Sonic Shuffle

In terms of game flow, Sonic Shuffle is very similar to Mario Party, though with enough differences to allow it to narrowly escape the "rip-off" label. Each player controls one of the Sonic characters. As in Mario Party, players take turns moving their characters around a game board, choosing which of many branching paths to take. Depending on which space you land on, you may gain or lose rings, enter into battle with a monster, or trigger a mini-game in which all players battle for rings. The players race to pick up "Precioustones" which appear in various locations on the game board. When all the Precioustones have been collected, a final mini-game is played, and the winner of the game is determined by who has collected the most. So far, Mario Party players have seen all of this before.

But the most critical difference between Sonic Shuffle and Mario Party is hinted at by the name of the game. Instead of rolling dice to move around the board, Sonic Shuffle players must play cards. Each player has a hand full of cards, numbered 1 through 6, along with the occasional "Special" (allowing characters extra movement or special attacks) and "Eggman" (disaster) cards. When it's your turn to move, you must play a card; playing a 3, for example, allows you to move 3 spaces. Likewise, battles with monsters are settled by card play; in order to defeat a monster, you must play a card at least as high as the monster's number. Importantly, you are not required to play a card out of your own hand; you can pick a card from another player's instead--but you won't be able to see which card you're choosing, and you must play whatever card you picked.

This card-play mechanic sets up some very interesting decisions. You might be tempted to play your high-numbered cards for movement as soon as you can, to race to the Precioustone before anyone else--but if you do, you likely won't have a card high enough to defeat the monster that guards the stone. You might be tempted to draw cards from others' hands in order to conserve your own; but in doing so, you run the risk of drawing a low-numbered card that forces you to move to a poor space--or worse, drawing the Eggman card which dumps a random calamity on your head!

(One important note here: If you're going to play multi-player, you should have a VMU for each player. If a player's controller has a VMU installed, then that player's cards will only be shown on the VMU screen, preventing other players from seeing them. If you don't have a VMU in your controller, you will be at a disadvantage, as your cards will be visible to all.)

Movement around the board is complicated by the fact that the characters aren't identical. Tails, Amy and Knuckles each have special spaces on the board that only they can cross; for example, Tails can fly across some gaps that block other players. Sonic has no special spaces, but his "Spin Dash" ability allows him to move at double or triple speed if he plays cards with the same number on several turns in a row.

The mini-games are very similar to Mario Party's. In most of these games, it's every hedgehog (or fox or echidna) for himself; but some games divide the characters into teams of two, or pit three characters against one. Most of the games require skill, but a few are sheer luck (for example, picking a can from a soda machine, avoiding the pre-shaken can that will explode in your face). These mini-games allow the characters to collect rings, that can either be saved or spent to purchase Forcejewels--special gems that allow a character to briefly break the rules of the game (for example, by playing several cards instead of one when moving, or by placing a forcefield around a space so that other characters can't pass).

Unfortunately, these mini-games are where Sonic Shuffle's one major flaw kicks in: load times. Games like this work best when the action is kept fast and furious; Sonic Shuffle has to pause for about 15 seconds while it loads each mini-game from the disc, and pause again when it returns to the main game board after each mini-game. This breaks the flow of the action, a problem which Mario Party's cartridge format allows it to avoid.

A single-player Story Mode makes Sonic Shuffle a reasonable one-player experience, but as with Mario Party, the real fun comes when three or four players compete. Just make sure that none of your friends take the game too seriously; there's a large amount of luck involved. As with Mario Party, a skillful player will win more than his or her share of games, but the outcome of any one individual game is anybody's guess.

In summary, Sonic Shuffle is a great way to kill time with friends; if you liked Mario Party, you'll like this at least as much. And if you play me, remember, I get to be Tails. :)

The only problems with this game are: you have to unlock 4 out of the 8 characters, sometimes I think they made the computer a little too smart, bad voice acting, and more boards would be nice.

This game is one of the best games on the Dreamcast right now. If you are a Sonic fan, pick this game up. Don't hesitate because of these bad reviews.

Different from Sonic Adventure, in that it's a simulated board game, not an adventure game. But a bit of a nice change as we wait for the long delayed (like next christmas now?!) Sonic Adventure 2.