Nintendo Power reveals Sonic Chronicles
The latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine contains a blowout feature of the new Sonic RPG, which is indeed titled Sonic Chronicles. (Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, to be exact about its generic title). While we're still skeptical about the very premise of a Sonic RPG, we must say that the art displayed on the cover is coming perilously close to winning us over. Mystifyingly, the actual screenshots look cool too -- kind of a Sonic Fantasy VII vibe. BioWare seems to be trying to make sense of the whole idea, as well.
Copyright law prevents us from sharing the whole article with you, but a kind NeoGAFfer has summarized the important details of the game in a bulleted list, which we have reproduced after the break. We're just going to take a minute to recover from the shock of the game looking and sounding actually kinda neat. "Elite Beat Agents- style special attacks?" That's awesome!
Oh, Rouge the Bat and Big the Cat are going to be in it. Okay, we're over our shock.
-Cover Story with nice artwork
-In game graphics have a water color look, all hand drawn
-4 party members at a time
-Each character can do certain things ex: Tails can float over things (standard stuff)
-11 party members total - 7 known are Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Rouge, Shadow, Big the Cat
-Control done fully with stylus - think Hourglass
-Able to split party into teams at certain moments
-Rings are used as currency
-No random battles, see enemies on the field
-Turn based battles, choose commands for everyone in your party before they actually follow through. Want battles to be fast paced
-Elite Beat Agents style special attacks
-Team attacks (like Chrono Trigger)
-"Fatigue Points" instead of MP
-Choose which attributes to increase when you level up
-Purchase and level special attacks
-Bits of story - Sonic's on vacation from defeating Eggman 2 years ago. Gets a call from Tails that Knuckles has been kidnapped by a group called the Marauders, and that 6 chaos emeralds are missing. Eggman not the main villain. But Bioware wants to make him a creditable bad guy again. Something about a "twist" between Eggman and Sonic that goes back to the earlier games.
-2 acts - first takes place in standard Sonic areas. 2nd takes place in a darker world
-Remixed classic tunes
-"fully animated cut scenes"
-simple dialogue trees
-Side quests
[Cover via GoNintendo]
