Review: Sonic and the Black Knight

To say that I wasn't expecting much out of Sonic and the Black Knight is an understatement. From the minute I saw the first preview I was almost sure that I would hate it. It says something then, that despite my incredibly low expectations the game still managed to disappoint me.

The only real compliment I can come up with for Black Knight is that it presents itself nicely. The opening cutscene in particular is really nice looking, but then again, what do you expect from a pre-rendered cinematic? Even without that, however, the game looks very good, especially for a Wii title. The environments and character models are pretty, and all of the textures are sharp and well defined. The game also has some really cool looking woodblock-style cutscenes that give the storytelling some unique flair. The game looks so good, in fact, that I get the impression that most of the design time and budget was spent exclusively on graphics, with most of what was left over going into sound design.

Black Knight also has some pretty decent sound design. The Rockin' soundtrack, while decidedly out of place in the Arthurian setting, is about as good as the music in any other Sonic game. The sound effects are also very well done, with lots of clashing metal, galloping horses, and other things you would expect from this kind of setting. They all sound very real and it's as cool as ever to hear the sounds coming from the Wii remote as well as the TV.

While the music and effects sound great, the same cannot be said for the voice acting. Listening to the terrible dialogue compares less than favourably to puncturing your own eardrums with rusty nails and, to put it bluntly, the translation is so abysmal that it makes the NES Metal Gear look like a literary masterpiece. Unintentionally hilarious bits abound, like the way that Blaze the Cat's medieval persona is frequently referred to as Sir Percival, despite the fact that she is very clearly still a girl in this instalment. That's not to say that a good translation could have saved the script from its biggest failing: a mind-blowingly bad plot.

I realize that the Sonic series has never had great storylines, but The Black Knight marks a new low. The plot involves Sonic being sucked into the world of Arthurian legend by the wizard Merlina in order to do battle with King Arthur himself, who has been turned evil by the sheath of Excalibur. This sheath has also made Arthur immortal, and so Sonic must obtain a Sacred Sword in order to harm him. This sacred blade is Caliburn, a talking sword that is as annoying as it is chatty. After finding Caliburn, he must then acquire three more sacred swords because, you know, that plot device hasn't been used enough already. The entire story is as cliched and predictable as they come, so I suppose I should be glad that it is also rather short. I found myself wishing that the cutscenes were a bit longer, however, because they felt like a respite from the terrible gameplay.

The controls in Black Knight are exactly what you would expect: you attack by waving the remote, and you move using the nun chuck control stick. Of course, there is no actual strategy in the combat, and all you really need to do is press up on the control stick and wave the remote around randomly to get through the entire game, and I do mean the ENTIRE game. There is absolutely nothing to it beyond random waggling. You don't even need to steer, as each level places you on rails with approximately 2 feet of wiggle room on either side of you. To say that this gets old rather quickly is an understatement, and the fact that the levels are all virtually identical doesn't help matters.

Even the boss fights follow the "waggle until everything is dead" formula, with little actual strategy required. In order to make up for the lack of strategy the boss battles all incorporate incredibly unforgiving quick time events. These quick time events are unforgiving not because they require instantaneous reflexes, but instead because they insist on using the Wii motion sensor instead of traditional button presses. The problem with waggling the remote is that it simply is not responsive enough to accommodate that kind of gameplay. Many developers have made note of this and either make the timing of their quick time events more forgiving or scrap waggle altogether in favour of more responsive controls. Sonic and the Black Knight chooses to defy common sense, however, and the result is that a game that is otherwise ridiculously piss-easy occasionally becomes maddeningly difficult.

Back on the piss-easy end of the difficulty spectrum. The game asks you to perform stupid little "acts of chivalry," which amount to running up to the hobbit-like townspeople, pressing z to initiate a button based quick time event, and then giving them 20 rings. Yes, you read that correctly, the townspeople who you are busting your ass to save are demanding money from you, and not only that, but they also make you jump through hoops to give it to them. If you fail the stupid rhythm minigame, they will refuse to take your money, like the fact that you can't dance somehow makes your money worthless to the ungrateful bastards. Thankfully the timing is a lot more forgiving than some of the boss quick time events, but it doesn't make the mechanic any more fun. To make matters worse, some levels REQUIRE that you give away between 80 and 100 rings in order to advance. Whoever came up with the acts of chivalry is certainly no genius, but the prize for idiot of the year goes to the man who decided to implement them as a level goal.

Bottom Line: Good graphics and music can't disguise how terrible this game is. From the awful controls to the horrifically bad story, this is probably the single worst game I've ever had the displeasure of playing.

Recommendation: I have a hard time imagining how anybody could possibly enjoy this game. Even the most obsessive Sonic fans will probably be put off by the terrible design and awful story. I strongly suggest that you avoid it like the plague.