The first and only attempt at a RPG for Sonic, Chronicles is a pretty average game that occasionally manages to catch my interest, but is ultimately more of a chore to play than fun.
The story is also incredibly basic for an RPG, which is a shame because the premise and setting is interesting. Chronicles reveals that Knuckles isn’t actually the last Echidna, as another tribe was sealed in a place known as a Twilight Cage a long time ago, and they’ve just recently been able to escape under the leadership of IX. Ix is unfortunately very generic, he just wants to conquer the world as he already rules over the other planets in the twilight cage, but clearly wants more. It’s mostly a shame that they don’t do that much with Knuckles, who you would think would extremely bothered by all this but… no not much happens here. There’s plenty of ties to the Sonic lore, such as establishing the origins of the Gizoids, but outside of some interesting landmarks, there’s not much happening here.
The world design is laughably bad, while there’s no random encounters areas are often awkwardly laid out. They are hand drawn backgrounds that don’t move much, and clash hard with Sonic’s rough 3D models. There isn’t much to do here, some places require certain characteristics a character has to explore further, but it doesn’t really amount to much. You also have to do everything with the touch screen, which I mean isn’t the end of the world but it’s such a stupid decision that didn’t need to be a thing.
The battles aren’t much either, once again it’s all touch screen based, but mostly it’s just selecting a command and letting it happen in very basic turn based battles. The only time things get more involved are with the special attacks characters can use “Pow Moves”. I do like how certain characters can pair up with others to perform these, it’s cool to see, but you have to play a touchscreen mini game to perform ANY move and this drags the pace down to a crawl. Some moves will be less effective if you mess up the command, and others will fail to happen at all which is totally baffling with support and healing skills. Granted the game isn’t very hard, but that’s not the point, it should still be fun.
The graphics aren’t great, and the music, yikes it’s one of the only missteps in Sonic’s career. Awful compositions, a poor choice of instruments used, the only good track is the intro theme, from there it’s truly awful.
Sonic Chronicles is a weird game that will probably remain the only attempt at a Sonic RPG , which is a shame because I’m sure there’s plenty of potential, but this game ain’t it.
The story is also incredibly basic for an RPG, which is a shame because the premise and setting is interesting. Chronicles reveals that Knuckles isn’t actually the last Echidna, as another tribe was sealed in a place known as a Twilight Cage a long time ago, and they’ve just recently been able to escape under the leadership of IX. Ix is unfortunately very generic, he just wants to conquer the world as he already rules over the other planets in the twilight cage, but clearly wants more. It’s mostly a shame that they don’t do that much with Knuckles, who you would think would extremely bothered by all this but… no not much happens here. There’s plenty of ties to the Sonic lore, such as establishing the origins of the Gizoids, but outside of some interesting landmarks, there’s not much happening here.
The world design is laughably bad, while there’s no random encounters areas are often awkwardly laid out. They are hand drawn backgrounds that don’t move much, and clash hard with Sonic’s rough 3D models. There isn’t much to do here, some places require certain characteristics a character has to explore further, but it doesn’t really amount to much. You also have to do everything with the touch screen, which I mean isn’t the end of the world but it’s such a stupid decision that didn’t need to be a thing.
The battles aren’t much either, once again it’s all touch screen based, but mostly it’s just selecting a command and letting it happen in very basic turn based battles. The only time things get more involved are with the special attacks characters can use “Pow Moves”. I do like how certain characters can pair up with others to perform these, it’s cool to see, but you have to play a touchscreen mini game to perform ANY move and this drags the pace down to a crawl. Some moves will be less effective if you mess up the command, and others will fail to happen at all which is totally baffling with support and healing skills. Granted the game isn’t very hard, but that’s not the point, it should still be fun.
The graphics aren’t great, and the music, yikes it’s one of the only missteps in Sonic’s career. Awful compositions, a poor choice of instruments used, the only good track is the intro theme, from there it’s truly awful.
Sonic Chronicles is a weird game that will probably remain the only attempt at a Sonic RPG , which is a shame because I’m sure there’s plenty of potential, but this game ain’t it.