Sonic Battle

Infobox VG
title = Sonic Battle


caption=
developer = Dimps
Sonic Team (supervising)
publisher = THQ
Sega (JPN)
designer =
engine =
released = vgrelease|Japan|JPN|December 4, 2003
vgrelease|North America|NA|January 5, 2004
vgrelease|PAL Region|PAL|February 27, 2004 [http://sonicbattle.planets.gamespy.com/battle_info.html]
genre = Fighting, Adventure, Role-playing game
modes = Single player, multiplayer
ratings = ESRB: Everyone (E)
PEGI: 7+
platforms = Game Boy Advance
media = 128-Megabit cartridge
requirements =
input =

"Sonic Battle" is a fighting game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, developed by Dimps and published either by Sega (in Japan) or THQ (outside of Japan) [ [http://uk.gamespot.com/gba/action/sonicbattle/news.html?sid=6074923&mode=recent THQ to copublish Sega Europe GBA games - Game Boy Advance News at GameSpot ] ] for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. This is the second Sonic fighting game, the first being the 3D arcade game "Sonic the Fighters".

Storyline

About 4000 years ago, a sentient weapon called the Gizoid was created by an ancient civilization. After being lost for millennia, the 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 legendary hero Sonic the Hedgehog.The Gizoid, which Sonic names 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 lots of personality. But while the gang is having fun raising their new mechanical friend, 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 (and he also believes the same for himself). This is proven in the last fight, where Emerl fights Eggman and reveals his dark side when Eggman overloads him with energy causing him to revert back to his old programming as well as releasing all restraints on his power. He is about to destroy the world when Sonic comes and destroys it. Emerl tells everyone that he was thankful for meeting them, and how such good friends they were. Emerl mechanically combusts, and leaves an Emerald Shard behind as his remains. However, Sonic tells everyone that they will see him again someday...

Gameplay

Battles are fought in 3D 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 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 a player sets a certain type of special move to Defend, then every time an enemy uses the same type of special move set to Defend to attack, it will automatically be blocked. [http://www.nintendo.com/gamemini?gameid=m-Game-0000-1819]

Each player has two vital stats, a health bar and an Ichikoro 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, blocks attacks, or heals, the Ichikoro Gauge fills up. When it is full, the next special move the player does will instantly KO anyone it hits. However, if they chose to defend against that type of special, or successfully block, their Ichikoro Gauge will be filled instantly. Players healing damage will also slowly fill up their Ichikoro Gauge, but are still vulnerable to attacks. [ [http://www.stconline.co.uk/back/230/230/review.htm Sonic The Comic - Online! ] ]

Characters

Playable

The following characters are playable:
* Sonic the Hedgehog
* Miles "Tails" Prower
* Knuckles the Echidna
* Amy Rose
* Shadow the Hedgehog
* Rouge the Bat
* Cream the Rabbit
* Emerl
* Chaos Gamma (Unplayable in Story Mode)
* Chaos (Unplayable in Story Mode)

Non-Playable

* Dr. Eggman
* E-121 Phi
* Guard Robo
* Big the Cat (cameo)
* The President (Not seen)
* Gerald Robotnik
* Maria Robotnik
* E-123 Omega (mentioned)

Emerl

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, one card per character per fight (so if Emerl fought Tails, he would get a Tails data card, and if he fought Sonic, he would get a Sonic data card.) 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. (Note: What the characters do ingame does not determine what the Skill Card will be.) Sometimes you will get a rare skill such as one of the skills on the third page of Emerl's skill-edit list (ex: fight pose, color 1, attack support). 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, to a maximum of 500.

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 (depending on performance). 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.

