Sonic's first outing into the Wii manages to be a success.
Sonic is now introduced to a new adventure, this time in the world of the legendary Arabian Nights. One night while sleeping, a genie of the ring by the name of Shahra calls forth Sonic to save the worlds of the Arabian Nights from being destroyed by the evil genie Erazor Djinn. Throughout his travels Sonic comes across familiar faces that represent famous people in the Arabian Knights, like Dr. Robotnik as King Shahryār, Tails as Ali Baba, and Knuckles as Sinbad. Sonic sees them as his old friends, while they have no idea who he is.
Sonic and the Secret Rings' gameplay takes a departure from the series' usual 3-D roots. Rather than simply getting to the goal, the game also includes other different mission objectives. There are a total of 100 missions in a span of eight worlds. Most of the missions consist of you getting to the goal, defeating a certain amount of enemies or collecting a certain amount of rings/items, racing against someone or the clock, etc. Sonic is once again able to move fast and the game certainly does a good job of portraying a great sense of speed and it helps add to the Sonic experience. While the levels are rather challenging the game's various boss battles are pretty easy, while others are kind of annoying. In addition to the single player the game also sports a surprisingly good multiplayer mode complete with dozens of different styled mini-games. A majority of the games are inspired by the Mario Party series and they work well overall and they can be fun to play with friends and family.
Rather than giving the player complete analog control over Sonic, the development team opted to create a much simpler control scheme involving only the Wii Remote. Sonic's progression is completely on-rails, meaning he is constantly moving forward (while on occasion backing up) and you mainly maneuver him left and right. The controls are the game's most common criticism and it does have it's issues. Trying to back up Sonic can be a pain since sometimes it feels a little unresponsive, and the same can be said for the homing attack, though it isn't as annoying of an issue as trying to back up. Aside from that the controls were pretty responsive once you got used to them. The camera also has a few issues every now and again, but for the most part it works.
Sonic has the returning homing attack and mid-air dash as well as new abilities like the Speed Break and Time Break. Speed Break allows Sonic to gain an incredible burst of speed while Time Break slows down time to stop fast moving obstacles and enemies. As you play through levels you will be able to level up Sonic. The better you play, to more experience you gain. As with RPGs, the more you level up Sonic the more skills you unlock. There are a lot of skills to obtain, which include increasing Sonic's speed, adding more to your soul gauge (which allows you to use Speed Break/Time Break), decreasing recovery time after taking damage, and so forth. The game also includes fire souls hidden in levels, which unlock special features.
The graphics are fantastic, featuring nicely designed, varied and colorful stages and character models and a rather unique art style. The majority of the game's cutscenes are presented in a artistically beautiful storybook style that looks like it was made with chalk and oil pastels with the characters showing simple animations. What little CG there is in this game is fantastic to look at as well. The game's sound design is a little mixed. In terms of music some tracks are better than others, but overall the combination of hard rock and Middle Eastern vibes works well. The english voice acting, while a little improved over Sonic 06, still isn't that good. Thankfully you can listen to the Japanese voice acting which is a little better.
To sum things up:
PROS:
-Great graphics
-Good music
-Decent controls overall
-A variety of nicely designed stages
-Features a good sense of speed
CONS:
-Finicky control issues
-Mediocre English voice acting
-Easy, and sometimes annoying, boss battles
Overall, while Sonic and the Secret Rings isn't the ultimate Sonic experience one would hope for, it is certainly a much needed improvement over previous titles and it is certainly a good addition to the series. Sonic fans would certainly need own this and this would make a good rental for others.