Many people were worried about the original Mario RPG when it was first released, because surely an established franchise mascot couldn't fit well into the RPG formula. As history has proven, however, that wasn't the case. The latest mascot taking to the RPG circuit is Sonic, starring in his first RPG called Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. It's a strange amalgamation of a game, blending typical Sonic characters with Elite Beat Agents and a little Knights of the Old Republic for good measure. It's an amusing game, but one that is ultimately hampered by its uniqueness.

The story starts out with Sonic and crew having just walloped old Eggman once again, and for a time everything seemed peaceful. Strange things start to occur, however, as Sonic gets word from Tails that Knuckles has gone missing, seemingly been kidnapped by some group called the Marauders, who have even gone so far as to reengage Eggman's old robots for their own nefarious purposes. Will Sonic and team save Knuckles? Will the team get to the bottom of the Marauders?

All you have to do is look at the back of the box to know that Knuckles is saved very early on, but even so, he still remains an important figure in the story, as the game delves into a background rarely asked about in the world of Sonic, namely being that of the echidna himself. Along the way friends will be made, enemies met, and perhaps even become friends in the process. The game has a few twists, but nothing mind shattering. Overall, much like the Sonic franchise itself, everything is pretty mild when it comes to the story. There are a few moments I found myself saying, "Oh, that's cool," but otherwise the story seems like pretty typical fare.

Attack Sonic

The biggest problem is with the Sonic franchise characters and how they relate to the gameplay style. In order to get involved, you have to block out the fact that a bunch of giant, colorful talking animals are running around, interacting with normal humans, and trying to save the world. I never had a problem with the Sonic characters in their respective games until this moment, because they fit the world, but here they just seem horribly out of place. For instance, experience enough battles with a giant cat wielding a fishing rod and pet frog, and you'll soon be wishing for the typical emo kids who always save the day in RPGs.

Since the game is coming from the extremely talented RPG developer Bioware, it's surprising to see the story isn't handled as well in past games, and that things such as side-quests and dialogue trees are very superfluous and serve no major purpose at all. The side-quests are a tad more forgivable, as at least Bioware threw something in. When it comes to partaking in the side-quests, it's usually of the "find this and take it to this person" or "kill this one thing" variety. The character portraits of the side-quest NPCs also don't fit with the rest of the Sonic universe, and they even repeat way too often.

The Bioware dialogue tree is a more unforgivable gameplay sin, as it serves no purpose in Sonic Chronicles, other than to let people know it's a Bioware game. Whether it's KOTOR, Jade Empire, or Mass Effect, each one used branching dialogue trees to draw the player into the game even more, and help shape the tone of the character. Want to be nice? Want to be a condescending jerk? Bioware allowed you do be exactly those things depending on what you wanted your character to say, and each thing said also helped shape the story. In Sonic Chronicles it's more for giggles, as dialogue tree options only allow you to give the quickest answer to speed things along, ask a question for more background info, accept a quest, decline a quest, or give a snarky response while doing one of the other options. The different dialogue options – to my knowledge – also don't affect the progression of the story in one way or another. Characters don't hold grudges against you either, as I basically told Tails to stop annoying the hell out of me about saving (I have been playing RPGs for enough years to know when to save) and he never took offense.

Sonic Chronicles is pretty normal when it comes to the usual mechanics, as you'll run around, doing battle with enemies you encounter in the field (no random battles), and then level up after you get enough experience. After you've leveled-up, you'll be able to distribute (auto distribute too) points into several criteria in order to improve things like attack power and defense, and also be able to buy new POW abilities or heighten the ones you already have. You'll also gain items through battle, discovering them in capsules on the field, and buying them in shops with the rings you find scattered about the world. When it comes to these specific areas, the game doesn't do poorly, though one wishes the items you equip would improve stats a little better than they do.

