Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I was a good attempt at giving players a continuation of the original Genesis titles, but its wonky physics and gimmicky stages kept it from achieving true potential. It looked like a classic 2D Sonic game, but the game lacked that special essence that made its 16-bit predecessors so much fun. Luckily, Episode II is the better of the two installments and gives fans a Sonic they’re more familiar with, even if does come with a few misses.

One of the biggest additions to Episode II is the inclusion of Tails, who now brings two-player co-op to the table. Like in the classic games, Tails can pick up and fly Sonic to places he can’t reach for a short amount of time, but players have a lot more control over him this time. By simply pressing a button, the action will pause, and Tails will teleport to where Sonic is and help him out. I found this too convenient sometimes because while it gets you out of sticky situations right away, after a while, it becomes too easy to press a button and save Sonic from a misstep. Tails and Sonic also have another combo ability that turns them into a giant ball, faster and stronger than the average spindash. The duo will always be joined by one another, so levels integrate these two abilities in unique ways that create a different experience. The game may feel like Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but this is a new game, after all.

Co-op mode lets two people play together offline or online, but it does come across a few problems, one of them due to the game’s fast-paced action. If you fall behind your friend, the game will respawn you right behind him, but you’ll need to press a button to pop out of your protective “bubble” like in New Super Mario Bros. The problem here, though, is that this happens a lot when going down slopes or slides, even when you don’t intend to leave someone behind. Another thing I noticed is that the person playing as Tails will have an advantage and can easily exploit certain situations by flying; this is especially evident during boss fights. Let’s just say, playing with someone else is easier than playing solo.

Controlling Sonic and dashing through the many colorful worlds feels quite good. Episode I’s physics engine has been overhauled, and the blue hedgehog runs a bit more like he did back during his Genesis years. Sonic’s homing attack is back, but aiming feels more accurate and is easier to pull off. He is also less shiny and doesn’t look out-of-place amid his colorful backdrops, which have layered textures that often give the game a great pseudo 3D effect. Considering the game is supposed to feel like Sonic 2, it’s great that controls and graphics don’t distract you from the game’s speed, a problem that often plagued Episode I.

Stages, too, are a lot more reminiscent of the original games and are designed to keep you always in motion. While it’s a bit apparent that the themes of past stages have been recycled into “new” zones – expect to see a sky fortress and a snowy amusement park, for example – the game does have its unique charm that is complemented by its soundtrack reminiscent of Sonic’s 16-bit days. There is, however, one section of an underwater level that requires you to swim past enemies that freeze the way forward. If you’re too slow or your aiming is off, you’ll be blocked from all sides, and all you can do is wait until Sonic and Tails drown to try again. Frustrated, I tried (in vain) to find a solution, and can only wonder why the developers wouldn’t provide one that doesn’t require losing a life.

Like classic Sonic titles, Episode II is great the first time you play it, but you may question playing through it several times. To extend playtime even further, the game includes chaos emeralds and red rings to collect in each act. As expected, collecting these emeralds lets you turn into Super Sonic, but it doesn’t really affect the game’s ending that much. Also, while finding each act’s red ring is supposed to provide a challenge, they are simply in areas you’ll explore anyway, and their presence simply serves to unlock an achievement. The developers did include a score attack and time trial mode for each act, so players can at least compete with each other via the game’s leaderboards.

While I didn’t particularly enjoy Episode I that much, Episode II rewards players who played the first game and unlocks Episode I stages playable as Metal Sonic. This feels almost like an apologetic thank you to fans that played through the first game, but this expansion gives you some backstory to the character and lets you play through the first game in a whole new way. Plus, it’s great to see Sega implement a similar lock-on technology it did back when Sonic & Knuckles came out.

Episode II has some obvious gameplay issues and provides a lackluster ending, but the experience playing through each stage is very nostalgic of the fun I had playing through the Genesis games. I also appreciate the improvements the developers made to the game and that they listened to and fixed what fans disliked about the first one. At this rate, let’s hope Episode III is made and becomes something truly worth raving about.

Did you know how many Sonic games have been released in the last five years? Discounting re-releases of old arcade titles, and any game that also had Mario in them, there have been at least eight, and their quality has ranged from sort of okay to just plain bad.

For some reason, Sega seems content to churn out a bunch mediocre Sonic games to keep the franchise alive long enough to get its characters into Smash Brothers while it could put the same amount of time and manpower behind an actual quality endeavor you would be proud to put on the shelf next to Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess. With Sonic and the Black Knight, exclusive to the Wii, Sega continues this fairly disappointing trend, using the beloved blue speedster in titles that are, frankly, beneath him.

Thankfully, Black Knight is on the higher quality end of the spectrum, but it is a far cry from the quality gameplay and genre that made Sonic a landmark franchise. It’s mostly ‚ hack-and-slash game with a few speed-based and platforming elements at odd intervals, featuring a sword wielding Sonic in the kingdom of Camelot. For purists of the Sonic franchise (and scholars of Arthurian legend), the very idea of this might seem offensive, but when you put those details aside, and accept the fairly high level of ridiculousness as just entertaining, it makes for a pretty decent game.

