Sonic Battle Review

Sonic Battle
System: Game Boy Advance
Release: 2005

What's the first thing you think of when you hear Sonic and fighting in the same sentence? Could it be Sonic the Fighters? An obscure brawler staring the Sonic cast and introducing a few new comers such as Bean the Dynamite and Bark the Polar bear. A pretty obscure title that came out in the arcades in the 90's and ported to consoles in 2005. I played it once, and in all honesty, I just wasn't impressed.
... Look, this is the only way I could think about introducing todays title. I have no idea if it was inspired by Fighters or what... but to my knowledge, these are the only two Sonic brawlers out their... no, I'm not counting Super Smash Bros Brawl.
Is Sonic Battle the fighting title this series need?
...
Did the series ever need a fighting title?
Who knows! On with the scoring.

STORY

Things get started as soon as Eggman dumps a new robot of his out on the side of the beach... which Sonic finds. At first, the robot has not personality, but that all changes when it meets Sonic and friends! As it turns out, this robot (dubbed Emerl) is actually a fighting machine that is designed to observe and copy his opponents moves, which over time will turn him into the greatest fighter known to man. Eggman couldn't figure it out and got rid of him, but now that Sonic has got it working he'll stop at nothing to steal it back.
I don't know how to put this... the story feels under whelming... it's nothing spectacular, but at least it's something. Unfortunately, this time the game relies on story as much as gameplay thanks to how it's designed (which I'll get to in a minute). While the plot isn't anything incredible, the writing for the characters is pretty entertaining. Everyone has their own personalty and their own agenda in this title, giving them some life.

SCORE: out of

DESIGN

The game consists of two types of gameplay; over world exploration and battles. The exploration parts of the game is what connects the story together and helps keep everything moving. The over world is split up into a few locations, such as Emerald Beach (the Station Square of this installment), the Chaos Ruins, the Death Egg and others. Rather than controlling your character through the D-pad, you have to guide them with a mouse pointer... which is a little annoying... I mean, what's the point?
Now, let's talk about the big part of the game, the battles. There's no side scrolling adventures in this installment. No rings to collect, no power shields. All the action comes from brawling. Depending on what area you're fighting in, the battlefield will take place in a stage modeled after it. Every arena is in 3D, while the characters are still in 2D... a real interesting idea. Throughout the game, you'll unlock a series of characters to use each with their own unique set of abilities, but it doesn't stop there! After a fight, you win a fighting card that allows you to swap around you're characters abilities and change their fighting style to your liking. If one battle isn't going your way, just experiment with as many combinations as you can.

SCORE: out of

GAMEPLAY

In all honesty... I'm surprised how well this works. For starters, this is on a portable system with two buttons, two triggers, and a d-pad. Yet, the combat works fine! A big part of that could be to the all the ways you can change your characters combat library around. Secondly is the 2D sprites with the 3D battle ground. I was worried that I would have trouble locking punches on the target and given how fast past it can get, I expected the hit detection to fail on me.

Luckily, I was wrong. Now if only they could throw in some power-ups...

SCORE: out of

PRESENTATION

You know... the visuals and sound just aren't doing it for me here. The over world areas were a little boring to explore, and design wise, it seemed... a little bland. Not bad or anything, it's just... I felt they could have made the areas a little more lively and exciting to run around. Look, I know these sections are supposed to serve as getting from point A to point B... but couldn't be just a teensy bit more fun than this?
As for the battle sections, the only gripe I have is that after awhile they begin to blend together. Maybe some of sections could have had moving platforms or moving screens just to spice things up and give the stages more variety rather than just rely on a different paint job.
Music wise... I don't know how to explain it... but compared to past installments, it just feels out of place to me. These are some Sonic tracks I won't be humming anytime soon.

SCORE:

out of

OVERALL

For whatever faults this game has, I would still recommend checking this one out if you haven't. It's a real interesting take on the series and surprising a pretty fun beat 'em up. It's not perfect, but you might like it if you give it a chance. To put it simply, a step up from Sonic the Fighters.

SCORE:

out of

This game was surprisingly fun although a sequel was never made. I got sooo mad trying to finish story mode, but eventually i figured out a pattern: enemy combantants would be "immune" to your special attacks every other life. So if you were using Rouge's Spin Kick to easily finish off Knuckles, when he respawned, your kick wouldn't work or be effective. Smart move, on the designers part, to keep people from power spamming power moves.

Another effective strategy with Sonic turned out to be using a downward spin dash attack that you use in midair. It not only it powerfulm, but you bounce away from the enemy in an outward vector, resulting in you getting a quick, hard hit AND not being around for the enemy's counter-attack. I totally owned Emeril as the last boss like this.