I started a few hours ago, need to charge my DS up overnight.

All I can say is that when I was looking through the features and saw Emerl's name on the first encyclopedia entry, my heart decided there and then that this was going to be a very canon fitting and nicely plotted game as my cherished Sonic Battle.

I really hope I am not disappointed...

But this is reminding me a lot of Battle, but with RPG fights instead of beat-em-up. This is a good thing.

It too bad they didn't make Emerl a hidden playable character like Cream and Omega. It would have been cool to play with him again.

Playing again. Ran into Shadow and kicked his ass, which makes me a happy camper.

I hate that fights almost everywhere yield only 10xp and it does not indicate how much extra you get with the Chao XP bonus. What's the point of fighting regenerating 60hp caterpillers who can hit for 30 damage when I get the same XP fighting a swarm of wasps who go down in one hit and sometimes hit me for 3.

Also, Amy is suprisingly good. Tails, Big and Rouge not so much. Knuckles I can use. Sonic is main character who is good by default.

...should try Cream, but too lazy.

Trust me Craig, you're gonna love Big and Cream when you fight the leader of the Nocturnus Clan the first time.
That guy regenerate more HP than the regular Nocturnus soldier do. Not to mention his special move is really hard to avoid.
Thank God for Big's poison and Cream's healing abilites.

I did fight the leader of that clan. That person went down within 3 rounds with little retaliation. Foolish enemies which rely on special attacks miss 100% of the time due to my EBA skills.

The regeneration was a bit of a problem, but I just used all my POW moves in one turn and Cream's PP restore.

So, yeah. Cream is worth it.

A question: Does your party line-up effect the dialogue? I'm keeping Amy in my party at all times specifically to watch her character, as her subplot is the only one I care about thus far. She's not strong, though, so if I can ditch her I might.

I did fight the leader of that clan. That person went down within 3 rounds with little retaliation. Foolish enemies which rely on special attacks miss 100% of the time due to my EBA skills.

The regeneration was a bit of a problem, but I just used all my POW moves in one turn and Cream's PP restore.

So, yeah. Cream is worth it.

A question: Does your party line-up effect the dialogue? I'm keeping Amy in my party at all times specifically to watch her character, as her subplot is the only one I care about thus far. She's not strong, though, so if I can ditch her I might.

Ix was ridiculously easy on AI. I guess that's also mainly because I'm really good at the stylus commands as well. Even when they don't attack with their special powers, they miss my characters every now and again (although at this point in the story, they miss very frequently). I also found Omega (the other optional character) to be worth finding and using.

As for the party affecting the dialogue, to a certain degree. Sometimes I note that only the people in my party will only involved in the dialogue and other times I notice characters who I've left at the base (in some instances Amy or Rouge), will chip into the story and conversation regardless of whether they are in my party or not. That might be because it is an important story plot though. I'm not sure though, I think it just depends on the conversation.

I'm pretty sure I'm close to the game, I'm up to chapter 9 and I haven't had too much trouble in the twilight cage aside from the Kron. Everything else has gone pretty smoothly, though the occasional Nocturne can be a thorn in my side. The story is pretty interesting, though I have no idea why the heroes just left Eggman at home alone unmonitored in his city full of gadgets and robots he could easily reprogram and use to take over the world. I honestly don't know the ending, but I have a feeling it will bite the heroes in butt when they get home.

Funny the fight with the leader wasn't that easy for me. He kept attacking Cream and Omega with his special move time and time again. His minion were also a pain because they keep attacking Cream. And when I finally manage to kill him I was low on HP and his minions finish me of. That fight was really annoying. Good thing by the fourth time I restarted the fight, he got easier.

Bsonic, spoilers man SPOILERS. You just gave away the leader's name. >_>

The name was already mentioned in the thread, so, technically it's not a spoiler... o.o

I'm unsticking the thread, since the game is out. ^_^

Uh... the fact that the game is out would mean people are discussing it... wouldn't that make it more important to sticky it?

At least until the initial discussions start branching into individual topics (and this game will hopefully spark a lot of specific plot discussion)

PS: Metropolis Zone is full of nostalgic love. ..."Station Square" is just weird. My brain rejects it.

I usually unsticky threads when the game's released. No one's said anything about it before as far as I know, so I never thought about it otherwise. XD Well, want me to sticky it again?

