Posted on October 14, 2022
Sonic and the Black Knight is a Knightmare
And it is one that you won’t forget.
It would be an understatement to say that Sonic and the Black Knight is a
promising experiment gone terribly wrong. Since the spring of this year, I
have gotten back around to keeping up with the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
After the disaster of Sonic Origins, that SEGA so graciously released one
update patch for insofar, I decided to cut my losses and see what was up
with Sonic Frontiers. The game looks like it’s coming along fine (great in
fact), and I am thoroughly convinced that SEGA pulled a “had you all in the
first half” scheme with their marketing which is why the game looked like an
unreal engine tech demo made by a university student when it was first
shown. Something that caught my eye with frontiers are the graphics and
aesthetic of the game. The realism reminded me of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 a
lot. But it also reminded me of another game. And that game was Sonic and
the Black Knight.
Section I: A Little Bit of a Backstory
See, back when Sonic and the Black Knight released, the industry was still
reeling from the catastrophic event that was Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. Sonic
was in his “dark days” so to speak. Unlike the 360 and PS3, the Wii never
got such a terrible game. But unfortunately, in the stead of a 2006 Wii
port, we were blessed by the SEGA gods with two terribly crafted games that
basically went to the opposite extreme of Sonic 2006. Forget somewhat proper
controls, world exploration, and being able to actually MOVE in 3D without
feeling like you’re on a dog leash. Sonic and the Secret Rings was its own
garbage can of shit that I cannot afford to get into right now since we are
talking about Sonic and the Black Knight. But it should be known that in the
past two years or so, every single search engine on the internet has started
to have this incredibly odd bias of bringing up mountains of defense media
for Sonic and the Black Knight. The game got panned pretty hard on release,
but all of a sudden over a decade later, people are playing this game up
like it was the next coming of Christ. I kid you not. So, I figured “Okay
well maybe these people are right. Perhaps I have a bad memory and should
play this game again and maybe it isn’t actually all that bad.” Right?
Wrong.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (Top Image) and Sonic and the Black Knight
(Bottom Image)
I could not have been ever more so wrong. I grabbed by wiimote, the game,
and sat down to see what Sonic and the Black Knight was like over a decade
later and...oh-my-god I cannot even begin to explain just how much of a
train wreck this game was. The intro played and I was like “Okay there is a
decent video intro and main theme, Knight of the Wind is a banger. Nice!”
before the intro then cut short and I did not even get to hear the full
song. I was like “uh that’s kind of odd but okay” and was at the title
screen where the same cut-short version of the song played. I went on ahead
and setup my profile. Little did I know that the menu interface design was
about to go to absolute shit after the name entry screen. But we will get
into that later in the review.

Notice not only the heavy skew in opinions for both of the Sonic
storybook games that came out on the Wii but also look at how Sonic and
the Secret Rings, a game sporting an even worse formula than Black Knight,
has almost double the score of its successor from critics.
Section II: The Review
Before we get into the meat of the review, I should explain how I am going
to be grading this game. There will be six categories to this review which
are: Writing, Gameplay, Controls, Sound design, Graphics, and User Interface
design. Every category will be scored out of ten and then the mean of those
scores will be calculated out of ten, giving the game a final review
score.
Writing (2/10) – A Masterclass in Murdering a Classic Tale
Warning: There are story spoilers since this covers the whole plot from
beginning to end. You have been properly warned. Do not complain
later.

The story of Sonic and the Black Knight reads like an improv script run
amok and severely lacks in the department of creativity and earnest writing.
The game opens up in the world of Camelot that exists within the book of
“King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” (no this is not a joke)
where we see Merlin’s granddaughter, Merlina (which yes that is actually her
name) attempting to run away from the black knight (a fancy name for King
Arthur) as he makes random cuts in the very fabric of the story book’s
space-time reality (or so one is left to assume) and summons his demonic
minions that look like some stock fantasy MMORPG enemies. The minions
surround Merlina who then performs a summoning ritual which brings (you
guessed it) Sonic to her world. It literally plays out like one of those
horrible anime isekai shows that everyone loves to clown on (and trust me,
they get clowned on for a very good reason). Sonic, clearly confused as to
what the hell is going on, drops face first into the dirt while attempting
to catch some falling chili dogs that he brought with him. Despite his clear
confusion, he does what Sonic does best, and acts impulsively, defeating
King Arthur’s stock asset minions.

