N+

First of all, I'm sorry for getting this to you guys so late after release. I wanted to give the hands on report an honest score, so I had to spend more time with it. Now, with that out of the way let's jump in shall we?

Sonic and the Secret Rings (SSR) has a true sonic game at it's core, the rails are just railey enough to throw you back to the old days of sonic, but still have that "multiple level run" in each level. You know what I mean, where if you just jump and hit a certain enemy you can run a section of the level on a higher plane, but soon return to it's base-run. So far the camera has had no problems, I figure because the camera is also on rails. The speed of the game is there, just... not at first.

You start the story with Sonic dozing off with the Arabian Nights book. Shahara comes out of the book and tells you the mess that's going on. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone so forgive my vague descriptions of story. I WILL tell you though, that the story is complete cheese, but easily put up with, and after you play for long-enough you accept the story and will have no qualms with it. Tails, Robotnik, Knuckles and the crew make appearances, but not as themselves. Robotnik is a king from one of the stories and Knuckles is Sinbad, Tails I think was Ali Baba, and I havn't seen any more than that so far.

Sound, Voices acting... haha, I like Sonics new voice actor, you will have an adjustment time to it, but it works well, in fact I believe the actor is better than Sonic's last voice actor. Shahara sounds like the same person who played Tikal in Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. Erazor Djin, now this guy was a horrible casting job, there is nothing terrifying or even remotely scary about his voice other than he sounds like your average 40 year old D&D player (nothing against you guys, you just don't sound like satan). Effects - very nice sound effects, they don't seem out of place anywhere so far. Music - Ok, so just like Excite Truck this game has a whopping ONE song for menues all the way through, it's ok and fits Sonic's world, but it would be ok to have more music. Each level has it's own song which is nice, but when you complete the level (or fail) you get the ONE song at the status screen as well.

Graphics, yes lets get graphics out of the way early shall we? The game has beautiful visuals! I can only imagine what it looks like with the component cables, it really is stunning to say the least. The heat-wave effects are very nice, probably the best i've ever seen and the water looks pretty swell to, pun intended. The framerate has never dropped on me, and is just as fast as my eyes can go anyway, maybee even faster, I just would have no way of telling. Cutscenes - The presentation of the cut-scenes are done in a cut-out comic-booky style, exactly like Red Steel... exactly.

Control, ok here's the meat of what makes this game what it is, other than the awesome rails. At first, at very first I thought that the controls were a little unresponsive and weak, but after leveling up (yes, i said leveling up) Sonic gets better at steering, jumping, and thank goodness running. SSR starts off slow, and so does Sonic. Maybee it's because Shahara just woke him up. Whatever the case may be, you have to spend time with this game to make it fun. But when you get there, it really is fun! He also learns new moves along the way, like back step. Before you learn this move, when you want to go back a little bit, you tilt the Wii Remote backwards and he walks backwards (sadly, NOT the moonwalk) slowly, once you earn backstep you do the same thing, but then can tap "2" button and he jumps backwards faster. This game has it's RPG style in touch as well, with the experiance points that add up to new moves, and the need to choose what moves you can go into a level with...

The Wedding Band, The ring you see Sonic wearing in all the pictures can hold alot of different moves. You can turn certain moves on and off before a level, most of the time you can afford them all, however sometimes you run out of XP and have to leave some of them turned off. You can always re-enter a level to gain some more points if you want them all on. In the game there are a number of different rings you can collect, and you can assign certain attributes to each one and pick which ring you would like to equip before the level. And no, Sonic is not married, he is still available if any ladies are searching, but beware, I hear Amy is pretty attached.

Presentation. The actual gameplay is where this story shines, and shines bright, but the menus... There are just to many to go through! you spend so much time in them. Also the level progression is a little awkward, you always have to manually select the next level from the level list, it doesn't just progress you naturaly and automatically. Also if you unlock 3 levels at a time, it tells you 3 times "new level unlocked" instead of "3 new levels unlocked" once. Thank goodness for the awesome gameplay. - Plus there is plenty of extras to unlock, like multiplayer games, videos, and artwork...

N+, N-: Is it worth your money?

Graphics: N+ 10 = One of Wii's best. period.
Sound: N+ 7 = Music and sfx rule. Bonus points for allowing us to turn the voices to Japanese.
Control: N+ 8 = Added ablities make this game one fast, easy to master game.
Story: N+ 7 = It's fun and different, and with an open mind and a background in Sonic comics, easily fit in.
Presentation: N+ 4 = You are aware of everything that happens outside of levels - always. Camera is flawless

Graphics: N- 0 = No Problem
Sound: N- 3 = Erazor voice actor, One song menu
Control: N- 2 = Starts of feeling slow and sluggish, we want to be masters of Sonic NOW! Once you get used to it, something comes along and breaks it.
Story: N- 3 = We miss bad-guy Robotnik, story is cheese until you buy into it.
Presentation: N- 6 = Too much menu time, no automatic level progression. Why Sega?

Overall: N+ 6.5/10
Worth your money, and begs your time. With friends over the multiplayer looks awesome! Sonic equals speed, and this game burns it up! - Just make sure you give it some time and progression.

Click Here for the Official SSR site!

- Captain Seagull