*Shrug* I doubt it really matters either way, the thread will be replied to constantly and it's not like any other major Sonic discussion is going on, so it'll be the top regardless.

Yeah, it's linked at the top in the forum's description too, so it won't go anywhere.

In any case, I really wanna check this game out now. It sounds like it's getting a great reception. I was holding back buying it to be sure it didn't tank. XD

I dunno, I typically kind of like having the stickies there for a month or two after the game comes out, not just a week...

**shrugs** I'll restick it. No big deal.

I thought that when Tails called Blue Ridge Zone; Station Square, he is talking about that little town in the corner you start the area in.

Got all Rings and Chao now. Just need to finish the game now and see what happens. (Probably nothing!) I'm hoping for max level on all chao and infinite rings. Something like that.

However it seems the only way to level chao up is to trade them online.

As far as characters and dialogue goes it seems that generally they only chime in when they are in the team. Or they have something funny to say. Happened a few times with Rouge, really.

Really enjoyed this game. Even though it isn't perfect. I've seen some enemies walk up to what would be the second screen and disappear, sometimes, while ambushing enemies, characters will attack enemies who have been KO'd and they are thrown back as if it was a counter. And the 2D cut scenes are terrible. Music could have been of a better quality too. Other than that though it is good.

Edit: Completed it! All Chao and all Rings. All you get is a reminder to get all the rings and get more chao eggs.

Shade discussion. I've put it in spoilers since its probably too soon to talk about her openly.

The sound has really started to bug me. Shadow getting Special Stage noise when hit is dumb, random spike noises during special attacks is needless, the egg opening sound is disgusting, the enemy approaching sounds are obnoxious, the girls being hit sounds rather dumb...

I'm considering muting it permanently.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with that, Craig. The Music's pretty good, but that choice of using sound effects in lieu of voices was... well, I don't know what to call it, but it's definitely an antonym of "good idea."

Bad choice there aside, I'm finding it a pretty cool game.

Hey guys I need some help in chronicles. Ok well I can't find omega. Can some one please pm me. The reasone why is that i'm to afraid that i'll find a spoiler on this fourm. Thanks so much for your help!!

*Sends a PM*

I'll let Craig answer your question, but I will say that it wasn't hard to find him (in my opinion anyway).

Completed the game a few days ago. The ending felt a little rushed and sloppy, but it definitely left it open, what with how it ended and leaving some questions unanswered. Also, the ending was a little foreseeable, everyone knew you couldn't trust Eggman, and he had quite a while to take over the world, or at least get his empire up and running in the time they were gone.

The sound effects were annoying, and some felt misplaced and shoved in there for nostalgia value alone. Gameplay could use improvenment, the stylus system could be very fickle at times. A bit of an easy game, but I was usually at a pretty high level, so that might have affected things. Up until the end, I liked the story, and even at the end, my only complaint was how rushed it felt. The comic book scenes were sloppy and definately need improvement in the next game. Overall though, I thought it was a good game, with a good story and good gameplay, but it has room for improvement in the sequel.

Just throwing two things into the ring.

1 - The remix of the Final Boss music from S3&K is made of win and awesome.

2 - Echidna Rush = most broken move in the game.

I guess Cream's Refresher skill is also pretty broken, especially at level 2 and above where it heals more than it consumes.
And Echidna Rush hitting for max 450 piercing damage (at least at the level I was at) to one enemy is pretty badass.

Most broken tactic I found.

Team: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy

Chao: one regenerating PP on all team members, one regenerating PP on Tails, one that gives you extra items in battle, one whatever/Cheese/one that finds rare chao easily.
Specs: Let Sonic hold the item Economizer (makes POW moves cost one less PP), and one character the Angle Amulet ( has a "... "% chance to revive a fainted comrade).

Pick a large, tough opponent.
Let Sonic Defend (if low on PP)
Use Scan
Use Adrenaline Rush on Sonic
Use Blow Kiss on Sonic
Use Hail Strom on next round
Watch tough enemies die in one hit.

This tactic is great on bosses and tank opponents that have a lot of HP and/or armor. The rest of the moves is up to you. Having Axe Kick only cost 3 POW points and letting Sonic move 4 times on the next round will decimate the rest of the enemies.

