Game title: Sonic and the Secret Rings
Franchise: Sonic the Hedgehog
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Platform: Wii
Original release date: February 20th 2007

Information regarding this blog series - For any games which I'm able to play on home consoles or PC, I will be able to provide screenshots and videos for them. I initially decided to go alphabetically by console but decided that it would be better to use the randomizer on this site to find a game.

Introduction

Sonic and the Secret Rings is one of the few Sonic games that I've never touched though have only heard bad things about. I also knew it played different from regular Sonic games (and is a spin-off), which is why it falls under an exception for my "no familiar series" rule.

What is the Game?

Sonic and the Secret Rings is the first of two games in the Sonic Storybook series (the other being Sonic and the Black Knight). The story goes that Shahra from the Arabian Knights book enters Sonic's world to recruit his help in order to stop the genie Erazor Djinn from destroying the world of the book. Gameplaywise, the player controls Sonic by tilting the Wii Remote in the direction they want him to move, with other actions being mapped to moving the Wii Remote forwards, or to the 1 or 2 buttons. The main story mode contains a series of levels and challenges for the player to complete. These include but are not limited to defeating a certain number of enemies, avoiding breaking any pots or just reaching the goal. There is also a party mode where the players play as a character of their choosing and have to complete a series of minigames while doing something outside of them.

What Are My Thoughts?

I'm just gonna get straight to the point and say that I do not like this game. The controls are awful with it being really easy to bump Sonic into obstacles while being hard to move him to where you want him to be. This especially became frustrating in levels where you either die or lose the entire challenge if you bump into something. The homing attack sometimes failed to lock onto enemies causing me to miss them. I unlocked a starting boost which requires the player to push the Wii Remote forwards when the countdown reaches 1 but I couldn't get that to work at all. On one of the tutorial stages, the tutorial box failed to load so I had no idea what to do until I restarted it. The graphics look like a GameCube game that was hastily ported to the Wii last minute. The story was really poorly written and felt more like a fanfiction or an episode of a low-budget cartoon than an official game. In terms of the party mode, I only played a tiny bit of one and it seemed alright but the minigames were basic. I didn't hate the entire game though. Like most Sonic games, the music was still really good. I also liked the artwork in the cutscenes and the voice acting was good. I also like the cover art. Besides those points though, I really didn't enjoy this game and I'd probably only play it again to beat it or give the party mode a more in depth look.

My Score: 2/10
Will I play it again?: If I feel like beating it or diving deeper into the party mode.

Gameplay video:

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