Don't let the nay sayers tell you any thing different. Sonic can still be in one hell of a game. He's had success in the Sonic Advance series on the GBA, and that continues now on the DS with Sonic Rush.
It's the same old story for Sonic. They need the Chaos emeralds to stop Eggman. But this time, there's a little twist. A tear has torn in the space time continuum, colliding Sonic's world with another, introducing him to (yeat another) new character: Blaze the Cat. Both are determined to stop the Eggman from their dimension, and neither wants to pass off the responsibility to the other.
Sonic Rush stays truer to its roots than any other installment in recent memory. Sonic goes through 2 2-D levels in each act, and then a boss fight at the end. The levels he goes through are all unique, and faithful to what you'd expect sonic to go through. Sonic maintains he incredibly fast personality, but there are also some real platforming aspects you need to watch out for. There's only 1 real problem that detracts from the gameplay. One in a while, you'll enter a room where you have to defeat a set number of enemies before you can continue. These aren't at all hard, but they just slow the game down way too much.
Of course, there is an easy way to get through them. As you defeat enemies, a meter fill up at the side of the screen. while it's even partially full, you can press Y to make an incredibly fast dash, effectively killing anything in your path. This is the only real new aspect to the series, but it works well and comes in handy.
Between levels, you have a world map, similar to that of Donkey Kong Country. This lets you go back and play any previously completed levels to raise your rank.
Boss fights took a different approach. Instead of the traditional 2d gameplay, they are played in 3d environments. But don't let Sonic's track record in 3D sacre you. The boss fights are interesting and incredibly fun to play through.
Sonic Rush's graphics stand up well. They are bright, colourful, and most importantly, look like Sonic. The animations are fluid and attractive, and the game has absolutely no trouble keeping up with the speed.
Sonic Rush also does a great job of sounding like Sonic. The nostalgiac sounds, like the rings or sonic jumping, are all intact, and the music is what one should expect to hear. The only real problem is that it can get repetitive, especially if you're replaying the levels.
There's only one real problem here. Sonic Rush is incredibly short. There's only 7 zones plus the final boss, and though you can play as Blaze the Cat, it's pretty much the same experience over again.
Still, any one looking for some great Sonic gameplay will not be disappointed with Sonic Rush. If only this kind of quality would carry over to his console games.
