Sonic Battle
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- For the GameCube game, see Sonic Adventure 2 Battle.
| Sonic Battle | |
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| Developer(s) | Dimps |
| Publisher(s) | THQ |
| Release date(s) | December 4, 2003 (JP) January 12, 2004 (NA) February 27, 2004 (EU) |
| Genre(s) | Platformer |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone (E) PEGI: 7+ |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Advance |
| Media | 32-Megabit cartridge |
Sonic Battle is a fighting game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, developed by Dimps (under the guise of Sonic Team) and published by THQ for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. This is the second Sonic fighting game, the first being the 3D arcade game Sonic the Fighters. Like most modern-day Sonic games, it fits within the official canon.
Contents |
[edit] Storyline
About 4000 years ago, a sentient weapon was created by an ancient civilization. After being lost for millennia, the weapon, called a Gizoid, was unearthed and researched by Prof. Gerald Robotnik. It remained dormant for another half century before being discovered by, of all people, resident would-be ruler of the world and Gerald's grandson, Dr. Eggman. Frustrated at his inability to get the dormant Gizoid to work properly, Eggman dumped the contraption at Emerald Beach... where it was discovered once again, this time by planet's resident hero, Sonic the Hedgehog.
The Gizoid, which Sonic dubs Emerl, gets wrapped up in the affairs of Sonic's friends, allies and rivals. Through his encounters with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Rouge, and Shadow, Emerl grows and evolves from a soulless robot into a fun-loving mech with personality traits from all of the above. But while the gang is having fun raising their new mechanical toy, there are those who recognize Emerl's true power. Now that the Gizoid is working again, Eggman's got his eye on it, Rouge wants to turn it into a master thief, and Shadow senses that, despite their efforts to humanize him, Emerl is still designed and programmed to be a weapon of mass destruction...
[edit] Gameplay
The following characters are playable:
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Miles "Tails" Prower
- Rouge the Bat
- Amy Rose
- Knuckles the Echidna
- Cream the Rabbit
- Shadow the Hedgehog
- Emerl
- E-102 Gamma
- Chaos
- Doctor Eggman (Only through a Gameshark cheat, and even then, he is not completely controllable)
Battles are fought in 3-D arenas with up to 4 players. Each character has a set of attacks and abilities. The majority of attacks are used with B, including the combo (1st, 2nd, and 3rd Attack), Air Attack, Upper Attack (Used to knock opponents straight up) Heavy Attack (Used to knock opponents away), and Aim Attack (Used to pursue an opponent after the Heavy Attack). The A button is used to jump, and the L button lets the player block attacks, or heal damage if the button is held. The playable characters also have unique special moves, the three types being Shot, Power, and Set. Shot moves, obviously, center around using a projectile to damage the opponent from a distance. Power moves focus on dealing damage quickly in a single move. Trap moves generally involve using a type of bomb to surprise-attack the enemy. However, only a limited number of special moves can be selected. Shot, Power, and Trap must be allocated to three slots: Ground, Air, and Defend. The special move you set to Ground will be used when you press R on the ground. The move you set to Air will be used when you press R in mid-air. The last slot, Defend, has a different function; When you set a certain type of special move to Defend, then every time an enemy uses the same type of special to attack you, you'll automatically block it.
Each player has two vital stats, a health bar and an One Shot gauge. When health is completely depleted, the player is KO'd and loses one life (in a Survival match) or the one who KO'd them gets a point (in a KO match). The Ground, Air, and Defend settings are chosen at the beginning of the match, and every time the player respawns. As a player takes damage or blocks attacks, the One Shot gauge fills up. When it is full, the next special move the player does will instantly KO anyone it hits (unless they chose to defend against that type of special). One clever tactic is to use a Trap special when the One Shot gauge is full, so if the opponent didn't choose Trap as their Defense, they will instantly be KO'd upon touching the trap. This works best with characters whose traps conceal themselves or follow their opponent around.
The main gimmick of the game is called the Skill Capture system. Emerl can imitate the actions and attacks of every other character. He starts out with slow, incomplete captures of Sonic's actions, which serve as the defaults. As the game is played, the abilities of other characters are recorded as Skill Cards. After each fight, certain skills are captured this way, usually around 2-4 per fight. The capturable actions consist of not only the attacks and special moves each character performs, but their individual abilities in running, jumping, mid-air actions, and the like. These can be allocated to their corresponding slots in Emerl's ability list, and doing so gives Emerl the new moves to use in battle. However, all these abilities cannot be used simultaneously. A limit is placed on the amount of non-default Skill Cards that can be used, in the form of skill points. Each card has a certain number of stars shown on the corner, and for each star, five skill points must be available to use on it. The total number of required skill points of all the allocated Skill Cards cannot exceed the current maximum of skill points Emerl has accumulated. Like the Skill Cards themselves, the skill point maximum is increased slightly with each battle.
