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BioWare Forums  Forum Index Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood General Discussion Player Reviews
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood General Discussion
Lusitanum
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
SW: KotOR PC
Jade Empire:SE
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
NWN 2: SoZ
Mass Effect PC
Sonic DS
Joined: 22 Jul 2004
From: Porto, Portugal |
 Posted: Wednesday, 19 November 2008 12:21PM |
Quote: Posted 11/19/08 07:08 (GMT) by Megamandrn001
Since my other thread was closed thanks to a lunatic who spends way too much time here, this'll be my last post, at least until some meat shows up on the KOTOR MMO.
In the spirit of actual honesty, I'd just like to inform the SC board that the "lunatic" in question here was me (apparently... ) and that the thread in question is this one. To all those who are curious, you can read it and draw your own conclusions on who the hell actually started being overly agressive and juvenile over an opinion on what makes a videogame.
Though I must say in all honesty that Megamandrn001's review is extremely similar to my own view of the game. The music is absolutely dreadful, the sound effects that aren't your classic rings and jumps are completely idiotic (like the "boings" of defeated enemies and the children cheering when you win  ), the background and models when you're in exploration mode aren't too bad but everything in combat mode is either bland or outright bad, using skills to explore the levels means that you must keep using the same characters over and over again and the combat was so boring and repetitive that my brave and valiant Sonic just kept running away from combat as much as possible because I was just sick and tired of doing the same crap over and over again.
I don't know what's up with Bioware lately. First it was that really lazy Jade Empire PC port, but the game wasn't all that bad so I didn't fear the worst, but now you release your first game that isn't just mediocre but just outright bad? What's been happening to you, Bio? You used to be my favorite gaming company because you cared as much about the big picture as you did with the little details, so how come you're releasing games like this now?
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Teaching a martial art is like handing out a weapon. Handing that weapon to the wrong person can be dangerous and could result in the death of innocent people. - Kanryo Higaonna Sensei, founder of the Goju Ryu Karate style | 
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Sonic_superfan
Joined: 30 Jun 2007 |
Posted: Wednesday, 26 November 2008 06:46PM |
I haven't been back here in awhile, but I just finished this game, and I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in on what I thought about it:
For the most part, I liked the Game. Good use of the Sonic franchise's characters as party members,a good story, anddecent graphics. It was well worth the $$$ I paid for it. I was left with questions from the cliffhanger ending, and hope they will be tied up in the sequel.
Now, for what I didn't like:
-NPC's: some of those generic human NPCs in the first world of the Game (earth) could have been old sonic characters: For example, you could have been chopping wood for Bark the polar bear instead of a nameless old man. They could have had that doctor who was worrying about the animals being controlled, and asked sonic for help be replaced by Mighty Armadillo. The guy who asked you to beat the bugs on the rooftops could have been Bean the dynamyte Dux. It just felt like a wasted opportunity.
-Battle system: I disliked the elite beat agent-style tap system for the special moves. I would have preferred a clean cut, timed-hits style system like in Super Mario RPG. It's soooo annyoing when you fail to hit just one of those taps, and you ethier end up doing 1 Damage, or miss altogether.
Again, this is just my opinion, and I'm really looking forward to the sequel! ^^ | |
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masseffectofsonic
Game Owner
 Sonic DS
Joined: 10 Nov 2008 |
Posted: Friday, 28 November 2008 07:48AM |
If you really want to make a sonic rpg that will get a 10 from Gamespot and Ign, get rid of the turn based combat system. It's too slow. Because sonic is more of a free roam video game character, the battles should be more open and fast paced. Kinda like kingdom hearts, except with a sonic twist. You guys know what to do.
Maybe you guys could make a sonic mmo.  | |
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Sotaknuck
Game Owner
 Sonic DS
Joined: 10 Nov 2008 |
Posted: Saturday, 29 November 2008 09:39AM |
(Off Topic: the forums keeps logging me off after i write a lot, and i'm too stupid to remember to copy what i type before clicking Submit to avoid this problem...)
Pros:
- A good Story since Sonic Adventure 2! Thats's the main reason to play this game.
It also fixes many plotholes left from other Sonic games (good thing that all the events from Sonic 06 have been left out [Elise in primis]. That was THE garbage in the Sonic Games, even if it had sooo much misused potential)
- Good battle system, it makes a good use of the touch pad but has some flaws that i will discuss in the Cons. Good idea to have teamed supermoves, but has limited use (see Cons)
- Great idea of chasing-fleeing from battle as a run-jump minigame
- Good to have more than a theme as battle music.