I guess Cream's Refresher skill is also pretty broken, especially at level 2 and above where it heals more than it consumes.
And Echidna Rush hitting for max 450 piercing damage (at least at the level I was at) to one enemy is pretty badass.

Creams Refresher + Ferox (The Chao that makes all POW moves by its user succeeded automatically) is that little bit more broken.

But seriously, two Echidna Rushs' in one turn = Dead bosses. You can one turn pretty much every boss in the game. Pair it with Creams Refresher, and you are literally unstoppable.

...Unless you are forced to seperate Knuckles and Shade of course. =P

Cream's refresher move, annoyingly, only heals POW attacks used BEFORE she uses hers, which is annoying for when you want to use 2/3 POW moves, or have one for a character slower than her, such as Amy.

At least Medi Bot refills at the end of the turn, so as long as the battle doesn't end, you can recover the loss.

...or you could just save Cream's Refresher move until the next turn. o.o

I'm greedy and use a lot of team up moves. Atomic Cyclone is always useful as Sonic and Shadow can plow that out, get recovered and then use at least one other POW move and still have enough PP to do one in the next turn.

I'm not saying it's a huge drawback, it's just annoying that the game removes the PP before the turn starts, but refuses to refill points that the game SAYS are missing, but the move has not been used yet. Took me a while to work out why that happened.

Also, I hate that target specific POW moves don't redirect, they just don't happen. If they're going to have that happen, at least refill the lost PP. It's not fair that my entire stratergy involves POWing the main threat, killing it in one turn and losing tons of PP I could use for the small fries.

Just got the game yesterday, I'm in Chapter 4 and missing only a couple of things at the point I'm at. Nothing big, just a couple of rings and chao.

In my opinion, for a Sonic RPG, it's sort of decent. Not a great start, but things could be better. Some of the music sounds worse than some 8-bit video game tunes. The story is just starting to get a little interesting to me.

Welp, I've just rented and played this game over the week and if I was going to use one word to describe this game it would be: underwhelming. This game is far from a "9" like 1up/EGM says it is or even an "8". Here are some of my thoughts on this game and well, this is going to be a fairly long post.

--The art design is inconsistant in quality. When I mean art design, I mean the visuals as a whole--2D, 3D models, etc. The overworld backgrounds and chapter title cards are great. There were some really nice touches in detail work in Metropolis, especially with the Genesis reference. The character and item illustrations are decent. However, the 3D models are terrible, and it is not because of the DS. They are just pretty ugly looking--the CGI cutscreens, battle backgrounds, some enemies, and especially the PC/NPC characters. Bioware should have went with 2D art all the way. Then again, the comic-like cutscene illustrations also look terrible. Why are we not getting the same high quality of art that was found in the chapter title bumps when it could really benefited those cutscenes also?

--The sound as a whole is awful. From all the impressions I've read of this game before I had a chance to play it, this complaint is the most common. I mean, I have yet to encounter a person who likes the music in this game, as the quality of the soundtrack and the weird usage of sound effects are really bad as they said they were. It is also not the fault of the DS because this, this and this an examples what the DS are able to produce. The only music that is actually decent are the battle themes as it actually sound multiple instuments were used along with a good sense of composition, as opposed to the dinky, 1 to 2 midi sound effects that are poorly composed renditions of some previous Sonic themes and orignal themes. They is really a huge discrepancy in quality between the battle themes and the rest of the music. It's as if the battle themes were the first music to be composed and tuned up and the rushed the rest of the music. The sound effects are also random. It's like they picked up the weirdest assortment of them from some cartoon sound effect collection and slapped them at some odd places such as using growling sounds for some enemy robots or turkey gobbling sounds for other enemies. It's just many of them are so out of place and it makes the game unintentionally funny at times.

--Certain aspects of the game mechanics are undefined or broken. This goes beyond the battle system. I'm refering to the leveling system, the status screen, the interface, etc. The leveling system is borked. At first, I thought it was a limiting leveling system that was similar to Lost Odyssey and the Suikoden games in which your characters gain less and less exp. the stronger your characters get in a effort to force the player to avoid grinding. It seems like that early on in the game, however you get an extremely ridiculous amount of experience points in the second half of the game compared to the first, so much that it is easier to gain several levels and to become overleveled in the later half of the game. I never felt the need to grind in this game since it was very easy, and I still felt too overpowered(and it became apparent at the last boss fights).

