Super Smash Bros. + Sonic = a fun brawler for your Gamboy Advanced
One day Sonic is relaxing on the beach when he discovers a strange robot. It is barely functioning so he decides to take it to Tails, who discovers that the robot is over 4,000 years old and has the ability to copy attacks and skills. To do this, it needs the power of the chaos emeralds to power up. In order to help their new friend (whom Sonic names "Emerl"), Sonic and his friends teach him new moves and gather emeralds to help him grow stronger. However, Rouge, Shadow, and even the evil Dr. Eggman are also after this powerful gizoid for their own personal reasons. Oddly enough, as simple as the story sounds, it's actually enjoyable. In fact, this game has some of the best stories in the series due to good writing and a great amount of focus on character development.
The game is split up into 8 chapters, one focusing on each character playable in the game and each taking place one after the other. Most of the story is controlled in a hub world. There isn't much to do here but travel from one area to the next, which usually just activate cut scenes or start battles. In spite of this being a Sonic game, it is quite clear that Emerl is the real star as he tags along with the character in each chapter while learning new skills and developing from a soulless robot to a fun loving mech. The story mode is actually worth playing all the way through as it is surprisingly entertaining in both story and gameplay.
You are given the choice of 10 characters to choose from as your fighter; Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Gamma, Chaos and Emerl. Each character is completely different with their own unique stats and abilities to set them apart and fit your preferred fighting style. The characters are balanced for the most part but there are some moves that are hard to overcome. The fighting works similarly to Super Smash Bros., your main attacks involve punching and kicking and they can send your opponent flying in the other direction. The only differences are there are no percentages and the goal isn't to knock your opponents off of the level, just fight them until their health reaches zero. The character selection is mostly the characters found in the Adventure and Advanced games but it's a nice selection and no two characters are the same, giving you plenty of variety to choose from.
The story only let's you play as a pre selected character in each chapter but Battle mode let's you choose your own and either challenge the AI or play with up two 3 friends in a chaotic brawl. Multiplayer makes things even more interesting and it's even more fun than the AI. There are different goals you can set; you can either put a score limit and the first one to that score wins the match or you can give everyone a certain amount of lives and the last man standing is the winner, either in free for all or teams. Furthermore, you can also set a time limit and see who can get the most knockouts in the given time. Besides battle mode, there is a challenge mode where you choose a character and take on a certain amount of rounds by yourself for a final score and even a grade. Last but not least, there's a mini game mode where most of them must be played by friends like racing or a ring battle, but singe players only get to play minesweeper (with Knuckles). All in all, a large variety for multiplayer and single player.
Besides punching and kicking, there are other skills to master as well. At the beginning of each fight, you are given the choice of 2 attacks out of 3 choices each; a ground attack and an aerial attack. The ground attack is used when you are fighting your rival while running or just standing still but when you jump and push the special, you'll release an aerial attack. This works well as it encourages you to think of your own battle strategy that works for you. When you die, you get to choose again so you can change your strategy until you find the one you like. Lastly, you can recover or block with the L button (push once to block attacks or hold to recover). Not only does this slowly recharge your health (recover rate differs for each character), it will recharge your stamina. Once that's full, the next special will kill anyone in one hit, unless your opponent just so happens to resist it.
The maps are well designed and they fit the style of this game nicely. However, it feels like they could have added more to these stages to give them more substance. Most of the obstacles are just walls or boxes to give you a vantage point and there are no items like in Super Smash Bros., which could be good or bad. Some stages represent stages from other Sonic games like Green Hill or Emerald Beach, but most of them are designed around locations you travel to in the story mode. A good stage selection but the stages could have used more traps.
Adding to the character roster is Emerl. What makes him different than the rest is you can customize him in many ways. Throughout the story mode, you will fight in many battles along the way. When you are victorious, Emerl learns new moves from his friends and foes. In the hub world in between fights you can customize his fight style (you can mix up his basi attack), his specials (3 ground, 3 aerial), his stats, or his appearance. He starts out slow and weak when you begin but as you progress, you'll find better moves and make him really powerful which makes him debatabley the best character in the game. The customization is surprisingly deep and it makes the story mode much more fun to play through, and you can play as your customized Emerl outside of the story.
Who knew that Sonic's own answer to Super Smash Bros. would turn out to be so fun? The fighting is fun, the story is entertaining for a Sonic game and it's just an all around well thought out game which makes it highly underrated. It's no masterpiece but what it does, it does well. Sine there has yet to be a Super Smash Bros. game on a portable device, Sonic Battle is more than worthy to be its substitute for those who are waiting.