Hyper_Ridley
Smash Champion
Link to original post: [drupal=1242]Video Game Review: Sonic and the Black Knight[/drupal]
So a few days ago I picked up Sonic and the Black Knight for Nintendo Wii. Yes, the game in which Sonic wields a sword and got a 3.9 from IGN. But being the Sonic fanatic that I am, and considering that IGN sucks, I decided to get the game anyways and hope for the best.
First off, this is a spiritual sequel to Sonic and the Secret Rings, which means that this game also has Sonic being sucked into a story book to start messing with literary history. Heck, the box even goes out of its way to proclaim this game as part of the “Sonic Storybook Series”. So does that mean there’s going to be more on the way? Ugh…
The general plot of this one is that Sonic has now found himself in the realm of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. However, instead of pulling Excalibur out of a rock and saving the kingdom, Arthur has become corrupt with power and he now terrorizes the kingdom as the Black Knight. Merlin’s granddaughter, Merlina (real creative name), summons Sonic to the midlevel story to kick King Arthur’s butt and save the day like he always does. The plot is pretty basic most of the time and sometimes downright corny, but it does have a plot twist that genuinely shocked me about half-way through.
Like in Secret Rings, some other famous Sonic characters take on the roles of other famous characters in the story. In this case, we have Shadow as Sir Lancelot, Knuckles as Gawain, and Blaze as Percival. They’re portrayed well enough, and they managed to still carry over some of their trademark powers with their knight personas, such as Blaze using fire. They also serve a role in gameplay, but I’ll get to that in due time.
The graphics and sound are great. I really feel that this has some of the best graphics on Wii, and some of the environments are really nice and atmospheric. The cut scenes are done in comic-book style like in Secret Rings, but they are much more colorful and lively. The music is actually instrumentals for most of it instead of generic rock songs, though there are still some vocal tracks. Secret Rings players may also be happy to know that you don’t hear the main theme song for every single menu like in that game. This time there’s actually some variety in the level select music and the victory/loss music. The voice acting has improved in this game, especially for Jason Griffith as the voice of Sonic. He actually has more than screechy happiness and gruff anger as his range of emotion.
But, what about the gameplay? Well, first off, this game does make forwards movement manual instead of auto-running. Yay! Sadly, it doesn’t really mean much, as the level designs are still very much on rails, except now you have to tell Sonic to run instead of him doing it on his own. You still can’t turn around either, and the camera for backtracking hasn’t improved that much.
There are also MUCH more enemies than in Secret Rings, and to beat them you have to make use of the sword which has made this game infamous. Rather than simply jump on or boost through enemies, Sonic can know perform several types of attacks with his sword, including one that acts much like the spin-jump from the classic games. For the most part, I think the sword itself works fine. Most of the attacks can be performed on the fly without having to stop, including the spin-jump, and the basic enemies all dies in one hit, so it’s not like you’re constantly stopping to fight enemies. In fact, you can skip past most of them if you like, unlike the tedious battles of the Werehog in Sonic Unleashed. Unfortunatley, this game likes to throw about a billion enemies at you per level, but at least it’s possible to kill them all with some level of fluidity.
Returning from Secret Rings is the mission system. However, this has been greatly improved from Secret Rings. The main story can be completed by almost only playing the regular stages and boss fights, and there aren’t as many tedious missions in this game. Most of them are simply getting to the end of the stage with a little condition attached, like a time limit. No more of that “no pearls” stuff. The boss fights in this game are a mixed bag. The first two are bad and pathetically easy, including the first duel with a Knight of the Round Table. All of the battles with the knights play like a 2-d fighter of sorts, where you both face each other and advance forwards or backwards while attacking, blocking, parrying, ect. It is also possible to clash your swords together, but instead of being a simple “the one who shakes more wins” or a simple timing thing, it’s a really long and tedious timing thing that can go up to six sequences just for you to avoid taking damage, and the controller responsive during these sequences seems to be off. I’ve had to actually swing ahead of the indicator many times to get it to register properly. On the bright side, the final few bosses are pretty fun and even epic in a way.