Aspects of the interface is also messed up such as not telling which item or attack gives to which effects to characters/enemies during battles. I mean it is very annoying trying to remember the effects/elemental properties/etc of 100+ items/POW moves during a battle in which there are certain moves that maybe to your advantage. Also, what is with battles when they tell you when the order your characters go, but not the enemy? There is a loss stategy aspect there.

About stats, the Attack and Defense stats were really confusing as it really should have labeled as Hit rate and Evasion respectively. There isn't anything that tells you how how much damage and defense your character has except for a vague description found in the characters' codex entry. Some may find that cute, I find it to be lazy and cheap programing. It's also annoying when I attempt to buy shoes and gloves for my characters. You don't know how strong this equipment is beyond the abstract "slight, moderate, and great" labels. So it's confusing when stores late in the game sells equipment that does slight damage or gives you slight protection. Why are stores selling you seemingly weak armor in the game and at a high price? Or is it not that weak, just weak compared to the other items in that particular store, and it is actually stronger than the moderate armor that was sold in a store or found in a treasure chest several chapters ago? Who knows, and it is probably the main reason why people complain that they are doing single digit damage to enemies or missing them completely. The game needs defined numbers for damage and attack for items and characters just like in the vast majority of RPGs.

--This game is ultra-linear and the atmosphere at times feels un-Sonic-like. Now, I've played a lot of JRPGs and many of them and not as open-ended as say...Oblivion. They usually has a set path to get to point A and B and that's fine. However, they also have diversions from the main game in the form of sidequests such as optional towns, extra dungeons, and bosses with the reward of an extra cutscene or two and mad loot. Sonic RPG hardly has this. I mean the secrets of this game is very scarce. There are no extra dungeons, and I've encoutered only one optional boss in this game. And the game is very linear to the point that there are several "points of no return" for this game so any exploration aspect or skill usage in this title isn't as fully realised as it should be.

As for the part that it feels un-Sonic like, well it does. Expecting to fight off classic enemies like Moto Bugs, Buzzbomers, or Crabmeats in a RPG setting? Too bad! You are fighting off generic animals, non-animal generic robots, and aliens! =D Yes there are aliens--that don't fit in a good Sonic motif, and are better used for an original RPG. This game feels even less Sonic than Super Mario RPG felt less classic Mario-ish. I should also say the atmosphere feels empty. Bioware created these nice backdrops and yet there are hardly any interaction with the NPCs, because there are hardly any NPCs there. I was hoping something like Central City to be more populous.

--This game in general feels abrupt and rushed. "What, that's it!?" Is what I exclaimed after I beat the game. I do remember reading a post on neogaf saying that it must be the ending you get if you play the ROM, which is a programing techinique enabled developers to put in nastly little things such as data erasure at the final boss in a pirated copy of Earthbound or only allowing the first hour of gameplay and reseting the game as found in a pirated copy of FF Crystal Chronicles :Ring of Fates--all is done to discourage piracy. But no, the retail copy has an abrupt ending and instead just of filling plot holes from previous games like Bioware said it would, it only creates new questions like many recent Sonic games' terrible plots. The ending is on the level of those Congratulations! screen at the end of those old-school arcade games from the early 80s', but this is like a "SCREW YOU!" and a punch to the face because I just played a RPG from 2008!

--At least the dialogue is good... Well, they made the characters really likeable or at least tolerable, and it is funny especially when you answer with the snarky response. However, again it seems unrealized such as there is no real game directed outcomes such as multiple endings or different development between characters. For example, Tales of Symphonia has a very basic character development system that you as Lloyd, reply to your allies responses that affects their relationship with Lloyd giving the characters various dialogue at the end of each battle. It also ultimately affects the ending of the game. Star Ocean 2 had something similar to that, and in addition the more any of you characters bond with another ally, that all will get a power boost when his or her bonded character falls in battle. Unfortunately this game doesn't have that. For example, even though I tell Tails to stop asking me to save the game, he doesn't stop, and he is not hesistantly telling me to save it even. It's just a missed opportunity here. I also would have like more interactions between different characters other than Sonic or without having Sonic being the center of discussions.

