Sonic Chronicles

[Judge]

A couple of hours into this, and mildly impressed. It plays very much like a simplified Grandia, and Bioware seem content for once to adopt a relatively standard fight mode, although the QTEs are getting on my nerves. The stylus control for movement feels a little odd, but it's perfect for the battle mode, and I suppose they didn't want to make people swap back and forth. Very much in the present Sonic-verse setting; GUN have featured heavily, and the characterisation follows on from Sonic 2006.

The only concern at this stage is the small map- there are only six areas on the Overworld (Green Hill, Central City, Mystic Ruins, Floating Island, Blue Ridge and Metropolis), and I've already been to three of them. The music's a bit bland as well, with only one of the fight tunes having any real kick to it.

[elaniel]

Wow, how the heck did I miss this?! I totally forgot to pre-order this

[The Mole]

Don't worry about the small map, after chapter 6 you leave the planet and find a load of new areas.

I have been holding off posting my first play impressions as i was having trouble deciding if the game was at fault, or my inexperience with RPG games for certain things, which i am about to explain. Since the thread is here i will add my thoughts so far.

After chapter 6 is also when you start to encounter enemies that fully heal every other turn and the downfall for the game begins At this point even if you had taken on every battle (which i think is not possible due to the lack of resources for 2 chapters) you would not be at a strong enough level to be able to beat the fully healing slimes. It fustrates the hell out of me when you get one of them (they fight in twos) down to say 10hp then they gain that extra 340 boost . You can't flee all the time as some block your path or ambush you.

Another thing that fustrates me is some of the enemies regenerate again blocking the same part of your path. So if you need to back track (and in parts you do this quite a bit) you will have to take on that same band that may ahve given you trouble again 5 or 6 times. I was sick of doing this so started to flee, but the flee minigame started to get on my nerves very quickly.

I also do not like the way that the game starts to force weak characters upon your party. Yes they level up to a certain point so they are not starting at 0, but at one point you have to take control of something with about 50 hp, when all the other members in my party were on 170-230hp. One point even requires you to have 2 full parties of 4. You can't keep track of the stats of 8 characters making sure they all get equal enough playtime to ensure they keep leveling up. This results in having weak members in your party.

Shame as the game shows a lot of promise in the early stages, but for me it does not progress fairly enough for the player to be able to cope.

I and a few mates who are also are playing this and are much bigger RPG fans than me (im more Sonic). They agree that you go from easy enemies, to the extremely difficult with not enough of the middle ground to get your characters leveled enough to survive later on. You also have a section of the game where you are unbale to get to a shop to buy supplies, which again means you have to flee every time you come across a random battle as even if you have not been buying any hints for the puzzles (which i wasn't) i still did not have enough health recovery items to get me through. This resulted in me having to add Cream to my team and to protect the hell out of her, as she was pummelled but needed to be there to heal the other party members.

This maybe how RPGs are all made to work, the only other ones i have any great experience of Golden Sun, and Harvest Moon/Rune Factory playout in a different way.

It starts off well, but as the chapters go on my enjoyment of the game started to go with it. I ended up on chapter 10 i think and i have little interest in returning. Again this maybe due to me not being a huge RPG fan.

[SuperBeatBoy]

I haven't heard good things about it. Which is suprising considering its by Bioware. I will probably pick it up when its cheap.

Imo if you were deciding on whether to get a new rpg for your ds or not. Get Dragon Quest IV. Its by far the best rpg on the system. Can't wait for the other remakes of them.

[Asura]

Anyone else got any impressions of this? I am quite a big Sonic fan, but I've been told it's both insufferably easy and doesn't look much like the gorgeous concept artwork we were shown months ago.

[JamesS]

I'm really, really disappointed with it. It's utterly charmless, with ropey presentation and a terrible framerate when you're moving around the world. Some of the music is dire, too. More than anything, though, it's just boring.

The backgrounds are nice, but they look like they've been drawn with little regard to actually putting them in the game, with the result that you often find characters stood in front of things they should be behind, and you get fringes of other colours around things that go in front of you as they've tried to separate the pictures into layers.

I honestly had more fun with Sonic 360.

[Asura]

I honestly had more fun with Sonic 360.

Sonic 360 was great fun though. Admittedly, it was for all the wrong reasons, but that didn't stop it being fun

[fishbowlhead]

Guys, its sonic, what did you expect?

[SuperBeatBoy]

A great game by Bioware. Thats what i expected.

[Asura]

Guys, its sonic, what did you expect?

Well, we expected a particularly good game - it's not such a stretch when you consider that it's by Bioware, who to my recollection have never made a poor game, and though you have to account for the drag factor of the recent Sonic games, it isn't like Bioware made those.

The fact that Nintendo managed to wrangle passable RPG's out of the Mario license shows that it can be done.

[112]

Is this the version with those fast paced chase scens that looked oh so cool in the trailer and then let down with teh 3D platform bit with sonic turning into a wolf (ala okami & zelda).

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