As a franchise that's been around for 17 years, Sonic the Hedgehog has seen its ups and downs. The series kicked off nearly two decades ago with phenomenal side-scrolling platforming, adding more speed and intensity than Nintendo's own plumber, but since the era of 3D has started to dwindle a bit. Leave it to DS to try and innovate, bringing back some impressive 2D action games with the Sonic Rush series, and now a totally unique take on the brand, with a Bioware-made role-playing game in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood . With this, Bioware's first handheld game for the newly-formed team, the makers of KOTOR teamed up with SEGA to try and give more substance to the little blue hedgehog. In the end though, we've come to the same conclusion we often do with the Sonic franchise; the guy is just better off running right, and blasting through loops.

This+game+is+very,+very+pretty.

Dark Brotherhood isn't an entirely bad game. In fact, for a first effort, it it's pretty commendable. The game takes the familiar characters and locales from the Sonic franchise, mixes them up in a story that - while starting off about as generic as possible - ramps up a bit near the halfway mark of the game, and delivers some impressive visuals despite some obvious gameplay flaws. For the hardest of hardcore Sonic fans out there that will be buying this game no matter what, they'll find some beautiful level construction (at least visually), some impressive cinematic moments, and lots of fan service. For everyone else though, it's nothing more than a lacking, extremely basic "starter RPG" package. Sonic Chronicles is an all-touch game, so while you'll still be using the DS in the standard "top and bottom screen" position and not book form, you won't need to make use of a single button from the second you boot, to the moment you turn the game off. This makes interface section extremely easy to navigate, as touch response is strong, and the layouts are simple to click between, but it also makes for some sketchy character control, as Sonic is all about speed (something he sacrifices in this game), and will instead be following your cursor point as you slide around the screen. All in-game options are easy to get to, hiding behind a small pull-out menu in the bottom left of the screen, and any of your four party members can be switched with the tap of a button the game's top screen. Actions in the game can either be done by tapping on-screen icons, or, if you prefer, hitting either L or R shoulder buttons.But while the layout, interface, and general look and feel of the game is strong (deceptively so, since screens and videos make this one look nothing less than excellent), the core experience just isn't there, and it's due mostly to an extremely basic core RPG design. For starters, Sonic Chronicles is almost entirely made up of fetch quest gameplay, requiring players to set a certain group of characters in their party, hop, fly, and climb across the map, and pick up object after object to further the game's simple story. One section will have you collecting Eggman tracking devices all across the first three stages, some of which you previously couldn't get to, though others from areas you just finished completing, while other sections - much simpler - offer side quests such as tracking down a stapler for someone, finding a lost teddy bear, or jumping on rooftops to kill a gigantic queen wasp. Eventually the game gets a bit deeper into its story, but it isn't until nearly six hours in, and by that point, players will undoubtedly be sick of running from point to point just to move the already-thin story along.If the battle mechanic was truly entertaining, it would have been a different story, but in the case of Dark Brotherhood things are again very simple, and just too uninspired to spark any entertainment of out of the fights. To battle, players will line up their team against the opposing force, and use a combination of regular attacks and Elite Beat Agents touch-based supers and team attacks. The effects and combos themselves are pretty impressive (again, the game is visually sound), but the mini-game used to pull them off becomes repetitive after only a couple hours, and it's really just too shallow of a mechanic. You'll either tap as circles converge, slide to follow an icon as it moves across a dotted path, or tap a specific spot eight times to "defuse" an icon before a circle connects with it. Despite there being more than 75 total variations using the taps, slides, and muti-tap elements, it's all made up of that same Elite Beat Agents mechanic, and it's that battle system alone that'll need to hold up for the duration of the game; something we personally feel didn't. If you look at something like the most current Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2, the game works multiple types of touch integration, each as a small mini-game used to vary up battle. There's a large variety within Sonic's single system, but it still remains to be all about that one idea. We just wanted more.