Yeah, I've waited long enough for this. Well,
all right lets go (as Sonic himself would say). Those of you who have red my
Sonic and the Black Knight review (if you haven't, take a look) may wonder what
I think of its predecessor Sonic and the Secret Rings. I've already given a few
things away in my Black Knight review, but I never went into full detail of my
thoughts on this game. See, Sonic and the Black Knight was my first (main
series) Sonic game and has been 1 of my all time favorites since, its predecessor
(Secret Rings) is a game I got about 5 years later because I was debating
whether or not I wanted the game. Thought later on, I decided and I was like:
screw it, I like Sonic so I'm gonna give it a chance no matter what negative
things people say about it. So you might wonder: do I regret that decision, or
am I glad I made it? Well, lets find out

Graphics; 8
Yeah, it's no secret that Secret Rings  looks pretty outdated. This was Sonic's first game on the WII and that is not very hard to see, since the textures don't have as much detail as later Sonic games on the WII like Black Knight and
Colors. Also, the storybook cut scenes ,while they're a nice touch, it seems like Sega didn't want to animate them at all, plus they're a bit blurrier than in Black Knight. However, the fact that the game isn't the most detailed can be excused by the fact that this was Sonic's first WII game. To be honest, while it is not as detailed as later Sonic games on the WII, Sega still did a decent job at the level design and textures. The levels look nice (especially for a launch title) and often show a lot of detail. In fact, the camera often gets very showy during game play. What I mean by this is that the game gives a lot of different camera angels to show of how cool the action in the game looks (like in a lot of level mods for Sonic Generations).  The character models, while being pretty outdated now, looked rather nice for their time, and the textures aren't too bad. The game isn't the most appealing visually, but it looks nice for the time it was released and I still think its nice to look at

Sound: 9
I have to admit, the sound overall is very well done in this game. Like in Black Knight, the sound effects are used for even the smallest things like walking / running and sound like Sega put a lot of effort into them. However, that pails when compared to the freaking music. The music in this game is (in my opinion) among the best in the series. That honestly feels weird for me to say because when I first listened to 'Let the speed mend it' in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games London 2012 I thought I was gonna hate the music in this game, but my mind was blown by it when I first played the game, you can easily tell that the music far surpassed my expectations. There is not a single music track in this game I don't like and every single track fits with its level (my personal favorite being the 1 that plays in evil foundry). So you may wonder: why only a 9 out of 10? Well the thing that keeps this away from getting a 10 out of 10 is the voice acting. Don't get me wrong, it is a huge step up from Sonic 2006 (especially for Sonic's voice actor, Jason Griffif,) and the recurring characters sound just fine here. However, the same can't be said about the new characters, most specifically Shara (a ring genie that has a similar role to Tails in the more recent games) and the Erazor Djin (the main villain of the game, and no that's not a spoiler because it's revealed in the very first cut scene of the game). I'll honestly admit that I don't hate Shara like others do, but I won't deny that her voice can get really annoying in game play (especially when she yells). As for the Erazor Djin, he is 1 of the most ridiculous villains in Sonic history. I guess he's supposed to sound like a darker version of Disney's take on the genie from Aladdin and I'm sure the voice actor is trying, but I just can't take him seriously (just listen to his dialogue in the final cut scene and you'll know why). That's it for the sound in this game: nice sound effects, epic music, the recurring characters sound fine, the new characters could have been done better.

Addictiveness: 8
Here we go to probably the most controversial part of the game: the game play.
For those of you who don't know, this game controls kind of like 1 of those WII
racing games (like Mario Kart or Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing) where you
tilt the WII remote to control Sonic. This is 1 of the reasons why many people
don't like this game since they see it as nothing but a gimmick, but I'm not 1
of those people. I personally think the way you control Sonic in this game to
be very creative and fun to play with. Sure it's pretty hard to get the hang on
at first, but you'll improve over time.The game also has a multiplayer mode
which is 1 of the few parts in this game which I think to be better than in
Black Knight. The main reason for that being that it has a lot more stuff to do
than the multiplayer of Black Knight and it has some very creative and fun
mini games. The game itself also has a couple of element that also appeared in
Black Knight like the soul gage and a similar jump. I overall thought this game
to be a lot of fun to play trough.

Story: 5
Yeah, the story is probably the weakest part of the game. Like in my Black
Knight review, I'll try to summarise the story without giving away any major
spoilers. So this is a basic summary of the story: a genie named Shara gets to
Sonic's world trough a book. She tells Sonic that the worlds stories are
vanishing, because the evil Erazor Djin is destroying the world of the Arabian
Nights. So Shara gives the ring she belongs to to Sonic so that he can wish
himself into the world of the Arabian Nights. After a little while, the Erazor
Djin appears out of nowhere and explains that he tries to destroy the world of
the Arabian Nights and recreate it in his own image (cliché goal, I know).
However, he needs the 7 world rings to accomplish his goal, so he curses Sonic
(ever thought he tried to curse Shara) in order to force him to go look for the
7 world rings.Also, like in Black Knight, he comes across other recurring
characters in form of story figures (like Tails as Ali Baba and Eggman as king
Sharyar). So that's a summary of the story. I won't deny that the story is
pretty weak (especially the ending), but most people (including myself) don't
play Sonic games for the story anyway. 1 thing that is kind of weird is that
they were hinting towards a sequel in the end credits. We all know that the
game did eventually (a year or 2 later I think) got a sequel, but the kind of
sequel they were hinting to was a direct sequel (which never saw the light of
day).

Depth: 8
I'll be honest, the main story of the game is really short. Heck, I was
able to COMPLETE THE ENTIRE MAIN STORY ,INCLUDING CUTSCENES, YESTERDAY. And
that's not even a joke, I did complete it in 1 day on my second play trough
(which was yesterday). However, the game is not just playing the main story
out. Like I previously mentioned, the game has a very fun mutliplayer and a lot
of mini games. The game also still has missions to complete if you're done with
the main story if you want to.And of course there's always the possibility of
replaying the main story (like I did). So, there is plenty of stuff to do in
this game and I like it that way.

Difficulty: 8
The game can get pretty tough at points. The main reasons why you might get a
hard time at this game are the fact that you need to time your movement right
by reacting quickly and the tilting mechanic may take a while to get used to.
The bosses may also be a pain in your first few tries (especially the battle
with the Erazor Djin). Some missions (especially if they're necessary to beat
the game) may also be quite frustrating in difficulty.Howeever, it didn't stop
me from playing.

So those are my thoughts on Secret Rings, how does it hold up? Well to be honest, I didn't had very high expectations for this game. The main reason for that being how bad this game got received by critics, but I honestly think this game is very enjoyable. The game has nice graphics (for its time at least), epic music and fun game play. Because of it, this game (at least to me) deserves an 8 out of 10. Because of games like this, I never lose fate in Sega and Sonic team.