- Superb idea to use remastered tracks from the old games. Despite what many are saying i love the soudtrack of this game, and i hope to see even more revamped tracks from the old games.
- Shade: a really cool character joins the party!
Cons:
- Poor sound effects for the battle: all the characters grunts in strange ways...enemies KOed make a broken spring sound?
They are not aligned with the classic 16bit era sounds that play around.
Characters also grunts as hit by an enemy when being powered up by allies, and that's too bad.
- In the chase minigame the sound of jumps comes out slowed down.
- Bad usage of the exploration skills. In the ending areas you are linked to some parties to do everything you need, since in the second part of the game almost all of the actions with a level require a level 3 move (and that is wrong, in an rpg setting there should be very few places that need a maxed level, only those that hide a special item for example)
Having the skill needed as a sum of the levels of the skill in your party might fix this as well, giving a broader choice of possible parties to overcome an obstacle.
- Battle system problems:
1) the pattern of touching/sliding is always the same for a move, making the fights boring after a while.
2) the mana pool of each character is way too small (you need to have Tails spamming his nanobots to keep using supermoves, Cream is the other option, but is less efficient)
3) you take too low (0...) damage if you defend and you are punished too much if you miss a button during an attack.
This makes enemies much more dangerous if they start using their basic attack and gives tons of frustration if you do a single mistake in the supermove attack.
4)
4.1)Teamed-POW moves are weak compared to a single POW move: they do low damage compared to their cost.
A single Pow requires an action and mana cost to do consistent damage.
A team Pow requires an action from all the characters using it and mana from all of them to do a damage total that is much less than 2 or more single pow from the same characters in that turn.
4.2)Using skill points on team pow moves may also limit your effectveness if the party splits, resulting in not upgraded enough single pow moves and the impossibility to use the team moves you bought.
Team based moves should not be buyable with skill points. They should be avaiable if 2 or more characters have a certain skill.
Take Chrono Trigger from Squaresoft as example: if the main character Chrono had "Whirlwind" and the team mate Marle had "Ice" you could use a "Whirling Tornado" without buying it, provinding you had both in party, an action ready for both characters and mana from both of them, just like in Sonic Chronicles, but without the drawback in single skill power in the case of a split in the party.
Great game anyway.
As a Sonic and as a Bioware fan i really enjoyed this one. You made a good game for this small DS system, and i'm looking forward to see the sequel on DS, even if i'm also wondering how a "Sonic Chonicles 2" on a much powerful console might look like (Stunning i guess, just like Mass Effect is) Keep up the good work.Edited By Sotaknuck on 11/29/08 09:43 | |
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Demonkingbob
Game Owner
Sonic DS
Joined: 07 Mar 2009 |
Posted: Wednesday, 11 March 2009 04:26AM | |
overall i loved this game and it put my faith back in sega's sonic team. since adventure 2 battle they started to go down hill very very fast. all their gamed since then had bad graphics and even worse game play, i seriously thought that they would make a comeback with the new sonic the hedgehog but that game fell flat on its face the cut scenes were beautifully done but the rest was seriously rushed they need to put as much care into their games as they do the cut scenes. as for sonic chronicals i loved it. thank you bioware for giving the sonic team the boost they needed. story line was deep, i loved big and robotniks comic relif it made me laugh so much. game play was absolutly wonderfull, i do have to admit that the bad guys were too easy, and what was with the last battle as super sonic it made me laugh at how easily you defeated ix it was almost unnesscary it really should have been more of a fight. the next game i would seriously stress that you guys should make the higher lvl baddies and bosses stronger just to keep the game a challenge. i loved what you did with re starting the game by letting your characters keep all their stats and i hope youll keep that in the sequil. also this is to the other ppl who posted on this foroum who say the ending was bad. its called a cliff hanger being a writer myself i can tell you this. a lot of people dont like cliff hangers because the story doesnt end there its supposed to leave it open. the sequil is supposed to be a direct continuation off of the ending of the first one. another suggestion for bioware a killer app would be to import your character roster from the first one. i love the music and the graphics could use some smoothing out but i cant wait for the second one. please dont rush this game due to popular demand take your time to make things as great as possible sonic chronicals has great potential! | |
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Aegis Runestone
Game Owner
 NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
Sonic DS
Joined: 24 Jun 2002
From: Insert Cliche Locale Here |
Posted: Sunday, 22 March 2009 08:48PM |
Here's my little review. ^_^
-=Introduction=-
Sonic the Hedgehog has been a staple game series for years from Sega's Sonic Team. Unfortunately, their recent games have declined severely in quality. To tackle this problem, Sega made a marvelous move to join up with Bioware to create a new type of Sonic Game--a Role-playing Game (RPG) version--that would change the hearts of many. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is a game that, while has its flaws and is nowhere near perfect, inspires depth into the characters, introduces an interesting battle system, and a fascinating storyline.
