nicer, as shown when we meet him where he's looking for E-123 Omega and not just sulking, even describing Omega as a good friend.
Some characters don't need to be there though. This includes the secret characters, like Cream and Omega of course, but I mean some of the story-characters too. Big the Cat, for example, has no use after his introduction. You need him in the overworld map (which I'll explain later), and then the fat **** is just one more space on your character select screen. It seems they quite literally included an overworld obstacle JUST so they could put him in, which makes no sense because nobody likes him. Vector the Crocodile, a cool character who's actually useful and some people like, makes a one second cameo, but Big the Cat, the one Sonic character everybody can agree to hate whether they like the franchise or not, was put in. What the hell?
Character Customization:
The game is an RPG, so of course now you have to concern yourself with stats, equipment, etc. The equipment system is the game's biggest flaw, because in the tradition of Sonic games, you find rings lying around instead of gaining them from winning battles. This means you have a limited amount of rings you can find in the whole game, so you can never buy enough stuff. I suppose to counter this, they give you an item at the end of every battle, which you can then use to sell to shops for more rings.
Stats raise when you level up, and you also get a skill point when you level up that you can use to raise a character's Strength, Speed, Defense, Health, or Luck (accuracy and evasion, from what I can gather). Also, every level up gives you 5 special points which you can use to buy and upgrade POW Moves (special moves) for your character, which I'll explain later. The armor and accessories mostly suck and aren't worth much, and I can guarantee you that the thing you'll spend the most time on as far as equipment goes is your Chao. Chao are basically living accessories. You find their eggs on the overworld map, and each have special powers and a rarity level. Some are really cool, and some are really useless. But I guarantee you'll get a lot of common ones that nobody wants to trade for (you can trade Chao like Pokémon. There are 60 types. Gotta catch 'em all!), so get used to seeing the name "Griff" a lot.
You can also choose who's on your team every time you exit a safehouse. The thing is, you always have to have Sonic on your team, so your selectable group of 4 is really Sonic and three other people. And the characters aren't that balanced either, so you'll probably be like me and wishing Sonic wasn't on your team so you could just use Knuckles, Shade, Omega, and Shadow, instead of having to rotate one of them to play as them all. But it doesn't matter if one's kept in your team or not as far as EXP goes. If a character is out of your team for half the game, the next time you put them in your team they automatically level up to catch up with the people you HAVE been using, so it doesn't matter if you haven't touched Amy since the start of the game, she'll be brought up to level 30 if your other characters are there.
Overworld:
Being an RPG, the game has quests and sidequests. The difficulty of them is cheapened because the map on your top screen will always show you where to go, eliminating the need to explore for yourself. It's nice sometimes when you get really lost, but most of the time it just feels like an insult to your intelligence. It can also make things confusing, because it shows all of your objective points at once, so you don't know what's a sidequest and what will progress the story. E-123 Omega is a secret character. I didn't find this out until after I beat the game because the way he's mentioned in the story and unlocked seemed like it was a mandatory part of the plot. The only other secret character, Cream, was one you could tell it wasn't necessary to unlock, but you do it anyway because somehow Cream is one of the few Sonic characters who you always know isn't going to suck, and this game doesn't disappoint. The sidequests aren't usually worth it though, because you get very little EXP for them and **** items as rewards instead of good armor or accessories.
The annoying thing about the overworld map is that there are certain obstacles that only certain characters can overcome, such as Sonic, Shadow, and Amy being able to run through loops (despite the fact that all the characters have done this), Tails, Knuckles, Rouge and Cream flying, etc. Most of the time it isn't problematic, but sometimes you have to keep your party in mind for whatever problems you'll encounter to your goal. Remember how I said they seemed to invent one obstacle JUST so they could throw in Big the Cat? It's poison gas. Apparently, Big thinks the gas is just fog, and he JUST SO HAPPENS to be allergic to it, causing him to go into mass fits of sneezing which stops him from breathing in the gas. Big is now given this invincibility ability in the overworld, and the only other time you encounter it in the whole game is to pass through lightning (that is somehow underwater), and you only need to pass through that lightning for a sidequest. The only other character in the game who can do this is Omega, but by the time you unlock him, you won't need the ability anyway.