There is also an upgrade system in this game. Basically, your ranking stars at the end of each mission (max of five) are then used as points to upgrade Sonic’s current style. He has three styles to choose from; the balanced Knight style, the Speedy Calvary style, or the Paladin style which buffs his attacks with things like invincibility frames. The other Knights of the Round Table are playable as well, and wouldn’t you know it, SEGA finally went back to the style of Sonic 3 and Knuckles and made the characters have the same core gameplay as Sonic but with adjusted skill sets. While they can’t access alternate routes, they do have enough difference between them that I have preferred one character over another in some missions. And be honest, would you rather have this, or “Sir Gawain’s radar-based hunt for the Holy Grail”?
There is also a multiplayer mode in this game. Short answer; it sucks. Up to four players (without CPUs even though Secret Rings had those available; strike one) can choose from 12 playable characters and compete in various modes such as a typical “Last Man Standing” game to having to play a co-op mode and defeat armies of enemies. However, that 12 character roster has some clones in it despite the move sets being rather small, and 3 characters are just Shadow, Knuckles and Blaze without armor; strike two. When you start a game, you find that your characters all walk slow as molasses (strike three; you’re out!), and the stages are all static squares with very little interactivity; great job multiplayer mode, you managed to start off your next batter with a strike before he even steps up to the plate. Though I will give multiplayer credit for making a character playable who I thought wouldn’t be. I’ll leave it you to unlock him though.
Rounding out the game is a set of unlockable stuff in the “gallery” which functions much like the “secret book” in Secret Rings. You can unlock concept art (seriously, does anyone really care about that?), music, and even some slideshows of fan art. Not just Black Knight fan art mind you, but fan art from across the entire series. Good news retro fans; Nack the Weasel/Fang the Sniper is in one of them, so SEGA does at least acknowledge his existence.
Overall, I don’t quite know how I would rate this game out of 10 if I had to. It’s got some real flaws like a terrible multiplayer mode, enemy spam, and keeping the on-rails level design without doing much to alleviate the backtracking issue that plagued Secret Rings. On the other hand, there are some great things in this game as well, such as being able to attack without losing momentum, an improved mission system, and the excellent execution of having multiple playable characters. If you’re a Sonic fan, I think you should at least give the game a rent, it’s certainly better than how IGN portrays it, and I promise that the sword in and of itself doesn’t harm the game.
So a few days ago I picked up Sonic and the Black Knight for Nintendo Wii. Yes, the game in which Sonic wields a sword and got a 3.9 from IGN. But being the Sonic fanatic that I am, and considering that IGN sucks, I decided to get the game anyways and hope for the best.
First off, this is a spiritual sequel to Sonic and the Secret Rings, which means that this game also has Sonic being sucked into a story book to start messing with literary history. Heck, the box even goes out of its way to proclaim this game as part of the “Sonic Storybook Series”. So does that mean there’s going to be more on the way? Ugh…
The general plot of this one is that Sonic has now found himself in the realm of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. However, instead of pulling Excalibur out of a rock and saving the kingdom, Arthur has become corrupt with power and he now terrorizes the kingdom as the Black Knight. Merlin’s granddaughter, Merlina (real creative name), summons Sonic to the midlevel story to kick King Arthur’s butt and save the day like he always does. The plot is pretty basic most of the time and sometimes downright corny, but it does have a plot twist that genuinely shocked me about half-way through.
Like in Secret Rings, some other famous Sonic characters take on the roles of other famous characters in the story. In this case, we have Shadow as Sir Lancelot, Knuckles as Gawain, and Blaze as Percival. They’re portrayed well enough, and they managed to still carry over some of their trademark powers with their knight personas, such as Blaze using fire. They also serve a role in gameplay, but I’ll get to that in due time.
The graphics and sound are great. I really feel that this has some of the best graphics on Wii, and some of the environments are really nice and atmospheric. The cut scenes are done in comic-book style like in Secret Rings, but they are much more colorful and lively. The music is actually instrumentals for most of it instead of generic rock songs, though there are still some vocal tracks. Secret Rings players may also be happy to know that you don’t hear the main theme song for every single menu like in that game. This time there’s actually some variety in the level select music and the victory/loss music. The voice acting has improved in this game, especially for Jason Griffith as the voice of Sonic. He actually has more than screechy happiness and gruff anger as his range of emotion.
