Ok, so it’s time for the third part of my Sonic and the Secret Rings review. So far I’ve been complaining a lot about the game, but I haven’t said many good things about the game. So, to keep things fair, the final part of this review is the good aspects about the game. Now when I say “good aspects” I don’t mean things that are just “passable” but good: stuff that is fully enjoyable. Trust me, this part will be short.

The first good thing about this game is the graphics. I say this in a purely heterosexual way when I say that this is a beautiful game (I’m no gameosexual, not that there’s anything wrong with that). When you’re running through the first (non-tutorial) level, you can really be struck by the scenery: the vibrancy of the sand and the waves in it, the beautiful foliage, the sky in a nice mix of blue and red. Truly inspiring. You might not pay attention to the levels as much since you’ll have to watch where you’re going, but even Sonic himself looks smoother then ever. Even in the starting video, you can actually see as much details as to the stitching in his gloves. The farther you go in the game, the darker the levels get, which makes the beauty of it hard to see. Oddly enough though, one of the last levels, taking place in a surreal space palace place, is probably one of the most impressive looking ones, along with the first one I already described. Normally, I don’t talk much about the graphics in a game, but like I said: I’m looking for anything good in this game. Also, the great graphics just make it a bigger insult when you think about how they show the story in that comic book cut-out thing. To put thing in an appropriate simile, this game is like a really good looking woman who is simply the most uncooperative person ever.

The next thing I really liked in the game are the boss battles. Now, I know many people don’t like these, even people who like the game in general say these suck, but I like them. This is really weird, especially considering how much I hate the game play. It does have its problems though. First off, the order of them is completely screwed up with the difficulty curve going up and down like a roller coaster. The second problem is that they all look similar: run around in a circle, jump and attack. Still, somehow, they’re each satisfying. My favourite one is defiantly the water level boss: after a level of falling into water and dying instantly, it feels good to latch onto his horns and rip them out one by one. I showed no mercy. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I guess that’s why I like them so much: killing something is just the best stress relief after having to do so many frustrating missions with crappy controls.

Finally, the last thing that’s really good about the game is the party mode. This mode is pretty much like Mario Party, where you’ll play a lot of party mini-games against other players. You have different modes of play to make playing the games actually have a point, but they are either really to simple, such as play a game against one player one by one tournament style, or needlessly complicated, like the hunting treasure mode, where you play a game and your position in the game determines how many spaces you move on a map where you have to chose your direction to get to a treasure chest and hope the treasure Omochao has told you to get. Seriously, needlessly complicated. The games are rather fun though, and the only complaint I have about them are the usual Wii problems. However, it reeks of plagiarism from Mario Party: you got the different boards where you play mini-games, the mode opens like a book (like in Mario Party 3) and Omochao sounds like whichever annoying host you want to think him as (Toad mostly). Really, all I’m doing right now is nit-picking: it’s still a lot of fun to play and the mini-games are as mindless and easy as any other games’ would be and the board settings don’t get in the way of that.

So, that’s all I can basically say about the good aspects of the game, and I feel like I’m rather scraping the barrel. I’ve only mentioned 3 things, which I can’t say much about, and I honestly can’t think of any more. All together, I have to give the good parts 6/10, since they are still in such a bad game. But the good aspects I’ve talked about in this part cannot help this game at all since it was already totalled…

So now let’s look back at everything: the story got a 2/10, the game play got 1/10 and the good parts earn 6/10, this means the game gets an average of 3/10. I seriously do no suggest you get this game any time soon, not even if you find it in the discount bin for 20$. I could keep going on about think I don’t like about the game (I have problems with the annoying music) but I don’t think I need to anymore. This game isn’t even fun if you’re a Sonic fan, since the game seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that Sonic once was. It’s best to save yourself the time and the money and just stay away from this game.