Sonic then attempts to charge King Arthur and put a beat down on him but
Merlina (who has been standing around doing literally nothing this whole
time) somehow has the speed to latch onto his arm before he can fly forward
towards the king and has the strength to literally hold Sonic in place while
he’s still running. She pulls him back and does some vague magic spell
casting gesture before both her and Sonic are whisked away from the vicinity
of King Arthur and his trusty steed (which when considered together look and
behave like a cheaply re-skinned version of Ocarina of Time’s Phantom
Ganon). King Arthur then glides across the ground and trots into the sky to
park himself by a cliff where Sir Percival, Sir Gawain, and Sir Lancelot
(who are obviously Blaze, Knuckles, and Shadow, but the developers didn’t
want to call them Blaze, Knuckles, and Shadow because Sonic’s friends are
now written into a historical fairy tale book world thingy) are standing
around and waiting for the King to say some mundane shit to them about going
after Sonic to kill him and his damsel in distress. The King does so and
then the story switches back to Merlina and Sonic in an awful cut-scene
style that looks like a fancy Microsoft Power Point. I understand they were
trying to do this whole “storybook” aesthetic, but surely, they could have
opted for smooth hand drawn animations amidst a page of words or something.
Quite literally anything would be better. So Sonic presses Merlina for
answers about who the king figure was and she tells him that it was the
Black Knight. Apparently, the Black Knight used to be King Arthur, but he is
now corrupted and has immortal life because he has the scabbard of Excalibur
or something. And the scabbard turned his sword into something called
“Deathcalibur” (yeah you can really tell that the writing team was putting
their best foot forward with this franchise entry).

Sonic’s friends get all geared up to go to comic-con together.
So, with “Deathcalibur” in his possession and the scabbard of Excalibur,
King Arthur, now the Black Knight rules the world in an evil manner
because…he just does. Don’t question it because I already have. Since the
plot does not allow for Sonic to put a beat down on King Arthur with own
bare hands and speed, Merlina has to train him in swordsmanship because
clearly this wouldn’t be a medieval game if swords were not involved in some
way. So, Sonic takes up a rusty sword and Merlina gives him the run down of
handling a blade. After completing the tutorial segment of the plot, Merlina
explains that King Arthur is evil because the scabbard gave him immortality.
Why immortality alone would make someone evil is beyond me, but the writers
sure were thinking hard about this one. Sonic then has to go and pull a
talking sword out of a rock (clearly the writers didn’t learn from Super
Mario Sunshine’s FLUDD) known as “Caliburn” which is, unsurprisingly, just
another name for Excalibur. So, you basically have two swords in the game
that share the same exact name, just said in different languages. Again, the
writers were really breaking their backs with these unparalleled creative
strides.

At this rate I am surprised that Amy WASN’T written in as the primary
villain by the team.
Without questioning Amy’s sketchy behavior, he runs off to steal Blaze’s
shit, which he does so successfully. Blaze’s world view is shattered upon
defeat, and she tries to commit suicide just like Knuckles, but instead of
killing herself with her own weapon, she opts for something a bit fancier
and dramatically walks backwards off a cliff and falls into a pool of lava.
Or well she would have fallen into the lava if it wasn’t for Sonic jumping
down after her and doing some risky gymnastics to catch her before she
landed in the boiling pot. An awkward cut-scene then ensues between Blaze,
Sonic, and Caliburn which would make even the most prolific
middle-school-aged fanfic writer want to curl up in a ball and die upon
witnessing it.

