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Sonic and the Secret Rings (Wii)

Release Date: 02/03/2007

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Summary

Developer:: Sega
Publisher:: Sega

Sonic brings his trademark speed and attitude to the Nintendo Wii in his first solo adventure since 1991. In Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic finds himself in the colorful and vibrant world of the Arabian Nights tales. There he embarks on his most outrageous journey to date through an expansive 3D world brought to life with realistic water reflections, light bloom, and lifelike physics.

The story begins with Sonic turning the pages of the classic book, “Arabian Nights.” Suddenly, he is visited by the tale’s central character, the Genie, who reveals that the last several pages of the book have mysteriously gone blank. This mystical being grants Sonic the ability to travel into the book’s world. Armed with his signature speed, Sonic sets off on an adventure to retrieve the missing pages, and set the world of the Arabian Nights back in order.

Sonic and the Secret Rings makes custom use of the innovative Wii remote to create a truly immersive gaming experience. Mimicking the energy and movements of Sonic, players actively perform specialized moves with the controller, bringing their stamina and wide range of motion into the action! Players will hurtle Sonic forward by rotating the controller from side to side and perform combo moves with a flick of the wrist. This, combined with a dizzying sense of speed, will quickly draw players of all ages into the action!

Features:

Fast, frenetic gameplay with Sonic in constant motion. Taking full advantage of the Wii controller, players perform a variety of physical movements that actively advance Sonic, combat enemies, and perform special moves! Tilt the controller left or right to avoid obstacles, swing the controller forward to destroy enemies, or perform many other motions to advance the game!
Exotic settings and creatures inspired by the Arabian Nights tales. The unique and lustrous features of Persia offer a vibrant backdrop to Sonic’s speed!
Branching paths for extensive gameplay variety and replayability.
New Sonic moves. With the controller’s exclusive features, utilize new moves such as “boost” and “catapult.” Players will feel and enjoy Sonic’s speed in entirely new ways!
A variety of mini-games for up to four players. Work up a sweat using the Wii controller in a variety of ways in the home party games! With more than 30 exciting party games, enjoy playing the mini-games with friends and family!

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Sonic and the Secret Rings Review; Author: Mark Scott ; Published: 02/03/2007

Sega steers its mascot back on track…

What's your favourite Sonic game? Ask anyone over the age of 20 that question and they'll inevitably come back with an answer involving one of the older MegaDrive games - Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are both popular choices - or possibly the newer, but still side-scrolling, Sonic Rush on DS. There's no getting past the fact that, amongst gamers who remember Sonic's heyday, the more modern 3D releases in the series have had a bit of a mixed reception.

Old-school style

But even those players will find much of what they love from the old-style Sonic experience in Sega's latest 3D offering, Sonic & The Secret Rings on Wii. It's not perfect by a long stretch, but it certainly banishes the idea that Sonic's head-down hurtling and platform prowess can't work in three dimensions, while providing Nintendo's new console a much-needed original and oft-enjoyable speed-based romp with bags of replay value.

To call Secret Rings a pure platformer, however, would be somewhat misleading. Having puzzled long and hard about how to do justice to Sonic's speed in full 3D, Sega have made a game here which mixes well-timed jumps and spin attacks with the conventions of a racing game. This is basically an on-rails platformer, and though that wouldn't wash with the likes of Mario in this day and age, for the purposes of a Sonic title it works very well indeed.

A much-needed original and oft-enjoyable speed-based romp with bags of replay value.

As too does the motion-sensing control system. Holding the Wii Remote sideways like a joypad in much the same way as you would in Excite Truck, tilting forwards speeds up the heroic ‘hog, while sideways dips steer him through the levels - which wouldn't be out of place being labelled as tracks. Having said that, they do throw up enough typical Sonic traits - enemies to bash with his lock-on homing attack, ravines to leap, springs to bounce off, rails to grind and handfuls of golden rings to collect - to retain a very old-school platform feel.

Additionally, there's also a pretty hefty RPG-style character development system in Secret Rings, where level completion grants Experience points, with which you can purchase more skills for Sonic throughout the adventure. Equipped to different Skill Rings which you select before each level, his improvements include the ability to run faster, or an extra number of rings - but you can only use a few at any one time, meaning you'll have to choose wisely depending on the mission objective.

No shortage of fun

And there's certainly no shortage of them. Secret Ring's seven worlds each encompass a drastically different visual style, and boast multiple story and challenge missions. From a sandy desert oasis to a land choc-full of dinosaurs, a pirate ship to a floating ruin, it's an impressive visual feast for Wii gamers to enjoy - and throws up a variety of interesting conditions, such as collecting a certain amount of rings, racing a character to the finish line, or hurtling through levels without breaking a single one of the ceramic pots strewn liberally about the place.

Something we've neglected to mention so far is the story aspect - and that's because it's really not the game's greatest selling point. It sees Sonic spirited into the book Arabian Nights to stop an evil genie destroying the story, and won't be winning any new converts from those who've so far shirked Sonic's 3D outings. However, the Arabian Nights theme itself crates one of the Wii's most powerful, lense flared, motion-blurred visual experiences yet, and the handling of familiar Sonic characters - Knuckles, Robotnik (well, Eggman) and co. - as the book's key characters, is a nice fit.

From a sandy desert oasis to a land choc-full of dinosaurs, a pirate ship to a floating ruin, it's an impressive visual feast.

The main drawback of Secret Rings, sadly, is that it can at times feel a little one-dimensional. Sonic is always moving forwards, and stopping him completely is actually assigned to pressing and holding the 1 button, so there's still that issue of on-rails gameplay and a questionable lack of in-game control - not helped by a sometimes unresponsive lock-on targeting system or the ever-so-occasional instance when the Wiimote doesn't pick up your motions at all.

Moreover, moving backwards - achieved by tilting the Wiimote towards yourself - is counter intuitive as the camera doesn't move to let you see behind you, while an ability to jump backwards is only granted later in the game. At the game's (incredibly slow) outset this proves frustrating - with an objective of killing all 10 enemies in one level, you'll have to start the mission again if you miss one and then take a jump out of its reach. Why Sega didn't include the option to turn Sonic through 180 degrees we're not sure, but we'd expect to see it in the sequel.

We're confident there will be a follow-up, because despite the drawbacks, Secret Rings does enough right to be a lot of fun. An additional minigame-mad multiplayer Party mode makes it a good social offering too, and when the spiny blue speedster is hurtling through the game's stunning vistas at full tilt, it's really an experience to behold. Sega have tried something new here, on a console dedicated to new gaming ideas, and for the most part it works. Give Sonic & The Secret Rings a try; it may just end up your new favourite Sonic title.