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| At least the title screen tells you how to hold the darn thing. The game only had a mini manual that told me to find the real manual online. |
Dear Internet,
It has
been quite some time since I played a "Sonic" game. "Sonic & All-Stars Racing
Transformed" does not count considering that it is as "Sonic" of
a game as one of René Magritte's painting can be used to smoke some tobacco. Then again, you could probably smoke the
painting itself, but it is hard to find a wood chipper that big. What I mean to say is that "Sonic and
the Secret Rings" is as much of a "Sonic" game as "Sonic
Advanced," which was the last "Sonic" game I played, but not at
release time mind you. Sure, you can
argue that this is just a spinoff game considering that the setting of the game
is outside the norm. The world and the
characters are far enough removed from the original series to warrant not
placing this game in the same lineup as the main series, even if some of the
faces are the same. But the underlining
aspect of this game is the same as all the others. You have to get to the end of a track/world as
quickly as you can while avoiding or destroying enemies as you go while at the
same time collecting rings and other items.
Both series so belong in the platforming genre that I can look at
"Secret Rings" with the same lens as I do when looking at all the
other "Sonic" games I have played.
"Secret
Rings" opens up with that cocky blue hedgehog, that we all know, being
called on for assistance by the genie Shahra.
She tells Sonic that her world of the Arabian Nights is being threatened
by the terrible actions of Erazor Djinn, a powerful magical entity that is
destroying the pages of "The 1001 Nights." Sonic then enters into the mystical world to
help Shahra, who is also the genie of the ring on top of being an allusion to
the character Scheherazade from the original text. Quickly, Sonic meets Erazor Djinn who in turn
places a curse on Sonic. If Sonic does
not collect the various World Rings that are scattered about, Sonic will
die. Sonic and Shahra then set out to collect
the legendary World Rings in hopes of saving Sonic and attempt to find a way to
stop the destruction of the world of the Arabian Nights.
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| The primary characters from left to right: Erazer Djinn, Sonic, and Shahra. |
So,
there you have it, Internet. You got the
premise, the Macguffin, and maybe a little suspense thrown in. What more could you want? The gameplay?
Well, if you insist. The gameplay
is standard 3D "Sonic" with some things thrown in for spice. You control Sonic through a third person
camera as he runs and jumps throughout the world, trying to reach a specific
goal. You collect rings and pearls while
trying to reach the goal as quickly as you can to maximize the score you receive
at the end of each level. This is all
pretty standard stuff for a "Sonic" game. The kicker?
Sonic does not stop running. He
run forward as a default function while the player controls if he goes left,
right, or jumps. Well, that is not
exactly accurate. You can brake, and you
can walk backwards, but I will get to that in a minute. It would probably be most accurate to liken
the gameplay to that of an on-rails game.
You go predominantly forward along a track with little possible input to
either go either to one side or another.
This is not like an open world game where you can move freely on a plane
or even change your camera angle. But I
am getting ahead of myself.
"Secret
Rings" has got major problems with its gameplay. The fact that Sonic is constantly going
forward is where the problem starts off.
It would not be as much of a problem if the game had allowed the player
choose when to move forward. Instead,
the game creates a frustrating mess with this forced control method which
culminates in being forced to run into walls and facing dead ends. There is a brake button to make Sonic stop,
but it is rather useless considering that the game places more emphasis on the
second problem with the control scheme, the jump button. Instead of having the jump button function as
a jump button, "Secret Rings" tries to do something different. It is a slide/jump button. Most games would have the button work as
thus: press it to jump and hold it for a longer jump. "Secret Rings" does something
completely different. When you press the
button, you begin to slide. Depending on
how long you slide will determine how high you jump. If you slide too long, you completely
stop. At the same time, if you press it
while airborne, you immediately fall back to the ground. The sliding aspect is one that feels
completely out of place, especially considering that at this point I have not once
needed to slide under anything in the game.
It takes quite a lot of getting used to, but it feels so out of place in
a platforming game to have to charge up a jump rather than determining the
altitude of the jump after initiating the jump that I have to discount this against
the game. While it does add depth to the
game by forcing the player to plan out the jumps ahead of time, it detracts
from the twitch response gameplay that comes from such a fast paced game. Maybe it would be better if it was not for
the motion controls.
