I’m finally finished this game. Might as well lay on impressions.

Expectations:
When this was first released, I figured it’d be Sonic’s chance at making his own “Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars” (in my mind called “Super Sonic RPG: Legend of the Seven Chaos Emeralds”). It’d be a good way to utilize his endless army of friends, as they would have some sort of distinguishing factor to make them useful during battles (and thus party rotation may be essential). But when it came out, a lot of the people I knew said it was crap. I had some other RPGs on my plate anyway, so I didn’t bother with it at the time. But I recently picked it up from the bargain bin and decided to go through it. Sonic-GAF had some fairly positive/okay impressions, which was the major selling point.


Narrative:
As soon as the game began, I realized that BioWare totally did a lot of research for this game (and honestly, I wouldn’t expect less). The levels, the music, how the characters are written—the attention to detail is fantastic and quite faithful. The in-game encyclopedia was incredibly accurate, providing details about main characters and certain events and groups in the Sonic series. It was nice to leaf through.

The characters are handled in a manner where their personalities seem to shine, making some of them likable all of a sudden. A lot of the complaints about Sonic’s friends is that they are usually given a lot of the spotlight while taking the spotlight away from Sonic himself. But Chronicles was written in a fashion where all the side characters are written in a way where Sonic remains the star of the show and the characters are part of a focused unit, never stealing the show or being exaggerated. The characters are strengthened by the quality of their dialogue—Eggman/Robotnik’s lines are incredibly hilarious at times, for instance. But is it just me, or is Amy written to be more annoying than usual? I also liked the dialogue options. Being an asshole to Amy, or everyone, was incredibly satisfying. The direction that BioWare took with the characterization of Sonic’s friends was quite satisfying, making the cast witty, mature and intelligent. The characters actually had depth. Very nicely done.

The narrative itself was alright. It felt like average RPG fare Sonic-fied to me. The ending was underwhelming, though.

I don’t appreciate how the cutscenes are done very much, however. It’s interesting—the cutscenes were shown with comic book-style segments (kind of like The World Ends With You, only not as nice to look at). But . It would have been incredibly interesting if BioWare had gotten the Archie comic book artists to do the art for the cutscenes instead.




Explorin’, Sidequestin’ and Dungeonin’
Ah, the other part of the RPG experience. BioWare managed to connect old 2D Sonic zones (a nostalgic point for most Sonic fans) with cities and the dungeon experience rather well.

The characters had certain skills to differentiate them from other characters, such as flying, dashing, breaking through obstructions, etc. IMO, this added to the depth and definition of characters. There was suddenly a use for Cream and Big. Some characters can be the only characters to get the max level for certain skills (ex: Sonic is the only character who can use Level 3 Dash). Not only did these field skills add to the depth of the characters, but they also encouraged exploration. But there wasn’t a lot of stuff to find other than chao eggs, rings and items (which the game seems to throw at you). Equipment doesn’t seem that useful either.

The sidequests are mostly fetch quests. And sometimes the rewards don’t feel rewarding. Sometimes you get lotsa XP, items, or nothing of use. I get that they’re there either for the necessity of ‘sidequesting’ or ‘world-building’, but sometimes the sidequests simply didn’t feel useful.

I’ll put chaos in here because they are collectable accessories which, when trying to get them, are chance-based. Catching them all is a sidequest in itself. You didn’t really need them all, though.




Battle System:
If I play an RPG these days, the quality of the battle system will get the most focus.

I do not like stylus-only controls, especially on the field. I still didn’t appreciate them here. The only time I did enjoy stylus controls in this game was during combat, particularly because it employed an Ouendan-style of attack execution. It was also nice to see turn order on the top screen. However, sometimes I like the battle system, and sometimes I find it tedious (especially when some enemies take many hits to go down). But some characters are imbalanced in terms of power (Cream)—so when I found the characters that were most useful, I had a tendency to not use the other characters (which is disappointing, because I like to rotate party members in any RPG I play).

Also, it seems like any time Sonic comes into an enemy’s field of vision, the enemy will make some war cry. And sometimes these sound effects are not pleasing to the ear at all. The “chase” sequences used to escape from an enemy or chase after an enemy are interesting at first, but then they got repetitive and groanworthy later on in the game.