But, what about the gameplay? Well, first off, this game does make forwards movement manual instead of auto-running. Yay! Sadly, it doesn’t really mean much, as the level designs are still very much on rails, except now you have to tell Sonic to run instead of him doing it on his own. You still can’t turn around either, and the camera for backtracking hasn’t improved that much.
There are also MUCH more enemies than in Secret Rings, and to beat them you have to make use of the sword which has made this game infamous. Rather than simply jump on or boost through enemies, Sonic can know perform several types of attacks with his sword, including one that acts much like the spin-jump from the classic games. For the most part, I think the sword itself works fine. Most of the attacks can be performed on the fly without having to stop, including the spin-jump, and the basic enemies all dies in one hit, so it’s not like you’re constantly stopping to fight enemies. In fact, you can skip past most of them if you like, unlike the tedious battles of the Werehog in Sonic Unleashed. Unfortunatley, this game likes to throw about a billion enemies at you per level, but at least it’s possible to kill them all with some level of fluidity.
Returning from Secret Rings is the mission system. However, this has been greatly improved from Secret Rings. The main story can be completed by almost only playing the regular stages and boss fights, and there aren’t as many tedious missions in this game. Most of them are simply getting to the end of the stage with a little condition attached, like a time limit. No more of that “no pearls” stuff. The boss fights in this game are a mixed bag. The first two are bad and pathetically easy, including the first duel with a Knight of the Round Table. All of the battles with the knights play like a 2-d fighter of sorts, where you both face each other and advance forwards or backwards while attacking, blocking, parrying, ect. It is also possible to clash your swords together, but instead of being a simple “the one who shakes more wins” or a simple timing thing, it’s a really long and tedious timing thing that can go up to six sequences just for you to avoid taking damage, and the controller responsive during these sequences seems to be off. I’ve had to actually swing ahead of the indicator many times to get it to register properly. On the bright side, the final few bosses are pretty fun and even epic in a way.
There is also an upgrade system in this game. Basically, your ranking stars at the end of each mission (max of five) are then used as points to upgrade Sonic’s current style. He has three styles to choose from; the balanced Knight style, the Speedy Calvary style, or the Paladin style which buffs his attacks with things like invincibility frames. The other Knights of the Round Table are playable as well, and wouldn’t you know it, SEGA finally went back to the style of Sonic 3 and Knuckles and made the characters have the same core gameplay as Sonic but with adjusted skill sets. While they can’t access alternate routes, they do have enough difference between them that I have preferred one character over another in some missions. And be honest, would you rather have this, or “Sir Gawain’s radar-based hunt for the Holy Grail”?
There is also a multiplayer mode in this game. Short answer; it sucks. Up to four players (without CPUs even though Secret Rings had those available; strike one) can choose from 12 playable characters and compete in various modes such as a typical “Last Man Standing” game to having to play a co-op mode and defeat armies of enemies. However, that 12 character roster has some clones in it despite the move sets being rather small, and 3 characters are just Shadow, Knuckles and Blaze without armor; strike two. When you start a game, you find that your characters all walk slow as molasses (strike three; you’re out!), and the stages are all static squares with very little interactivity; great job multiplayer mode, you managed to start off your next batter with a strike before he even steps up to the plate. Though I will give multiplayer credit for making a character playable who I thought wouldn’t be. I’ll leave it you to unlock him though.
Rounding out the game is a set of unlockable stuff in the “gallery” which functions much like the “secret book” in Secret Rings. You can unlock concept art (seriously, does anyone really care about that?), music, and even some slideshows of fan art. Not just Black Knight fan art mind you, but fan art from across the entire series. Good news retro fans; Nack the Weasel/Fang the Sniper is in one of them, so SEGA does at least acknowledge his existence.
Overall, I don’t quite know how I would rate this game out of 10 if I had to. It’s got some real flaws like a terrible multiplayer mode, enemy spam, and keeping the on-rails level design without doing much to alleviate the backtracking issue that plagued Secret Rings. On the other hand, there are some great things in this game as well, such as being able to attack without losing momentum, an improved mission system, and the excellent execution of having multiple playable characters. If you’re a Sonic fan, I think you should at least give the game a rent, it’s certainly better than how IGN portrays it, and I promise that the sword in and of itself doesn’t harm the game.
