Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood Preview

Crispy Gamer is next in line with a hands-on preview of SEGA and BioWare’s Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.

The 3-D combat is handled in a turn-based fashion, therefore you’ll find yourself facing, say, three big centipedes or a giant worm, and as with many other RPGs, your party will take turns walloping the enemies with that character’s main weapon or with a special attack, and you’ll see the damage done as hit points. Some attacks require real-time stylus work, such as accurately tapping inside fast-moving circles, drawing a pattern or tapping the screen quickly. You can also use up your turn with a defensive move, by using an item such as a healing potion, or by fleeing the scene.

In order to fuel your power-up moves and enable new abilities, players must find and collect “Chao” (pronounced “chow”) in the game. You’ll be able to wirelessly trade Chao with other Nintendo DS players in the room via Wi-Fi in order to unlock everything.

Puzzles were also littered through this Mystic Ruins level. One involved four pads on the ground that required players to step on them in a particular pattern to get Tails to fly to a high ledge. On a related note, if you collect enough rings, which are used as currency in the game, you can buy hints to help solve puzzles, but many will figure out these environmental challenges through trial and error.