Hands on Sonic Rush Adventure

Instead of playing with Sonic like everyone else I tested out the other playable character, Blaze the Cat. If you played Sonic Rush you probably remember her, she’s the purple cat on the left who can engulf herself into flames. The big addition in the Sonic Rush Adventure demo was 3D (gulp) sequences where you guide Blaze or Sonic on a jet ski. Using the touch screen controls you can slide the jet ski to avoid obstacles and hit ramps to do tricks. Playing the mini-game brings you to different islands and to the meat of Sonic Rush Adventure, old school, 2D Sonic.

With Blaze you run up on loops that rise up to the second DS screen and dive down to the bottom screen. The levels in Sonic Rush Adventure have more interactive elements than Sonic Rush. In the stage after the tutorial Blaze bounces off springs like a pinball and the action happens at “Sonic” speed. The feel is sort of like the Sonic Adventure games where you are briefly memorized to watch the screen when Sonic swings from vines and bounces to a higher part of the stage. The difference is you don’t feel out of control when these feats happen. Since there are only two dimensions, bottomless chasms don’t exist in Sonic Rush Adventure for you to fall off of.

Sonic Rush Adventure also includes a trick system where you can press buttons in rhythm to do mid-air flips and increase your grade at the end of the level. I imagine this will be something for TAS gamers to play with in the future and a reason to go back to play the fourteen levels. I was told there are other features in Sonic Rush Adventure like hovercraft driving and snowboarding, but I didn’t get to check them out. I am interested in the latter, since Sonic hasn’t appeared in a snowboarding game even though it fits his “extreme” personality.