3RRDC SonicShuffle

Here's something different. After Mario Party made the mini-
game/board game genre cool, it was only a matter of time before every
other big name star got their name on the party list. So while we saw
mostly second rate characters like the Rugrats and the M&M's getting
party games, we also saw Sega's leading man throwing a party of his
very own, or rather his own little shuffle. But anyone can throw a party,
so let's see how Sonic did with this little shindig he was planning.

First, we get some new Sonic characters introduced to the cast, and
one of them isn't half bad. See, there's this dream world called
"maginaryworld". It's kept alive by the power of the precious stones.
But one day, a mysterious and kinda cool creature "Void" comes in and
shatters the stones! So the guardian fairy, Lumina Flowlight, sends out
a message to the other worlds so that heroes can come and save
maginaryworld. And wouldn't you know it, Sonic gets the call. So Sonic
and his pals race to maginaryworld, but they are followed in by Eggman
because he wants to steal the precious stones for himself. Not a bad
story actually, quite different then any other Sonic adventure. Void is
actually a pretty interesting character, but Lumina is kinda lame.

The game starts off with 4 characters: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy
Rose. But you can unlock 4 more thankfully to fill out the cast a little
bit. E-102 Gamma, Big the Cat, a Chao, and Super Sonic are all
unlockable. Each character has their own skill on the boards, like
Knuckles can use the climbing spaces, Tails can use the flying spaces,
and Sonic the speed spaces.

From the main menu we see Story, Versus, Tutorial, Sonic Room, and
Load file. Story mode progresses through the five story boards as you
race to get the precious stones around the colorful board game
worlds. This one is also sprinkled with cut scenes between the levels,
and is for one-player only

Versus mode is the standard party mode where you get up to 4 human
players to play together. Tutorial explains how the game works and
then there is the Sonic Room. By collecting rings in the game you can
unlock things in here. You can unlock pictures from the photo album,
play mini-games that you unlocked in Story mode, and the room will get
more fuller as you progress in the game, like it will be decorated with
dolls of the characters, plants, and fish for Sonic's fish tank.

Now onto the actual game. Unlike Mario Party, there are no dice in this
game. You are given cards that you view on your VMU that say how
many spaces you can go. Looking at the VMU is a cool idea, and I
thought it utilized the memory card pretty well. But you can also steal
cards from other players to spice things up. The goal is to collect the
most precious stones. But there are a lot of special spaces that stand
in your way from just lollie-gagging to the stones. There are monster
spaces where you must use your cards to pick a higher number then
them, beating them giving you a forcejewel. These are just special
items like pick two cards, slow down this person, etc. Ring spaces give
you rings, and unlike Mario Party, mini-games are not after every turn.
Instead they are on specially marked spaces on the boards.

This means that you could potentially play like 4 mini-games in one
turn if everyone went for those spaces. At the end of the game,
emblems will be awarded out depending on who won the most mini-
games, who had the most rings, you know stuff like that. Oh watch out
for Eggman, his spaces will bring a series of unfortunate events. Then
each board has its own set of special quest spaces. These involve little
side quests to the boards which will reward you in the end with an
emblem. Finally get to the precious stone, fight a boss using the cards,
and go find the next one.

The mini-game spaces are unique in that sometimes it loads a mini-
event, which is rather cool. It's a little choose your own adventure
thing where you look at some pics and read text. Most of it is unlike
anything in the Sonic universe, with a pick pocket on the street,
medusa's tomb, and at the carnival. Pretty cool stuff. These usually
give you rings, but some will take away rings, so you never know.

As for the mini-games themselves, there are quite a few and a lot of
them are really cool. Some of the mini-games are also level specific, in
that they only happen on certain levels. The ideas for the games are
pretty wild, like "DJ Sonic" where one player scratches a record where
the other three are on as they try to dodge electric currents. There are
racing ones, fighting ones, team work ones, tag ones, shooting ones,
jumping ones, just a lot of them.

Cell-shaded baby, that's how the graphics are here. And it looks ok
sure, not as visually impressive as Sonic Adventure was back then, but
certainly interesting and keeping with the lighter feel of the game. The
opening intro is actually really sweet looking, and it almost looks like a
cartoon, but I think it's just really good graphics. The cell-shaded stuff
looks ok, sure Sonic's teeth look like fangs in this one, but other then
that, not a problem. The boards range from tropical, to a flying plane,
to a forest, to a runaway train, to this freaky 4th-dimension level. And
on the tropical board there is an ice section, so the boards are big, and
they look varied and things change on them (trees fall down, etc). It
would have been nice for more as always, but what's there is good.

The sound is mostly good. The opening intro music is freaking sweet,
but the in game music is interesting. I can remember some of the zany
mini-game music, it's pretty weird. The board music is less memorable,
but it wasn't anything bad at least. One thing of note is that the voice
actors from Sonic Adventure reprise their roles here. So if you liked
them in that game, you'll be happy. Void has a kinda girly voice, sounds
kinda like buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls. Hmm, might just be me.

Replay wise, there's the 4 hidden characters, beating Story mode,
unlocking all the mini-games, and collecting the little doodads in the
Sonic Room. Also it's decent multiplayer that is worth a spin every now
and then. But there's two catches that really keeps the game from
being awesome.

First, the loading is way too long. At least the loading screens are nice,
but there's just way too much loading going on, and it really slows
down the pace of what should be a more up beat game. Second, Story
Mode can be a total bitch. The computers always seem to know what
cards to pick and what cards you have, and they always seem to pick
the right cards in the battles. Even on easy it seems just a little too
cheap. This cheapness will make you steer clear of Story Mode for a
while, but the loading won't help make you want to play multiplayer.
It's a shame, a little more time working out these issues and this game
could have been great.

So it looks like Mario is still the top party animal in these woods. Sonic
gave it a good and memorable go, however, he just wasn't ready for
hosting all of his guests. Props to the development team though for
coming out with a neat story, the Void character, using cell shading,
fun mini-games, awesome mini-events, and overall not a shabby
package. Just a flawed one with those killer load times and intense
difficulty. I recommend this game to Sonic fans, and Mario Party fans,
and for those looking for a new Dreamcast multiplayer experience,
everyone else might just wanna keep to their Powerstone 2 for your DC
multiplayer needs. Maybe next time Sonic!

Review by: Orochi Sonic