I finished Sonic and the Black Knight yesterday so here are some random thoughts organized in Pro [+] / Con [-] form.

[+] The storytelling style of the paper is interesting.  Not great or bad, but interesting.

[-] Game script is geared toward younger audiences making a lot of it rather bland.

[+] The plot is a nice twist on an old story...

[-] ...but the target age of the game's audience holds it back from exploring the potential.

[+] Sonic's top speed is nice and fast.

[-] Sonic takes too long to reach top speed and just doesn't feel like accelerating at times.  I know the older games had this too but it needs to go.

[+] Once you get moving swiftly, the game is amazing.  Some levels are just fantastically fun.

[-] Level design varies a lot.   Seems like any area will have only one or two really great levels and the rest will be mediocre or bad or re-used levels or parts of levels with new goals.

[+] Auto-save checkpoints are well chosen and make continuing when you die very nice.

[-] Level goals are not clearly explained in the beginning of the game.

[+] The music is really good in strange places like the character select/equip screen before a stage.

[-] Levels are goal-centric making them feel very generic.  It's not the Molten Lava Flow stage, it's the Molten Lava "kill 50 enemies" stage.

[+] Game menus are very nicely designed and fit the theme of the game very well.

[-] Waggle adds nothing to the game.  Mapping attacks to a button would have been much better.

[+] Graphics look very nice.  The help from nVidia is readily apparent.

[-] Quick time events combined with waggle is the worst gameplay mechanic I've seen so far in this generation.

[+] Chillidogs.

[-] Boss fights are considerably slower paced than the levels and break the fast-paced feel of the game.

[+] Extras are great and well done.  The artwork section from fans in various countries was heartwarming.  Sega gets a thumbs up for actually showing they kind of do care about their fans.

[-] Controls for jumping feel stiff at times. 

[-] Blocking is pretty much worthless in anything other than a boss fight.  It also forces you to stop.

[-] 2D portion of the game makes the controls look even worse because the original Sonic games did 2D controls better.

[-] Item system could be neat but doesn't feel like it's worth bothering with.

[-] Experience/leveling system could be neat but doesn't feel like it's worth caring about.

[-] Multiplayer battle mode sucks.  It's fun for all of 10 minutes then you realize all you do is walk around, get behind people, and waggle like mad.

Great?  No.

Fun?  Yes.

Good?  Mostly.

USD Value:  $15~$20 - Bargain Bin.

I look forward to the next game staring Knave the Hedgehog.

I'll wait for a price drop, THANKS!!!

The game definitely has it's ups and downs. I will say that I loved the way they did the 2d cutscenes in this game compared to the Secret Rings game.

*Game spoilers*


Did you play through with Knuckles on any of the stages? I play with him on the speed style and he just flows through the entire stage for me, it's brilliant.

On paper, it doesn't even feel like a sonic game. Since when is he a dark knight battling hero?

--I do wonder how Sonic would fare in a turn based RPG style game. let the drooling begin

Not yet, just finished my first/only playthrough as Sonic last night.  I'm borrowing the game from a friend so I only have it till this weekend.  I loaned him Mario Strikers Charged and he loaned me Sonic and the Black Knight.

I'll see how much I can try/play with before I give it back this weekend.

Ah alright. You do know that you can play as any character you want during the story and it progresses the same, right? You don't have to be Sonic in every level. The only time you have to play as Sonic is during Sonic-only levels.

Just throwing it out there to make sure you knew you didn't have to play all the way through as him.

I really enjoyed Sonic and the Secret Rings, mostly due to the tons of unlockables / abilities / etc. Would you recommend this to me?

I have found Knuckles to be superior in the dexterity department. Controlling Sonic is (most likely by design) like controlling the wind. Many times have i overshot jumps simply because of poor stopping mechanics. Knuckles' ability to drop sharply is quite useful. I'm really surprised by how awesome Blaze is, though

Oh, and i loved the plot twist. Really, honestly didn't see that one coming. My primary fault with this game is the fact that it was designed with the same frustrating proficiency mechanic as Secret Rings was. You should not have to unlock better controls. They were somewhat better about it this time, but its just not the best idea in any case.

The game has gotten more and more fun every day i've played it, though.

I'd feel weird not using Sonic for 100% of the game the first time through levels.  It is his game.

The extras in Sonic and the Black Knight are plentiful but I haven't messed with too many of the gameplay changing ones like characters or forging weapons from materials you collect in levels.  Until I play with those a bit more, I can't give you a recommendation either way based only on that aspect.