"Sonic
and the Secret Rings" was released for the Wii relatively early in the
console's life and implemented a number of motion controlled features. What does this mean? You can assume that it means that those
motion controls are terrible, and you would be right. Very, very few non-Nintendo games use the
motion controls of the Wii well. For the
most part, the games developed by other studios do a poor job of using the Wii
Remote to its greatest of capabilities.
This is in part because of the unreliability of motion controls. If you want to do a fine tuned motion with
the Remote while under the pressure of a fast paced game, you will most likely
screw it up in five different ways. Take
for example the Bonelich mini-game in "Zack & Wiki" Quest for
Barbaros' Treasure." In it, the
player had to flick the Wii Remote like a baton stick at the moment when a note
passed by an action bar. It was a simple
rhythm game. However, it is one of the
most frustrating min-games out there due to that simple control scheme. The question of whether the game was logging
the player's attempt to "hit" the note at the begging of the flick or
at the height of the flick was never addressed.
What happened was a shambled attempt to try and accurately play a game
with an inaccurate control scheme. Each
of these poorly designed control schemes have unique problem like this.
"Secret
Rings" has only two motion control problems. Moving left and right along the rail is as
simple as tilting the Wii Remote left and right, like a see-saw. The problem relies on the homing attack and
the backtracking movement. There is a
homing attack that Sonic can use to aim directly at a specific target. The game automatically chooses the player's
target and displays a red signal when the player can and should use the homing
attack. This is done, according to the
game, by shaking the Wii Remote forward in a small thrusting motion. However, this makes the attempt to actually
attack the enemy iffy at best. A forward
thrusting motion would require the player to straighten his elbows and then
bend them back quickly to keep the Wii Remote on a level plane to ensure the
thrust was truly flat and forward. What
the game actually means is to do a slight forward flick of the wrists, which in
turn is more of a downward spin along the axis.
Why do I make such a big deal of this kind of thing? Partially because doing an elbow based thrust
causes the controller to be unresponsive but also because games that want to maximize
motion controls need to be as accurate in their descriptions of what they are
seeking from the player. Is the game
looking for a specific axis of the controller to be beyond a set increment, a
motion set along a specific plane, or some combination of the two? Unless motion control based games tell the
player exactly what they are looking for, the player has to spend time fighting
the controller to learn what they are supposed to be doing rather than playing
the game.
Then
there is the backtracking movement.
Since Sonic is by default running forward all the time, there are a few
moments when the player has to move backwards to either realign for a jump or
look for something. This is done by
tilting the controller toward the player.
The problem with this is that the controller practically needs to be
upside down before the game will register that the player wants to go
backwards. There is no sort of progression
of a slowdown as the player begins the tilt.
The game just decides when the tilt is enough to begin the slowdown and
make Sonic start to walk backwards. It is
often instant and fickle as to when it wants to acknowledge your attempt to
walk backwards. When the game does
finally makes Sonic walk backwards, it is like trying to hold in your bare
hands a cantaloupe sized amount of Jell-O.
Sure, if you are calm and well prepared, you can balance that much
Jell-O in your hands by figuring out the best placement of your hands. But in "Secret Rings" you do not
get time to prepare to handle the Jell-O.
You are thrown the Jell-O from across the room. When it hits you, you fumble the Jell-O all
over yourself as it breaks up into smaller pieces and begins to slide right
through your hands. You see, the player
backtracks mostly when they have screwed up a jump that already is requiring
them to have twitched correctly under pressure.
Often, there are enemies and traps right at those moments when the player
screws up. Compound the unresponsive
controls with having to move wobbly while surrounded by enemies, and you get a
very frustrating experience rather than difficult gameplay.
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| What inevitably happens is super slow runs of some levels while combating the controls rather than the game's enemies. |
I will
stop here for today, Internet, considering that I have written so much for a single
post. Tomorrow, I will talk about the
music, menu, story, and maybe a few other things if I have time, mostly likely
other aspects of gameplay.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
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