Sonic and the Secret Rings was released on the Nintendo Wii by none other than Sega. Fun fact, this was just going to be a port of Sonic 06 to the Wii, but they wanted a standalone title for the console, which resulted in Sonic and the Secret Rings....another bad Sonic game! Although not as bad as Sonic 06, which was released a year earlier than this game, making this game's release be in 2007. Why do I see this as a bad Sonic game? Read on and find out.....derp.


Graphics - 9

The graphics in this game are awesome! (Unless you're playing in the Party mode....) A lot of the stages in this game have elements in them that really show off the capabilities that graphics in Sonic games have. I always felt Sonic games had good graphics, and this game makes that statement hold. Stages like Dinosaur Jungle and Night Palace really show off the amazing backgrounds and models this game has to offer. I suggest you go look at some gameplay footage or some screenshots of this game to see what I mean. All I can really say for this category is incredible.

Sound - 10

Again, this is a Sonic game. There is not a single Sonic game in existence that I know has a bad soundtrack. Similar to Sonic 06, this may be a mediocre game gameplay-wise, but the music and graphics really stand out. Some of my favorite tracks include The Palace that was Found for Evil Foundry, and the Night Palace theme which I forgot the official name for. All the music I've heard in this game is pure incredible (except the Lost Prolouge stage.....ugh...)

Addictiveness - 7

This is the part of the review where you get to hear the bad things about this game! Hooray! Anyways, this game has glitches, but not as much of a severe degree that Sonic 06 does. The problem with this game are mainly the controls, but that will be talked about more in the Difficulty section. There is sort of a Party mode included in this game, with multiple different modes. Kind of like a rip-off of Mario Party. Alos kind of like what they were trying to do with Sonic Shuffle. Some of the minigames are actually quite enjoyable, believe it or not. But some of them are just plain broken, such as the one where you have to steal gold from the genie without waking him up....that one's the worst on the list.

Story - 7

I don't particularly like the story in this game, but I guess it kinda works. It's basically just the story of the Arabian knights replaced with Sonic characters. I feel as if this was some kind of lazy story-writing, but I guess the seven rings made up for it, even though they're just using a quick replacement for the Chaos Emeralds.

Depth - 8

Depending on whether or not you want to piss yourself off trying to 100 percent complete this game is what make depth. There are 5 Fire Souls, which are basically just Red Rings reskinned, except you can unlock and equip new abilities. I sort of don't like how they used the ability system in this game, though. In Sonic Generations it was awesome, but it's just kind of awkward in this game. It might be just me, but whatever. Oh, yeah and you can unlock more characters in the Party mode depending on how many Fire Souls you obtain throughout your adventure.

Difficulty - 9

The reason the difficulty is rated high for this game is mainly because of the awful motion controls. Why do people feel the need to include motion controls in the first place? Yeah, I understand immersion, but I don't really care about that crap unless I have an Oculus Rift infront of my face. The motion controls for the Wii were gimmicky to begin with, but Sonic and the Secret Rings just takes it to a whole other level. To move Sonic left and right you have to move the Wii remote in the direction you want to go in? What's that? You want to know how to go forward? Oh, don't worry the game makes you go forward unless you hold down the 2 button. Why.

Overall - 7.6

This may be a mediocre Sonic game, but at least it's not AS bad to Sonic 06. It's kind of close, though. The motion controls are what turned me off from this game, and it did for many others too. And because of all of this, here is the score this game gets.

I actually liked the game. But as you said its not as bad as sonic 06. I didn't think the game wasn't that bad. But you have looked into it more and would have your reasons as of saying why. Lovely review as always.

Wait, I'm not the only person out there who hates this game? Whew, that's a relief.

I'm completely with you on the motion controls bit. Sega has had a lot of trouble trying to implement motion controls in their games, it seems, and this was the first of those mistakes (another notable one being Sonic Free Riders, although it was also partially the Kinect to blame for being bad).

This is a pretty solid review. You state your opinions and facts very clearly, although just a small bit of more information for some of the sections would've been appreciated. All in all, great review.

I am confused with what you say in your review, that this is a "mediocre Sonic game", while you still gave it a score of 7.6... This is a really good score, yet you say it's not a good game

Sewaddle : If you think of the score like a standard grading system, actually, then 7.6/10 would translate to a 76/100, or a C (C+, to be exact), which is middle of the line and mediocre. 9.0 and above is usually reserved for exceptional games, and 8.0 to 8.9 reserved for good/great games, although every reviewer is going to have a slight difference in how they score games that are good, bad, etc.

7.6 is an overall reasonable score for a game that's seen as mediocre, especially since "mediocre" (especially in this case) doesn't always include the aesthetic or sound, which may boost the score overall.

Good review! I enjoyed reading it. Although I haven't played this game at all, I get a good sense of what it's about by reading this review.

The only thing I noticed that this review suffers, like many other reviews, is that you give it an overall mediocre score, but you give most of the individual categories pretty high scores, for the most part. Although this review isn't as bad about that as others, it's still weird to see the game get a 10, a couple 9's but then see the overall game rated below 8.

Don't get me wrong, the individual scores don't have to match up/average the overall score, but it is kinda weird to see such high scores for a game you didn't really like all that much. Something to keep in mind moving forward anyways.

Great job with the review! Keep up the hard work!

Jordanv78 :

Now that I think about it, I think I could have lowered some of the scores I chose, such as the addictiveness, depth, and story a little bit. I'll be sure to think harder about the scores I give next time I do a review. Thanks for the reply.