Sonic's found his place in 3D with plenty of fun...and room for improvement
The Premise: Sonic is told by a Genie of the Ring, Shahra, that he is the legendary Blue Hedgehog that is capable of restoring the world of the Arabian Nights. An evil Genie known as Erazor Djinn is searching for the seven world rings for something bad (avoiding any spoilers) and is tearing up (literally) the Arabian Nights World to find them. Sonic starts to search for them too for his own reasons. Shahra accompanies Sonic to give him aid.
The Gameplay: You will as Sonic and only Sonic throughout all the Adventure mode. You hold the Wii remote on its side and you mainly be tilting the remote left, right, and backwards. The 2 button is for jumping and 1 is for breaking. Tilting the remote towards yourself results in having Sonic backing up. This is useful for exploration and certain events that require a little precision or manuvering. While jumping, you can press either the break or jump button to perform the Jump Cancel, which sends Sonic straight down to the ground or whatever surface is below him. This mechanic is essetial for some of the precision platoforming you'll be pulling off. You'll also use Up and Down on the Plus pad for Sonic's Two special abilities known as Speed Break and Time Break. Speed Break is hyper speed mode that allows Sonic to move incredibly fast and break through certain obstacles normal dangerous. Time Break is the opposite, Super slow-mo that's good for manuvering around normally super-fast obstacles. The two moves require energy from your Soul gauge, which you acquire a little ways into the game. As you go through the level, Sonic naturally runs forward so, steering and dodging obstacles is your job. Along the way, you'll pick up rings, as usual, to keep Sonic alive. There are also pearls to pick up now, and these fuel the Soul gauge. There are enemies to beat with Sonic's homing attack, which is much more fun to pull off now. You simply hold the jump button to charge up your jump, get some air while a target reticle turns locks on the foe, and then you flick the remote forward when the reticle is red. You can keep it up as long as enemies still stand, making for some fast combat. You can perform the Jump Dash while not locking on to enemies, which helps clear long distances. If you hit the jump button while moving, Sonic slides, allowing you time out jumps for carrying over momentum. While there isn't too much exploration, there are a fair amount of extra paths that yield different items and obstacles. Special Items essential for obtaining unlockables are hidden through out the different stages and their missions, so exploring has substance.
There are 8 stages, one that serves as tutorial and practice with Sonic's controls and skills. The other 7 take place in exotic locals relevant to the Arabian Nights' Tales. Each stage has missions with specific criteria for clearing it. Stages are quite long, and missions occur only in fractions of the stages. There are about a dozen missions per Stage and a good variety of mission types. Tthough most will be repeated between stages, the variety in environment keep things fresh. As Sonic completes missions, you see a score screen and gain experience points. Yes, Sonic is dabbiling in RPG elements. The rationale is that since Sonic in this new world, his abilities function differently, and therefore Shahra will provide him with compensational powers through her Genie magic. Through leveling up Sonic earns new skills, skill points that allow him to equip more skills at once, increase his Soul gauge capacity, and his ring counter limit. That's right, Sonic has a ring limit, which is okay because there are no extra lives, you'll just restart a little ways back from where you fell as many times as it takes. You earn extra points by building your normal score by getting record times, beating enemies, and collecting rings and pearls. Also, Sonic doesn't lose all his rings from a single hit. He'll lose a good portion from hitting enemies and obstacles, but you'll be able to take plenty of hits should you be missing rings during your runs. The skills you'll collect are very appropriate for this game. There are skills that increase your speed and acceleration, make controls more responsive, provide more defense or offense, increase experience collected, and plenty of other special skills. You get four skill rings, or four skill sets, that can be customized so you don't have to hand pick your skills every time before a mission. Skills are actually very important later on in the game because objectives will become easier to clear and will be necessary for acheiving the best time as well as for getting just-out-of-reach items.
The main point is to stick with the game for a while because without proper skills, Sonic is rather lame. He'll start slow and awkward, but with practice and experience (in and out of game) Sonic will prove his heritage.
Sound: One very attractive thing in most Sonic games has been music. This game takes a different approach. While the music is nice and fits each stage to a T, the lyrics are cornier than a movie theater concession stand. You'll either hate it or love it, but it does entertain. The voice acting is nice. The usual English voice actors have been hired and you get the option of hearing the Japanese VA's for a change of pace. While the VA's are a matter of personal opinion, they do a good job. The worst part is that there are some big pauses in major dialouge that make it all seem dissconnected and cornier than it is. Ofcourse, some of the script is just plain awful and cheesy. Sound effects are spot on and don't get much better when it comes to Sonic.
Graphics: This is Wii, so don't think about 1080p or hyper detailed visuals, but this game is crisp and clear. 480p is the max and there isn't anything to complain out it here. The frame rate is solid to the end, environments and lighting look fresh and detailed. Each Stage is 100% distinct and you know exactly where you are. Animation is good, though you don't see much in the way of prerendered works. The cutscenes of the game are illustrated in a comic-book sort with groups of still-shots and minimum animation. The Multiplayer: This isn't the focus of the game. The multiplayer is composed of mini-games Mario Party-style. Up to four players can play and all you need is the remote, no nunchuck. Some games are fun and entertaining while others are filler or half-baked. Some good concepts are introduced, but the games just lack refinement. The Extras: There's a "Special book" that has pages unlocked through play of Adventure mode. Inside the book is developer material, cutscene viewer, history of Sonic materials, music tracks, and achievment titles. There are four secret characters and quite a few mini-games to unlock for the multiplayer section. And ofcourse, there are all of Sonic's skills to collect and replay of missions for the best time, which all count towards unlocking pages in the Special book.
The bad stuff: There is tons of fun to be had in this game, but there are some flaws that musn't be ignored to ensure an even more successful future installment. The first thing to note is the controls. While they fit perfect for this game, they need refinement. Controls are a little too loose at the start, and even after you acquire skills that fix a lot of it, you'll hit spots where controls don't quite function right. The jumping and breaking are some of the most irresponsive controls when your trying for precision. Grinding can be as equally tricky. Jumping on rails requires too much time to execute, and you can easily miss particular rails when trying to jump between rails. Moving backwards is far too tricky. While the mechanic has its merits, you have too many issue making it a chore rather than an option. You have to nearly tilt the controller upside-down to execute and sometimes Sonic will resume forward motion if you jerk around too much. The camera also stays in its same position, making it hazardous to move backwards without a little memorizing and guess-work. Plus, you can't just keep moving backwards, even if there is ample to terrain to do so. While on the camera, for the most part it's spot on and gives an appropriate view of the action with a satifying sense of speed. Some areas have viems that fall a little shy of perfect and can leave out the detail most needed for a jump or setting Sonic's position. The Lock-on system can seem a little too finicky at times. The Multiplayer wasn't really all that interesting, and no solid racing mode seems like a strange choice. Final thoughts: This is a great resurgence for Sonic in the 3D gaming realm. There is no reason to not try this game, but if you plan to buy, be determined to stick with it. This game pulls off something that few games ever acheive, and that's becoming more fun as you play further. Certain aspects are far from perfect, but with the right support and attention to detail, Sonic has a bright future.