Overall, I feel like I had a like/dislike relationship with the battle system. Not the best, but not the worst.




The music:
There is no music .

I either kept it on mute, or played the Persona 4 OST or Sonic 2/3&K OSTs in the background as I played through it. You’d be surprised with how well Reach Out To the Truth goes with this game. But with that said, the battle music isn’t as terrible as the field music (but in my experience, it isn’t very good).

The music is awful. At first I thought some people were exaggerating, but man… Playing the game with the music in-context didn’t improve it at all. How the hell is this a remix of this? I heard they ran into problems with the soundtrack prior to release—and that could be a rumour—but man, I know they can do better than that.

More wonderful gems from the Sonic Chronicles soundtrack:
Green Hill Zone
Central City
Metropolis
Kron Colony
Battle Theme 1
Angel Island
Blue Ridge


Overall:
It’s definitely far from one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played (Suikoden II, Shadow Hearts, Mother 3, Persona 4, FF9, Chrono Trigger, etc), but it’s also far from the absolute worst (Tecmo Secret of the Stars, Quest 64, Lunar: Dragon Song, Ephemeral Fantasia, Beyond the Beyond, etc). It is disappointing that this isn’t exactly what I expected, but honestly, you could probably do a lot worse. It is incredibly flawed, but there’s some quality in there that makes the game somewhat entertaining. For an RPG, it feels quite short (I’ve played longer on handhelds, so this was slightly surprising).

I really enjoyed the depth BioWare gave to Sonic’s friends—they are very enjoyable in this game, both narrative-wise and battle-wise. It is probably one of the best aspects of this game. I think the game lacks balance at times, however (equipment should matter, sidequests should offer rewards based on what you’re doing, you don’t have money to equip your party well, etc).

It fits quite well in the RPG genre, but it’s middle-of-the-road as an RPG, really. However, that could be my Sonic fan bias shining through, and I’m thinking more optimistically of this game than I normally would as an objective RPG player.

I'm surprised you didn't comment on the graphics. 0.o

It really bothered me how all the sprites had really grainy white borders around them...you can witness it in the screen-shots you posted, too. I'm by no means a graphic whore, but it really bothered me how they didn't clean up and smooth out the borders. It's especially noticeable with the items.

Anyway, I didn't get far because the battle system was plain frustrating, plus it became a pain to level up from random battling too.

I like that they explored the history of the Gizoids some more. Those things are great. Knuckles was also given more respect than usual, which was nice. Ix was a decent villain too.

Extremely mediocre game otherwise. I don't think I can even remember what the map designs were like. All I know is that they were hand drawn, and only looked good next to thr crappy 3D character models. Battle system was mainly just a bunch of rhythm-tapping, and didn't require much strategy if you just spammed Tails's Medi-Bot over and over.

Then of course there's the music. A Sonic game with horrible tunes? Unthinkable!

And lol at the ending. More plot holes and dead ends, just what the Sonic story needed.

I enjoyed it. It was about what I expected for a handheld RPG based on Sonic. I thought it offered appropriate gameplay and presentation considering the audience they seemed to be targeting. My only real complaint was that the EBA-inspired mini-games during battles weren't connected to the battle music, but rather to simple sound effects. Without that connection, it wasn't really a musical experience; it just looked and played like EBA without the...well, fun.

The game was very pretty, though, for a DS game. And the overworld was designed well, I thought. A bit simplistic overall, nothing too special, but not bad.

Watch Da Birdie said:

I'm surprised you didn't comment on the graphics. 0.o

It really bothered me how all the sprites had really grainy white borders around them...you can witness it in the screen-shots you posted, too. I'm by no means a graphic whore, but it really bothered me how they didn't clean up and smooth out the borders. It's especially noticeable with the items.

Anyway, I didn't get far because the battle system was plain frustrating, plus it became a pain to level up from random battling too.

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I knew I forgot something. XD

I'm not much of a graphics specialist, so I didn't think the graphics were too bad. As colourful and cartoony as the maps were, those outlines weren't nice to look at, however. Some character models look a tad off, as well. I think it's the eyes. There was also some clipping in certain areas here and there.

