Sonic has had a bit of a rough time of late, what with each PS3/Xbox 360 version being pretty awful, who would have thought that the Nintendo versions of Sonic would be the better one’s, with the DS games in particular reminding us why Sonic is so loved in the first place. Sonic and the Black Knight follows on in the same vain as the Secret Rings, Sonic has been pulled from his normal reality and into the world of Arthurian Legend by Merlina, who is being attacked by the Black Knight. After swiftly defeating the Knight and escaping, Merlina explains that the Black Knight is in fact King Arthur himself, seduced by the powers of Excalibur's scabbard, he has become immortal and a dark, evil being. Merlina believes Sonic to be her last hope and sends him on a quest to find the legendary sword Caliburn to enable him to defeat King Arthur.

 

 

Though the game looks like a normal Sonic title, Sonics usual powers don't really apply here other than his super sonic speed. Each level has a course to run through, dodging traps and enemies at high speeds. In most of the levels you just need to steer left and right with the game taking you through the course as long as you keep on pushing forward. If you have to take out an enemy, rather than jumping on them you have to use your sword, with a swing of the Wii-mote Sonic will use Caliburn, defeating most enemies with a single blow. Sonic can also collect faeries that charge up a Soul Gauge power, by pressing the B button Sonic will focus an attack on an enemy and when your sword glows, swing it for a perfect attack. The soul power runs as long as you have energy in the gauge, enabling you to run off quite large combos of attacks. 

 

Graphically the game is really impressive, the FMV is of the usual Sonic Team quality and the story book cut scenes look great. There is also a good variation of enemies, there are plenty of axe and sword wielding baddies that you take out normally but then you have pike men that you need to jump near to avoid their huge pikes or massive monsters to take down with a short flurry of attacks and blocks. 

 

Though in a alternative universe there are plenty of familiar faces that pop up during the game, Tails is the local blacksmith and will help you with selecting items to help boost your game, Knuckles, Shadow and Blaze also appear as King Arthur's loyal guard like Lancelot and Gawain. The mini boss fights are a bit on the strange side, you both go head on into each other and you have to block attacks with the Z button and attack with well timed sword swings. Knuckles was the first boss and I found him impossible, so I ended up resorting to manically swinging the Wii-mote and beating him that way. 

 

To add more variety there are also over 100 items to collect during each level, these range from gems that can increase ring count at the start of a level and also weapons for some of the characters you unlock when you progress further in the game. There is also an option to trade items with other gamers so you can get the whole set. Behind the main game is a healthy selection of unlockables from videos to a cool selection of fan art.

 

 

To keep things interesting the levels vary in objectives, some are as simple getting to the goal while others need you to defeat a set number of enemies. Whilst these levels show off the speed and graphics of the game really well, there are a group of levels that require you to stop at villagers and give them some coins, this unfortunately really is a poor idea as once you have stripped away the speed the game comes crashing down, showing very unresponsive and fidgety controls that cause you a real headache. Strangely Sonic has only been animated to face one way, so if you ever need to backtrack, say missing a villager, he has to run and jump backwards in an awkward and messy fashion.

 

Sonic and the Black Knight comes in two halves, the 3D running and jumping is great fun with the Wii very rarely struggling to keep up, but then you have the other half, the lame sword swinging that you will have to do over and over again, with each swing never really doing what you expect it to do. It is a real shame as if it was kept simple this could have been one of the better Sonic games.

 

Sonic and the Black Knight is a fun and impressive looking title but once you start to get past the initial few stages, it starts to get a bit boring and repetitive. This game fares better than the recent Xbox games but is in no way a great Sonic title.