He is an ancient weapon, known as the Gizoid, that was created over 4,000 years ago by the "Fourth Great Civilization," which he is responsible for the destruction of. Around fifty years ago, he was discovered by Professor Gerald Robotnik. Gerald attempted to nullify his destructive programming, but failed. In an attempt to curb it, he gave it the same qualities as his other creation, Shadow the Hedgehog, a "soul" based on that of Gerald's granddaughter, Maria Robotnik. Emerl establishes a link to anyone with great power, with those whose power is greater than his current master being favored, and remains loyal to that master until the link is broken. His greatest ability, Skill Copy, allows him to learn and mimic the personality traits, knowledge, and fighting abilities of others; he amplifies this copying ability by absorbing Chaos Emeralds. However, the Gizoid is prone to being overloaded by the power of the Emeralds or from absorbing too much data, in which case he goes on a mindless rampage. Emerl is 110cm (3ft 7in) tall and weighs a mere 14kg (30.8lbs). [cite web | author= Sonic Channel| title=Emerl's official profile| work= | url= http://sonic.sega.jp/chara/emerl/index.html | accessmonthday= April 18 | accessyear= 2007 |language=Japanese]

Emerl was originally found and studied by Gerald Robotnik, but he eventually absorbed a large amount of weapons, and decimated a large section of the ARK. Years later, he was found by Dr. Eggman. While experimenting, Eggman gave Emerl a Chaos Emerald which it absorbed. As he couldn't retrieve the jewel, Eggman got angry at the robot and threw it away on a beach, and went to create his own robots, the E-121 "Phi", from the Gizoid's blueprints, empowering them by shards of Chaos Emeralds.

He was later found by Sonic, who Emerl viewed as powerful, so he formed a link with him. At first Emerl had no personality, and could not speak, but as he stayed with Sonic, he developed. He continued to travel with Sonic and his companions while learning from them, forming bonds with them, and fending off Eggmans various attempts to capture him. Before Emerl could settle down to a normal life, Eggman finished his Final Egg Blaster, placed on his newly rebuilt Death Egg, and threatened the Earth with it. He teleported there and defeated him, but due to the power of the blaster, his old Gizoid programming overcame him, causing him to go on a rampage. The only option left was to destroy him. Sonic did this, and as Emerl started to break down, he reverted to his old personality and thanked Sonic for all the good times they had together. Sonic desperately tried to save his friend, but Emerl disappeared in a flash of light, leaving only the shards of the Chaos Emeralds behind. It is said at the end of the game that Emerl is still alive in the emerald shards.

Locations

Each character has an arena they can be found fighting at, and several arenas can be found in a larger map screen of a location.

;Emerald Town:
*Emerald Beach - Sonic
*Tails' Lab - Tails

;Holy Summit:
*Chao Ruins - Knuckles
*The Crater - Chaos

;Central City:
*Battle Highway - Shadow
*Amy's Room - Amy
*Library - Cream

;Night Babylon
*Club Rouge - Rouge

;Gimme Shelter:
*Metal Depot - Chaos Gamma

;Death Egg:
*Death Egg - Eggman

;Other:
*Colosseum - Emerl
*Green Hill (Has to be unlocked by completing story mode)http://www.nintendo.com/codegallery?gameid=m-Game-0000-1819]

Minigames

Sonic Battle has five minigames that can be played. The player starts off with one by default, then unlocks more as progress is made in the story mode.

*Soniclash - The only minigame available at the start. Players try to knock their opponents off the field to get points.
*Tails' Fly and Get - Players fly around and try to collect more rings than their opponents.
*Knuckles' Mine Hunt - Minesweeper, with a Sonic the Hedgehog twist, and the only single-player mini-game.
*Amy's Treasure Island - Players move around and try to find emeralds.
*Shadow's Speed Demon - A racing game to reach the goal first. This is based heavily off of Radical Highway from "Sonic Adventure 2".

Reception

*IGN - 8/10 [ [http://uk.gameboy.ign.com/articles/462/462741p1.html IGN: Sonic Battle Review ] ]
*GameSpy - 3 out of 5 [ [http://uk.gba.gamespy.com/gameboy-advance/sonic-battle/494463p1.html GameSpy: Sonic Battle Review ] ]
*GameSpot - 7.7/10 [ [http://uk.gamespot.com/gba/action/sonicbattle/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review Sonic Battle for Game Boy Advance Review - Game Boy Advance Sonic Battle Review ] ]
*Game Informer - 6/10
*Electronic Gaming Monthly - 5.5/10
*GameZone - 7.8/10
*GamePro - 3.5 out of 5
*X-Play - 3 out of 5
*Nintendo Power - 3.7 out of 5

Game Rankings current score for Sonic Battle is 69.3%.

References