Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

When you think of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega's fleet-footed mascot, you think of speedy platformer games full of running, jumping, and rushing crazily about like a roller coaster gone off the rails. But Sonic, who's been around for 17 years now, is now venturing into a new video game genre. By mixing Sonic's mythic backstory into a role-playing format, Sega has created SONIC CHRONICLES: THE DARK BROTHERHOOD, a fairly deep DS offering centering upon a simple premise: someone or something has kidnapped Knuckles, Sonic's sometime pal and sometime rival. It's up to Sonic and ten of his pals to find the sharp knuckled, short-tempered Knuckles.

Sonic Chronicles shines as an entry-level role playing game that has at least 20 hours of game within, all of which is played via the touch screen. As you play as a Level 1 Sonic, you're given a generally understandable tutorial which tells you how to move Sonic by touching a spot on the lower screen to which you want him to travel. You're told to talk to everyone by touching icons above them and you're shown how get powerups by simply running into them. The battle system, which at one point not only has you fighting but chasing down a drone, is also explained in the too-long tutorial.