Sonic Rush Adventure

Sonic Rush Adventure is the follow-up to the 2005 Nintendo DS title Sonic Rush. Sonic Rush brought the Sonic Advance series to Nintendo's dual screen handheld and gave the platform a much better Sonic experience than any of the "big screen consoles." Sonic Rush Adventure continues the excellent tradition of handheld Sonic and delivers a solid experience.

Sonic Rush Adventure begins as Sonic and Tales are dropped into a wormhole and land on an island and encounter a strange raccoon named Marine. This begins a quest that will cover all of the surrounding islands as Sonic and Tails attempt to return back home. Along the way, our heroes will run into a familiar face from the last Sonic Rush title--Blaze the Cat. As players go through Sonic Rush Adventure, they will find that each of the levels are visually appealing with great use of colors and plenty of details. Of course, as Sonic, you may speed through the levels so quickly that you might want to slow down to take a look at the beauty of the game world.

Players begin by only controlling Sonic. However, this will change and you will be able to control Blaze the Cat. In most cases, it won't matter who you are controlling because they handle very similarly--with the exception of Blaze's fire abilities that lead to alternate routes through a given level. Of the seven major islands that players will progress through, there are two stages for each island and a boss fight that will follow at the conclusion of a level. As with any Sonic game that relies on speed, it is possible to quickly breeze through each individual level.

For those of you doing the math, that is only fourteen levels and 7 boss fights for the whole game. This may sound like Sonic Rush Adventure might not be worth a purchase. However, there are some other elements in the game that give it much more depth and replay value. In order to move to the next island, you will have to get Tails to build transportation. This will require you to replay a level several times in order to obtain all the parts needed. The faster you complete the level with more tricks and rings collected will provide you with even more materials. After you are able to move to the next island, you will need to draw your course with the stylus.

Although it can be a fairly short adventure to get to the ending, it will take much more time to obtain the "true ending." In order to do this you will need to collect Chaos and Sol emeralds by searching the open waters for speedy Johnny and performing sidequests against the game's bosses (once you defeat them).

Overall, Sonic Rush Adventure is a worthy adventure that fans of the franchise and character should enjoy. However, if you don't plan on fully unlocking all aspects of the game, you may find that a weekend rental may fulfill that little hedgehog inside of you.