I'd also like to say that it's disappointing that the chaos were simply relegated to being accessories, instead of allowing the player to raise and mate them--thus increasing the replayability aspect of the game (rather than just playing through NG+ just to collect more of them).

As for the battle system, when you get down to it, sometimes it's a matter of patience. I really should not have played this game alongside Final Fantasy IV: CC and Tales of Graces f. Sonic Chronicles's battle system felt much slower in comparison.

GeekyDad said:

My only real complaint was that the EBA-inspired mini-games during battles weren't connected to the battle music, but rather to simple sound effects. Without that connection, it wasn't really a musical experience; it just looked and played like EBA without the...well, fun.

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Absolutely. When the EBA stuff kicked in, I figured battles had to be rhythm-based. Imagine my disappointment when it wasn't.

SykoTech said:

Then of course there's the music. A Sonic game with horrible tunes? Unthinkable!

And lol at the ending. More plot holes and dead ends, just what the Sonic story needed.

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The music is what hurt the most. Its lack of good quality was absolutely unbelievable.

The final "battle" was quite underwhelming as well. It had an interesting way of doing the credits, though. But yeah, the ending sucked.

I'd always heard stories about how dreadful the soundtrack to this game was, but nothing could have ever prepared me for those links you just dropped.

That aside, I've always been curious about this game, but something just always seemed kind of...off or generic about it, I guess

Sonic Chronicles has THE worst HUD in an RPG ever, srsly. That shit was awful.

It was okay, it wasn't awful. Pretty much outclassed severely by any Mario RPG or most RPGs in general to be honest

Dark Schala said:

The music:

The music is awful. At first I thought some people were exaggerating, but man…

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We tried to warn you.

Anyway, I don't think there was ever a party to be late to for this game.

I found the battle system to be kind of fun, but that's about all I can say was positive about the game.
In addition to anything you mentioned, I found issues with:
The difficulty curve. I mean what the hell, once you hit the back half of the game at least battle difficulty goes all over the place. Hell, IIRC the final boss got progressively EASIER as he changed forms. Just... odd.
And the story. I mean, ugh. Absolutely the most intolerable part of the game. Bleh.
But yeah, at least the battle system was kind of neat.

Heh, I love how the mangled arranged Sonic 3 Final Boss track is always the first example someone uses when speaking of Chronicles' OST.

I was actually thinking about picking this up too, but I guess I'll probably skip it.

I don't understand how Bioware could have made a bad game

it fuckin sucked monkey balls

beyond terrible

Anticitizen One said:

I don't understand how Bioware could have made a bad game

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If you have just awoken out of cryogenic sleep you will note that the world has survived 2001. Dont rejoice yet.. just because you survived 2001 i regret to inform you that later today/tomorrow is the Rapture.

Yeah I loved how the characters were handled, especially Knuckles, Shadow and Rouge. Everything else ranged from mediocre to terrible.

I always thought a sonic rpg would be better on a console rather than confined to a handheld. Something like Tales of Vesperia.
Vesperia's battle system with the sonic cast would be rather awesome

EDIT: Oh yeah, I hated the aliens too >_> (what is it with sonic and aliens?)

Sciz said:

We tried to warn you.

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I know. I honestly thought the music was going to get better, but it stayed bad or got worse as the game went on.

Lucky Number Seven Force said:

Heh, I love how the mangled arranged Sonic 3 Final Boss track is always the first example someone uses when speaking of Chronicles' OST.

I was actually thinking about picking this up too, but I guess I'll probably skip it.

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It's because that theme is incredibly hilarious. It sounds like a terrible attempt in Mario Paint...

It isn't a terrible RPG, but just don't go in with lofty expectations. By the way some people I knew were talking about it, I expected something as bad as Tecmo Secret of the Stars.

w00tkins said:

Something like Tales of Vesperia. Vesperia's battle system with the sonic cast would be rather awesome

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That'd be quite interesting.

Something like Graces' battle system would work. The Style-Shift LMBS would be interesting, using Sonic's characters and switching between the abilities that they're really good at, and their normal weapon attacks. Keroro RPG was nice with the LMBS, for instance, and that was a portable title. Something like Rebirth's battle system would be nice as well.

So... Nintendo worked with Squaresoft and churned out Super Mario RPG. And then they ended up doing the Paper Mario games with Intelligent Systems, and then the Mario and Luigi RPG games with AlphaDream.

