TheBlackMarket
09-28-2006, 08:38 AM
The following is another review I did a little while ago for my site...
On July 20th of 2004, I did a mini-review of Sonic Battle. Not only was it poorly written, but it was prematurely written- I failed to play the game long enough to realize how crappy it was. Today, I'm going to look back on it for a lack of anything better to write about today.
For the uninitiated, Sonic Battle is a spinoff of the Sonic series, designed to be a four-player fighting game for the GBA. It's mildly entertaining for a bit, but it's pretty repetative and the music is nine kinds of horrible. There's hardly any motivation to complete the game, let alone replay it. The battles alone are pretty fun, especially with four other players to knock around (good luck finding those...), but the storyline makes little sense and is generally annoying to play.
What I wrote then:
Concept- One day, Sonic is bored on the beach. After walking around a bit, he comes across a robot that was just tossed away by Eggman. He takes the robot with him and begins to raise him. "Emerl" has the mentality of a swiftly growing child, and has the ability to copy anything it sees. Sonic, among freinds, exploit this ability, progressively teaching him to fight and to interact with others. Emerl grows and changes with each passing event, and eventually develops a love for his hedgehog "Father," good ol' Sonic. After discovering Emerl's true destructive capacity, Sonic and friends protect Emerl from Eggman, and from himself...
Now: Ok, that was accurate, but the way I ended it was stupid. That isn't my fault though, because that's what the concept of the game actually was. In a nutshell, you are Emerl, a stupidly named robot that is powered by Chaos Emeralds. You follow around Sonic and all the rest of those random woodland creatures and fight stuff. Ok, so you fight Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Shadow, Rouge, some E-series robots, Chaos and Robotnik. That's it. First of all, Shadow has no business even being in this game, as he burnt up in the atmosphere in Sonic Adventure 2. Sega just won't let a character die, will they? Speaking of which: SPOILER: Emerl dies at the end, just to show up again in Sonic Advance 3. Goddamn it Sega, let him die already! Each character's personality is pretty explicitly shown in every dialogue, that is, Knuckles is an idiot, Shadow's all...emo... and Sonic is determined all the time, or some such crap. Of course, I'll give the game a break, as it was apparently made specifically for children.
What I wrote then:
Graphics- Amazing graphics. It's pretty humbling to see how many sprites this game has... in the high thousands, rivaling that of such beauties as Breath of Fire 3 & 4. Battles have an interesting 3D effect and all the animations are beautiful.
Now:
Alright, that still stands. The sprites are nicely drawn and have a wide variety of animations, making for a pretty attractive game. The 3D thing was kinda weird, but it wasn't ugly or anything. The art style is pretty interesting, too; there are little or no curves in any given peice of art (everything that needs to be curved has intermediate straight lines drawn in instead) and the outlines are never black. I like that. Actually, back when I bought this game, my art style was somewhat influenced by it's own.
What I wrote then:
Sound- Some music in this game is annoying. Actually, most of it is. Ok, almost all of it. Mostly because of the constant use of an annoying synth guitar and Hammond organ- the new favorite instruments of the Sonic Series. The voice overs are annoying... some, such as that of Knuckles and Shadow are inconsistant... at some points, Knuckles grunts like a rich old white guy and announces himself like a rapper, where Shadow has voice clips ranging from smug asshole to annoying anime emo kid. Some voice overs make you want to kill babies... Cream, Amy, Tails... and Rouge sounds like a hooker. At least they got one of 'em right...
Now:
Yeah, what I said. While the animals that each character is supposed to represent are pretty creepy looking in real life, it's Rouge that gets me the most. Bats are hideous, creepy flying rats, and yet Rouge is a damn hooker. Slapping tits on a bat just makes for a very heavy bat, not a hot bat. Bats are ugly.
What I said then:
Control- Pretty innovative. You choose your control scheme in the beginning of each battle, and each scheme has varying effects. Overall, this game is easy to control, once you get the hang of it. Unlike most games, this game gives you very little assistance on the mastery of the controls.. it kinda tosses you into a battle, gives you a magical weapon that can kill all, and an instruction booklet written in invisible ink on water, and tell you to be on your merry way.
Now:
What the hell was I actually trying to articulate? The control scheme wasn't innovative at all, it was the battle system that was. Man, even before the DS, I must have sprinkled the word innovative on the stupidest crap...
Then:
Entertainment- Pretty deep and innovative entertainment, but it lacks replay value...in story mode that is... or even by yourself. If you want more than a weeks worth of gameplay, sucker some friends into buying this game, and rob them while you're at it... you might as well go for the gold.
Now:
Buuuuulll....Shiiiiiiit. Deep my ass. Innovative, though? What the hell was I thinking? Sonic Battle is indeed fun, but for about three days if you don't play it nonstop. It lacks replay AND just plain old play value. It's the kind of game that would be worth it if you didn't have to pay money to play it.
Replay Value- Little, unless you have friends with the game.
Difficulty- There is a large range of difficulty, but overall the difficulty is average to slightly-harder-than-average. One thing, though... once you get your perfect Emerl, try fighting 3 of them in battle mode on maximum difficulty... They will whoop your ass.
Results:
Sonic Battle
:.Merit
Pretty fun for a few days of play.
It's pretty
The extra Green Hill Zone song is pretty cool
With multiple people, the game becomes more fun :.Offenses
The music will shorten your lifespan
The characters are annoying as hell. I miss pudgy, silent Sonic.
Shadow.
Almost no replay value.
Did I mention the music? It's really bad. It's not like you can just play the game with no volume on, either, because you know it's still playing, waiting for you to drop your guard and turn the volume back up. :.Verdict- This game could have been something great, if only it didn't suck as much as it did.