The awkward pacing makes moments like these even harder to sit
through.
Caliburn finally decides to start showing Sonic some basic respect since he
rescued a handful of people from committing suicide and gives him the title
“Knight of the Wind” because Sonic declared, before his fight with Blaze,
that he has no master but the wind or something along the lines of that.
Merlina finally steps back into the picture where she says that she has been
watching Sonic do all the heavy lifting from her reflecting pool. She then
tells Sonic that King Arthur is on Faraway Avalon, an island that sits out
in the sea far away from the mainland (yeah, these writers really had some
genius brainstorming sessions when it came to names). Sonic and his sentient
sword head to Faraway Avalon where they battle King Arthur for the last time
and witness as the Wii hardware goes toe to toe with the Sonic and the Black
Knight software to see who can make the game the most unplayable. The two
heroes, combined with the might of the three sacred swords and controller
desync issues, manage to slay King Arthur. Not wanting to be a part of a
subpar narrative written by third graders anymore, King Arthur turns into
black water vapor and leaves Sonic posing with Caliburn for the camera
before the credits roll. But after the credits roll, Sonic learns that there
is actually an entire second half to the game left. So, there are fake
credits, but they are not fake credits, because unlike Donkey Kong Country’s
fake credits, these credits list the developers and everything. This was
undoubtedly a giant missed opportunity for the writers to make a joke or
something, but perhaps they figured they could save development time by
injecting the normal credits twice. Blaze, Shadow, and Knuckles, all somehow
find Merlina and confront her with…who knows what considering the fact that
Sonic stole their shit. So, they are standing around making empty threats
before Sonic drops in with Caliburn and asks Merlina why King Arthur decided
to become Black-Ice vape juice upon exiting the plot-line. Merlina then
reveals to everyone (except Tails and Amy who are nothing more than NPCs)
that King Arthur was an illusion conjured by her grandfather, Merlin. In a
Pixar twist villain move, Merlina takes Excalibur’s scabbard from Sonic and
becomes all-powerful so that she can be a queen. This entire scenario makes
zero sense for a multitude of reasons. Not only do we have zero idea what
happened to her parents, but we also have no information on how or why her
grandfather’s illusion would be subjected to a curse that came from an item
that came from who knows where, and somehow was obtained by Amy (if not
literally manufactured by her) to then put it in the hands of said illusion
so that the illusion could be evil and then…deliver the scabbard to this
grandfather’s granddaughter through the quest of a hero that was summoned
from another world. Merlina turns into a queen figure, goes apeshit, and
then the kingdom is back in danger again. Who would have guessed. Sonic and
his friends run away from Camelot Castle as it collapses and with Amy’s
guidance, begin searching for monuments where they will place the sacred
swords in an effort to put up a barrier around the kingdom which does…quite
literally nothing. Sonic tells Merlina to quit her bullshit, but Merlina
doesn’t want to return the book to the library to avoid fines and insists
that the kingdom of King Arthur must be made to last forever. Why? I have no
idea. And I also have no idea why the kingdom is disappearing, where it came
from, and how its existence or the lack thereof is important
whatsoever.

On a more serious note, Caliburn really took one for the team...but don’t
worry he doesn’t remain dead and the value of his sacrifice in battle gets
undone a couple of minutes later.
Sonic tries to stop Merlina, but Caliburn ends up getting his whole being
snapped clean in half (talk about painful) after a losing fight in which
Sonic also takes his own fair share of beatings. Amy, Shadow, Blaze, and
Knuckles tell Sonic to get the hell out of the mix before he dies, but
Sonic, through sheer will power, causes some hocus pocus magic to kick in
which sees the sacred swords and his will power repair Caliburn. Soon
thereafter Sonic and his witty sword friend transform into super versions of
themselves (known as Excalibur Sonic and True Excalibur), challenging
Merlina who has now evolved into a monstrous creature (much like this game)
known as the “Dark Queen” which they must defeat. The pair defeat Merlina,
she continues babbling about the state of the kingdom, and then Sonic gives
her a flower while telling her to get over it via some cheesy inspirational
dialogue about living life to the fullest (and yet everyone loves to make
fun of Sonic Heroes when it preaches about the “real power” of teamwork).
Shadow then tells everyone that the party is over since Merlin’s illusionary
King Arthur decided to leave the show early. However, Caliburn reminds
everyone that he is the one who chooses the next king (which is literally
never established at any other point in the story or even in the story’s
backstory). So, everyone recovers from retroactive amnesia and Sonic is
dubbed the “true” King Arthur (whatever that’s supposed to mean). The
credits then roll for a second time and Sonic is somehow taken back to his
world with no explanation. He explains his futile adventure to the real Amy
Rose (so not that Lady of the Lake nonsense), and she complains that he is
making shit up simply because he forgot about their date (I mean you can’t
really blame her). She becomes understandably annoyed with Sonic’s
assertions and proceeds to attack him with her hammer. The game then ends,
showing the book of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table having
its titled changed to Sonic and the Black Knight (oh how Sonic Team has
murdered a classic) just like in the previous game that was equally as
terrible known as Sonic and the Secret Rings. And in addition to a subpar
plot was subpar dialogue with awful lines.