SEGA worked with BioWare and the end result was Sonic Chronicles. There's no reason why SEGA can't try again with another studio.

look who Bioware had to work with. Hint: It's the only SEGA person who had any influence on this game

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nintendo-ds/sonic-chronicles-the-dark-brotherhood/credits

that man has power capable of ruining any developer.

ShadiWulf said:

look who Bioware had to work with. Hint: It's the only SEGA person who had any influence on this game

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nintendo-ds/sonic-chronicles-the-dark-brotherhood/credits

that man has power capable of ruining any developer.

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Uggggghhhh... this game could have been so much better... :/

Instead of making references to the Archie comics, BioWare really should've full-on teamed up with them in some fashion. For example... . They could've just ran with it. *shrug*

But I am very happy with the characterization. Sonic's friends work very very well in an RPG context. I'm surprised it took SEGA that long to think of an RPG to implement everyone's qualities properly.

Anticitizen One said:

I don't understand how Bioware could have made a bad game

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I'd like to go to the dimension where you hail from.

Hey, Quest 64 is a classic.

Busaiku said:

Hey, Quest 64 is a classic.

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A little OT, but... I personally didn't like it very much. Interesting battle and leveling systems, but painfully generic in other areas. The music had nice compositions, but were utterly flawed in execution (sounded like a bad sound driver). Apparently it was supposed to be a better product than what was released. But it's better than Aidyn Chronicles.

However I'd much rather play through and beat Beyond the Beyond for a third time than play Quest 64 again. But not Hydlide, Stargazer, Secret of the Stars, Heroes of the Lance, Astonishia Story, Maka Maka or Virtual Hydlide. I am not a masochist and I never want to play those games ever again. :/

I've played RPGs that are far far far far worse than Sonic Chronicles, so that's why I don't think it's utterly terrible or offensive to the senses.

Bioware did a superb job with the characters. I found myself laughing at a lot of Big's dialogue, and loved basically being an asshole to everybody I could.

Battle system was alright, and could've been a lot worse. The music though...

Dark Schala: Well today I found out what Bioware can't do. I can't endure the music. Today you get to say "I told you so."
Sonic-GAF: Today, I don't want to.
[pauses for several moments]
Sonic-GAF: But I did bloody tell you.

I couldn't take anymore of the all touch-screen gameplay. Also the terrible music.

I only played a little ways into the game, but yes, trolling Amy was terrific.

Super Sonic RPG this isn't. I hated the game. I thought it was clunky, uninspired, and applied the-then popular Sonic Cycle label of subpar games to yet another Sonic game, and now Bioware.

I haven't played a Bioware game since. I'm unsure if my disappointment in the game is the reason why. I thought they could break the Cycle at the time, but alas...

Ugh, Sonic Chronicles, how I loathe thee. Let me count the ways...

1. WTF gameplay. Here's 3 little facts about me:
-I can play Sonic games
-I can RPGs
-I can not play rhythm games to save my life.
Guess which of these 3 facts was the most relevant in a Sonic RPG?

Seriously, why was this Elite Beats Bullshit even in the game? Why is there no lower difficulty option? Why is there no practice mode? Why does the "did it wrong" SFX sound more like the "did it right" SFX from the special stages of STH2? & why do healing moves require absolute 100% perfection when attacks can still get partial effect if some dots are missed? WHO THE HELL EVER HEARD OF A CURE SPELL THAT DOESN'T WORK?!!

2. Every single enemy encounter is a pain. Why do so many minor enemies have to have a gimmick (regenerating HP, super high armor stats, reviving because I can't dish out enough damage to kill it & it's allies in the same turn, missiles that do a ton of damage to multiple party members & can't be defended against) that makes fighting such an ongoing pain? Especially the phasing/evading ones that are all over the place. Just let me freaking hit the guy already! & don't give me that "you can avoid them" excuse because...

3. The environments are a jumbled mess. A lot of the time, I simply don't have the room to maneuver around enemies. Finding my way around is a pain, especially in areas like Metropolis which are convoluted mazes with 1 long specific route through them. In any other Sonic game I could just jump anywhere but here's it's a guessing game which elevated platform can be interacted with which character. & the enemies frequently respawn (something I haven't seen happen in other Bio-ware games I've played), meaning I have to refight them over & over when I'm just trying to figure out the lay of the land. But maybe I can just run from battles. Surely that'll work, right?

