Sonic Rush Adventure review

Sept 18, 2007

Your first clue should be in the name; not Sonic Rush 2, but Sonic Rush Adventure. You already know what this means - so let's give a warm welcome to the return of all that extracurricular nonsense. As the (flimsy) story goes, Sonic and Tails smash-land their plane into a strange airborne structure and find themselves marooned on a tropical archipelago. There, they bump into a new pal, Marine the Racoon, and, inevitably, Blaze the Charisma-Free Cat. Our heroes club together to solve the mystery of how anyone gets paid to write this crock, a process that involves moving from one island to another, navigating themed worlds.

You don't automatically move from one island to another upon completing a level: instead, you've got to plot your course from one island to another using the stylus and then manually sail your way to your destination. Occasionally, and boringly, you'll find yourself needing to replay old levels to collect vague materials so that Tails, hopelessly miscast as chief designer of watercraft, can devise a new boat capable of propelling you to ever-further lands. The problem is that while none of the minigames are that bad, equally none are likely to pop into your head while you're writing your memoirs. Worse still, these often dwarf the game; you can spend upward of five minutes plotting a course to a tiny island, all for about 48 seconds of action.