"Sonic Chronicles" trademarked by Sega

[Dr. Watson]

Is Metal Sonic and/or Chaotix in it?

[Ritz]

Is Metal Sonic and/or Chaotix in it?

Oh boy. The Chaotix are given a brief mention in chapter 2, and Vector makes an even briefer cameo appearance by means of radio, in which he speaks a stirring two lines of dialogue and is heard from again. I was pissed.

[Dasher]

Dang that sucks.

[Frieza2000]

So, what you say in conversations has no effect on future ones?

[Adamis]

Some answers can lead to different things. For example, there is a SwatBot in Central City you can talk to. He doesn't remember his mission. If you reply that he's an Eggman robot, he'll attack you. If you say that he fulfilled his mission, he'll go away.

[Delphine]

Some answers can lead to different things. For example, there is a SwatBot in Central City you can talk to. He doesn't remember his mission. If you reply that he's an Eggman robot, he'll attack you. If you say that he fulfilled his mission, he'll go away.

RIVETING. BRILLIANT.

[Neo]

From what I played, that being about two hours on an emulator, didn't get far in the story, just sampling it before I decide whether or not to buy it, the multiple answers in conversations usually work in one of two ways. Some choices allow you to further question characters about certain aspects of the story (I don't care how much trouble Knuckles might be in, Tails, how have you been lately?), while others just skirt the issue and get right back to the action (the Sonic icon usually does this). Other times they present a variety of replies to give someone, usually not important in the long run. (For instance, when Rouge makes fun at your expense and Amy stands up for you, you can thank Amy for the support or tell her to stop being your ballsack.)

[Wooduck51]

Since I do not have a ds, and am unsure if this game justifies me buying one, I must ask; what is Shadow's mission is in this game? Is he a G.U.N. agent still? is he saving the world just because he can? did Big the cat insult Maria and Gerald's honor and Shadow is on a quest to eat Froggy?

[DBurraki]

I *think* he's still a GUN agent though Rouge doesn't say anything. He joins up with you more or less just to help. He's not uber important.

[Locit]

This game is hilarious, and the battle system is fun. If it holds out for the whole game at this level of entertainment, it's definitely worth buying.

All your overworld tasks are menial - I rolled my eyes when some guy asked me to fetch his stapler, a task which must be completed in order to progress the story - and the puzzles are all less taxing than even the simplest in games like Phantom Hourglass.

It was an Office Space reference. Weird, I know, but there you have it. Plus it took like, thirty seconds to complete.

[DackAttac]

It was an Office Space reference.

I'm buying this cocksucker; I want it now.

[Ritz]

I beat the game yesterday. It's great. I need to start taking notes while I'm playing games, because I had a whole essay to disclose on the subject, but I can't remember everything I wanted to say and I don't feel like it now. It's great, though!

There's one thing that I just really needed to bring up, though: Remember how, in multiple interviews, the folks over at Bioware kept talking about how they planned on bumping Big's IQ up a few notches? They were trolling the interviewers, because he's never been this retarded. Every line he speaks is a timeless gem, such as "My face itches", "I have a plan: Let's get Big some ice cream! ...What?", and Bioware's pièce de résistance: "I think my eyes are broken. No, wait. They're just closed." The whole game, I was waiting for him to get hit by some sort of Nocturnus intelligence beam or something, but no dice. What gives?

[Ritz]

Oh, and the battle system. The whole Elite Beat Agents motif sounds placid on paper, but it made for a challenging and engaging experience. I found myself hinging on every pattern, regardless of whether or not I'd already encountered it 50+ times, and it never seemed to get old. Perhaps it was because I was doing it all with a mouse, which took some of the flow out of it all and made it a decidedly more challenging experience, but hey!

What I don't like, though, is the way the actual attacks are set up; each character only has about 6 individual techniques- which isn't all that bad, as it gives the player more of an incentive to utilize every character at their disposal- but the overwhelming majority of them for most characters in the Power class require very specific combinations of teammates to function. I never once used any attacks that require 3 or 4 characters because I never used those characters together, and even though the game was easy enough for me to get by without me needing them (Not a pro, mind), I always sort of felt inadequate because I wasn't playing the way the game wanted me to.

