The Sonic Shuffle Page

Genre: Puzzle / Card Game.

Sonic Shuffle takes Sonic after the mysterious Void, a young dude who is upsetting the balance in Maginaryworld, the place of everyone’s favourite dreams. He has changed people’s favourite dream worlds into mechanical like creations and has shattered the power of the Precioustone. Without it’s power Maginaryworld is faced with the danger of tearing apart at the seams of its very existence. Sonic & his buddies hear the call for help from Lumina Flowlight, a Guardian Fairy, and decide they’ll help. Unfortunately, it’s not just Void you have to take on, but that old foe, Dr. Robotnik. As it turns out, he hears about the power of the Precioustone and follows Sonic.
You receive a deck of Magical Cards and Forcejewels from Lumina, and set out to save Maginaryworld.
In the game, you move across various “souped up” playing boards, which are actually fancy looking places in dreams. You pick a card from your hand, or someone elses, and move the number of spaces shown. In the case of Sonic, if he picks a card, and then picks the same number a 2nd time, he can move double the amount of spaces on the 2nd turn. Knuckles can climb special Knuckles squares, Amy can bounce herself with her hammer and Tails can fly over special flying spaces.
The boards are covered with lots of different types of spaces, as are board type games, and in this case there are “+” ring spaces, “-” ring spaces, special event spaces, Precioustone spaces and special jump spaces, which come in the form of a Helicopter, Dolphin Move, Trolley, Forklift, Blast and Column Of Light. By moving across certain amounts of spaces, you will crank up a combo, which could have a negative effect, or a positive one. There are tens of Mini Events and Mini Games in the game too, and some are really fun.
When you go to get a Precioustone in the game, you actually have to fight a nasty boss type character, and if you don’t match the number on their card, or get one that’s higher, you lose, and you’ll have to go back between 1 space to 6 spaces. You also have to take them on if you pass one that Dr. Robotnik drops or if you land on a Battle Space.
You can start out with Sonic, Amy, Tails or Knuckles, and later, you can play as Super Sonic, Big, Gamma and Chao.
Rings that you’ve collected during the game are deposited in the bank, and you can use these then to purchase pictures in the Sonic Room, where you can also access the Mini Games.

The graphics in the game use a cel-shading technique, which is interesting, giving the characters a cartoony look, although they’re still 3D. The stages are very original looking, and have a nice colourful look to them all too. Some of the textures look a bit pixelated, but they still appear to be anti-aliased.
The sound is excellent, with a great intro Sonicy tune, and the sound effects are all top quality. There’s not that much really fantastic in-game music - it’s sort of just background stuff.
All up, it’s fantastic for multiplayer gaming, and not bad in single player mode either. Grab up 4 control pads & 3 mates and you’re in action!
Graphics: Pretty spiffy looking graphics, some low quality textures, but special effects and characters all look fantastic. The cel-shading is an interesting touch for Sonic. 89%
Sound: Great quality sound, with clear speech and a good range of effects. 90%
Animation: Pretty smooth stuff all round. 95%
Playabilty: Easy to get into, and that. The levels start to get a bit trickier by the time you get to Riot Train, but it’s not impossible and doesn’t require too much fast reaction. 90%
Lastability: Sometimes the loading between special events and that from other characters can get a bit boring, but you do have the option of speeding the computer players up. Best played with other people when you have over a hour to spare. The amount of different Mini Events and Mini Games keeps it pretty interesting. 74%
Overall: A different approach to Sonic. There was Sonic Drift and Sonic R, 2 racing games, well now there’s Sonic Shuffle as well. It’s worth considering, and if you’re a fan, you probably have it anyway. 80%