4. The running away mini-game Okay it's annoying enough in other RPGs that I select run & it fails, but this is a whole other level of dumb. I can't even talk more about this because my brain still can't truly fathom it.

Well, if I'm force to fight the same enemy in the same spot over & over anyway at least I should be getting lots of XP....

5. Enemies give less XP over time. It didn't make any sense in Castlevania SotN & it still doesn't make sense here: players grind for a reason don't punish them for it.

6. Confusing stats. One would assume that the Attack & Defense stats would refer to a given character's ability to deal lots of damage & sustain just as much, like in any other RPG ever made.

They don't.

Instead Attack & Defense mean the character's ability to connect the hits & avoid them. Accuracy & Evasion would've been far more appropriate terms for those stats than Attack/Defense. The confusing choice of terminology alone is bad enough but what makes it worse is that the damage-dealing/absorbing stats do exist and can buffed by equipment like the rest, you just ever actually see them. Again my brain can not begin to comprehend the absurdity of it all.

Oh & the chao that grant protection from elemental attacks don't actually do anything because apparently there isn't a single enemy that does deal elemental damage.

7. Limited money 1st off, rings as currency is a little weird. Shouldn't they represent HP? 2nd, there's only a limited number of them in the whole game & enemies don't give out any. The only other way to make money is to sell your items. Yes, the very things you're expecting to be BUYING in any other RPG you're expected to SELL in this one. & becuase of complaint #2, I was burning through all of the perishables after every battle anyway.

8. Why yes, the music did suck. For some tracks the general melody might be catchy but the audio quality is closer to the original Game Boy than DS. & why would anyone take a final boss theme & turn it into a dungeon BGM anyway?

9. Dialog options have no impact After about the 3rd or 4th time I tell Tails to stop telling me about saving the game & yet he does it again anyway, I start to worry if Bio-ware's actively mocking this problem.

10. Story loses steam. Really, someone liked the gizoids in this game? They didn't do anything! They could've been swapped out for more types of enchidnas & nothing about the plot would've been affected. "Dexter" went no where & even Amy pretty much forgot about it after a while. Most of the party members after joining contributes nothing more than the occasional mandatory 1-liner.

& fuck the abrupt non-ending.

Nitpick: continuity errors This didn't effect my overall opinion of the game much but for all of research Bio-ware did there are still some mistakes I noticed so I'm listing them anyway since I still feel like ranting. ranked from glaring to obscure:

-Green Hill Zone apparently moved from South Island to the main continent. That or Station Square is on an island.
-Team Rose is misnamed Team Amy.
-Eggman doesn't use robotization in the games. That only happened in the comics & cartoons.
-The backstory of the gizoids happened 4000 years ago while a Japanese strategy guide for SA1 (like I said, obscure) states the attack of Chaos was 3000 years ago. The connection between the 2 events is technically impossible.


Since I've never played Sonic 06 past a demo, this is easily the worse Sonic game I've experience. Some problems could've been fixed if the game was given more time, but so many others sound stupid on paper & were worse in execution. How someone could've thought them up & decide they were good baffles the mind (but then this is Sega afterall). I eagerly anticipate a sequel in hopes it can someday wash away the horrid memories of this one.

Dark Schala said:

Uggggghhhh... this game could have been so much better... :/

Instead of making references to the Archie comics, BioWare really should've full-on teamed up with them in some fashion. For example...

Spoiler

the Nocturnus tribe seems quite similar to the Dark Legion, and Shade is basically Julie-Su

. They could've just ran with it. *shrug*

But I am very happy with the characterization. Sonic's friends work very very well in an RPG context. I'm surprised it took SEGA that long to think of an RPG to implement everyone's qualities properly.

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To be fair, I think I like the brotherhood's aesthetics more than the legion. I've read before that there are some legal complications in ever using SatAM/Archie characters in a game so they had to get the expy treatment.

I dread the idea of the freedom fighters ever getting expied

Wow those music midis are truly awful o_0


Didn't this have like the slooooowest movement ever in the field of RPG's?

