Sonic Rush Adventure begins with Sonic and Tails being sucked through an inter-dimensional portal, leaving them on an unknown island location (rather inconvenient – Ed.). They soon meet a young raccoon named Marine, who curiously speaks in a stereotypical Australian style of dialogue, despite the fact that raccoons do not natively reside in Australia, except in a zoo. Initially, the goal of Sonic Rush Adventure is to get Sonic and Tails back to their own dimension with assistance from Marine the Raccoon and her friends – if only it were that simple. Sonic soon runs into Blaze the Cat (the other playable character, who just happened to be in the dimension at the time), who is chasing an ancient artefact currently residing in the clutches of Captain Whisker, a rather Robotnik-esque looking robot pirate, whose ineptitude prevents him from being any sort of worthy adversary. Sonic Rush Adventure’s story sequences are not really a welcome addition to the fold – they break up the gameplay, and Marine’s irritating dialogue and stereotypical demeanour is sure to inspire players to skip these sequences to get to the rich, juicy action.
Dead hedgehogs found by the roadside are considered a delicacy in Alabama
After enduring the first round of Marine’s garble, players get to dive head first into some real Sonic action. For the most part, Sonic Rush Adventure sticks to the same path as its predecessor, with its 2D stages focusing on pure speed and tricks, rather than mixing it up with platforming sections as seen in the classic Mega Drive Sonic series. This isn’t such a bad thing, but it is distinctly different from the older games. Sonic Rush Adventure has also done away with many of the original game’s bottomless pits, which were a cause of frustration for many, but does make the game perceivably easier. All of Sonic’s moves from Rush return, including the deadly dash attack, which helps maintain the game’s breakneck pace.
Seven major islands make up the bulk of Sonic Rush Adventure’s world, with each island acting as a zone in the traditional Sonic sense, with two acts and a boss fight attached. Each zone has its own distinct style, from tropical paradise to the typical machine heavy industrial area, and typically take about two to four minutes to complete. The boss fights themselves are a highlight, due to a bit of imagination in the design of the bosses, and some rather fantastic graphics.
A pirate ship.
There’s a bit more to Sonic Rush Adventure than just standard Sonic levels. To travel between the islands, the player needs transport, and the earliest part of the game has the player completing stages in order to collect materials to build a jet-ski. Once the jet-ski has been built, the player gets to plot a course between the islands using the stylus, and then gets to control the jet-ski in a rather lovely 3D mini-game. Using the stylus to control Sonic and his vehicle, one has to collect rings, do some nifty stunts and defeat any enemies that get in the way. These sections are a little basic, but are quite fun nonetheless. As the game progresses, players need to collect more materials to build better craft, due to the limited range of the jet-ski. This means replaying the 2D levels, which gets old rather quickly. The hovercraft is the second vehicle, which controls much like the jet-ski, but the larger vessels (the barge and submarine) trade the cool jet-ski segments for a less cool shooting mini-game.
Sonic Rush Adventure isn’t a particularly long game at first glance, with the main adventure taking the better part of six hours to complete (if you put up with Marine’s inane banter). In true Sonic style, merely finishing the game doesn’t grant you the true ending – a search for the Chaos and Sol emeralds is required to see the real finale. Sol emeralds are earned through the completion of missions which put Sonic into rematches with the bosses previously defeated. Chaos emeralds are found through finding another character named Johnny on each island, who will give the player a challenge to complete. Other side missions can be found on the islands to unlock other materials. It’s a little bit of a pain that these extras do require playing the same levels over and over again, regardless of the quality of the said levels. Multiplayer modes have also been included this time around, with time and ring based challenges for two players, either locally or over Wi-Fi Connect. Online leaderboards are also available for those in search of bragging rights.
Tails is a bit like MacGuyver, building a jet-ski from a few bits of "Green Material"
The original Sonic Rush was one of the better looking Nintendo DS releases back in 2005, and Sonic Rush Adventure exceeds its predecessor on this front, thanks largely to better models and animation, more colourful locations and greater use of 3D, particularly in the luscious jet-ski missions. The game’s frame rate never skips a beat, which is very necessary in a game that relies on speed. The soundtrack is once again of a high quality, though it does contain a lot of hip-hop undertones which, while of a reasonably quality, do not really suit the game’s nautical theme (unless you’re a fan of the dubbed version of the One Piece anime). The game does not feature a lot of speech, which is probably a good thing given Marine’s dialogue.
Sonic Rush Adventure is a quality entry in a series that desperately needs to be reassessed, but intrusive, frequent and annoying story sequences, poorly conceived new characters and an awful lot of repetition keep it from being great. The adventure parts of the game feel a bit undercooked – there should be a bit more depth to these sequences than merely replaying already completed levels to collect materials to move on to the next point. That said, we think that Sonic Rush Adventure is a solid game that should appeal to not just fans of the newer Sonic titles, but those who grew up with the series too.
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