The Sonic DS Trilogy - Every Gamer Review

Continuing the Nintendo handheld Sonic games, I now leave the childhood memories of my Game Boy Advance and head straight into the Nintendo DS. "Hey guys, we can put Mario 64 on our DS...but you'll need to use the directional pad to control a 3D character, while you're at it, we STRONGLY recommend using the touch screen to move characters around" To which everyone went, "WHAT?". Thank goodness for the 3DS and it's analog pad. Filler over.

So Sonic was going 3D on a handheld device. Would we also get a remake of the best of 3D Sonic, how about Sonic Adventure DS? Nope, it's another 2D Sonic game. Cool.

Sonic Rush (ソニック・ラッシュ Sonikku Rasshu), developed by Sonic Team and Dimps and published by Sega and was released in 2005.

Blaze the Cat has been mysteriously pulled from her dimension to Sonic's dimension. Her mission is to retrieve the Sol Emeralds, her universe's version of the Chaos Emeralds, that have been stolen by Dr. Eggman. Meanwhile, Sonic and Tails realises that Sonic's universe and another one is merging and Sonic investigates, whilst battling the alternative universe's Dr. Eggman, Eggman Nega.

So the game is like Sonic Advance...3...goddammit, though nothing to the point where I want to bloody rage. Sonic runs, collects rings and bops enemies. But there's now a boost mode where if you hit enemies or specific item boxes, you can boost through levels for as much as you can until your bar is empty. You can also perform trick jumps by pressing B when launched in the air to increase your boost bar.

The boost is great for gaining speed, until you realise that this game is more junk food but a bit less, more stupid crap because Dimps. I didn't enjoy this game, I really don't like the levels, the graphics, as in the 3D models of Sonic and Blaze, are dated, but the level design looks good but on execution isn't fun.

You can play as Sonic the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat, you play the same levels in both character modes. I mean she plays like Sonic...and the levels are the same but she plays through levels in a different order for some reason. As for Blaze as a character, I like her. She has fire powers and isn't an annoying love interest, furry porn or a woman who needs to date her own kind.

The boss modes take advantage of the 3D graphics, it was cool for the time but are once again dated. The bosses themselves are easy, but they're far too long and far too repetitive, there's no quick way of defeating bosses and you're just waiting for it to be over. Also, there's Special Stages and to access them, you need to boost through a specific handle for a specific period of time, but the game never bothers to tell you this. OOH Dimps, the return of the cryptic ways of getting Chaos Emeralds.

The music is horrible if you're listening to it on the DS speakers but they sound OK when you have headphones on. The soundtrack is OK, I like some of the tracks, but it doesn't feel like something you'd get in a Sonic game. But I did listen to the soundtrack outside of the game, the crystal clear version and...it's decent but not my type, though I do love me some Wrapped in Black.

Overall, Sonic Rush, for a 2D Sonic game is below decent, it has some I mean I didn't even talk about Blaze, but I enjoy playing as her and she's a bloody cool character...and she's left out in most main Sonic games, so off to purgatory with Sonia Belmont.

But because we have Dimps once again taking the mantle, that means a lot of annoying crap from the Sonic Advance games, particularly 2 & 3 and the fact that the game is once again junk food for the mind, meaning that there was no thought process for playing this game, and for that, I cannot recommend it.

I'll take a quick look at Sonic Rush Adventure (ソニック ラッシュ アドベンチャー Sonikku Rasshu Adobenchā), released in 2007 worldwide and in 2009 in Korea.

Sonic & Tails crash land on a remote island after being caught in a storm. They then are greeted by Marine, an Australian Raccoon so stereotypical, The Sniper from Team Fortress 2 looks like a much more respectable representation of Australia. So they team up, go through levels and collect material to build watercrafts, and later on discover our main villain for this game, Captain Whiskers, a robot with a stupid name but still no worse than Exdeath. Whiskers wants to rule the world and some other bollocks, Sonic go stop him.

So what do we get in this sequel? HOW ABOUT A PLETHORA OF FUCKING CUTSCENES THAT ARE SO UNINTERESTING THAT KOJIMA WOULD TAKE ON A DATE! It took me about half an hour to even get to the Sonic stuff I want, since you got to do the training stuff, OK fine, then you have to go to a level to collect more materials, but you need to ride a watercraft there so the pacing is brought to a dead stop every single time, the levels are the same bullshit from previous titles apart from bottomless pit, have a pity cookie game, the only way to get the materials is to finish the levels and to get more you have to get good, but you want to progress onto new levels but you can't access them because you need the right amount of materials so you have to arduously play the levels you just went through over again just to get the right amount of materials. The game thinks it's an RPG all of a sudden and IT. IS. NOT. FUN!

I didn't enjoy the levels in the previous game though these levels in Adventure aren't too bad, but we have some stupid crap that makes it worse. I'm sorry, but this is pure crap that could have been good if the development team didn't add some awful guff to it. You might like this game and even the previous one, but this is a lesser sequel.

And finally, a port of a console game but has the essence of a Rush game...whether or not it gets better or worse is for me to figure out.

Sonic Colours for the Nintendo DS, released in 2010 worldwide.

The game's plot is ripped straight out of the console version apart from the final parts of the game.

This game contains missions separate from the main game, and this is where you can catch up on old friends like Cream & Chao, the Chaotix Team, Knuckles, Rouge, Big the Cat and much more...and Silver and Blaze is in this...lol, their Sonic 06 plot is next to worthless, which probably is a metaphor for both the characters in general.

The game is fundamentally Sonic Rush with Wisp powers and a homing attack. At the very least, this game is actually OK, the level design isn't bullshit, the trick jumps which were finicky now looking back, is removed so you obtain boost by defeating enemies and collecting White Wisps and the other Wisps usage isn't that bad. Sonic can also wall jump, slide under low areas, ground stomp when in mid-air, air boost which REALLY helps if you don't want to die from bottomless pits, I don't know, I may have gotten lucky because of that move, and the bosses are challenging (if a bit annoying at times).

This DS port has two exclusive wisps, Burst Wisp (vietnam flashbacks of Sonic Forces intensify, I can still hear the announcer shout "BURST"! every second), in which you blow yourself up in the air as a good jumping mechanic if you want to get to higher spaces. And the Void Wisp, in which Sonic turns into a black hole and can suck anything within himself...sounds like a darker version of Kirby...or Kirby in general.

So all and all, Sonic Colours DS is by far the best game in the DS trilogy of Rush titles, I actually had a fun time with this one and I can easily recommend this one.

Apologies for the Sonic Rush review being a bit sloppy since this was written a long time ago, but due to scheduling issues I sent it to the back and now it's here and I've played Sonic Rush again, reviewed it and disliked it, edited the review, then played the other titles, it is what it is and I'm glad it's all over and I can move on.