Sonic and the Black Knight (Wii) Review

Sonic and the Black Knight is yet another Sonic the Hedgehog game that fails to capture the essence of what made the original Sonic games so great. Instead of dashing through creative obstacle courses at break-neck speed, Sonic is once again weighed down by out of place combat and poor level design. While the game is technically and aesthetically impressive, and sports an imaginative and fun storyline, the entire experience is let down by poor controls and frustrating gameplay. Sonic and the Black Knight should have been an opportunity for SEGA to capitalise on the solid base created by it’s predecessor, Sonic and the Secret Rings, but instead it takes what seemed to be the last remaining quality left in the Sonic franchise and grinds it into the dust.

Sonic and the Black Knight is part of the Sonic storybook series, which sees the blue blur take on some of the world’s best loved literary stories. This time around it is King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, which provides an excellent fantasy setting for the whole range of Sonic characters. As with Sonic and the Secret Rings, the traditional tale has been somewhat twisted and Sonic finds himself in an alternate to the traditional Arthurian legend. In this version, a sorceress named Merlina (granddaughter of Merlin) is battling to save Camelot from The Black Knight (an evil King Arthur), who has been bewitched and made immortal by the power of the magical scabbard of the mighty sword Excalibur. In the opening scene, Merlina has been cornered by the Black Knight and his demonic servants, and in a last ditch attempt to escape, she summons Sonic to help in her fight to save Camelot. Sonic quickly comes to the rescue of the damsel in distress, but is prevented from taking on the evil villain by Merlina, who teleports them away to the Lady of the Lake. It is here that Sonic is presented with the legendary sword, Caliburn, and here that his quest to free Camelot from the evil knight really begins.

The storyline seems very straightforward, but it turns out there is far more than a simple battle between good and evil going on. It is nothing that is going to win awards, but at least the story has some unexpected twists and turns. One of the cool things is the incorporation of the stable of Sonic characters into the story, although sometimes it does come across as a little contrived. The dialogue too can sometimes be quite stilted. There has been plenty of effort to make it edgy and cool, but more often than not it just doesn’t work. In the early 90s, Sonic, the hedgehog with attitude, was cool, but now, almost 20 years later, Sonic’s too-cool-for-school attitude is outdated and lame.

It is easy to ignore some of the more cringe-worthy moments though, especially because of the exceptionally high quality of the overall presentation. The graphics, animation and cut-scenes are all top quality, with wonderfully detailed environments, characters and animated sequences. The audio production is also excellent with a high quality soundtrack and voice work which complements the visual presentation perfectly. The technical production is also fantastic, with a solid framerate and competent camera helping the game to shine.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the gameplay. While some progress was made to finally bring the traditional Sonic the Hedgehog gameplay into the three dimensional era with Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic Unleashed, Sonic and the Black Knight pays absolutely no attention to what worked, and more importantly, what didn’t work in those two games. Instead of fast action, crazy loops and enormous jumps, the gameplay is made up of short bursts of running, broken up by clunky combat with brainless enemies that hardly move. It’s not fun, it’s not fast and most importantly, it’s not Sonic.

The controls don’t help to relieve this situation either, with unresponsive analogue and motion controls hampering the already frustrating gameplay. The analogue stick is used to control Sonic, but the input is indirect and never feels like it has too much of a bearing on what is happening on the screen. Motion controls are used to control the combat elements and unfortunately it is another case of a motion being used in place of a button press. Swinging the Wii-remote to slash Sonic’s sword is not responsive or accurate enough, doesn’t add anything to the gameplay and becomes tiresome sooner rather than later.

All of this frustration is all over much too quickly as well, with the main game only clocking in at a few hours long. There are plenty of playable characters, but none of them make any real difference to the gameplay and provide no compelling reason to come back once the main quest is completed. There is an extensive gallery of items, art, videos and character biographies to unlock, but only the most dedicated will ever bother to keep playing long enough to see it all. The multiplayer element is extremely poor and not worth even the short time it takes to set up a game. The addition of online leader boards and item trading is nice and works well, but pointless when considering the overall poor quality of the main gameplay experience.

Personal thoughts

Somebody got combat in my Sonic game…AGAIN! That was my reaction when I first had to pull Sonic up out of a full blown sprint and fight some non-descript enemies with imprecise waggle controls.

Sonic and the Secret Rings remains the closest that a modern Sonic the Hedgehog game has come to recapturing the true spirit of the traditional Sonic style. The only problem with that game was the inaccurate nature of the motion controls. It got the speed and the chaotic nature of the loops, vertical walls and pinball style gameplay just right, but it was hampered by some unwise decisions in the control department. When Sonic and the Black Knight was announced, I instantly assumed that the team had gone back to the original idea and thrown out what didn’t work (motion control) and kept what did (the level design). That would have made sense, right? Well instead of doing that, the team threw out the good stuff (level design) along with the bad stuff (motion controls) and then added the worst part of Sonic Unleashed (combat with motion controls). What was left doesn’t deserve to have the Sonic the Hedgehog name, even compared to some of the abominations that have worn the name over the past 10 years or so.

Why SEGA continually feel the need to add unnecessary and unwanted elements to Sonic games is beyond me. The original Sonic games were good because they were simple. One button. Jump, that’s it. One objective. Get to the end of the stage as quick as possible. The fun came from the excellent level design. Now, instead of that we have guns, swords, werehogs and any other number of gimmicks to try to help Sonic adapt to the 3D age and absolutely no attention paid to the level design. It is getting very disheartening.

SEGA, go back to Sonic and the Secret Rings. Throw out the motion controls. Implement some responsive analogue steering for Sonic and if you must use motion control, use it so we can dash-attack enemies while we maintain our speed. That’s it. Oh, and put the loops and crazy level design back in too. Unless you do that, the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is officially dead.