Gorgeous graphics and a nice sense of speed aren't enough to give Sonic the reboot he needs.
I will say right now that the game looks GORGEOUS. A lot of effort has been put into the Sonic character model. The grass sways in a realistic fasion. It's definitely a step up from a graphical standpoint from a lot of Wii games out there.
I will say that it does have a few camera and control issues. While Sega has attended to Sonic and the Secret Ring's control formula by adding the nunchuk attachment, it doesn't take away from the fact that all you'll really be doing for fighting enemies is waggling the Wii Remote. A few too many times during duels with other knights, the game wouldn't pick up my Wii Remote waggles during a series of quicktime events. Sometimes the camera would get stuck behind an enemy and I couldn't see what I was heading towards and most of time it resulted in getting hit or dying.
I know that nobody buys a Sonic game for the story, but this one is just... terrible! A girl who replaces Shahra from Secret Rings known as "Merlina" chants and uses a magic and possibly satanic spell to transport Sonic into the land of King Arthur. Sonic throws a chili dog into the air and is able to destroy the dark knights chasing Merlina so fast that he is still able to move exactly back into the spot where he threw the chili dog and still have time to catch it. Sonic attacks the knight's king, but Merlina stops him for some god-unbeknownst reason. We've seen how bad Sonic can screw a guy up. Why does Merlina stop him? Merlina and Sonic teleport to some other random part of the world and explains that the king was King Arthur! Oooh! Original, Sega! It's so nice to know that you still can't come up with your own plots.
The gameplay consists of pressing the A button, holding the nunchuk forward, and occasionally swinging the Wii Remote to kill off a few enemies. Actually, you'll hardly ever press the A button in a level to begin with. There really aren't enough platforms to really be called a platformer. They're really isn't any strategy needed to destroy the enemies. See an enemy? Wildly shake the Wii Remote until it explodes in a grand show of purple dust! The gameplay really isn't all that intuitive and some spots feel like the game is just stalling me. Some spots of the game dragged on for a good 30 seconds with absolutely no input from the player while I just thought to myself, "God, just get on with it!" Don't expect to be frustrated for too long with this game, as the average player could probably complete it in a good 6 hours.
Graphics: 9/10
Story: 4/10
Controls: 7/10
Difficulty: 4/10
Entertainment: 5/10
Final Score: 5.8/10
Good and Bad
---------------------
+Fast
+Good graphics
+Fun Boss fights
-"Meh" story
-Too much mindless Wii Remote shaking
-Incredibly short