Sonic Chronicles: Worth purchasing?

Mr. Beef

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I'm still on the fence about this. I've heard some good things about it, but I haven't actually heard anything from people I know who've actually played the game. Has anyone here tried it yet? And if so, is worth a purchase?
 
I own it, Im just on the second chapter though, the thing that I like ALOT is that it has that Super Mario RPG: Secret of the Seven Stars charm to it via battle system, I think its worth it
 
For me... I think I might have enjoyed it, but the sound quality on the game was so terrible I think it killed it for me. I have a good set of headphones and all games I've played have a nice full and rich sound, with a decent amount of bass even considering it's a DSLite. This game however sounds really bad. The music is a bit grainy and sounds like a really low bitrate MP3. It's also tinny and has no bass at all and reminds me of some 80s music - lots of treble and no bass. I don't think I've ever dumped a game before because of sound quality. I guess it's up to you to determine how much this means to you.
 
[quote name='Poor2More']I own it, Im just on the second chapter though, the thing that I like ALOT is that it has that Super Mario RPG: Secret of the Seven Stars charm to it via battle system, I think its worth it[/QUOTE]

what?

i dont remember 7 stars you had to trace a line or your magic dont work

So if you have a dead spot on your touch screen your mostly screwed
 
I'm really interested in this game... but I've held off since the ign review was so low. I might pick it up at the buy 2 get 1 free sale next week. I like the mario rpgish elements usually.
 
[quote name='slidecage']what?

i dont remember 7 stars you had to trace a line or your magic dont work

So if you have a dead spot on your touch screen your mostly screwed[/quote]
Reread that title. He was referencing Mario RPG: Secret of the Seven Stars.

[quote name='rothgar24']I'm really interested in this game... but I've held off since the ign review was so low. I might pick it up at the buy 2 get 1 free sale next week. I like the mario rpgish elements usually.[/quote]
I saw that IGN review as well, but after reading it, the main thing they were complaining about was the fact that you have to revisit older places later in the game, just like most RPGs. So I didn't really pay them any mind.
 
I'm skipping it. Usually love Bioware RPGs, but I just can't stand the Sonic characters, and some of the knocks in the reviews (battles being like Elite Beat Agents which I hated) and the game being entirely touch screen controlled further killed my interest in it.
 
[quote name='Mr. Beef']Reread that title. He was referencing Mario RPG: Secret of the Seven Stars.
[/QUOTE]

It's actually Legend of the Seven Stars.
 
The Wired review gave it a 7/10. LINK

Huh. Which I thought may have been a high review based on what I'd been hearing, but the Metacritic average is 77, so it's one of the lower-scored reviews. LINK
 
Why all the hate? :(

I bought this, and I wouldn't say I love it, but I really enjoy playing it. It's one RPG I've actually played consistantly. I've always liked Sonic (although not recent stuff) and it adds sort of a charm to the game. It has a Mass Effect element in it, where you can choose different replies in conversations; although it doesn't affect the outcome of the story, you can find out more about it by asking questions instead of just moving on.

I will admit that the game lacks polish, as some of the 3D effects in battle aren't too great, and the sound could be better. I'd give it a solid 8-8.5/10, worth the buy.
 
[quote name='Ski Hawk']Why all the hate? :(

I bought this, and I wouldn't say I love it, but I really enjoy playing it. It's one RPG I've actually played consistantly. I've always liked Sonic (although not recent stuff) and it adds sort of a charm to the game. It has a Mass Effect element in it, where you can choose different replies in conversations; although it doesn't affect the outcome of the story, you can find out more about it by asking questions instead of just moving on.

I will admit that the game lacks polish, as some of the 3D effects in battle aren't too great, and the sound could be better. I'd give it a solid 8-8.5/10, worth the buy.[/quote]

Is the control all-stylus or is it stylus just for some special abilities in battles?

/tk
 
[quote name='terpkristin']Is the control all-stylus or is it stylus just for some special abilities in battles?

/tk[/QUOTE]

Totally stylus.

From the IGN review.

Sonic Chronicles is an all-touch game, so while you'll still be using the DS in the standard "top and bottom screen" position and not book form, you won't need to make use of a single button from the second you boot, to the moment you turn the game off.
 
i cant figure out where the hell the last piece is to complete chapter 3. been stuck in chapter 3 probally 4 hours..... Too bad the game is so open ended you will get lost and have no clue where to what to do

Probally return it to Blockbuster sunday instead of a rerental
 
This game is more similar to Paper Mario series than the Mario Rpg: Legend of Seven Stars. Your characters each have unique abilities. Sonic can dash. Tails can fly. Knuckles can climb huge cliffs. Each of these abilities can either advance to your next destination or find hidden goodies. Also, there are team attacks in this game which is also similar to Paper Mario series.