Combat:
Of course, the main seller of an RPG is its combat system, and this game's isn't that bad. It's easy, but not bad. Depending on their speed stat, a character (including an enemy) can attack multiple times in one turn, so you predetermine when you want to use a POW move, item, or normal attack, and in what order. The problem is, if you want to use a normal attack first and then a POW move in one turn, you can't with the same character. The game is designed so if you choose normal attack first on one enemy, you'll just be using the normal attack for all their moves in that turn. If that enemy dies, they'll just randomly attack another foe, instead of the next one in line.
The POW moves are pretty cool. When you use a POW move, a series of buttons or lines or whatever come up, and you have to use your touch stylus (btw, the whole game's played with the stylus, even in the overworld. No buttons AT ALL, even in dialogue boxes) to execute the attack, like in Elite Beat Agents. Executing the attack correctly will cause extra damage or an enhanced effect, while failing can cause nullified damage or even complete failure. This also happens when defending against an enemy's special attack, which is nice because if you're quick enough, you can dodge one-hit kill moves. You also have to consider POW moves when choosing team mates, because some characters have POW attacks they can only do if certain characters in the team. POW moves use PP instead of MP, and when doing one of these team attacks, it takes away PP from all involved characters.
Playable Characters (In Order of Being Unlocked):
I've kinda talked about the characters, but as I said before, they're not really balanced, so I'm gonna give you some info on all of them to get them across better.
-Sonic: Sonic is a fairly-balanced character, except for his Luck stat. Since he's one of the fastest, he has the most moves per turn, and he has higher attack and health than most of the other characters, since he's in your team all the time. The problem with Sonic is his POW moves. They use a relatively low amount of PP and are easy to execute, but they generally suck. Most of them also require other characters to be on the team, most of which you usually won't want to use.
-Amy: Amy isn't a bad character, but she's not a good one. She's got good attack, but her health, defense, and POW moves leave a lot to be desired. She's not slow either, but you'd think she would be faster. She's also relatively useless on the field, because while she runs through loops, Sonic's always on your team anyway, which makes that useless. She can bash boxes too, but this obstacle doesn't appear much later in the game, and Knuckles and Omega can do it anyway.
-Tails: As far as the story goes, this is the first time I've really liked Tails. In combat, not so much. Tails has decent defense and luck, but that's about it. All of his POW attacks are status-changers, which you're not usually going to use because it's a waste of a move, and the only POW moves of his that are attacks are from other characters who are compatible with Tails, and even then they're not that good. His redeeming quality is that his overworld flight is the quickest to raise of all the flying characters, but by the time you need a level 3 flyer the others will have learned it anyway.
-Rouge: Rouge isn't anywhere near as she should be, which is sad because past games have shown her kicking serious ass. Physically, Rouge is probably the strongest of the flying characters, but that doesn't say much because they're all relatively weak. Still, her attack is pretty decent, as are the rest of her stats, and while her POW moves aren't good, they're still useful. Her overworld flying is pretty decent too.
-Big: Big is useless. He's got good attack, defense, and health, but he's so slow he only gets one move per turn and he's got horrible accuracy. His special moves also blow, and as I've mentioned before, he's mandatory at one point in the game and then again in a sidequest as far as the overworld goes, because all he has in temporary invincibility. The only good thing about Big the whole game is one scene where the creators basically decide to make fun of his idiocy and the characters all just stare at him, which is actually pretty funny. Overall though, he's the second-worst character in the game.
-Knuckles: Knuckles is one of the best characters in the game. He's got high attack, speed, and great POW moves, as well as decent defense, luck, and health. His POW moves are compatible with a lot of characters, so you will pretty much always have a combination with him, and he can Bash, Fly, and Climb in the overworld, which are all at low level, but good when you need them. Overall, he's a very good character.