-=Graphics=- 9/10
Bioware did an excellent job with the hand-drawn areas. They look vibrant and lush, yet retaining the cartoony feel that is fitting for Sonic games. There are some rough edges in the battle backgrounds, making them look a little choppy and pixelated. The pixelation gives the battle backgrounds a little bit of an unfinished feel, as if Bioware rushed this section of the game.
However, the models and special effects are well-done for a game on the DS. They are almost on par with some of the other games that have great models, like Final Fantasy IV for the DS. The character animations are smooth, and enjoyable to watch. The POW move animations are fantastic, though, because of the limited number of moves, it becomes rather repetitious to watch.
Overall, however, Bioware gets a gold star for their efforts with the graphics of Sonic Chronicles.
-=Gameplay=- 8/10
Sonic Chronicles does not have fast gameplay like a typical Sonic game; it is more based on exploration and questing. Like all typical Bioware RPGs, you can choose whether to do side-quests or just continue with the game. Again, there is a lot of exploration to be done in this game; Chao eggs and rings are scattered all over the areas for you to figure out how to find and collect. You'll need to use special overworld abilities like dashing (Sonic), flying (Tails), or climbing (Knuckles) to get past obstacles in your way to get these items.
There is a flaw with the money system: you must run into the rings to gather them up. They are your cash for the game, and are very limited. Granted, you can sell items for rings and get rings while fleeing or trying to catch an enemy in battle, but you mostly have to survive on the rings you get from running around each area. The counter to this error that Bioware made was to make most items relatively inexpensive, especially when compared to other RPGs.
To the battle system. The battle system is almost perfect; each character has their own strengths and weaknesses in battle. For example, Sonic has low damage and defense, but can act three times a round. Some characters have abilities that can pierce armor or heal the entire party. Each character is very useful in their own way, which is a big improvement from other Sonic games. POW moves (the special battle abilities) are fun to use, once you get used to them, and highly effective against enemies. Mastering POW moves is essential for conquering certain bosses and enemies, and practicing them makes it easier to use them.
There is a flaw in the battle system that is bothersome however. If you make a mistake when inputting a character's commands, the option you have is to redo the entire round over again. It is very tedious to completely redo all the other characters' commands for a single mistake. Other than that, the battle system is well-made.
Another problem is the difficulty. This game really panders itself to casual gamers. You will probably never lose a battle once unless you're completely unlucky and/or have difficulty with the POW moves throughout the game. It is a bit of a let down for those of us looking for a challenge.
Overall, the gameplay is interesting and fun to interact with, even if it lacks speed.
-=Story=- 10/10
Bioware made a fantastic story. It takes the characters and the game itself and gives them greater depth than they had before. First off, you have the power to change some of the story's course through Sonic's choices (from what he says in conversations). You can be nice to people, be neutral to them, or just plain enrage them from your snarky comments. There are some very interesting things the characters will say in response to whatever you choose.
I did say that Sonic Chronicles's storyline gives greater depth to their characters, and it does. While it is not a gigantic step forward, there is character development and a storyline for each character (though some have a lot more than others). Personalities are enhanced, and little quirks are added to each character's psychology, making each character more enjoyable to play with.
The storyline itself is interesting. It starts out with Knuckles being kidnapped and Sonic having to find him. It doesn't sound exciting from that statement, but as you continue throughout the story, the plot builds upon itself repeatedly. This makes it more and more engrossing as you move along the plotline. There are also a (thankfully) lack of plotholes in the story. Everything wraps itself up nicely, and keeps itself from breaking most of the rules of a good plot.
Great plot, great characters, and great choices make a marvelous storyline.
-=Sound/Music=- 6/10
I say that every Sonic game is like a classic Epic Hero; each has at least one fatal flaw, and here is the one for Sonic Chronicles: the music and sound. The music is just plain awful and the sound effects are mediocre at best. The only saving grace is the battle music, which seems to have had more effort put into it than any of the other songs combined. The battle music has quite a few catchy tunes. From what it sounds like, the music had some potential. Thus, if Bioware had put more effort into it, then we might have had a great soundtrack. But alas, we do not.