MAtgS said:

"Dexter" went no where & even Amy pretty much forgot about it after a while.

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Apparently, if you say the right things to Amy she eventually admits she made Dexter up as an attempt to make Sonic jealous.

there is something obviously wrong with the music in this game. i mean, beyond the fact that it is absolutely mindblowingly horrific.

it seems to me like certain instrument samples had to be replaced at the last minute by much lower quality ones. and this was apparently done without taking into account how it would affect the individual tracks. clearly many bass lines are no longer played by bass instruments and are pitched one or two octaves too high for no apparent reason. it sounds like an obvious mistake that could only have been overlooked if no one had EVER bothered to listen to the result.

and then there are whole instruments apparently playing lines that had been (mistakenly?) pitch-shifted a few notes up or down, resulting in some truly bizarre sounding disharmonies. maybe once again this is a result of samples that had been replaced by new, off-pitch ones.

and on top of that there's timing problems with certain drum sounds...

i'd actually love to hear the whole story behind this clusterfuck of a soundtrack. hard to fathom how the game ever made it into stores like this.

Without a shadow of a doubt the most annoying thing about this game (gameplay wise) was the high frequency of missed attacks, upon entering a new area with new enemies you would often miss half your attacks until your levels were upped a few stages.
Also the special moves just took too long, tapping those circles got mighty boring.

jarosh said:

there is something obviously wrong with the music in this game. i mean, beyond the fact that it is absolutely mindblowingly horrific.

it seems to me like certain instrument samples had to be replaced at the last minute by much lower quality ones. and this was apparently done without taking into account how it would affect the individual tracks. clearly many bass lines are no longer played by bass instruments and are pitched one or two octaves too high for no apparent reason. it sounds like an obvious mistake that could only have been overlooked if no one had EVER bothered to listen to the result.

and then there are whole instruments apparently playing lines that had been (mistakenly?) pitch-shifted a few notes up or down, resulting in some truly bizarre sounding disharmonies. maybe once again this is a result of samples that had been replaced by new, off-pitch ones.

and on top of that there's timing problems with certain drum sounds...

i'd actually love to hear the whole story behind this clusterfuck of a soundtrack. hard to fathom how the game ever made it into stores like this.

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I heard that originally Bioware was using remixed music from Sonic 1 and 2 for the game's soundtrack, but found out at the very last minute from SEGA they didn't actually have the rights to that music so they had to resort to ripping MIDI remixes of tunes SEGA *did* own the rights to off the internet and hastily shove it into the game.

Still doesn't entirely explain how the soundtrack came out that bad, but it's a start.

MAtgS said:

5. Enemies give less XP over time. It didn't make any sense in Castlevania SotN & it still doesn't make sense here: players grind for a reason don't punish them for it.

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Actually i find it a great idea. A lot of RPGs lose there fun overtime, if you over level yourself. So getting less Xp shows the player, that they now can handle the bosses and have a challenge and fun experience. Of course, this only works if the developers find the right balance.

Metal B said:

Actually i find it a great idea. A lot of RPGs lose there fun overtime, if you over level yourself. So getting less Xp shows the player, that they now can handle the bosses and have a challenge and fun experience. Of course, this only works if the developers find the right balance.

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That should be the player's decision, not the developer's. Options should not ever be taken away from players.

Astrosanity said:

I heard that originally Bioware was using remixed music from Sonic 1 and 2 for the game's soundtrack, but found out at the very last minute from SEGA they didn't actually have the rights to that music so they had to resort to ripping MIDI remixes of tunes SEGA *did* own the rights to off the internet and hastily shove it into the game.

Still doesn't entirely explain how the soundtrack came out that bad, but it's a start.

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actually, downloading bad midi rips/conversions or poor midi approximations of original tunes by fans could account for almost all of the things i mentioned. especially when replacement instruments have to be hastily inserted at the last minute (which would have been the case, since the ds doesn't exactly have a general midi bank that can be used to play back any midi files you throw at it). so, wow if that's true!

Why have I never bought this game ? Good review but I'm ready to buy this and enjoy some Sonic before Generations.

