Title Sonic Rush Adventure Date 10.12.2007 Genre Adventure Platform Nintendo DS Developer SEGA Publisher SEGA

Since Sonic Advance, I've played every Sonic game that came out for Nintendo's handheld systems. I enjoyed them all, especially Sonic Advance 3; Sonic Rush disappointed me a little, though. I felt it was a bit... Rushed (yeah, bad pun, I know). There was nothing wrong with it, it was just too short; Sonic Advance 3 was longer.
So I was really excited when they announced Sonic Rush Adventure (SRA from now on), because Sega promised a longer adventure, with more elements and gimmicks; we all know these new elements usually didn't work on Sonic's 3D outings (Shadow the Hedgehog, anyone?), but did they work this time? Let's find out (yeah, right, you should've read the score by now, so it's not a real question!)

Story
I won't spoil much of SRA's story in this review. This because the game actually has a story, and a good one too! Sonic and Tails are looking for a strong magnetic signal while aboard the Tornado, and then they get caught into a... Tornado (rrrrrrright); they wash ashore and are awakened by this game's new-and-useless character, Marine the Raccoon. At least she's funny, speaking in an Australian slang and with our favorite sailor sentences ("Ahoy, mates!"); anyway, she doesn't care too much about our heroes, being busy with her new ship, the SS. Marine. This gal's not much of a builder, though, and the ship crashes right away; Tails then offers his help to build a new ship, and Sonic goes and gets the necessary materials. As the adventure progresses, Tails will build Sonic some nice sea vehicles to reach the many islands in the game, and we'll also face a gang of pirates and run into Blaze once again (why, are you asking? Play and see by yourselves! :P), which you can control. Key events are told using 3D cut-scenes, while most of the dialogue between characters is just like that in Sonic Rush: artworks and texts. Good story, surely the best in any 2D Sonic (or at least the handheld ones). Oh, one last thing: you don't care at all about the story? You can skip every cut-scene and dialogue by pressing Start!

Graphics
I think Sonic Rush had beautiful graphics, and those in SRA are even better! They're more colorful, more detailed and there's a greater use of 3D, this time. Oh, and backgrounds are better , too; while playing this game I never thought all of this could have been done on a Game Boy Advance. Bosses are back and look better than those in Sonic Rush (that already looked impressive), and have fantastic animations. Plain enemies are better, too, even though most of them are sprites, and aren't made with polygons. The frame rate is always solid, with the exception of one particular boss, a battle where there are some slowdowns.

Sound
If you liked BGMs in Sonic Rush, these will totally rock you! They're similar in style to those of the last game, but their quality is superior, and they perfectly fit the level you're in. My personal favorite is the BGM of Plant Kingdom, the first zone you'll encounter. The sailing theme is great, too. Remember that, for the most part, SRA's music is not composed by the classic themes you've ever heard in Sonic, though, so if you loved those, you might think these compositions are inferior. I enjoyed them, anyway.

Gameplay
Here we are to the most important part of this review: gameplay! A game can have the most beautiful graphics in the universe, but if it's an inferno to play, then what is it worth? Nothing! Luckily, SRA actually has WONDERFUL gameplay, and in my opinion, it's one of the best entries in the series in this aspect. The controls during action stages are pretty much the same of its predecessor, only more polished. The trick system has got a slight variation: you perform air tricks by pressing the B button (or the R button for rail tricks), then you press the A button to put an end to the sequence and receive bonus points on the Tension Gauge. This allows you to fill the gauge quicker than before, and it's a welcomed addition, because you get to use the Rush power much more than you did in Sonic Rush. It's particularly helpful if there are enemies in a straight line or if you need to get a quick burst of speed and immediately reach the maximum velocity; this is put into good use in this game, more than it was in Sonic Rush, where you only really needed it to escape from giant rolling balls with Eggman's face on them (and on a few more occasions).

And now to answer the question I made in the introduction: yes, the new elements work very well: during the game, you get to pilot up to four sea vehicles, which all control differently. The water bike is probably the funniest of them all to control, but they're all well done; they're all controlled by stylus, and there are no control flaws of sorts (just like there weren't in Sonic Rush's special stage). We also have an overworld this time, but once you get to an area, you can access it again by a simple menu. Another interesting thing you can do are missions (one hundred), in which you have, for example, to defeat a boss again, or complete a stage in a certain time limit. Your rewards are things like BGMs, videos and various items; by spending your Rings, you can also decorate the main island of the game, putting for example a Sonic statue on it (nothing special, but nice).

Expect to have the classic Rank system which pushes you to do the levels again and again, a Time Attack mode and Multiplayer modes, both offline and online. I haven't tried them yet, though (hell, the game has been out here in Europe only for one day by the time I'm writing this review).

Lasting appeal/Replay value
While the first Sonic Rush could be completed with all of the unlockables in two or three days, this one is much longer and has more things to do; levels and boss battles are better, too, so you might want to replay it just to blaze through them again! I surely will!

Overall
Keep up the great job, Sega, and please don't disappoint us anymore. If your next Sonic games will be even just nearly as good as this one, then Sonic will once again regain all of his lost quality. And you Sonic fans, I really recommend you to buy this game, it's the best in a while, in my eyes.

Game Score

B+

Reviewed By: Contributed