Sonic and the Black Knight (review)

Sonic and the Black Knight is the 2nd game in the pitifully named "Sonic Storybook Series" following from 2007's Sonic and the Secret Rings. I remember enjoying Secret Rings on my first playthrough, it was the first 3D Sonic title to focus solely on Sonic and his trademark speed. As time went on, the game's flaws became more apparent, but I still noted the game to be a step in the right direction. Sonic and the Black Knight decides that instead of simply improving on Secret Rings' flaws, it will give us a sword-swinging mechanic that proves to be fairly entertaining, while keeping some problems of the previous game.

The sword play is manageable, despite being executed in a second rate manner. The swordplay is simplistic and there are not a lot of advanced swordplay techniques added in. You'll mostly be doing the exact same move over and over again to defeat the numerous enemies that lie in front of you, most notably the buzz saw move. Whichever way you swing the remote results in the exact same attack patterns with 2 results: you'll either send Sonic spinning forward killing everything(awesome) or you'll just pull him to a dead stop and get jumped by an enemy (Lame).

The missions you play through are short and unlike Secret Rings, seem to have some remote plot purpose. The thing that really bugs me is the ranking system. Like every other Sonic game since Adventure, Black Knight rates you on performance. The problem is that the game doesn't tell you what you need to do to get 5 star rating resulting in 2 to 3 star ratings even when you defeat every enemy and finish the stage in record time. The only exceptions to this are boss stages where 5 stars are rewarded for not taking damage. This mis-communication transfers over into other areas of the game: mostly the QTEs in the boss battles.

The game is split into 2 parts: Sonic vs the Black Knight and a follow-up part that I won't spoil here. The second half of the game is more interesting than the first and the game itself seems to think so as well since it feels like more a lot more work went into it. The overall game won't take more than 4 to 5 hours which is kind of a blessing because the premise, while fun, runs thin by the end.

The game presents itself well. The graphics are top Wii fare, the opening in particular is a thing of beauty. The animatic like cutscenes are a tad more lively than Secret Rings and are wonderful to watch. Sega also seems to finally understand how their characters should act. Sonic's style and quirks captured almost perfectly. It's wonderful seeing Sonic act this. His remarks and jokes are well done as there are some humorous arguments between Sonic and Caliburn, and the cast really shine throughout the dialogue.

I'm glad I rented Sonic and the Black Knight, the game is too short for a $50 dollar purchase. That said this game is much better than Sonic and Secret Rings. The controls are slightly improved and I enjoyed the small bits of fan service (like the use of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 theme songs). Sonic games always seems to suffer from rushed developments and that hasn't changed here. If Sega had really put some extra effort into this game, it really could have been some special, but as it stands, Sonic and the Black Knight is just another average outing for the hedgehog.