E3 2008 – Sonic Chronicles impressions

Surprisingly, there were rarely any lines or crowds waiting to play the Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood demo at SEGA’s booth at E3. Sure, it’s an unfinished demo at this point in time, and that demo does leave a little to be desired… but what’s there is a solid foundation for an RPG. I had a chance to play the game for a few minutes as the game’s project lead, BioWare’s Mark Darrah, walked me through the game.

Appropriately, the game feels very much like an RPG. You walk around a map, run into enemies to engage in battle, and level up your party. Of course, walking around the map as Sonic does have its perks – you get from point A to point B faster in this game than you would in most other RPGs. In addition to simply walking around to various destinations, you’ll also collect Power Rings. Any gamer that wasn’t born yesterday knows that these rings serve as the currency in Sonic games.

You have a party of four that you can customize. I chose Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose for my time with the game. The battle system for Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is unlike that of any previous Sonic game, but you’ll feel right at home if you’ve played RPGs in the past, and especially if you’ve played the rhythm game Elite Beat Agents. More on that further down.

As you enter into battle with enemies such as Kron Warriors, you’ll hopefully begin the turn-based sequence with a preemptive attack because your party has high luck. You’ll then get to select each characters’ attack (or attacks, depending on each characters’ level and speed). Different characters have different, permanent roles in the game, meaning each character’s unique set of attacks have different purposes. For example, Sonic and Knuckles are offensive characters, so they’ll have plenty of damage-inflicting attacks. Tails is primarily a support character, so all of his moves are special attacks, healing attacks, or combo attacks with other characters. Amy Rose is more of an all-around balanced character. You’ll have plenty of characters to choose from, so you can mix and match as you please.

Sonic, being first in my party, was first to have his three attacks chosen. The stylus controls pretty much everything in the game, so you’ll tap the character, select your attack, and select the enemy you want to attack. No surprises there, it’s your typical RPG on the DS. Each attack uses a certain amount of PP, which seem like a rarity in this game – Sonic’s total PP was in the neighborhood of 12 to 15 PP, and his weakest attack used about 4 PP. Be prepared to stock up on PP-replenishing items or use PP-replenishing moves.

Once your party’s attacks are chosen, you’ll go back through them one by one to actually execute the attacks. This is where those dozens of hours playing Elite Beat Agents will come in handy. The damage your attacks do is partially determined by how accurately you can keep up with various touch-based mini-games, each relating to the attack. You’ll see a ball/sphere pop up on the touch screen with some sort of indication of what to do. If a concentric circle starts to close in on the ball, you’ll want to tap the ball at the instant the circle touches it. If you see the ball pop up at the start of a track, you’ll want to drag the stylus along the screen, keeping the stylus on the ball as it rolls along the track. Most of the better attacks require several of these sequences, but you’ll get the hang of things fairly quickly.

If you choose to exit the battle, you’ll have to play a little mini-game to determine if you’re able to escape safely. Your party of four, arranged vertically along the right side of the screen, will begin to run away towards the left. Boxes and other obstacles will block your way, so you simply need to time yourself and tap each of your characters to make them jump over the boxes.

Finally, at least for my time at SEGA’s Sonic Chronicles station, the new Chao Garden was explained to me. Fans of the Dreamcast/VMU games, GameCube ports, and Game Boy Advance Sonic games probably have fond memories of raising a Chao. In Chronicles, a “catch ‘em all” approach is being taken, with 40 different types of Chao being scattered around the game’s world. Not all Chao are available in the individual regions of the game, so you might want to consider obtaining more than one of each and then trading your spares to a friend that might have a different type of Chao you’re looking for. Trading serves as the way to level up your Chao, granting them certain abilities that will prove useful for you.

I imagine the richness of the game lies in the storyline, which is indisputably what BioWare is known for. I have no doubts that they’ll succeed in bringing an original and quality story to this entry of the Sonic. Without getting sufficient time to really learn about the game’s plot and dive into it, I’d be lying if I said the demo was completely satisfying. At the same time, I was more than pleased with what I saw, all things considered, and I do have high hopes that Chronicles will be one to keep an eye out for in September.