--The touch screen controls are...okay. I have to say that it hasn't surprassed or even matched the touch screen controls found in LoZ:Phantom Hourglass. I mean it is not bad, but they could be better. Maybe a small cursor such as the fairy in PH would solve some of the problem. Though having your character move and then touching an icon to do a certain action makes it feel cumblesome. This is somewhat solved with using the L or R buttons instead, but it is not as seemless as it should be. The battle touch scrren controls are passable, although there have been occasions where moves failed to register on my DS despite touching the screen. Speaking of battles, I'm not sure if this Ouendan/EBA system should be the way to got for a Sonic-based RPG. I guess it is not as bad as a straight up turn-based battle system without any timed attacks, but I was expecting something a little more...action-ly for Sonic.

Wow that was long! As you can see most of the bigger problems of the game has to do with the overall presentation which rushing a title and implimenting odd design choices can really screw up a game from becoming a classic. I mean I expected more quality from a supposedly premiere developer who are charging a premium price for this game, and yet, I see two remakes of 15+ year old RPGs on the DS programmed from outsourced parties that feels much more professional than Sonic Chronicles. This game is very easy, unsatisfactory, and I don't have the desire to play it all over again. If Bioware wants to make a sequel out of this game then they better damn well attempt to surprass developers like Atlus, Square-Enix, and Level 5 on the DS instead of falling below the worse of TOSE-developed ports.

tl;dr: Balls were dropped, game is rushed, abritrary scores of 6 and 7's are about right, Spite was right! disappointmenton!

The sad thing is... she's right. Now, I haven't gone much farther into the game so I can't comment on later chapters, but so far the game appears to lack greatly in presentation and polish. The art style used for the box art and Chapter screens should have been the predominant one used throughout the game as it is very good and provocative, which is more than I can say for the Sonic X artwork (which consists of some C&P from official sources) and the animated cutscenes (very bland-looking and could really have used more work). And the few CG scenes I've seen looks like something from the early days of 32-bit.

The music, insofar, is terrible. Damn shame.

The programming could use a bit of work as well, to alleviate the terrible presentation. Most of the time, segues between cutscenes and normal play are abrupt and off-putting. Still, a minor quibble.

Battle... eh, could be worse. Graphics and models aren't all that great, and appear quite underwhelming. I know the DS can output better. But at least here the music gets me into a groove, though the actual fighting is terribly uneven. XP is doled out due to party average: if you're passed a certain level, enemies leave less XP until you're only gaining 10 per battle, even though the fight itself taxes your characters and you're forced to use up your POW points to beat 'em in a timely manner. Which is another thing: POW moves. They could really have used descriptors during move selection. It sucks when you can't remember which of Amy's attacks inflicts "sluggish" and which one inflicts "vulnerable" without having to bring up her status screen, especially since you can't access it until after the battle's over.

I did like the team up moves, as it invokes fond memories of Chrono Trigger. Still, it's not enough.

This game, while not completely without worth, seems like it could've done with a few more months of dev time. Or at least a more competent team developing it. It seems like a mish-mash of ideas were simply slapped together without a clear, unifying focus (it's the director's job to achieve this, I believe)... and then shipped to retail. If a sequel is green-lighted, I hope the team can get their act together and make up for the missteps in this one.

Also, I hate that target specific POW moves don't redirect, they just don't happen. If they're going to have that happen, at least refill the lost PP. It's not fair that my entire stratergy involves POWing the main threat, killing it in one turn and losing tons of PP I could use for the small fries.

I really dislike it too, and I haven't noticed that you LOSE your PP even when you didn't perform the move, though I guess that explains why my Amy didn't seem to have as much PP as she should have at times.

I did like the team up moves, as it invokes fond memories of Chrono Trigger. Still, it's not enough.

Ah, that's another thing I have a problem with the battle system is the team moves. Many of the folks here already mentioned how exploitable some moves are, but it also seems more beneficial to use team attacks that consists of two characters instead of the 3-4 ones. I mean what it the point of the ones that uses 3+ characters when it spends more POW points as it should, take up space in your roster, and when the 2 character team attacks are just as or even more so effective? I mean in CT, at least most of the triple techs were very damaging compared to the single and double techs. This game feels like the opposite. =

Another thing I forgot to mention is that certain characters' techniques primarily from the support/shifter class that were generally useful in the early parts of the game, becomes nearly useless in the later parts of the game because they are quickly overshadowed by the deluge of Power class techs because they actually does decent damage(the exception is when support/shifter is teamed up with a Power character for team attacks). There is that balancing issue again.