MAtgS said:

To be fair, I think I like the brotherhood's aesthetics more than the legion. I've read before that there are some legal complications in ever using SatAM/Archie characters in a game so they had to get the expy treatment.

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Sega owns every original idea and character created for the comics and cartoons. That said, trying to incorporate most of them into game canon would result in another '06-esque train wreck, so it's better that they stay where they are.

MAtgS said:

That should be the player's decision, not the developer's. Options should not ever be taken away from players.

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The mission of the developer is to entertain you, even if it means to take options from you. Thats why you have to open doors with keys and not blast them open with a shotgun. But a good developer dont let you know, that you dont have an option: Illusion of choice.

MAtgS said:

2. Every single enemy encounter is a pain. Why do so many minor enemies have to have a gimmick (regenerating HP, super high armor stats, reviving because I can't dish out enough damage to kill it & it's allies in the same turn, missiles that do a ton of damage to multiple party members & can't be defended against) that makes fighting such an ongoing pain? Especially the phasing/evading ones that are all over the place. Just let me freaking hit the guy already! & don't give me that "you can avoid them" excuse because...

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Yes... the battles became tedious because of certain things in combat. Combat ended up taking a little long sometimes, and thus it felt like a bit of a chore to grind.

But like I said, I was playing FF4:CC and Tales of Graces while playing through this, so that's likely why combat felt sluggish to me during some battles. Those games' battle systems are much faster.

5. Enemies give less XP over time. It didn't make any sense in Castlevania SotN & it still doesn't make sense here: players grind for a reason don't punish them for it.

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Actually... a lot of RPGs do this. The Genso Suikoden series has XP out of 1000, and if enemies are weaker than you (ie: once you hit the "level cap" in a certain area), they will give out less XP. Shining Force did it. Crisis Core does this. Lost Odyssey does this. So it's interesting that Sonic Chronicles adopted this mechanic. I don't mind it at all. It seems pretty logical to me.

7. Limited money 1st off, rings as currency is a little weird. Shouldn't they represent HP? 2nd, there's only a limited number of them in the whole game & enemies don't give out any. The only other way to make money is to sell your items. Yes, the very things you're expecting to be BUYING in any other RPG you're expected to SELL in this one. & becuase of complaint #2, I was burning through all of the perishables after every battle anyway.

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That is something I did not comprehend as well. But equipment, overall, did not seem to matter in this game, making it further unbalanced. If the game were more balanced in terms of stats, equipment, sidequest rewards, etc, then I would have enjoyed it a little more. The unbalanced gameplay was the biggest knock against the game for me (aside from the music).

Since I've never played Sonic 06 past a demo

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You should. Either that, or watch an LP of it. It's bad. And play more RPGs like Virtual Hydlide, Stargazer and Secret of the Stars. Sonic Chronicles is like gold compared to those.

Astrosanity said:

I heard that originally Bioware was using remixed music from Sonic 1 and 2 for the game's soundtrack, but found out at the very last minute from SEGA they didn't actually have the rights to that music so they had to resort to ripping MIDI remixes of tunes SEGA *did* own the rights to off the internet and hastily shove it into the game.

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Remixes by fans? Wow, if true-- and it makes a lot of sense. That's ridiculous. Like jarosh, I'd like to know the whole story too. Even if it is true, no one could have really stood by and let the end result come out like that, right?

Metal B said:

The mission of the developer is to entertain you, even if it means to take options from you. Thats why you have to open doors with keys and not blast them open with a shotgun. But a good developer dont let you know, that you dont have an option: Illusion of choice.

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Nonsense. Getting my ass kicked over & over because a basic fundemental of the genre was stripped out is not entertaining. Forceing a player to play in a manner he doesn't want to only results in a frustrated player. & this is a Bio-ware game, I was under the impression they were at least a little better than most at alternative possibilities. I remember KOTOR having many situtions that could be solved with both finesse & brute force.

But that's aside my original complaint. I was fighting the exact same enemies in the exact same spots EXCESSIVELY because I was just trying to work my way around the jumbled maps & getting NOTHING for the trouble. The tedium of it was another of the game's many annoyences.

I forgot 1, it's so insignificant it slipped my mind until now:

11. What's the point of grading? Does it do anything? Oh & I could've done without the cheering kids, Bio-ware.