As a kid, I remembered loving this game. Always thought it was a dope, slept on game. Revisiting it while going through all the 3D sonic games vastly changed that.

Sonic & the Secret Rings is easily one of the worst games I've ever had to play through. And thank god I used a guide to get through its ridiculus mission design. Its a guessing game as to what copy-pasted level to do next. Each world only has 3 or 4 level designs you gotta repeat more then a dozen times if you don't have a guide or for whatever reason, want to 100% it.. Since this was a Wii title it features motion controls. Using them to control sonic hardly functions the MOMENT you try and move in a direction that isn't forward made even worse by attempting to quickly jump and homing attack. Bump into a wall and not only is all momentum lost. Sonic freaks out as the controls try and push him forward, cancelling any more jump attempts you make.

The story is whatever. Seeing Sonic characters as Arabian night characters is neat and one of the cooler aspects of the storybook games. Erazor Djinn however is a joke. From his snooze fest of a boss fight where the only challenge is the controls, to his terrible, out of place voice acting. It feels like either he was the only one who wasn't a voice actor, or he was just given completely different directing. Hell, maybe its both.

I think the biggest saving grace is the final cutscene. I cried at the end of the scene. Not because of any form of sadness or emotional moment. But because of the corny, terrible line of dialogue this game decided to end on. I never want to play this game again. I'd rather play 06 to completion instead.