The game opens with Merlina, granddaughter of Merlin, being chased by a huge scary looking King Arthur, who is the titular Black Knight. Merlina, being a wizard like her grandfather, casts a summon spell when faced with an army of dark soldiers from the underworld. A hole is torn in the sky, and out falls a blue hedgehog and two chili dogs. Sonic rescues Merlina, but can’t defeat Arthur because he is in possession of the scabbard of Excalibur, which grants the bearer the power of immortality. Sonic and Merlina go off to find the lady of the lake (who is Amy acting in that role) and Arthur dispatches his Knights (Knuckles, Shadow, and Blaze), and from there on out the very basic objective is to run fast and smash stuff with your talking sword, Caliburn. Yes, there is a talking sword.

Once you take the plunge and accept that you are playing an Arthurian legend game with a hedgehog protagonist, the game actually starts to get fun. The principle mode of gameplay is running in a mostly straight line, steered occasionally with the nunchuck, and hacking with the Wiimote to swing your sword. The combat elements are a little repetitive, but the fun comes in at fighting at as high a speed as possible. The sword swinging graphics aren’t great if you slow down and really scrutinize them, but you shouldn’t be doing that because you’re Sonic; RUN! When combat is at its height, you are charging into thick groups of enemies, sword swinging, and you can barely see anything but the crush of soldiers and demons until the dust settles and Sonic moves on to the next battle. The combination of speed and swordplay is a fairly novel one, and, I think, worth a lot more exploration, though it’s done fairly well in this game.

At its worst, which occurs in the somewhat-to-very awkward boss battles, the combat expects an aggravating amount of precision timing in your Wiimote swings: swing half a second too late, you get hit, swing half a second too early, you get hit (yes, there are instances where this Sonic game will punish you for being too fast). However, the satisfaction of leveling an entire phalanx of underworld soldiers makes the frustrating bits worth enduring, and ensures a strong replay value.

Unfortunately, the other aspects of the game do not play out as well as the combat. If you’re looking for a Sonic-style speed platformer, you will not find it with Black Knight. There are definitely platforming elements, and some of them are very cool (near the game’s end you run across the back of a beam of lightning), but they are few and far between, though the levels in which they are most prevalent are definitely the most satisfying to complete. These platform-intensive volcanoes and dragon’s caves are, unfortunately, mostly towards the end of the game, and don’t completely make up for the bland environments of the castles and villages. Sure, there’s lots of jumping from one stone structure to the next, but most of it is just progression down a line of enemies and can quickly get repetitive if that’s not why you invested in the game.

The game also has a few, very weird glitches. There was one instance in a boss battle where, as Sonic was running towards a fire-breathing dragon, he came to an abrupt halt and attacked a stone pillar on the side of the battlefield for no apparent reason; it had no bearing on defeating the boss, and Sonic’s attacks seemed to do nothing more than waste time and attract fire balls.

There was also the instance where I was somehow able to completely bypass a story-relevant cut-scene, where Sonic and his new wise-cracking sword go visit Amy, the Lady of the Lake. I know this scene exists because I saw my roommate play through it, but I somehow just played around it, and was surprised to find myself completing the mission Amy would have otherwise have set before me. It wasn’t really detrimental to the game overall, but just keep it in mind if parts of the story don’t seem to flow together the way they should.

Definitely the strangest thing about the game-yes, even stranger than Knuckles, the flying echidna in knight’s armor-is that after you defeat the knights of the round table and find a way to bypass King Arthur’s Scabbard of immortality, the credits roll. What makes this strange, and this is crucial to your gaming experience, is that the game is only half way over at this point. There is only about 3 hours of gameplay up to that point (it’s a short game), and there are at least 3 more much, much better hours afterwards, but there is also a full credit sequence dividing the two. There’s a chance I would not have caught it and gone on thinking I had just finished the shortest game ever. If your gaming experience does not sync completely with the rest of this review, check your game status: you may have only just started.

Sonic and the Black Knight gets off to a rocky and somewhat ridiculous start, and is likely not what a lot of us are looking for in a Sonic game, but give it time and it will grow on you. It definitely picks up in the later levels, and without giving too much away, there is the requisite Super Sonic level, which is one of the better boss battles. The story and the characters aren’t subtle, and the world isn’t particularly imaginative or worth exploring, but the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, and can provide several hours of good solid fun. It’s probably not worth the full $49.99 price tag, but it’s definitely worth playing if you get the chance. It’s by no stretch the corner stone game the franchise really needs to stay afloat into future generations of gaming, but it’s more fun than not, and in the end not a bad game. It just doesn’t live up to the expectations attached to the name Sonic the Hedgehog.