Official Nintendo Magazine UK have reviewed the recent Wii Virtual Console release of Sonic & Knuckles and given it a good score of 85%.
The reasons restricting them giving the game an even higher score is as follows:
Naturally though, the main gameplay change is the addition of Knuckles, whose ability to glide and climb walls changes the feel of the game drastically. The levels aren’t laid out as well as those in the previous Sonic games however, and the game suffers slightly as a result.
So while it’s not as essential as the main Sonic trilogy, Sonic & Knuckles is still highly recommended for all platform fans.
Guess ONM arent fans of Knuckles gameplay change though they do give a + at the end of review for being able to play as him, the only – they give the game is in their words “Not as good as Sonic 2 or 3”.
What do you think of their review? Let the debate begin in the comments section.
i do admit knuckles doesnt have a good jump but his glide and climb made him refreshing from the running which was getting old
I’m trying to think about this statement “So while it’s not as essential as the main Sonic trilogy,”, they do know that Sonic 3 is only half of the full game and S&K is the other half (hence the lock on technology). Then later in the review they say “Sonic & Knuckles was originally intended to be the second half of Sonic 3” so is it just me or are they not reading what they’re writing?
Even better is when they say “As you’d expect, this means Sonic & Knuckles plays very much like Sonic 3.”. So according to them S&K is “Not as good as Sonic 2 or 3” yet Sonic and Knuckles plays like Sonic 3 and is acknowledged as being part of the same game just split into two cartridges. This reads like on big contradiction. Seems like they had two different writers write this review with out checking on the others’ notes.
@ MilesDX
It wouldnt surprise me. I’m not a professional writer and doubt I’ll ever be, ONM however are supposed to be but alot of their website articles and sometimes their magazine articles contain contradictions like this and errors etc… They do a good job on their site and magazine but you cant help but notice these things sometimes.
…..and ASR got a 5/10 in GAMEStm.
Sorry to bring the atmosphere down but it’s something we all should of seen coming. Give it a read, it’s a good review.
Sonic and Knuckles, now that takes me back…
@ProjectZuel Yeah that’s true but they also gave Mario Kart Wii a 6/10. We’ll see how it goes when it’s released.
@ jahranimo
ohhh, good to see a fellow GAMEStm reader; love that mag. Thing is though I agree also with their review on Mario Kart Wii. It was a fun game but it was the most shallow of the series, redesigned too heavily for the casual market.
From the ASR demo I could tell it was only a ‘good’ game, not fufilling enough due to the mechanics and weapons.
Well, looks like the next game I’m gonna get is either Bioshock 2 or Bayonetta. Choices, choices…
Good point, MilesDX… I mean, I personally consider the completed SONIC 3 & KNUCKLES as one full game, and rarely have any reason to distinguish the two. But to newcomers or casual gamers, especially those who don’t remember the history of the “lock-on” cartridge back on the ol’ SEGA MegaDrive, there will be big differences, most (if not all) manifested in Knuckles and his glide/climb abilities.
And let’s be honest about this: Knuckles slowed things down. When playing Mushroom Hill Zone, Act 2 as Sonic, you can blitz through at a decent speed (only slowed by those annoying pull-up machines) whereas Knuckles, while still fast enough to give him passing credit in the Sonicverse, seems to always find himself climbing ever-so-steadily up a cliff, or gliding peacefully into a sliding rugby-tackle-gone-wrong landing (cool defeat of a Badnik, if you can pull it off, aside). No matter how much I play, I can never get Knuckles up to speed, except the transition between the autumn (brown-ish) and winter (silver-y) weather conditions in Act 2.
Then again, you can’t criticise SONIC & KNUCKLES for introducing a new, slower playable character while comparing it to SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3… because in that game, the secondary playable character was Miles ‘Tails’ Prower and his new ability was flight, which was massively slow and annoyingly short-lived! So where’s the love for Knuckles when ‘Tails’ clearly got a free pass one game earlier? Critics confuse me… then again, that’s the difference between them and us, I suppose.
Take note, this magazine rarely gives non-nintendo VC games scores up in the high eighties so 85% is a brilliant score, and anyway does it really contradict, I mean Knuckles wasn’t playable in Sonic 3 until you locked it onto Sonic and Knuckles so comparing the two kinda works.
Ehhh, it’s ONM. Sometimes I get the feeling that they’re still having a hard time getting to grips with the fact that they now need to try and be nice now that Sonic’s on their home consoles, as opposed to the fair amount of Sonic-bashing prior. It’s fine, really.
As much as the line “So while it’s not as essential as the main Sonic trilogy” miffs me slightly as it is essential in regard to the storyline, I can somewhat see what he means. Sonic & Knuckles standalone just doesn’t feel the same.