It was kind of awkward, bumping into Sonic again after all this time. It had been fifteen years since Sonic 2. What a time that was. He had seduced me with rings and emeralds, and we spent the winter together. But by the time Sonic 3 came around, things had gotten a little stale, and Sonic & Knuckles made me realise that we had no future together. He went his way and I went mine, and we’ve been living separate lives ever since. There was Sonic Heroes though, but we both knew that meant nothing.
When I saw him, he seemed happy. I over-compensated for my own awkwardness with false smiles, but I was gloomy inside. I was still bitter about all of the flirting with the third dimension he had done with Sonic Adventure, and the idea of the “new” Sonic made my blood cold. He assured me that he had changed, and asked if I would like to see his new Nintendo DS exclusive game, Sonic Rush? He said it was 2D. He unsheathed his stylus. I was tempted.
It was just like the old days, only with more passion, more energy, more touchscreen technology. Sonic Rush took us back to the glory days of the Sonic games, but repainted them with the brush of technological mastery. The levels were bigger and brighter than before, hurling us into intense speed runs, tricky obstacles and countless high-pitched and high-maintenance set pieces. Sonic doesn’t limit himself to simply running and jumping nowadays – he hurls himself across both screens, through gigantic loops, grinding on poles, swinging on ropes and skimming over floating platforms. If you’ve seen Sonic do all this before, you haven’t seen it with the one-two-one-two intensity of Rush. The action is so rapid-fire that it’s hard for your eyes to keep up with it all. You will want them to though, because the screens that whiz past are so pretty, you’ll want to go back and take a second look.
All Sonic’s old party tricks were back, only now they were refined through years of practice. The boss battles, where Sonic takes on one of Eggman’s over-complicated machines in a battle arena, have been revamped – this time the camera is set behind the hedgehog and we are given a 3D battle. They’re all tough, but too addictive to give up on. Plus, the limited exposure to 3D Sonic is just enough for it to be fun. The real highlight of the entire game though is the return of the ‘running-down-the-tunnel’ special stage of Sonic 2, which is now even better than the masterpiece that it was before. Using the stylus to move Sonic up and down the sides of the pipe, throwing him off the sides and weaving him through waves of ememies, these bonus levels are edge-of-seat stuff, requiring fast thinking and reactions to match. Intense, and incredible.
He introduced me to his new friend – Blaze the Cat, who has a story running alongside his. Sonic hasn’t done himself any favours in recent years by hanging out with all these anonymous, pointless hanger-ons. Blaze is unlovable and useless, her animations and moves feel bizarre and do not suit the Sonic gameplay, and it is a whole lot less satisfying than playing the Sonic version of the game. The only point in completing her side of the game is to unlock the hidden zone at the end. Sonic deserves better.
He lasts longer now, too. While some of the zones of the older games were over in the flick of a wrist, Rush’s zones are challenging gauntlets that grate on the nerves with cheesy traps and desperate runs for survival. If you’re underwater, the oxygen bubbles are now few and far between, creating a need for urgent strategy. There are vehicles, battle arenas, even Indiana Jones-style rolling boulders that span both screens. Plenty to keep you occupied then, so it’s no longer a case of just pushing right for x number of minutes to get through the whole level.
Sometimes, when something feels right, you can’t find a single flaw. The music he played was amazing – one hundred beats a minute of cheesy happy hardcore, matching the frantic nature of the button-pushing one hundred percent. The graphics, while 2D and old school, were impressive. I accepted that the storyline and the dialogue between the characters that snuck inbetween the levels were worthless and weak, but I overlooked it with a shrug, as we both knew that this wasn’t that kind of relationship. This was about fast reactions, moving now and thinking later, enjoying a boosted-up blast of the old school with enough original fun to create whole new memories.
I don’t expect this relationship to last forever. He hasn’t got enough depth for that. But it’s fantastic fun while it lasts, and I hope to see him again very soon.