There are plenty of status effects abound (None of which the game really explains to you), but they just aren't worth paying any attention to. None of the adverse conditions really have any tremendous impact on your characters, and just pelting the enemy with your strongest attacks is always a more efficient method then whittling them down with poison over time or something (And equally taxing on PP- all attacks only require 4-6 points). Most RPGs are like this, but it's particularly bothersome here, as it essentially renders an entire classes of characters (Supports, and a handful of Shifters) worthless, aside from Cream, whose Refresh technique is scrumptiously broken and indispensable for anyone who doesn't want to spend several turns at a time defending to recover PP. By the same token, the items are rather superfluous, with status-alleviating items and equipment being a liability. Here's hoping the sequel balances things out a bit.

Also worth noting is that items which recover +50 PP are in astounding abundance, despite the fact that your characters won't ever exceed a max of 10-15 PP without grinding the fuck out of the game. Take this all into account, along with the game's length and the absolutely mindblowing ending, and you get a game that rivals Sonic '06 in terms of unfinished content. It's still a great game, and I'm eager for the rest of you to get into it, as there's plenty of background information and canon just waiting to be discussed and scrutinized, but it wasn't ready for store shelves.

Well, look at that! I wrote the essay anyway. I'm never satisfied unless I'm doing the exact opposite of whatever stipulations I set for myself.

[Hybrid]

Oh, and the battle system. The whole Elite Beat Agents motif sounds placid on paper, but it made for a challenging and engaging experience. I found myself hinging on every pattern, regardless of whether or not I'd already encountered it 50+ times, and it never seemed to get old. Perhaps it was because I was doing it all with a mouse, which took some of the flow out of it all and made it a decidedly more challenging experience, but hey!

That's my main problem with the game, actually. I'm playing it on the DS, and let me tell you that all these moves are mind-numbingly easy to execute. Once you've mastered interacting with the patterns with Sonic, you've mastered virtually every move in the game. Granted, some of them manage to be challenging by throwing sheer numbers at you (A Tails/Eggman combo attack which OHKO's any robot enemies is a bit tricky to pull off because there's so many circles on the screen), but for the most part they're just too easy and thus quickly become too boring.

I totally agree with your gripe about multi-character moves. Who would honestly have Amy, Big and Cream on their team all at the same time? Why would you ignore powerhouses like Sonic, Shadow, Knuckles and Omega just for the novelty of using a new move? My Sonic is at about level 15 and he has one POW move - Axe Kick - because it's the only one that seems worthwhile without me needlessly weakening myself by bringing crap team members.

I think the one thing that would make this game more enjoyable is more PP. While I don't particularly enjoy the POW mechanics, using them is certainly a lot more entertaining than spending five turns taking out field enemies with basic attacks because you don't want to waste your precious PP.

[Shadow Hog]

So, I was told that somebody major dies. Is this true? The only other person I asked said it wasn't...

[Ritz]

No. Who did they say it was, though? Mighty? Because I'm totally the one who started that.

EDIT: Well, I guess Omega technically dies when Angel Island crashes into Metropolis if you don't rescue him beforehand, but that clearly isn't canon, so.

[Shadow Hog]

Well, he didn't say who it was (even after I asked him repeatedly), he just hinted at it.

I'd just go out and name the guy, but I dunno if he really wants the notoriety, so I'll just say this: he's constantly on #srb2fun, seems to be involved with everything ever, and has an ego the size of Texas. That should be enough for Ritz to take a guess, anyway.

[Hybrid]

Just finished the game.

What the fuck. All the stuff that happens towards the end is awesome, and the Eggman twist is absolutely fantastic. But the game just ends, right when the story has finally taken an unexpected turn and become somewhat interesting. It definitely feels like a game that should've had another five hours in it, and I'm appalled they'd end it where they did and call it a complete game. It's like, SA2 ending right when you learn of the Biolizard. I didn't buy the game, but if I did, I'd feel ripped off. Does it retail for the price of a full game? Because this is definitely not a full game.