It seems that this game had some ideas that did make the cut such as some concept art ideas that were missing in the final product, the fact that you have a grade system but no extra bonuses come out from winning the battle no matter what grade you recieved, items that recover 50 PP even though your character barely reach over 15-20 PP by the time you are strong enough to finish the game, the abrupt ending, and so forth.

All this makes me glad that I rented this game because I would have been pissed if I spent full price on this when the money could have been better spent on something that could be more worthwhile such as Persona 4.

I don't see how the Swatbots, Robodillos, Gun Pawns, Guardians, and Shield pawns are any more un-Sonic like than the rest of Eggman's robots, to be honest.

Because they are dull, generic designs? Even the Eggman-ish robots from Sonic Heroes & Sonic Rush had a more intriging design than most of the robots in Sonic Chronicles. Bioware siad that they were going draw ideas from classic games, and they didn't think to use the cartoony-like animal robots that dominated the series for the first 10 years of its life? C'mon now.

However I did like the

.

The Robodillos are no DIFFERENT from the Genesis-style enemies, and the Swatbots, Gun Pawns, Guardians, and Shield Pawns seemed to directly follow the design aesthetic of the Egg Pawns or E-Series, to be perfectly honest. I think you're also defining for yourself what they should particularly draw from, since there's a plenty lot to take from Sonic's history, not just the genesis games.

I thought they did a really nice job on the game.

The Robodillos are no DIFFERENT from the Genesis-style enemies, and the Swatbots, Gun Pawns, Guardians, and Shield Pawns seemed to directly follow the design aesthetic of the Egg Pawns or E-Series, to be perfectly honest. I think you're also defining for yourself what they should particularly draw from, since there's a plenty lot to take from Sonic's history, not just the genesis games.

All the non-humanoid/animal-noid robots in the game is reminicent of the same boring design of those GUN robots and the awful robot designs in Sonic 2006. The Robodillos bots are closer to an "extreme" form of the classic robot animals(and the animal bots from the Advance games), though they are better that the rest of the enemy bots there even though it's not saying much.

Still enemies such as Motobug, Crabmeat, and Buzzbomer(and their variants) are more iconic than Gun-pawn-whatever-numbers-it-was. It's the equivilant of have a Mario RPG without the dang Goombas, Koopas, and Bob-ombs.

And yes, Sonic history goes beyond Genesis which is why goofy the cartoony animal robots appeared in Sonic Adventure 1 and every Sonic handheld title up to Sonic Rush.

Also, are we still posting reviews, because I notice RPGamer has their Sonic Chronicles review up.

Just finished it today, the ending was very unsatisfying and I'm disappointed with it's abruptness, but it was a fun game.

Game+ mode is kind of lame.

The Robodillos are no DIFFERENT from the Genesis-style enemies, and the Swatbots, Gun Pawns, Guardians, and Shield Pawns seemed to directly follow the design aesthetic of the Egg Pawns or E-Series, to be perfectly honest. I think you're also defining for yourself what they should particularly draw from, since there's a plenty lot to take from Sonic's history, not just the genesis games.

All the non-humanoid/animal-noid robots in the game is reminicent of the same boring design of those GUN robots and the awful robot designs in Sonic 2006. The Robodillos bots are closer to an "extreme" form of the classic robot animals(and the animal bots from the Advance games), though they are better that the rest of the enemy bots there even though it's not saying much.

Still enemies such as Motobug, Crabmeat, and Buzzbomer(and their variants) are more iconic than Gun-pawn-whatever-numbers-it-was. It's the equivilant of have a Mario RPG without the dang Goombas, Koopas, and Bob-ombs.

And yes, Sonic history goes beyond Genesis which is why goofy the cartoony animal robots appeared in Sonic Adventure 1 and every Sonic handheld title up to Sonic Rush.

Also, are we still posting reviews, because I notice RPGamer has their Sonic Chronicles review up.

