Heyo people of Vizzed after my long review of Sonic Forces I really wanted to play a Sonic game I actually liked so I got out the Wii to play the best storybook game Sonic and the Black Knight.



Graphics 8/10 -
While the Wii is underpowered compared to the other consoles of the time the game still looks really nice for the console it's on and I have to praise the ui design like when you click on a level and select ready the cutting effect through the menu is a really neat detail.


Sound 10/10 -
So before we get to me talking about music forever I'll start with the voice cast where I don't have anything negative to say this is Jason's best game as Sonic and the rest of the cast all do great as well! Level themes I don't really have anything to pick out this time but Jun Senoue does a great job at making the music fit for the medieval style the game is going for and it makes the OST really memorable. Now that's out of the way it's time to get into the vocal themes and the only place to start is the main theme Knight of the Wind. It's hard to break it down much even for me this could be Crush 40's best song when it comes to fitting both the tone and plot of the game I mean even in game Sonic is known as the Knight of the Wind it just works perfectly for this game. Fight the Knight is perfect for the King Arthur encounters and Through the Fire is a song I can never forget due to fighting the knight's so often and it being used in Lancelot Returns which is good cause it works great for those fights. With Me is a contender for best final boss theme in the series being done in a way where it's lyrics make it sound like it's being sung by Merlina herself and this might be a lazy way to try and describe it but the whole fight feels insanely epic due to the song. Live Life is a beautiful song that goes perfectly after Sonic teaching Merlina to live life to the fullest and while not being related I do wanna mention the song did save my life as well so I do hold it in pretty high regard.


Addictive 7/10 -
The game being pretty short makes the story fun to replay in a couple hours on a day when you feel like reliving the story but you can also always go for those 5 star rankings. In this game I find it can be quite hard to get said 5 star rankings due to having to be nearly perfect and take no damage.


Story 10/10 -
Sonic get's summoned into the world of King Arthur by Merlina to deal with the evil king himself but soon is told he's immortal and Sonic then has to find a way to deal with the immortal king. He soon pulls the sacred sword Caliburn who can talk and calls Sonic Knave the hedgehog but right as Sonic pulls the sword King Arthur shows up which Sonic was warned that if he defeated him he would forever be the worst of knights slayer of kings and Sonic says he guesses he can't be the hero every time which I just love. After fighting Arthur even with the sacred sword he can't slay the King so Sonic goes to meet the Lady of the Lake to see if she knows anything. Just before making it to her Sonic runs into Lancelot Knight of the Round Table who Sonic easily defeats and then meets the Lady of the Lake. He is then informed he has to do some tests to prove he's a knight which after passing he's told he needs the sacred swords from the each of the Knights of the Round Table to defeat King Arthur which luckily he already has 2 of the 3 needed so he just has to go defeat Percival. After defeating Percival Caliburn recognizes Sonic as the Knight of the Wind and ready to take down King Arthur. After Sonic slays Arthur he disappears like one of the knights of the underworld confusing Sonic but Sonic goes and gives Merlina the Scabbard that made Arthur immortal who reveals the King was an illusion in the first place. She also reveals her plot to make the kingdom immortal so that it never ends so Sonic and the Knights of the Round Table go to set up a barrier around the castle after doing so Sonic meets up with Merlina to ask her why. She tells him the kingdom's fate is to fail and that's why she must create a kingdom that never ends because her sorrow runs deeper than the underworld. She proceeds to beat down Sonic and break Caliburn and when everything seems lost the light of the sacred swords appears and after the Knights of the Round Table throw their swords into Sonic becomes Excalibur Sonic and Caliburn becomes Excalibur. After defeating her Sonic explains while every world has it's end that's why you gotta live life to the fullest and then Caliburn makes everyone realize is the real King Arthur. I skimmed over a lot of stuff but I really think this is one of the best plots in a Sonic game I really like the message at the end of living life to the fullest and Sonic's attitude about things throughout.


Depth 7/10 -
While the story isn't very long you still unlock more missions after the story is over including the only super boss in the Sonic series I'm aware of which I'm sure I'll talk about under difficulty. The game has a lot of different items you can unlock after beating a level where you have to choose which ones to see what they are and hope it's a new item instead of one you already have which I'm sure would take quite a while collect every item in the game. In comparison to Secret Rings you actually feel more in control of Sonic due to the nunchuk being used with the Wii remote which allows a greater number of actions to be performed.


Difficulty 8/10 -
I'm basing this difficulty rating solely off the first time I played the game because with any game the more times you play it the easier it gets but the first time I played this game it destroyed me. It wasn't so bad until Sir Percival but her flames burned me which I think is the point where the game gets hard because King Arthur was so tough when I was younger and didn't have the sword swing timing perfect but with enough patience I did finally beat him. The dragon you end up facing took me a million attempts because of the final section where he does both attacks he had before at once younger me spent hours before finally slaying the dragon. The truest test of your skill comes post game when you unlock Lancelot Returns where one of the game developers must of thought it was stupid Lancelot is supposed to be the strongest Knight of the Round Table yet goes down so easily in the story because in this fight Lancelot is not messing around trying to beat him with 5 stars will push you to your limit. I feel like the difficulty is fair in this game due to the motion controls being responsive and actions you have such as the ability to block or Soul Surge which can be used to target enemies and quickly take them down and if timed right you get some Soul Gauge back allowing you to use the ability more.

Overall 9/10 -
Overall I find this to be an underrated Sonic game that I think a lot of people wrote off back in the day due to Sonic having a sword but if you've not played it and still got a Wii lying around I would recommend trying it out for yourself