[Ritz]

I'd just go out and name the guy, but I dunno if he really wants the notoriety, so I'll just say this: he's constantly on #srb2fun, seems to be involved with everything ever, and has an ego the size of Texas. That should be enough for Ritz to take a guess, anyway.

Fucking Spazzo. You should ban him or something.

What the fuck.

See what I mean? Totally mindblowing. Seriously though, that ending had to have been the most unprofessional stunt I've ever seen a developer pull. I mean, they couldn't even afford to give us a proper credits sequence, for Christ's sake. Bioware seemed like the last company who would ever do that sort of thing, so what happened? The silver lining here is that if/when we do get a sequel, we'll have an entire game devoted to Eggman being awesome, even though it'll probably end with Argus sucking him into the Twilight Cage or something.

Oh, and here's a scatterbrained bullet list of random things I thought about the game:
•Robo Eggman was awesome- shame he only gets two lines of dialogue and a two-minute battle that's about as easy as every other fight in the game. He should've escaped from the Hazard Vault and become a recurring character, like the egg kid from Paper Mario.
• Hell, the Hazard Vault should've been a whole dungeon, because Eggman having a repository of failed contraptions is just such a cool idea, and they totally let it go to waste. It could've had classic badniks as enemies and everything.
• The Chaotix had better be playable in the sequel. If they don't at least have some part in the plot, I won't even buy the game goddamn.
• Scylla and Cheryb were awesome, too. Why are the boss fights in this game always so unremarkable? They should've escaped and made a final stand at the door to Ix's chamber.
• The Voxai arc was my favorite part of the game. It was the only part of the game that felt sufficiently fleshed out, seeing as how they devoted an entire chapter and two whole areas to that segment. Why couldn't everyone else have been given this much attention?
• The Nocturnus fortress was great, too, but far too brief in comparison. Which is a damn shame, since the concept art clearly reveals that there was much more planned for this chapter; remember the whole civillian area in the interior, with the bazaar and the echidna shopkeeps? I wanted to see that. And what about that gateway thing? And the image depicting Sonic and Knuckles looking standoffish amidst those Echidna ruins? It's as though entire plot points were cut out of the game to meet the deadline.

[Delphine]

It was an Office Space reference.

I'm buying this cocksucker; I want it now.

An off-hand pop culture reference to a 9 year old movie makes you want to buy a videogame?

[K2J]

Only if the NPC in question threatened to burn the building down if you didn't complete the sidequest.

[DackAttac]

An off-hand pop culture reference to a 9 year old movie makes you want to buy a videogame?

An awesome 9 year old movie. Besides, it wasn't like I was incredibly pessimistic on this one.

(Well, I never am, but it sounds like I'm actually not wrong this time!)

[Delphine]

Only if the NPC in question threatened to burn the building down if you didn't complete the sidequest.

I would purposely fail to complete the sidequest to see if the NPC actually did it.

[Dr. Watson]

Just a quick question: Is it somehow possible to choose a character other than Sonic to use in the conversations where you get to choose between several replies? Iv'e only gotten to the very begining of the second chapter, but so far only Sonic have ben able to make use of the multiple reply funktion (and also, it seems that whatever character im playing with, all the characters i meet will react as if im playing with Sonic. You know, like, im walking around with Tails and suddenly some GUN-trooper guy goes "Hey, Sonic! It's that you Sonic? It is! Its Sonic!" and then Sonic is the one who answers while Tails just shut the hell up). Have i missed some very fundametal function in the game that lets you select what character will be the "primary" character or something? Or am i just making myself look like a fooltard by asking this? (im pretty sure its the latter, but not sure enough not to ask).

[Shadow Hog]

I'd say it's more like Mario RPG, where you can swap out your partners as much as you want, but Sonic has to be in the party for plot purposes. (Of course, I don't know if Sonic actually HAS to be in the party, having not played the game, but certainly plotwise...)