NSFCD

Sonic the Hedgehog has always been one of my favorite game series that is for sure. The early 16 bit games are still some of my all time favorite platformers. Recently though Sega has taken there little blue hedgehog on some rather odd trips. From the broken basically incomplete game that was Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) to the half good half bad game that was Sonic Unleashed, the series really has been on a rough up and down ride since Sega became a 3rd party developer. Enter the latest game in the series Sonic and The Black Knight, a follow up or sorts to 2007's Sonic and The Secret Rings. Now Sonic and The Secret Rings was at least in my opinion a pretty good game for the most part that just needed some polish to be great, so I did have some hopes for Sonic and The Black Knight since it was from the same people who did The Secret Rings. But once the reviews started to come in those hopes of mine did begin to wane, that being said though I figured I might as well give the game a try and for myself and here is what I think of it thus far.

Sonic and The Black Knight like Sonic and The Secret Rings before it takes Sonic and crew into the world of one of the famous bed time stories of old. This time we are in King Arthur's time with knights and swords and castles and such. But much like Secret Rings before it The Black Knight does take it's fair share of liberties with the actual story to make it work well with Sonic. The story for the most part while nothing great, gets the job done. But Sonic games have never been know for story so I really had no expectations for a good one anyway. Besides Sonic has always been about the gameplay anyway.

From what I have played so far I will say the controls are a vast improvement over Sonic and The Secret Rings. This is mainly due to them going with a more traditional control setup rather than trying to use the tilt function to move around. It is not all perfect though, since we are in Arthurian times and such the combat has been changed to use swordplay. Now I know when this was first announced people were not very happy about it and I will admit I was one of those people who just rolled my eyes at the idea. But playing the game I will admit that the sword mechanic is actually not as bad as I thought it would be, for the most part to game reads the inputs pretty well. There are some times that it does not read them however which is annoying. But still it works and you don't have to fight with it all that much. It actually is kinda fun too which is a nice plus.

As for the gameplay itself well this game like many Sonic games of late it is mission based, meaning you get a number of missions to chose from and play them in whatever order you feel like. The missions themselves vary from getting to the goal as fast as possible, to beating so many enemies, to stupid ones were you have to run around collecting rings to give to peasants. This is actually one thing I have not liked so far, while yes there are a decent number of stages where you have to race though the stages at high speed there also are a good number of ones where you have to do silly things like the handing out rings to people ones. This to me just breaks the flow of the game, after running though some stages at high speed I have to slow down and give rings to people and they can't make it simple either it has to be a Quick Time event that takes a good 10-20 seconds to do each time. Now I don't mind a little variety but still I think that most of the game should be about what makes Sonic well Sonic and that is running around stages at high speed while trying to find the fastest way to get to the end to improve your time.


Minor gameplay grips aside I will admit the game does look rather good. There are nice environment effects and the world for the most part actually looks like the world from the book unlike in Secret Rings where you were going to all sorts of places I am pretty sure were not in the Arabian Nights tale. The only issue I have though is that this world while fairly accurate to the world from the Arthurian legend it still feels kinda well bland. While yes it has some nice outdoor environments they really lack the unique bright look of other Sonic games. It is no Green Hill Zone that is for sure, this is a really minor grip though.


I do have to say after playing Sonic and The Black Knight it is not as bad as the reviews make it out to be. While yes it may be miles for what you would call a traditional Sonic game it still has some of the elements that make Sonic fun. There are good high speed moments and Sonic controls very well for the most part. While yes there are many flaws in the game, the flaws are not so bad that it prevents it from being a fun game. I am actually glad I picked this one up since it is rather fun from what I have played so far and I am looking forward to playing more of the game. I will say while it may not be as good as Sonic Unleashed or even Sonic and The Secret Rings it still is a pretty solid game that is worth looking into.

Nice review...
I won't pick this game up though, but atleast you make it seem like a Decent game.

Quote from: StarWindWizard7 on May 02, 2009, 06:52:54 PM
Nice review...
I won't pick this game up though, but atleast you make it seem like a Decent game.

That's basically what it was... decent.
Like most Sonic games after SA2, it could've been a TON better had it not been rushed and given the polish needed. (Frankly, a game involving this much waggling needed the WMP, but whatever)