When your playing a Bioware game, you know what to expect. You can generate different conversations pending on your choices, you got your side quests and ability to customize characters by distributing points on either stats or skills. The combat system uses like elite beat style. You have to time your traces or tap the circles with your stylus. This only applies to special attack, normal attack have no timing system. Bioware also implemented a new running system. If you or your enemy start running, you active a chase sequence that comes in side scrolling view. You can tap your stylus on your character to avoid crates that may slow you down.


There are lot of little problems in this game like limited pp(aka mp), lengthy battles which can easily be solved by giving you more pp, you can't switch your characters on go and clunky inventory management.
 
[quote name='slidecage']i cant figure out where the hell the last piece is to complete chapter 3. been stuck in chapter 3 probally 4 hours..... Too bad the game is so open ended you will get lost and have no clue where to what to do

Probally return it to Blockbuster sunday instead of a rerental[/QUOTE]

How can you get lost in this game? It's pretty easy to figure out. What are you missing?
The electronic equipment to find Eggman?

1. In swamp stage, go to left of plane for first piece.
2. In swamp stage, go to puzzle area in lower left corner to trigger a fight scene with Evil Sonic.
3. In first city, go to left area of map. Use Knuckles ability to climb. Talk to robot then choose to free him.
4. In first stage, around the puzzle area with 4 panels. Enter nearby cave to fight scorpion.

5. In first stage, go left area near the mountains. Use Amy to smash the box then use Knuckles to climb the roof. This will trigger an event.

Afterwards, head back to city. Go to shopping area. Nearby shopping area , you should see a house. Enter it. Talk to man to find his stapler. Go back to first stage. Head to beach which is located to your right. Talk to man to get your stapler. Now go back and return your stapler.

Once you get the device, return to first stage. Go left area near mountains. Climb up with Knuckes. The device given by stapler guy will remove the forcefield.
 
[quote name='slidecage']i cant figure out where the hell the last piece is to complete chapter 3. been stuck in chapter 3 probally 4 hours..... Too bad the game is so open ended you will get lost and have no clue where to what to do

Probally return it to Blockbuster sunday instead of a rerental[/QUOTE]

Which piece are you missing? Does it involve finding the missing pieces to find Eggman? Is it the one with the stapler?


Go to first stage. Head to left area near the mountains. Use amy hammer to destroy blocks then use Knuckles to climb the area. This will trigger an event.

Head back to first town. Go near the shopping district it will trigger a blimp in your map. Head to that area and agree to find his stapler. Now head back to first stage. Go to left area of map near beach area. Talk to man to get your stapler back. Return stapler to get a device.

Afterwards, head back to first stage again. Head to left area near the mountains. Use Knuckles to climb the area. With the new device it will lower the forcefield.
 
Are battles random like a traditional JRPG or are they more like Tails of Symphonia where you can see and dodge enemies? All in all this doesn't look that horrible to me, but with games like Fallout 3 coming out, I am less excited for this game.
 
[quote name='fatbeer']Which piece are you missing? Does it involve finding the missing pieces to find Eggman? Is it the one with the stapler?


Go to first stage. Head to left area near the mountains. Use amy hammer to destroy blocks then use Knuckles to climb the area. This will trigger an event.

Head back to first town. Go near the shopping district it will trigger a blimp in your map. Head to that area and agree to find his stapler. Now head back to first stage. Go to left area of map near beach area. Talk to man to get your stapler back. Return stapler to get a device.

Afterwards, head back to first stage again. Head to left area near the mountains. Use Knuckles to climb the area. With the new device it will lower the forcefield.[/QUOTE]

it was another one in the same thing as the shop (one of the hideouts) now that i cleared chapter 3 probally start chapter 4 tonight..... dont know to rent it or just return it sunday
 
[quote name='Sir_Fragalot']Are battles random like a traditional JRPG or are they more like Tails of Symphonia where you can see and dodge enemies? All in all this doesn't look that horrible to me, but with games like Fallout 3 coming out, I am less excited for this game.[/QUOTE]

No random encounters. You have a choice to avoid or fight them.


[quote name='slidecage']it was another one in the same thing as the shop (one of the hideouts) now that i cleared chapter 3 probally start chapter 4 tonight..... dont know to rent it or just return it sunday[/QUOTE]


For stage 4, you buy some economizer at the shop. This accessory reduce your pp spell cost by 1. Yeah, I forgot to mention, that it is insanely hard to get money in this game.