We all wish we knew Caliburn...we all wish we knew...
Gameplay (4/10) – Just Watch a Movie Instead
Alright it’s time to be as frank as possible. The gameplay is absolute
garbage. Anyone playing this game for more than a few hours will soon
realize that the substance of the gameplay is little more than waggling the
Wii remote relentlessly and trying to ensure that the finicky controls do
not start fighting against both you and the game at the same time. There is
no freedom of movement like the kind found in Sonic Heroes, Sonic Adventure,
or Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. You are locked to a long line of hallways that
are automated in their entirety outside of a few obnoxious quick time events
and tiresome platforming sections that grind the game to a halt. The most
that you will be doing is holding the joystick upwards on your nun-chuck
while you are busy breaking your wrist waggling the Wii remote in an attempt
to crawl your way through waves of generic enemies that take zero strategy
unless you really want to waste your time standing around doing guard combos
which makes the game arguably even worse. It is already bad that there is
not a whole lot for the player to do in terms of freedom, but it is even
worse if every five seconds you are stopping just to waggle your Wii remote
after holding down the guard button for enemies. There is very little
variation to the combos, and I assume you can beat the entire game just
based on memorizing the most basic patterns known to mankind, abusing the
Soul Gauge, and waggling your Wii remote like a fucking moron for minutes on
end.

If you put on blindfolds and imagine it, this game is absolutely
brilliant!
The game takes you through a tutorial where you are taught the basic
mechanics of the game which consist of waggling your waggling your Wii
remote to swing your sword, using the A button to jump, and using the B
button to invoke special moves (which you will not be introduced to until
Camelot Castle). The biggest problem is that despite the game having
features like an air dash (by pressing A while in the air), a homing attack
(via the Soul Gauge special moves), and quick leaping, the gameplay itself
is so restricted and buggy that you will be finding yourself opting to avoid
enemies at every turn and constantly rolling the joystick in an attempt to
make sure that you are actually moving Sonic forward in unison with the
pre-determined camera angles. Fighting enemies come down to waggle, waggle,
and waggle some more at the end of the day. The most complex of strategies
you might find yourself doing is spamming the air dash and waggling the Wii
remote, clearing entire rooms of enemies with Sonic’s aerial assault move.
The problem with the camera and perspective shifts in this game is so much
worse however.

Even early N64 platforming games with balance beam sections weren’t this
bad.
There will be times where the game will try to shift to a dynamic
perspective or go completely 2D and the movement will break completely. This
is because the game still treats the player’s character as if they are on a
Z axis still instead of an X axis. This means that you will find yourself
running into the invisible walls of the foreground and background of the 2D
sections rather than running left to right. This makes navigation
unbelievably painful and the 2D platforming sections become some of the
worst in the game. There are other segments, such as the dragon rails in
Dragon’s Lair (one of the last levels of the game) where your player is
running along a thunder dragon’s body (it is a moving trail of electricity)
as it changes directions. Unfortunately the game’s camera does not properly
keep up with the thunder dragon’s body rail as it moves around and you will
regularly find your character getting stuck and eventually falling off. This
is only one of the many examples however of how messing with the controls
during the vast amount of scripted segments will break the game in some of
the most jarring ways. Unfortunately this bias for scripted segments means
that the ability for basic movement is severely limited. The most that the
player is allowed to do is awkwardly move left to right and jump forward and
backward at distances that they cannot control. For the majority of the time
that you will be playing this game, the game will be playing itself and you
will either be holding up on your nun-chuck's joystick or not pressing
anything at all as the level scenes (basically level material that is more
or less something you watch rather than play) roll on by. This over reliance
on scripted gameplay segments and encouraging the player to not touch the
controls out of fear of breaking it, results in a bunch of levels going by
extremely fast and ending the whole game in a mere three hours. The player
gains the ability to play with Blaze, Knuckles, and Shadow half way through
the game, but the entire campaign can easily be cleared with Sonic alone
since he has the most fluid move-set out of them. There is are also options
to change your “style” and equip items in the blacksmith shop. While the
other three characters that were mentioned can equip different swords, Sonic
cannot. He is stuck with Caliburn and Caliburn only.

Our poor pal Tails got relegated to being an NPC along with Amy.
There are some optional items you can equip but none of them are serious
game changers. They just give you more rings when you restart a level or
give you immunity to an enemy attack that you might see once or twice
throughout the entire game. What is even funnier is that most enemy
encounters can outright be skipped over by the player, which probably
highlights the fact that even the developers knew how tedious and
unrewarding the combat was. And outside of the main story gameplay, there is
only a handful of multiplayer modes that range from mediocre to downright
laughably bad. You would have been better off playing something like Mario
Party 9 with your friends back in the day when this game was still on the
market. Characters move as slowly as an intoxicated sloth and as stiff as a
red brick. It makes the main story gameplay look like a work of Vincent van
Gogh by comparison.