You can also help shape your characters' abilities and make them a little more your own by outfitting them with special Chao that are found scattered throughout the game. Chao have the ability to do everything from heal health points or PP points at the start of every turn, increase dodge, attack rate, add elemental powers to attacks, or throw a specific shield up to help negate powers. It would've been cool and rewarding had the game used the Chao system from the early Dreamcast games and actually let you raise and nurture the creatures to improve your characters. Instead, the little, colorful Chao are nothing more than another item to equip and have no character or personality at all. You can also trade Chao you find with other players using the network connectivity feature, but overall it's not that impressive (or needed) of a feature.

The shining star feature of Sonic Chronicles is easily the battle system, which takes the standard Final Fantasy like options (attack, defend, use items, etc) and mixes it with the circle tapping, marker sliding, and constant tapping of an Elite Beat Agents game. If you're attacking with a regular attack, you simply key the turn in and the game does the rest, but if you use a POW move, you'll have to correctly input the commands to either power the ability or even help it work at all. For instance, in order to do Knuckles uppercut attack, you'll have to touch a circular area at the right moment, and then drag it in time upwards with the screen in order to really pack a punch. Meanwhile, characters such as Tails are able to heal, but even missing one beat can result in a wasted turn where nobody was healed, and soon death will follow.

Besides tapping in commands to attack, you'll often be tapping in commands to defend, often negating an attack to three or four points at max, or even completely wiping an attack out so it does no damage. Defending is a little more forgiving with your motions and proper tapping, as you can still screw-up a bit and not suffer all that much from it.

Sonic Chronicles' battle system is really fun and always keeps you engaged, eliminating the regular "press A-button" mechanic until everything is dead. The system, however, leads to several problems. For one, the system isn't completely reliable, as I sometimes found myself performing slides exactly as I was supposed to, only they didn't read correctly, which often cost me dearly such as leading to the death of one of my characters. Another problem is that the system slows down the game's progression dramatically, as every battle takes a little longer, and grinding becomes even more of a chore.

Another big problem with the battle system is that you better be prepared to see the word "miss" over and over, as it seems like Sonic and crew are the biggest, blindest group of idiots I've ever had to control. It's not uncommon to have close to ten attacks per turn and sitting back to watch only one or two attacks land. The POW attacks often hit their target, but the regular attacks will waste a lot of your time.

The game is also quite difficult when you factor in the sometimes sketchy battle system, constant misses, and the fact that many items don't help all too often either. The other reason the game is so difficult is because characters dish out a relatively low amount of damage per attack, while the enemy can hit for 40 to 50 points constantly, which hurts when characters early on usually only have about 150 to 200 points. Also, enemy characters have a habit of ganging up on only one of your characters instead of spreading the damage around. So if you see one character in particular start getting hit hard, you better start to worry, because they'll probably soon be dead.

I also hate moving around the game world, as the field system is the worst one I've ever played in a game. The world of Sonic is done in an isometric way, angling all the scenery, buildings, and people so they're all pointing slightly to the southeast. Since the game places many of its environmental objects in this way, it's often hard to see how to properly navigate around an object, or know what objects can be jumped, climbed, or flown across. Once you make it onto a platform, for instance, you can only do what the game allows you to do. You can't jump on everything whenever you want. You can't try to fly across gaps whenever you think you should be able to make a jump. Instead, you're forced to wander around the game's linear and highly confusing areas, doing only what the game allows.

Graphically the game looks like a Sonic game, featuring the same character styles everyone should be familiar with by now, while also using many of the same zone motifs and items that have been used plenty of times before when it comes to Sonic games. The whole game has a quaint style to it, but it gets in the way sometimes, especially when it comes to roaming the fields and trying to get around obstacles. The game also isn't particularly great when it comes to sound either, as the music and sound effects are only done adequately. If you've heard one clanking robot attack in this game then you've heard them all.

After playing the game at E3 this year, I found myself walking away from the experience really enjoying myself and digging the battle system. I still enjoy the battle system, but after an extended amount of time with the game, it's hard not to become a tad bored with the repetition, slowness, and faults of the fights. On top of that you've got the mundane story, worthless dialogue trees, and environments that that are more difficult to manage around then any others I've played in an RPG. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is a decent game, but the fun factor is extremely hampered by the numerous faults.

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