Sonic Shuffle

Sonic Shuffle
North American boxart
Developer(s)	Hudson Soft, Sonic Team (Co-Developer)
Publisher(s)	Sega
Designer(s)	Shuji Utsumi (Producer) Hidenori Oikawa (Director/Lead Game Designer) Akinori Nishiya & Yuji Uekawa (Supervisors) Jason Kuo (Assistant Producer)
Artist(s)	Hisashi Kubo (Lead Artist) Manabu Yanagisawa (Lead Character Artist)
Composer(s)	Jun Senoue Yoshitaka Hirota Hidenobu Otsuki Ryo Fukuda Takeo Suzuki Kazumi Mitome
Platform(s)	Dreamcast
Release date(s)	NA November 14, 2000 JP December 21, 2000 PAL March 9, 2001
Genre(s)	Party
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: E (Everyone) CERO: A

Sonic Shuffle (ソニックシャッフル, Sonikku Shaffuru^?) is a video game for the Dreamcast and was Sega's answer to the Nintendo party game, Mario Party. The game was developed by Hudson Soft, who also developed Mario Party, and co-developed by Sonic Team.

Overview

In Sonic Shuffle, the player can select one of the main characters of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. The game supports 1 player in Story Mode and up to 4 players simultaneously in Versus Mode and the Sonic Room. Further to the simultaneous play, the game allows for players to play in teams and play against one another on a giant game board, going around and playing mini games to collect Emblems. Whoever has the most emblems at the end of each board wins. The overall goal of each board is to collect the most precioustones, out of a total of 7. There are 5 boards in total: Emerald Coast, Fire Bird, Nature Zone, Riot Train, and Fourth Dimension Space.

The game also featured 8 playable characters, each with their own unique abilities, and 4 of which needed to be unlocked. The available characters were: Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Super Sonic, Big the Cat, Gamma, and Chao.

The game featured around 50 mini games and around 30 mini events. Mini games ranged in variety and challenge and they were divided by Teams of 2, Teams of 3 versus a Single Player and a Free-For-All. The mini events generally involved a little story, or event, and usually a choice given at the end to determine your prize or punishment. As well as having a single-player Story Mode and a two- to four-player Versus Mode, the game had a “Sonic Room” where you could play your favorite mini-games, after unlocking them, with your friends without starting a full game in a place called the "Toy Box", as well as a stereo to play your favorte soundtracks. Both of these must be unlocked by buying Photos from the Photo Album.

Plot

The story involves Sonic and company getting caught up in a mess in a dream world called Maginaryworld, which they inadvertently stumble upon one day. A villain named Void has shattered the Master Precioustone into many pieces, resulting in chaos in every part of the world. Lumina Flowlight and the rest of Maginary World are counting on Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy to restore it and bring Illumina back, who mysteriously disappeared after the disappearance of the Precioustone. At the end of the game it is revealed that Lumina and Void both are Illumina, and that Illumina doubted herself. Sonic and friends leave Maginaryworld knowing that it is now safe again and during the credits, the four head off to their next adventure.

Gameplay

The game play involves playing randomly given cards. The deck of cards has four of every card numbering 1-6 and four wild cards. Three of the wild cards have an “S” and the remaining card is the “EGGMAN” card. Playing the cards would dictate the distance your player would move on the board. The S cards could be played as a 7 if you had decent timing as the card changed from 1 to S. The "EGGMAN" card was bad fortune for one or all of the characters and would generally cause trouble for the players in myriad ways. A full game could take anywhere from 20 minutes to two and a half hours, depending on how many precioustones you decided to be available to you at the beginning.

Mini Games

There was a wide variety of mini-games found within Sonic Shuffle. In some mini games, the players all play against each other, while in other mini games the players are split into 2 teams of two and 1 vs. 3.^[1]

Playable Characters

• Sonic The Hedgehog
• Miles "Tails" Prower
• Amy Rose
• Knuckles the Echidna

Unlockable Characters

• Big the Cat
• E-102 Gamma
• Super Sonic
• Chao

Each character had their own unique ability. With the exception of Chao, who only had one ability, each character has an ability for the Board and an ability for Battles.

Other characters

Lumina Flowlight

Lumina Flowlight is the guardian of the Precioustone in Maginary World, along with the world's goddess, Illumina. She is a pink, fairy-like creature who bears an extremely high resemblance to NiGHTS. In the beginning of the game, she brings Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy and (unknowingly) Eggman to Maginary World in order to get their help to repair the Precioustone, which was shattered by Void. Later, she and Void cancel each other out, following her revelation that Void is the nothingness in the imagination that allows people to dream. She and Void are actually the two halves of Illumina that make her a complete entity. Lumina and Illumina are voiced by Elara Distler in the game.

Void

Void is the imp-like villain from Sonic Shuffle. At the start of the game, Void shatters the mysterious Precioustone, which controls his world, Maginaryworld. Sonic and friends then set out on a quest to defeat him and repair the stone. Throughout the game, Void shows signs of depression and loneliness which touches the hearts of Sonic and his friends who, in turn, want to help him amidst the evilness within him. At the end of the game, it turns out that Void is needed for the balance in Maginaryworld, as he is the nothingness that gives people the ability to dream. He is in fact one half of Maginaryworld's ruler Illumina. Lumina is the other half. As such, Sonic and his friends do not destroy him, and leave Maginaryworld knowing that Lumina and Void cancel each other out. Cosmo from Sonic X bears a resemblance to both Void and Lumina. He was voiced by Lani Minella in the English version and Urara Takano in the Japanese version.

Prototype storylines for the Archie comics included a mention of Void as an upcoming antagonist, undoubtedly for a Sonic Shuffle adaptation that was never published.^[2]

Cast

Reception

Sonic Shuffle generally had mixed to negative reviews. Ratings from online gaming sites include:

• Planet Dreamcast: 5.5/10 ^[3]
• IGN: 4.7/10 ^[4]
• GameSpot: 4.5/10
• GamePro: 4/5
• Official Dreamcast Magazine (UK): 55%
• Gaming Age: C ^[5]
• Game Revolution: B- ^[6]
• Electronic Gaming Monthly: 5.5/4.0/6.0

• According to ABC video game show, Good Game, it was "Mario party minus the fun".
• Screwattack named it the #3 worst Sonic game, commenting on how it was "Copying the competition" and "a TERRIBLE rip-off of Mario Party. But what it did offer was a massive storyline...that sucked."

References

External links

• Sonic Shuffle at MobyGames