They definitely made this part of the game last and gave it the least
amount of resources.
So, between rocky gameplay of the main mode and dollar store worthy
gameplay of the side modes, the whole experience just falls terribly flat
all around. And the controls really were not doing this game any favors,
which we will discuss in the upcoming section.
Controls (2/10) - Motion Controls for the Sake of It
If there was one lesson that everyone learned from the Wii, was that adding
motion controls to the game for the sake of having motion controls was a god
awful idea. Motion controls without careful thought and purpose become a
burden and can weigh down a game in some horrible ways. Unfortunately Sonic
and the Black Knight falls prey to this issue. You see, the gameplay of
Sonic and the Black Knight doesn’t actually NEED motion controls. Everything
can be done without the nuances of motion because the gameplay is too basic
as it is. Hell, you don’t even need the Wii censor bar in order to play this
game properly. Take for instance sword swinging. When you swing your sword
in the game, it does not matter which way you waggle your Wii remote. You
could jerk it left to right, throw it out or window at full force, or drop
it down the steps, but you will always get the same action out of Sonic. He
swings. He doesn’t swing in a specific direction or perform a specific move
depending on how you swing or which way you swing. This means that the
entire process of Sonic swinging his sword could literally be assigned to a
single button on a digital game controller and be completed in the same
fashion. So the game ends up destroying your wrists for no reason as it
throws piles of generic enemy herds at you. You will probably find yourself
having to take a break every level or two because your hands, arms, and
shoulders will begin aching. And moves such as jumping, guarding, or moving
right to left are handled by buttons on the Wii remote and its accompanying
nun-chuck. Not to mention that there is no option to use a GameCube
controller, Classic controller, or any of the other controller peripherals
that the Wii is compatible with. Sonic Team was determined to force the
player to suffer through the game at the expense of their wrist. What is
even more depressing is that there is so much potential for gameplay with
the motion controls, but Sonic Team was just like “This should meet the bare
minimum motion control requirements from Nintendo’s board” in the process of
making them.

Sonic Forces you (get it?) to play with Motion Controls whether you like
it or not...
They could have added special techniques like counter dodge attacks, aerial
guard combos, side step circle maneuvers, flurry attacks, parries, heavy
lunge, spacing attacks, and so much more that would have made this game
something truly amazing. And it would have been even better if the landscape
was not restricted to a roller coaster track, so that the player could
efficiently move around and explore their surroundings without having to
fight the controls themselves every step of the way and feel like they are
on a dog leash for all of eternity. However what makes this all so much
worse is the fact that trying to move around in a majority of the game’s
levels results in the controls completely bugging out. This is because the
controls end up fighting the both the automated segments and the player at
the same time, which results in the game desperately trying to figure out
which system of input it should be prioritizing. Not to mention that the
oversimplification of controls means that you are unable to measure your
jump height or distance. This makes platforming sections nearly unplayable.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, sometimes the Wii remote will read your
non-motion inputs as motion inputs since you might accidentally move the Wii
remote a tiny bit when pressing something. This leads to a lot of accidental
and frustrating deaths that could easily have been fixed if they changed the
range of values for motion. But by far, the one thing hurting the gameplay
experience the most is the controls.
Sound Design (9/10) - A Rocking Soundtrack for a Medieval Fantasy
Adventure
The sound design for Sonic and the Black Knight is fine. It’s clear, sharp,
and everything is accompanied by sounds that make sense. But the soundtrack
is what takes the sound design to another level. From the main theme to the
level themes to the menu themes, Sonic and the Black Knight has a rich
soundtrack with fitting vibes. The gameplay might be subpar, but the
soundtrack is everything opposite of subpar. This is all thanks to Crush 40,
a band who has worked on various Sonic titles since as early as the first
Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. The main theme fits right at home with
Sonic’s attitude and is an absolute banger that will hype you up to play the
game. But unfortunately then the game turns out to be what it is, and then
you’re left with just a great musical impression and a terrible sight. But
if you ever get the chance, be sure to check out the sound track of this
game, because it is stellar, just like the soundtracks of so many other
Sonic games.
Graphics (9/10) - Who Knew That the World of King Arthur Was So Visually
Appetizing
If there is anything that this game got right, it has to be the music and
the graphics. The graphics of the game are just phenomenal and might be some
of the best that the Nintendo Wii has ever seen. Even a decade plus later,
the graphics still hold up amazingly well and illustrate some beautiful
landscapes and environments that make you want to run around them and
explore them. But unfortunately you can’t explore them since the game has
you chained down to a set of train tracks while everything passes you by. I
would argue that the graphics of this game even super-cede its
contemporaries such as Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 and Sonic Colors. Everything
is highly detailed, the lighting is well done, and the models are quite
clean. Whether it’s the Titanic Plain, Molten Mine, Great Megalith, or any
other level, you will be treated to some tasty visual eye candy that will
make you beg SEGA to just remake this game into something of a more
traditional 3D Sonic title.