The fast way to defeat your enemies and get easy xp by using
Evil Sonic
. Distribute your points towards the tag special with Sonic and keep spamming it. Stay near ship to quickly replenish your pp. Remember, your exp growth based on your enemies. It will start decline for each level you will gain.


Another weird thing, you can't distribute more than 10 stats on particular stats such as strength, defense, luck and speed. It's stat cap. Also, you stop gaining stats distribution during level 21 and up.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[quote name='fatbeer']No random encounters. You have a choice to avoid or fight them.





For stage 4, you buy some economizer at the shop. This accessory reduce your pp spell cost by 1. Yeah, I forgot to mention, that it is insanely hard to get money in this game. You can only gather money by two sources: gold rings scatter stage which doesn't reset in game plus, only eggs and rings during those chase sequences. It kinda stupid you can't sell your items for cash.


The fast way to defeat your enemies and get easy xp by using
Evil Sonic
. Distribute your points towards the tag special with Sonic and keep spamming it. Stay near ship to quickly replenish your pp. Remember, your exp growth based on your enemies. It will start decline for each level you will gain.


Another weird thing, you can't distribute more than 10 stats on particular stats such as strength, defense, luck and speed. It's stat cap. Also, you stop gaining stats distribution during level 21 and up.[/QUOTE]

i thought you could sell your items in the shop? says BUY and SELL

im getting better with the tracing LOL (broke my wrist a few years back so its hard to move the way the stupid game makes you draw)
 
[quote name='fatbeer']This game is more similar to Paper Mario series than the Mario Rpg: Legend of Seven Stars. Your characters each have unique abilities. Sonic can dash. Tails can fly. Knuckles can climb huge cliffs. Each of these abilities can either advance to your next destination or find hidden goodies. Also, there are team attacks in this game which is also similar to Paper Mario series.

When your playing a Bioware game, you know what to expect. You can generate different conversations pending on your choices, you got your side quests and ability to customize characters by distributing points on either stats or skills. The combat system uses like elite beat style. You have to time your traces or tap the circles with your stylus. This only applies to special attack, normal attack have no timing system. Bioware also implemented a new running system. If you or your enemy start running, you active a chase sequence that comes in side scrolling view. You can tap your stylus on your character to avoid crates that may slow you down.


There are lot of little problems in this game like limited pp(aka mp), lengthy battles which can easily be solved by giving you more pp, you can't switch your characters on go and clunky inventory management.[/quote]
Limited PP is easily offset by using Cream in your party.
 
[quote name='slidecage']i thought you could sell your items in the shop? says BUY and SELL

im getting better with the tracing LOL (broke my wrist a few years back so its hard to move the way the stupid game makes you draw)[/QUOTE]

Opps, I forgot about sell tab.

[quote name='Ski Hawk']Limited PP is easily offset by using Cream in your party.[/QUOTE]
Well, you can also regain pp with Tails also. But that's not the point. The pp growth is slim to none. You get around 25 pp for max level mage characters while later in game you get these items that replenish 50pp. Something not right there
 
[quote name='Ski Hawk']Limited PP is easily offset by using Cream in your party.[/QUOTE]

my cream always fails on this move for some reason. i hit both dots but it says FAILED
 
I was hoping for something similar to Mario RPG. Granted I only played for an hour or so but my hopes were a bit too high and I am disappointed. I am also a bit biased from the start because pure stylus games that could have used the dpad/buttons for a lot of things (like moving and/or attack commands) irritate me.

My suggestion is not to pay the new game price for this. Glad I only tried it out for little and didn't buy.

EDIT: There are some cool ideas and it really is a nice "rough draft" of a game. The bit I played was very... clunky and wow was the music bad.
 
Meh, I'm enjoying this game very much. I'd recommend for people to at least give it a try as a rental (Which I'm doing w/ Gamefly). I think it's purchase worthy, but since after beating most RPGs I just sell them, I'm fine with a rental.

It reminds me a lot of the Mario & Luigi games in the battle system...just with stylus use instead of button combination. Though I have to agree with most here with the complain on stylus only gameplay. After some time, my hand gets cramped up.

The music...yeah I also think the music isn't all that great, especially the Metropolis music. I think I'm in act 5 or 6 so far.

Well...I'm just saying that if I had bought this game, I wouldn't have regretted it. Still consider it very fun.

Edit: Oh and I'm not really a Sonic fan or anything. I never owned a Sega system and the first Sonic game I played from start to finish was the Wii one.
 