Since Emerl is powered by the Chaos Emeralds, there are cutscenes in the Story Mode episodes in which the Emeralds are used to enhance Emerl's abilities. Each Emerald raises the skill point maximum by 10, a rather large amount considering that most of the time, individual battles raise it by 1-5. The player can choose to replay a Story Mode episode after it's been completed, but the Skill Card/Point data is still saved. Oddly enough, the skill point maximum is raised at the Chaos Emerald cutscene every time the player reaches them. This means the same Story Mode episode can be repeated to raise Emerl's skill points faster than normal.
[edit] Arenas
- Emerald Beach (Sonic, also Tails' arena in Emerl's story)
- Tails' Lab (Tails)
- Chao Ruins (Knuckles)
- Battle Highway (Shadow)
- Club Rouge (Rouge)
- Amy's Room (Amy)
- Library (Cream)
- Metal Depot (Chaos Gamma)
- The Crater (Chaos)
- Death Egg (Eggman)
- Colosseum (Emerl)
- Green Hill (Multiplayer only; has to be unlocked by completing story mode)
[edit] Areas
- Emerald Town
- Holly Summit (also spelt Holy Summit)
- Central City
- Night Babylon
- Gimme Shelter
- Death Egg
[edit] Timeline
There is some confusion about exactly when Sonic Battle takes place in the Sonic timeline. Although this confusion has led many fans to reject the game as a part of the Sonic canon, other fans feel that it can be explained through careful deduction based on references to other games in the Sonic canon.
The game clearly takes place after Sonic Heroes because Rouge, in Sonic Battle, comments on how Chaos Gamma reminds her of E-123 Omega, whose first appearance was in Sonic Heroes, but who also appears in Shadow the Hedgehog.
Sonic Battle does take place before Sonic Advance 3, which makes a direct reference to it. In Sonic Advance 3, Dr. Eggman finds Emerl's damaged parts and rebuilds him as his new super-robot, G-Mel, which bears a resemblance to Emerl. The final fight against a superpowered G-Mel also uses a remix of Emerl's theme. Because of this close connection, rejection of Sonic Battle as canon ultimately leads to rejection of Sonic Advance 3 as canon as well, which means that ultimately, both games are in fact canon.
It is often argued, although not confirmed, that Sonic Battle takes place after Shadow the Hedgehog, because Shadow has regained his memories and has a more firmly placed sense of morality. On the other hand, Central City was potentially destroyed in Shadow the Hedgehog, while it appears to be intact in Sonic Battle. However, suspension of disbelief suggests even if Central City was destroyed, it was likely rebuilt prior to Sonic Battle taking place.
[edit] Continuity Errors
The game has a few errors in continuity with the rest of the Sonic games:
- The game makes the mistake of making it look like there is more than one Master Emerald, because when the Master Emerald appears before Sonic, he says "A Master Emerald". However, in the sentence following, he refers to it as "The Master Emerald," proving that it is simply a translation error.
- All the Chaos Emeralds in this game are green. Seeing as they each only appear for a few seconds out of the whole game, it's most likely because the designers didn't find it necessary to color them in for what little time they're seen.
- Cream lives with Amy in this game, although it has been shown that she lives with her mother in Sonic Advance 3 and Sonic Rush. Cream could however just be on a visit at the time, as she is good friends with Amy. This would make sense, because in Sonic Rush, Cream's house is isolated from the city, which seems to be Zone 4 (or Zone 1 in Blaze's Story).
- Professor Gerald's diary talks of him wanting to save humanity after Maria's death, however the diary in Sonic Adventure 2 talks of him wanting to destroy humanity. This probably isn't an error though, because in all other games featuring Gerald he is an inventor trying to save humanity. Furthermore any fluctuation of Gerald's personality or goals at the time can also be put down to increasing mental instability.
[edit] Trivia
- The Japanese version has an English language setting, which uses a few profane remarks such as "You dirty bastard!" and suggestive remarks such as "I'll just plug this in here..." Such language has been removed from American and European versions.
- Though there is no direct comic adaptation, the cover of Archie's Sonic #148 resembles Sonic Battle's concept art.
- NiGHTS makes a cameo appearance at the end of the "Speed Demon" Mini-Game when a player crosses the finish line.
- In Central City, next to the highway, there is a billboard that says "Sonic Team." During Emerl's Episode, you can enter this building, where you are asked for 'the password'. By entering the correct password (there is more than one) you can unlock a devistating 'Combo' attack. There is one for each character (except Eggman and Emerl). By eqipping these moves to the 'ground power' slot Emerl uleashes a flurry of hits based on said character's light attacks, ending with either thier upper attack, shot attack, or power attack. When used at the right time, these 'combos' can defeat an enemy in one go, as each hit imobilizes them.
[edit] External links
- Sonic Battle at MobyGames
- Sonic Battle page at The GHZ