I don't see how they're as iconic, since they've basically been replaced in every game since. Moto-Bug and Crabmeat were gone by Sonic TWO.

Meanwhile, the Pawn/Eggrobo style robots have been repeated much more over the years.

The animation was nice though wasn't it, Ashide?

Also, someone was asking about opinions of the game so far and seeing as yours was the most fair without it degenerating into "lol sonic is $%%@!1!" I copied and pasted your post, giving you credit for writing it. Hope you dont mind!

The Robodillos are no DIFFERENT from the Genesis-style enemies, and the Swatbots, Gun Pawns, Guardians, and Shield Pawns seemed to directly follow the design aesthetic of the Egg Pawns or E-Series, to be perfectly honest. I think you're also defining for yourself what they should particularly draw from, since there's a plenty lot to take from Sonic's history, not just the genesis games.

All the non-humanoid/animal-noid robots in the game is reminicent of the same boring design of those GUN robots and the awful robot designs in Sonic 2006. The Robodillos bots are closer to an "extreme" form of the classic robot animals(and the animal bots from the Advance games), though they are better that the rest of the enemy bots there even though it's not saying much.

Still enemies such as Motobug, Crabmeat, and Buzzbomer(and their variants) are more iconic than Gun-pawn-whatever-numbers-it-was. It's the equivilant of have a Mario RPG without the dang Goombas, Koopas, and Bob-ombs.

And yes, Sonic history goes beyond Genesis which is why goofy the cartoony animal robots appeared in Sonic Adventure 1 and every Sonic handheld title up to Sonic Rush.

Also, are we still posting reviews, because I notice RPGamer has their Sonic Chronicles review up.

I don't see how they're as iconic, since they've basically been replaced in every game since. Moto-Bug and Crabmeat were gone by Sonic TWO.

Meanwhile, the Pawn/Eggrobo style robots have been repeated much more over the years.

They weren't replaced but reimaged slightly and renamed, the basic character of the enemies remain for each game up to Adventure, they were cute, cartoony, but also still looked mechanical.

While I haven't played Sonic Chronicles yet, the Eggpawns have felt like a bland version of the old Eggrobo's, which would have been a far better option to reuse, or the E-100 series like in Sonic Battle.

Sonic CD replaced them wholesale. Sonic 2... I guess it can be argued that Grounder, "Stinger", those crab robots, and the fiery versions of Orbinaut are direct reimaginings of Sonic 1 characters, they didn't exactly end up lasting and this trend didn't carry on into Sonic 3.

I don't see why the Egg Pawns are more bland than the Egg Robos, to be honest. Yeah, putting them in every level was a bit overdone, but giving them different weapons and variants like the hammer wielders and the wizards made them more interesting than "here's an Eggman robot. WITH A GUN."

Sometimes I like to pretend, story wise, that the Egg-Robo's were Eggman's prototypes for the Egg Pawns.

Sonic CD replaced them wholesale. Sonic 2... I guess it can be argued that Grounder, "Stinger", those crab robots, and the fiery versions of Orbinaut are direct reimaginings of Sonic 1 characters, they didn't exactly end up lasting and this trend didn't carry on into Sonic 3.

Some variants of some of the old robots did make it to Sonic CD. For example this guy from CD:

is an alternate design of this robot from Sonic 2.

In addition, this fellow was in Sonic Advance 3.

And how could you forget this in Sonic CD:

Also, Orbitnauts variants have been in S3&K, Adventure, and Advance games. So have those Coconuts clones and those bee and crab clonebots in the handheld games up to Rush.

The animation was nice though wasn't it, Ashide?

Also, someone was asking about opinions of the game so far and seeing as yours was the most fair without it degenerating into "lol sonic is $%%@!1!" I copied and pasted your post, giving you credit for writing it. Hope you dont mind!

I don't mind, dude. Thanks. =) I hope you've included the comments after Psxphile's also, because I meant to address the inefficency of the 3+ character moves and how rushed the game is in general. Also, I never really payed much attention to how good or bad animation for 3D models(unless someone points it out to me). I do it more for 2D-based games, and Dragon Quest IV has some of the best monster animations I've seen on the system.

pictures courtesy of the ghz.com

Craig Bayfield wrote:

Game+ mode is kind of lame.