-=Replay Value=- 7/10
So, once you beat the game, do you want to play it again? I say it depends on your opinion if you want to play again. To the dismay of many gamers, Sonic Chronicles is much easier the second time through. This is a problem because it takes away what challenge the game originally had. You'll have the POW moves down pat, and will be able to cancel out enemy POW moves with ease. It almost makes battles pointless.
However, you have the option to go back and try to collect all the chao, rings, and see the different dialogues you can get from other choices, creating a slightly different feel to your second playthrough. It is at least worth it to go through the game twice, especially if you want to complete 100% of it.
Other than that, Sonic Chronicles is lacking in the replay value department.
-=Conclusion=-
Sonic Chronicles was an enjoyable experience for me. As a Sonic fan, a Bioware fan, and an RPG fan, this game enraptured me. If you hate Sonic, but love RPGs, I recommend you give this one a go because it will not fail to deliver your RPG needs and requisites. Like Bioware set out to do, you will learn to love Sonic and all his friends in this game.
Overall Score: 9/10
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-Aegis Runestone-
Come join the Gaming Universe!Edited By Aegis Runestone on 03/22/09 20:49 | |
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Golden Hedgy
Game Owner
 Sonic DS
Joined: 08 Oct 2008 |
Posted: Wednesday, 04 November 2009 07:55AM |
Pros:
-I loved how it's a Sonic RPG game...a nice change for once... I'm tired of jumping and running left to right...
-the fighting parts of the game is really fun. I love doing the combos.
-Covered up a nice little, not much of a big deal, plothole. The Great Fourth Civilization, Emerl ((in speech)) and such made a great return in this game. Now we know more about Emerl's creators and such.
-Great use of a large cast. Each even have a reason to be in the game not just sitting there and be in the way.
-The personalities matches this time. Sonic being his cocky self. Shadow being his "Grr kill you" self. Wonderful.
-We get to know more of what Sonic and co. can use in attacks.
-The combo attacks when using 2 or 3 characters at once. I LOVED that one the most.
-I love how the story of the Knuckles tribe does NOT match the archie comics' version. The Knuckles tribe disappeared and NO ONE KNOWS about it ((Chaos wiped them out supposedly)). Then love the excuse why random echidnas exist now form the Nortur...yeah...AND it covered the plothole on why Pachemac ((sp)) wants to be stronger as said in Sonic Adventure. Yes...love the way how you covered up so many plotholes in ONE GAME.
Cons:
-the fact that the Swatbots are there... Sonic games and Sonic comics/cartoons are different. Even Archie comics said that their Sonic Comics is a different universe from the games.
I prefer that the archie/SaTAM/etc. characters stay in the book/cartoon world while SONIC games have their own world by Sega.
Sorry to say but that was the biggest let down for me. If Sally Acorn appears in the sequel, I'm not buying. Period.
-strange battle "cries". Er...I would love it if the "hurt" noise and such SOUND like the characters...not random sound effects.
-The music...okay...some of the music sounds nice but...the rest was like...er... although I still give kudos to some of the remixes like the Panic Puppet Zone one from Sonic 3D Blast for Saturn/PC. I enjoyed that very much.
-Some attacks weren't even like the previous games. For example, Shadow's Chaos Blast. It went from a huge explosion to a beam that barely does any damage...
-Archie comics references...DON'T DO THAT AGAIN.
-Chao...I would love it if the Chao Garden was back...like...be able to take care of them. The more we feed/play/etc. with them, the higher the level of their equip ability would be. Get it?
other than that...I enjoyed the game.
Others have been posting that the comics stories are better than the game, thus saying that the Archie characters should be in the game...
that's opinion...not fact.
I think the comics are like a poorly written fanfic filled up with so many mary-sues.
Again opinion.
What is true, source from www.sonicstadium.org
is that Archie comics has stated that the Sonic comics are from a DIFFERENT UNIVERSE AWAY FROM THE GAME UNIVERSE.
Especially when none of the stories match with the games and the characters such as Sally, Antonie and etc. don't even appear in the games except that Sonic Spinball game that no one even liked to begin with ((they are in there because of popular demand...the thing is that idea did not go so well)).
AGAIN...I beg that you guys DO NOT put in the Archie characters in the sequel...if there is even gonna be one.
If you do...sheesh...I know half the Sonic community that will NOT buy the game for that very reason... | |
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