Sonic Rush Adventure (Nintendo DS, 2007)

SEGA's Sonic Rush Adventure continues the tale of Sonic and Blaze. Sonic and Tails find themselves mysteriously transported to Blaze's dimension. Now with the help of the feline princess and their new friend, Marine (a female raccoon who lives in Blaze's dimension), they must find a way to get back home...all the while stopping the notorious robot pirate, Captain Whisker.

Right from the first level the game feels just like its predecessor: The smooth movements, the rich colors, and the intense speed. As you go along, though, you'll notice differences. Off the bat you'll notice that the enemies this time around aren't 99% Eggpawns (those humanoid robots that share Dr. Eggman's smile). This is expected as you're dealing with a new enemy. It is better, however, as the enemies look more unique from each other similar to the classic badniks (ie:different animal-type robots). You'll also notice that the levels may feel a bit easier to run through. This is due to there being less bottomless pits (a major plus for many). The obstacles and gimmicks themselves seem more creative (from personified hedgehog/cat-flinging trees to "taxi" dolphins). You'll find yourself thinking "whoa, nice!" from time to time as you progress. The music should also catch your attention as being different from Rush 1; As the first one had many funky almost skat-like vocal music, this game goes more for the instrumental approach (with a few vocal songs here and there). What both styles of music do share is being upbeat...but with SRA's style less people will report turning down/off the music.

What is truly new to Rush Adventure is the "adventure" feature of the game. Southern Island (Marine's home) becomes your headquarters. There you can select different areas on the island (you unlock more areas as you progress). When you select an area you'll enter a small sandbox area where you can talk to the villagers for info or other things. From Southern Island you can head for other islands (these being the actual levels). How you make it to these new places is by ship (which is done by setting a course to a new island and entering a stylus controlled ship mini-game). There are 4 different ships for you to command from a water bike to a submarine. Each ship has its own mini game. While tightly controlled, these mini games may be a hit-or-miss with gamers. The water bike mini game feels fast but other mini games like the submarine one are much slower. Some may feel they stray too far away from the "Sonic Formula". The fact that these mini games are mandatory in order to progress (as well as to get chaos emeralds) may put even more people off. Though you are initially forced to play a mini game to reach a level, once you've reached it you will no longer have to do sail again just to revisit the level thanks to level select and island select (and you need only to enter an act for it to appear in level select/island select).

Along with that are various goodies such as sound test, level time attack, 2P battles (these three being the only old extras), ship time attack, movie theater (watch cut scenes again), 16 hidden islands, island decorating (for Southern Island), 100 missions (some exclusive to Blaze), and WiFi mode (2 competitive modes and leader boards).

When all is said and done, SRA is solid with some shaky parts. Stomach whatever mini games you hate (and Marine if she annoys you) and you may find a worthy sequel with tons of replay value to add to your collection.

Sonic Rush Adventure is at it's core, what you would expect from a Sonic Rush sequel, more of the same, with a few moderately welcome changes to spice things up. The addition of the word "Adventure" provokes thoughts of, well, an adventure game, and while there are adventuresque elements (such as collecting rings for bigger ships to explore more of the ocean) there is really no such adventure to be had as you would have been led to believe.

There is a lot of story dialogue, most of which can be skipped. The shining star of this Sonic game is the actual game-play (as with many other Sonic games). The speed is intense as it should be, the controls are sharp and responsive, and the levels aren't unfairly punishing as with some other sonic games, due to the included "speed boost" that will blast you through enemies and at a higher rate of speed, giving you an incentive to pull off tricks and making the game on a whole much more straightforward and enjoyable instead of frustrating. Boss battle are unusually easy unless you go into the options and turn the difficulty up, probably for the convenience of small children.

Pros: Lots and lots of speed, classic Sonic platforming elements, fun mini-games, nice variety in level design.

Cons: Easy boss battles, long and forgettable dialogue.

Bottom Line: If you're a huge Sonic fan like I am, and you have a DS, paying $10-$20 is a great deal, and even if you're new to the Sonic scene, it is easy to pick-up an play, just forget the dialogue.

My 6 year old really likes this game and hardly puts it down. I'm sure that he will continueto use it until it stops working. I on the other and have not figured it out yet. Anyway, thanks.

I decided to buy it because it is a Sonic game. It's fast, fun, exciting, good character. I have had lots of Sonic games ever since the Sega Genesis. Simply excellent. Highly recommend.

fast and fun just like sonic should be nice colors super fast gameplay love how they use both screens for game play not perfect but a real good sonic game keep making them like this and i will keep buying lol !!!! if you wont buy atleast try to rent it somewhere