Reason why it is lame here because there is hardly any real motivation to do this all over again especially with the powerhouse of characters you start with. No extra difficulties, dungeons, bosses, endings, or any other wild game-related gimmicks. I guess you could try to get all the chao you've missed, though I mangaged to get all of them in my first run and that bonus seems pretty lame compared to extra dungeons or a hard mode.

I'm not going to argue anymore, but... didn't Sonic CD predate Sonic 2, or am I turned around on that?

Sonic 2(both versions) came out in 1992 and Sonic CD came out in 1993.

Ashide spoke everything I would have; I agree with every single one of them. It's not a bad game, but sake's alive, it could have been more. Be it Sega hovering over Bioware or some other oddity I don't know, the fact that there wasn't enough oomph to it left me feeling unfulfilled. I risked buying a Sonic game in five years only to be disappointed once more.

...And they ruined Diamond Dust Zone's score. That is a big no-no.

Finished it yesterday and got around to digesting my sentiments.

Never having played any BioWare title before, this is not the ideal start for getting to know the company. I don't know if previous BioWare productions did things quite as...stupefying as the ending they pulled out for Sonic Chronicles, but it does smack of the writers being unconditionally lazy. This is almost tragic, because I figured this game was going to do things right that previous RPGs and Sonic titles hadn't. Promises of forsaking obligatory level grinding and not hearing dreadful voice acting sounded so appealing. Unfortunately this was counterbalanced by the occasionally vexatious battle against enemies determined simply to harass you for almost zero experience and a dreadful soundtrack. I can't even give credit to the battle themes, especially the one that sounds like the past variant of Tidal Tempest Zone. I mean, one doesn't play a game for the audio alone, but the composers for Project Chaos demonstrated more talent than this. I've heard claims that the original story of this game was supposed to be a retelling Sonic 2, 3, and Knuckles, but that idea was scrapped. Nice though that seems in theory, I'm somewhat pleased that idea dropped off. Like Richard Jacques's music, it's representative of a better age in the franchise and should be left untouched.

There seemed to be a great deal of superfluous...stuff. I don't even know how much extra equipment I was toting around by the end of the game, in terms of all the stat boosters and such. Visiting any shop seemed to be pointless, because all I ever needed was health regenerative items, and rings were never in such short supply that I needed to sell anything. The ranking system for battle performance falls, like every ranking system in a Sonic game, between unnecessary and insulting. Even characters became unnecessary over time. I went through the first half of the game rotating my party cast quite evenly. By the time I got to the Imperator on Angel Island, Cream was virtually mandated for every expedition thereafter. Rouge and Omega became obsolete more quickly than the BetaMax.

All of this ran over a story that felt like the Knuckles The Echidna comic series turned into dreadful fanfiction. What started off slowly became more compelling about halfway in, but then that gave way to inevitable cliches of character personalities and teamwork being the salvation of all efforts. The comic book-style cutscenes were either good or sloppily pixelated, and the lack of consistency in that regard is puzzling. I didn't mind the EBA-style inputs in POW moves, since that was one of the only ways to keep me on my toes with watching battles. Still, the final final boss is nothing more than a tribute to quick time events mania and was over so quickly I was left not with a feeling of triumph but surprise at how easily he succumbed. In essence, there was so much potential clearly visible in this game that a little more work would have brought out to make this game shine. As it is, this game is more comfortable coasting on name recognition. It wasn't a bad game, but it fails to be a good game because the dev team couldn't even be bothered to so much as phone it in after some time. I liked it, but assuming that they commission a sequel, there is a reasonable amount of work that ought to go into the next one. Next time, BioWare ought to focus its efforts on consistent quality in all areas for the entire game instead of trying to entertain classicists with its formidable knowledge of, of all things, Roman army nomenclature.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on the subject of Cream. Being perhaps the best support character in the game means keeping her in your party at all times, which is sort of unfortunate. I've pretty much kept her on my team since the sidequest that recruits her, and when you use up all your PP on enemies in fights that take longer than they should, she's a lifesaver. Even at the point I'm at, my team always consists of Sonic, Cream, and two others, usually Amy, Knuckles, and Shade, maybe Big if he's required. Everyone else just sits there. Though I will admit, it's slightly easier leveling up in the second half. I'm not even using that EXP boost Chao. 😛