This game seriously gives Sonic Colors a run for its money in the
graphics department!
User Interface Design (5/10) - Functional for the Most Part but
Aesthetically Confusing
The user interface of Sonic and the Black Knight is fine. It is mediocre.
It is not revolutionary nor does it fit the game like a glove, but it isn’t
broken or extremely hard to use. You have a main menu that feels a bit
bloated in terms of space (you have to scroll up and down with lengthy
animations in between to get to options) and a design aesthetic that feels
at home with a game like guitar hero rather than a medieval high fantasy
game. I know that the Sonic franchise has a relationship with rock music and
all (what Crush 40 specializes in) but the menu aesthetic feels so flat and
cheap that I cannot help but feel disdain for it (especially as a
professional designer myself). Compared to the glorious graphics of the
game, the user interface feels tacked on. In order to equip items, you have
to go to the blacksmith. You cannot equip items on the fly, change styles in
a character selection menu, or any of that. Most of the options are tucked
away in the blacksmith’s shop which is odd. And unfortunately this is a big
opportunity missed by Sonic Team (once again) in terms of world building.
They could have made a hub world or a split hub world where the player can
access things such as cosmetic shops, blacksmiths, guild posts, and more.
This would allow for the player to put together different outfits (that have
actual application), get various weapons crafted (other than blades), take
on special missions, and just overall have a richer game experience. But
instead, special missions (called special challenges) are just randomly
generated on the world map for the player to do and any alternative options
that there are, are given a home with Tails at the blacksmith shop. It
doesn’t help that the world map is incredibly lazy in design that has an
even more pitiful setup for sub areas. When you select a location on the
world map, it will take you to a screen where a magnifying glass is over the
map and shows dots that sit against a piece of the map that has...less
detail...despite being zoomed in on it apparently? Yeah it makes no sense
and just screams lazy. But for whatever reason all Sonic Team decided to
leave us with is a very drab over-world map, crappy sub-area maps, no
inventory on the fly, and a lot of missed opportunities to enhance the
gameplay.

I can really see more detail of what I am looking at here. Thanks
magnifying glass!
Overall Review Score (5/10) - This Really Wasn’t a Sonic Adventure Worth
Experiencing
So, what is the final verdict here? Well, the game sucks (as if you could
not already figure). It is a bad game with great graphics and amazing music.
I mean perhaps this is the secret cousin of Mega Man 8 or something. While
everyone clowns on IGN for their Sonic reviews, this is one of the few games
where I have to give it to IGN. I think 3.9/10 is pretty steep of a low
score all things considered (after all there are other characters you can
play as, a slew of multiplayer modes, and a terribly boring but relatively
bug-free main game) and I think this game earned its middle of the road
score fair and square Clearly there was some effort to make this game into
SOMETHING in the wake of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, but the great graphics and
music are held back by a weak story, janky gameplay, messy controls, and a
mediocre user interface. All of which could have been so much more if SEGA
just gave the game the time it deserved. And unfortunately, the almost
mobile game-esque gameplay leads to a very short play time of just around 3
hours in total. The disappointing core fundamentals of the game makes
everything ranging from boss fights to special challenges very tedious or
downright bizarre (some of the bosses you can literally one shot by
mindlessly waggling your Wii remote). Anyways, that’s going to be all for
this review folks. Remember to always question what search engines and
algorithms feed back to you because most are extremely biased and don’t show
a diverse sea of opinion and critical thought. If you enjoyed this review
and found it helpful, be sure to check back soon for more from me!

Why did I even bother playing this game? Well to warn you of course.