Sonic Shuffle
Reviewed by Dale Kulas
The Game
Yes, the patented 'party' games craze makes it debut on
Dreamcast with the release of Sonic Shuffle, which just
happened to be developed by Hudson Soft, the same people who
worked on the trio of Mario Party games on the N64. Actually
I never played any of these party games before so I don't
know what I'm in for, but will this deliver? Let's get onto
the review and find out.
Graphics
Well, the character models look nothing like they do off
Sonic Adventure. They look a little bit on the cartoon-ish
side, and pretty much part for part off the Saturday morning
cartoon show. They all look really bright and colorful, and
but they come off a little bit on the kiddy side to me.
Actually this is probably the most kiddy Sonic game I ever
played. The boards are really detailed too, each space has
its distinguishing characteristic so you know what type of
function it does. All the mini games look great, and look a
lot like polished off N64 ones. Some they manage to fit on
split screen, other mini games just use the whole screen
with just smaller characters and environments. Everything
runs at a fast frame rate, and slowdown is rare.
Now onto the bad, whenever you see the characters talk,
(they actually use voices in this game to talk), and once
they get done talking, you still see there mouths move, it
just gets really annoying. Also between every battle, mini
game, dual, there are horrid 10-15 second loading times,
well at least they give you a screen with a tidbit on items
in the game, but man will those loading times get on your
nerve! Oh, yeah, the text screens are barely up there long
enough and disappear before you're even done reading them!
Sound
Well, the voice acting is really good and sounds exactly
like it does off the cartoon show, well, except for
Knuckles' voice, who sounds like an 80 year old Superman.
But everything else, sounds appropriate, like the sound
effects, and the background music is fairly decent as well,
you barely here it over all the sound effects, but it's
faded just right so it doesn't get tedious.
Game play
The game is mostly turned based, so learning how to control
is not a factor, well except in the mini games it is, but
all have text screens telling you the fairly simple controls
for all the mini games. This game really looks like the
Mario Party games (haven't played it, but seen enough
pictures and reviews of it to make comparisons), except
replace Mario stuff with Sonic stuff, like coins with rings,
and so on. You go on a game board, and your object is to
make it to several jewel stones randomly placed on the
board, you move by selecting numbered cards, with secret
cards like Dr. Robotnick, no wait, he's Egg Man now, cards
that do something bad to you like miss a turn or lose rings.
To get a jewel stone you must win a battle by playing a
numbered card and having it's number being equal or higher
then your foe's . Win battles to get items, you can use the
items to do various things like move extra spaces, disable
certain spaces from other players and so on. Other spaces
have you lose rings, gain rings, get in mini games, or
battles. The game plays rather slowly and can take upon over
an hour to complete, with unfortunately, no mid game save
function. So I was really disappointed to find out I had to
come to work late after playing a game of this. Oh, and
there's only 4 players: Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, plus
some others to be unlocked, which I'll explain later.
For game modes, there's only 4. First there's story mode,
where you go travel with Sonic and friends in there quest
against Egg Man (I just hate that name!) Then there's vs.
where you just play one round for fun. Then there's a really
good tutorial mode, which taught me pretty good on how to
play the game in only 5 minutes. And last, there is the
Sonic Room, which is basically the 's ecrets shop' that's
been popping up in games like mad where you buy secret
characters, boards and items. Oh, you can also keep track of
stats in there too.
Replay Value
I guess this is really made as a party game for multi
players, because I really didn't like the story mode one
bit. Nor did I like playing vs. mode all by myself either.
But I guess you might wanna play forever to unlock all that
stuff in the Sonic Room if you want. I did have one friend
over and he only played for about 20 minutes before out of
no where, in a mini game, he yelled, 'No More! No More!
Let's play NFL 2K and 1!' And that's odd how my friend is
usually a big fan of party games, but he didn't seem to like
this one bit.
In Brief
+: Nice (although really kiddy) graphics, great voice
acting, mini games are fun
-: Weak story, no mid game save feature, horrible loading
times
The Final Ratings Rundown
Graphics: 7. 1
Sound: 8. 0
Game play: 4. 3
Replay Value: 2. 1
Overall: 5.3 out of 10
Comments
I don't think I like these 'party' games. I was sick to
death of this game within an hour. Even if it has a great
license, even though the graphics and sound are quite good
in this game, the replay value and ill fated loading times
make it worse. But I guess if you liked the Mario Party
games, and if you're a fan of Sonic games, then I guess you
should give this game a try.
OR
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