The Whole Game in My Hand #11

Another review piece covering handheld RPG gaming is available on RPGWatch, with the biggest title likely being Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. It therefore becomes the featured review.

First, one of the key things in making an engaging RPG is having interesting characters. Sadly the characters of the Sonic world really aren’t that interesting. Bioware tries from the start to show the contrasts, the conflicts and the tensions between the characters and their lives in the past. These characters were built out of 2D action-platform characters, so attempting to move them into a fully realized story-driven RPG in the grand tradition of Bioware RPG’s seems a fool’s errand. That isn’t to say they are completely uninteresting, just that there isn’t much depth to them.

The next problem is that the dialogue choices really don’t matter. Whether you choose action, stroking another character’s ego or constantly making snarky remarks, it doesn’t matter to the flow of the game or the relationships within the party. There is no ‘influence system’ here that we have become accustomed to in some of the recent Bioware games (and Obsidian sequels to Bioware games). I went through the game trying to play my archetypal Paladin and it really didn’t make a difference.