A fun game, with a lot of replay value, but it's far from perfect.
Now Sega has released a new Sonic game for the Wii, called Sonic and the Secret Rings. In this game, Sonic finds out that the world within the book Arabian Nights is being threatened by an evil genie named Erazor. It is up to Sonic to stop Erazor. Along the way, he meets some of the characters from the book, which just happen to look and sound exactly like some of his friends. It's not one of the best stories in a videogame, or even in a platformer, although it's not too bad.
Each level in the game has a different theme based on one of the stories from the book. Players don't have as much control over Sonic as they did in previous games, because the game has Sonic running forward automatically, and within a set path. The player moves Sonic left and right to avoid obstacles, controls when Sonic jumps and attacks, and that's basically it. While some people may be put off by the lack of freedom, it does do a good job at giving back the sense of speed that a lot of people have been wanting from his newer games. It also manages to keep things challenging and fun.
Within the different worlds, there are many different kinds of missions for the players to beat. Some of these are as simple as getting from one point to the other. Others add different kinds of challenges, such as finishing with a certain amount of rings, not finishing with any rings, not killing any enemies, killing a certain amount of enemies, and a few others. The game doesn't take that long to beat because you don't have to beat all of the missions to beat the game. It only takes about 10 to 15 hours to beat the game, although there is still a lot to do after beating the game.
The game has a kind of RPG system, where Sonic will level-up throughout the game, and will gain different abilities, making the gameplay better as you go along. This is an interesting idea, but it is poorly executed and leads to one of the game's biggest flaws. A lot of the abilities are improve the speed and reaction time of Sonic, along with the distance he can jump, and his attack range. So in other words, early in the game, Sonic moves a lot slower than he should, doesn't move left and right quick enough, and misses a lot of enemies and jumps. I found that it didn't matter that much that I couldn't jump far or attack enemies within the early levels of the game, but the slow reaction time often resulted in me failing the missions, and the slow speed of Sonic was really annoying as well. However, if you're patient enough to get past the initial part of the game it becomes a lot less frustrating and is more fun. However, the controls still aren't perfect. There are still some times where the controls act up, and trying to back up by tilting the controller backwards can get very frustrating.
The game has a lot of replay value for anybody who likes to get 100% in a game. As stated before, you don't have to beat all of the missions to beat the game, so you can always go back to play the missions that you didn't beat. Also, each of the missions have bronze, silver, and gold medals which you get depending on how you played. These unlock different things, such as pictures and videos of the game. Also, levels have these things called "Fire Souls" which you can collect to unlock things in the party mode. There are also "rank names," which are similar to Achievement Points on the Xbox 360.
The game also has a multi-player portion. There are a few different modes to play, some of which are unlocked in the single-player mode. These are kind of similar to Mario Party, in that the players compete in the mini-games, and that determines how many spaces the people can move. The mini-games that you can play in each mode are the same, but the goal in each mode is different. One mode has the players trying to find some kind of treasure on a kind of game board, another has them racing down a river, and then there are a few others.
After playing the mini-games in Sega's other game Super Monkey Ball, I did not expect much from the mini-games in this. However, these games are actually a big step up from the games in Super Monkey Ball. They use the controller pretty well, with a few exceptions, and are actually pretty fun. I wouldn't recommend the game to anybody who just wants to add to their mini-game collection unless if they find it at a cheaper price, but for anybody who is interested in the rest of the game, this is a nice addition to it which can add to the amount of time that you play the game.
The graphics in the game are very good. Now that Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy is out, these aren't the best graphics on the Wii, but they were the best graphics on the Wii at the time the game was release, and still some of the best graphics from a 3rd party game. Some of the details are very nice, and catch my eye even in the short amount of time that they are on the screen. In addition to the graphics from the technical side, the game has a very good art style.
The sound is one of the game's lowest points. Sega still uses very bad rock songs for the majority of the single-player game. There is some good music every now and them, specifically in some of the cut-scenes and in the multi-player part of the game. But overall the music in this game makes me wish that Sega would make good original music in the style of the 2D games. The voice acting is also bad. Some of the voices were OK, but others just made me cringe because they were so bad.
Overall the game has a lot of problems, such as being forced to level up for better controls, and bad sound, but it does a lot to try to bring Sonic back to the quality he was once known for. The game sacrifices freedom of movement in favor of trying to get the series back to its fast and fun roots, and succeeds on several levels, although Sega still has a lot of work to do if they want to in the series to prove that Sonic isn't just a dying series like a lot of fans believe that it is.