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The best Sonic game in years!

It used to be that only Sega was able to challenge Nintendo for the king of 2D platformers back when they were both the dominant game developers of the time. Things have changed quite a bit since then with Sony now dominating the market, Nintendo in third place in the console market, and Sega not even having a console of its own.. However, Sega and Sonic Team are still around making games, and they are showing that they still know how to make a great 2D platformer with Sonic Rush on the Nintendo DS.

If you've never played a Sonic game before, do yourself a favor and go pick up some of the Sonic Collections that can be found on the consoles. Since the release of Sonic CD and Sonic 2, none of the Sonic titles have really stood out to me except for maybe the Neo Geo Pocket version and the first Game Boy Advance version. Both were solid titles, but neither captured the magic of the best games in the series. Sonic Rush is the first Sonic platformer to have rekindled the great feeling that Sonic 2 and Sonic CD gave me when I played through them more than a decade ago.

The game structure is broken up into three parts for each world. You have two standard levels which both are fairly long in length and then a boss fight against Dr. Robotnik. The two levels you play through are spread across both screens to have a vertically tall view of the level. It's standard classic 2D Sonic except the characters are modeled in 3D. Despite the characters being in 3D, it blends perfectly well and you'll never really notice that they're different. The boss levels are on a single screen where everything is now drawn in 3D but with limited camera movement. This change works well as it mixes things up a bit but doesn't stray too far from the core game concept as you still will jump to avoid attacks and enemies and try to give damage when you find an opening.

One new addition to the series is your "burst meter". You can fill the meter up by doing tricks while jumping in the air with a combination of d-pad directions and buttons. You can use your burst anytime that you have something in your meter, and it will give you an extra burst of speed. This will help you make long jumps or keep your distance from objects that are following behind you.

What makes the game so fun is the level designs, which really do take advantage of both screens extremely well. At first it may be confusing to realize you have to look between both of them, but after a bit of adjustment, you will be able to follow Sonic or Blaze easily as they transition between screens. There are a lot of stretches where you'll get up to full speed mixed in with some platformer elements so you won't always just be pushing in one direction to pass through the level. The only drawback to the level designs is the element of being helpless. In some cases, you'll either be going at full speed and you'll run into an enemy which would be nearly impossible to avoid unless you knew ahead of time that he'd be there, or you'll find areas where you'll drop down, thinking you need to, but it'll end up being a death pit. These things you'll just have to experiment with and learn to avoid them after you die. While slightly annoying, they have existed in even the best Sonic games.

Aside from the trial and error style of play, the only other real complaint is how Blaze is wasted. There really isn't much of a difference if you play as Sonic or Blaze, which is a bit disappointing given how we've seen the gameplay change in Sonic 2 with Tails, and in Sonic 3 with Knuckles. Blaze could have been a refreshing character to play as, and Sonic Team could have taken advantage of navigating the levels in a different manner, but they didn't. Maybe we'll have better luck in the sequel.

If you have a friend with a Nintendo DS, you can take them on in a head to head race through the levels. This is done in a similar fashion to how it was in previous games in the series. One cool thing about this mode is the game only requires a single cartridge for multiplayer play. In addition to single cart multiplayer play, you can also transmit a demo of the game to someone so they can try it out as well.

It's really nice to see the Nintendo DS build its library of solid games after the initial launch that was left with barely anything to play. Sonic Rush is a great 2D platformer that ranks among the best in the series and adds to that growing library of quality titles. Not only is the game very polished and extremely fun to play, it doesn't abuse the DS by trying to take advantage of all of its features. It concentrates on one advantage of the system and runs with it (pun intended). If you at all like the Sonic series or even 2D platformers, do yourself a favor and pick up this great gem from Sega.