Nintendo Power isn’t usually home to breaking stories. For the most part, a normal edition of the magazine has some inflated reviews of Nintendo games no one has ever heard of and “exclusive stories” that have been common knowledge for months. Nintendo doing what they do best and proving gamers wrong, next month’s issue details Bioware’s upcoming Sonic RPG. Here is the scoop, courtesy of NeoGaf:


  • Cover Story with nice artwork
  • In game graphics have a water color look, all hand drawn
  • 4 party members at a time
  • Each character can do certain things ex: Tails can float over things (standard stuff)
  • 11 party members total - 7 known are Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Rouge, Shadow, Big the Cat
  • Control done fully with stylus - think Hourglass
  • Able to split party into teams at certain moments
  • Rings are used as currency
  • No random battles, see enemies on the field
  • Turn based battles, choose commands for everyone in your party before they actually follow through. Want battles to be fast paced
  • Elite Beat Agents style special attacks
  • Team attacks (like Chrono Trigger)
  • "Fatigue Points" instead of MP
  • Choose which attributes to increase when you level up
  • Purchase and level special attacks
  • Bits of story - Sonic's on vacation from defeating Eggman 2 years ago. Gets a call from Tails that Knuckles has been kidnapped by a group called the Marauders, and that 6 chaos emeralds are missing. Eggman not the main villain. But Bioware wants to make him a creditable bad guy again. Something about a "twist" between Eggman and Sonic that goes back to the earlier games.
  • 2 acts - first takes place in standard Sonic areas. 2nd takes place in a darker world
  • Remixed classic tunes
  • "fully animated cut scenes"
  • simple dialogue trees
  • Side quests

If you finish reading the list above and didn't find it interesting, read it again. This time remembering that Bioware is one of the best RPG developers in the gaming industry and has extremely high standards for their titles. Taking a franchise that’s low point has been plot and an overabundance of needless characters and turning it into a turn based RPG with both of those should spell disaster in every way.

However, with everyone talking about a much needed “Sonic reimagining” that needs to take place, any change is for the better and if one company could pull it off, it’s Bioware.