-Cream: Cream is the first secret character in the game and you can unlock her in a sidequest in Green Hill Zone by finding Cheese (her chao) after getting Knuckles. Cream is your white mage: She heals your party and can mess with your enemies. Her POW moves are trickier to pull off than most of the characters, but it's well worth it. Of course, her attack is low, and the rest of her stats are decent, but she's one of the better overworld flyers. Overall, Cream is probably one of the more useful characters in the game, and almost as good as Rouge as far as the flyers go. Unlocking her is also the only way to get Cheese as an equipable Chao, so if you want to collect all 60, you have to unlock her, because Cheese is one-of-a-kind.
-Eggman: That's right, Eggman is playable in this game. He's actually the worst playable character, but you can forgive that because he's only available for a little while. He only has two POW attacks, one of which you absolutely need at one point in the game, high health, decent attack, but everything else is horrible. But you do need him at one short period. Unlike Big, who was forced into the story so he could be playable, Eggman has to be playable because the story calls for it.
-Shadow: Of course, since he's the ultimate life form, Shadow is one of the best characters in the game. He's just as fast as Sonic, has some of the highest attack, luck, and some of the best POW moves. Of course, his POW moves take up a lot of PP, but enemies drop items so much that won't matter. He's also compatible with quite a few characters, one of the only two characters who can use teleport in the overworld, and while he was definitely forced into the story to be playable, nobody's complaining because he's awesome.
-E-123 Omega: Omega is the second secret character in the game, but unlike Cream, who you could play the game through without knowing was in it at all, you're probably going to unlock him anyway. And that's fine, because he's also one of the best characters in the game. Omega's got some of the highest attack, defense, and health in the game. His normal attack is a missile that damages both the target and the two enemies next to it thanks to the explosion, and he has some of the strongest POW moves ever. Of course, he also has low accuracy, can only make one move per turn, and his POW moves cost a lot of PP, because he is a walking armory. He's also relatively useless on the overworld, with a bash ability not as good as Amy's and invincibility not as good as Big's (somehow). Still, Omega is one of the best characters in the game, and like Cream, definitely worth unlocking.
-Shade: Shade, the new character and villain for the first half of the game, becomes a playable character in the second half. She's also one of the best characters, with some of the highest stats. Her Speed matches Sonic and Shadow's, her attack matches Knuckles and Omega, and she has amazing health, defensem and luck. She also has good POW moves with low PP and is compatible with quite a few characters. She's not too useful in the overworld, with low level climbing and teleportation, but by the time you unlock her, that won't matter anymore. Shade could very easily be the best character in the game. Too bad she has the personality of a 2x4.
Final Notes:
This game is definitely a kid's game, unlike some of the more recent games with tones of murder and bestiality. This is most evident in how incredibly easy the game is, and how horrible some of the writing is, including the incredibly cartoony appearance of some human NPCs. Perhaps some of the biggest rip-offs is dying: The only time dying has been less effective is Lego Indiana Jones. In this game, if you fall in battle, you can pay some rings to restart the battle with full health and PP. This is good, because it's usually all I needed. But they also make the battle easier if you have to do this, which is just an insult to me as a gamer.
If I had to pick a term to describe this game, it'd be "Half Baked". The game had a lot of promise and great concepts, but it just falls short. It's too easy at some points, too annoying at others, the sidequests are worthless and the only reason you do them is to prolong the experience. The overworld abilities idea is like Communism: Good on paper, bad in practice. The final boss is also a joke, especially when you go Super Sonic because you quite literally win in one turn without even trying. I could honestly wipe my ass in twice the amount of time it takes to fight the final boss, and I don't think it's possible to lose it. The story is rushed, and while it's not like it doesn't make sense, it just isn't satisfying. I realize that a lot of people think holding standards for the story in a Sonic game is a stupid notion, but this was really just pathetic.
The thing is, the game isn't bad. It's good, and I did like it. I just think they didn't finish it, and wanted to rush the release so they could have their annual handheld Sonic game. If they had given it another few months of development, this could've been a truly amazing game. But still, despite its shortcomings, I can't wait for the sequel. Sonic Chronicles is a game you can rent or buy, and I guess it's just whether you'll want to replay it or not that determines which one you do.