:.Defining Moment- Coming to my senses in the week after I purchased this game, realizing that I spent real money to have it
On July 20th of 2004, I did a mini-review of Sonic Battle. Not only was it poorly written, but it was prematurely written- I failed to play the game long enough to realize how crappy it was. Today, I'm going to look back on it for a lack of anything better to write about today.
For the uninitiated, Sonic Battle is a spinoff of the Sonic series, designed to be a four-player fighting game for the GBA. It's mildly entertaining for a bit, but it's pretty repetative and the music is nine kinds of horrible. There's hardly any motivation to complete the game, let alone replay it. The battles alone are pretty fun, especially with four other players to knock around (good luck finding those...), but the storyline makes little sense and is generally annoying to play.
What I wrote then:
Concept- One day, Sonic is bored on the beach. After walking around a bit, he comes across a robot that was just tossed away by Eggman. He takes the robot with him and begins to raise him. "Emerl" has the mentality of a swiftly growing child, and has the ability to copy anything it sees. Sonic, among freinds, exploit this ability, progressively teaching him to fight and to interact with others. Emerl grows and changes with each passing event, and eventually develops a love for his hedgehog "Father," good ol' Sonic. After discovering Emerl's true destructive capacity, Sonic and friends protect Emerl from Eggman, and from himself...
Now: Ok, that was accurate, but the way I ended it was stupid. That isn't my fault though, because that's what the concept of the game actually was. In a nutshell, you are Emerl, a stupidly named robot that is powered by Chaos Emeralds. You follow around Sonic and all the rest of those random woodland creatures and fight stuff. Ok, so you fight Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Shadow, Rouge, some E-series robots, Chaos and Robotnik. That's it. First of all, Shadow has no business even being in this game, as he burnt up in the atmosphere in Sonic Adventure 2. Sega just won't let a character die, will they? Speaking of which: SPOILER: Emerl dies at the end, just to show up again in Sonic Advance 3. Goddamn it Sega, let him die already! Each character's personality is pretty explicitly shown in every dialogue, that is, Knuckles is an idiot, Shadow's all...emo... and Sonic is determined all the time, or some such crap. Of course, I'll give the game a break, as it was apparently made specifically for children.
What I wrote then:
Graphics- Amazing graphics. It's pretty humbling to see how many sprites this game has... in the high thousands, rivaling that of such beauties as Breath of Fire 3 & 4. Battles have an interesting 3D effect and all the animations are beautiful.
Now:
Alright, that still stands. The sprites are nicely drawn and have a wide variety of animations, making for a pretty attractive game. The 3D thing was kinda weird, but it wasn't ugly or anything. The art style is pretty interesting, too; there are little or no curves in any given peice of art (everything that needs to be curved has intermediate straight lines drawn in instead) and the outlines are never black. I like that. Actually, back when I bought this game, my art style was somewhat influenced by it's own.
What I wrote then:
Sound- Some music in this game is annoying. Actually, most of it is. Ok, almost all of it. Mostly because of the constant use of an annoying synth guitar and Hammond organ- the new favorite instruments of the Sonic Series. The voice overs are annoying... some, such as that of Knuckles and Shadow are inconsistant... at some points, Knuckles grunts like a rich old white guy and announces himself like a rapper, where Shadow has voice clips ranging from smug asshole to annoying anime emo kid. Some voice overs make you want to kill babies... Cream, Amy, Tails... and Rouge sounds like a hooker. At least they got one of 'em right...
Now:
Yeah, what I said. While the animals that each character is supposed to represent are pretty creepy looking in real life, it's Rouge that gets me the most. Bats are hideous, creepy flying rats, and yet Rouge is a damn hooker. Slapping tits on a bat just makes for a very heavy bat, not a hot bat. Bats are ugly.
What I said then:
Control- Pretty innovative. You choose your control scheme in the beginning of each battle, and each scheme has varying effects. Overall, this game is easy to control, once you get the hang of it. Unlike most games, this game gives you very little assistance on the mastery of the controls.. it kinda tosses you into a battle, gives you a magical weapon that can kill all, and an instruction booklet written in invisible ink on water, and tell you to be on your merry way.
Now:
What the hell was I actually trying to articulate? The control scheme wasn't innovative at all, it was the battle system that was. Man, even before the DS, I must have sprinkled the word innovative on the stupidest crap...
Then:
Entertainment- Pretty deep and innovative entertainment, but it lacks replay value...in story mode that is... or even by yourself. If you want more than a weeks worth of gameplay, sucker some friends into buying this game, and rob them while you're at it... you might as well go for the gold.
Now:
Buuuuulll....Shiiiiiiit. Deep my ass. Innovative, though? What the hell was I thinking? Sonic Battle is indeed fun, but for about three days if you don't play it nonstop. It lacks replay AND just plain old play value. It's the kind of game that would be worth it if you didn't have to pay money to play it.
Replay Value- Little, unless you have friends with the game.
Difficulty- There is a large range of difficulty, but overall the difficulty is average to slightly-harder-than-average. One thing, though... once you get your perfect Emerl, try fighting 3 of them in battle mode on maximum difficulty... They will whoop your ass.
Results:
Sonic Battle
:.Merit
Pretty fun for a few days of play.
It's pretty
The extra Green Hill Zone song is pretty cool
With multiple people, the game becomes more fun :.Offenses
The music will shorten your lifespan
The characters are annoying as hell. I miss pudgy, silent Sonic.
Shadow.
Almost no replay value.
Did I mention the music? It's really bad. It's not like you can just play the game with no volume on, either, because you know it's still playing, waiting for you to drop your guard and turn the volume back up. :.Verdict- This game could have been something great, if only it didn't suck as much as it did.
:.Defining Moment- Coming to my senses in the week after I purchased this game, realizing that I spent real money to have it