[quote name='D4rkewolfe']Meh, I'm enjoying this game very much. I'd recommend for people to at least give it a try as a rental (Which I'm doing w/ Gamefly). I think it's purchase worthy, but since after beating most RPGs I just sell them, I'm fine with a rental.

It reminds me a lot of the Mario & Luigi games in the battle system...just with stylus use instead of button combination. Though I have to agree with most here with the complain on stylus only gameplay. After some time, my hand gets cramped up.

The music...yeah I also think the music isn't all that great, especially the Metropolis music. I think I'm in act 5 or 6 so far.

Well...I'm just saying that if I had bought this game, I wouldn't have regretted it. Still consider it very fun.

Edit: Oh and I'm not really a Sonic fan or anything. I never owned a Sega system and the first Sonic game I played from start to finish was the Wii one.[/quote]
I bought the game and the guide and don't regret the purchase one bit. It's a fun game with charm, and the music really isn't "unbearable" to me.
 
So I finally broke down and bought it. And I have to say, I'm not regretting it. I don't know how many chapters the game is (I'm on 6/7, the one with all the rock monsters), and I'm loving it.
 
I just finished this game tonight - FUN GAME! Don't let the haters ruin this experience for you. If you enjoyed Elite Beat Agents at all, like RPGs, or like Sonic, then this will no doubt be an enjoyable experience for you.

The game isn't too easy, although Cream
if you can find, makes the game rather easy, especially if you use the Chao that lets you never fail a PP move - just keep using heal and refresh
.

Regarding the last guy
rather easy, but what in the world was up with "Super Sonic" - I'm assuming this was part of the Sonic lore already? very strange final battle "???" HP and stuff like that. Weird.

Also regarding the ending
very interesting way of handling the credits, good humor in the ending and throughout the game

Not sure the game deserves an A (the moves get a little repetitive - no need to use different skills - and the equipment could have been implemented better, I think) but it definitely doesn't deserve a C. I'd give it a B+. Definitely try it!
 
This game made me decide i don't want to buy Elite Beat Agents. I don't mind the concept in Sonic RPG, but an entire game with this game play would get tiring. I don't even like the Sonic universe but picked this up for $20 from Amazon b/c bioware developed it. I'd give it a 7 or C average. It does get frustrating if you can't find something, but that is why there is gamefaqs. I don't like that it is all stylis driven. i hate games that don't let me use the damn dpad, but all in all it is an ok game. I think a rental for this one or gamefly it. i guess in the end i've gotten board with it and moved on to something else. This doesn't mean much since i don't finish most games. i'll stick with my score of C or average.
 
[quote name='aknowlesjr']This game made me decide i don't want to buy Elite Beat Agents. I don't mind the concept in Sonic RPG, but an entire game with this game play would get tiring. I don't even like the Sonic universe but picked this up for $20 from Amazon b/c bioware developed it. I'd give it a 7 or C average. It does get frustrating if you can't find something, but that is why there is gamefaqs. I don't like that it is all stylis driven. i hate games that don't let me use the damn dpad, but all in all it is an ok game. I think a rental for this one or gamefly it. i guess in the end i've gotten board with it and moved on to something else. This doesn't mean much since i don't finish most games. i'll stick with my score of C or average.[/quote]

I would still try EBA. It is an excellent game.
 
I finally finished this game up today. I liked it quite a bit, even though there are some flaws and rough edges. I think the ign/gamespot reviews were way too unforgiving (6-range). I'm kind of hoping they come out with a sequel that irons out the issues people like fatbeer listed.

I liked the touch screen combat controls. Like a few people noted, using Cream for pp is a must (especially with the tip from above about the never-fail chao). I couldn't imagine how long/boring some of the battles would be if you could rarely use pow moves.
 
I got this game when it first came out and I enjoyed it. I especially liked that Cream refilled everyone's PP. I hated the obvious build up to a sequel but it seems like trilogies are the thing to do now. I will most likely pick up the second installment.
 
...I booted Cream from my party because...well, she's Cream. I didn't even know that she refilled PP until afterwards. Whoops!
 
Yeah Cream was a crucial part of my battle strategy. I really liked this game.

I wholeheartedly agree with the flaws everybody mentioned: story drags for entire first half of the game, music is terrible in battles (not that much better outside of them), your attacks miss if enemies evade you, no matter how well you play, and lame FMVs.

Still I liked the level up system a lot and battles are structured differently than what I'm used to in most JRPGs. The story does get better if you stick it out (I understand if you don't) and I think the game looks great. I'm positive the sequel will improve on all the aspects (especially the pacing part, by the very nature of the ending).

Overall I would suggest trying it out, but certainly not paying more than 20 bucks for this one.
 
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