Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

[NeoZeedeater]

March 1996 — Capcom releases Resident Evil for the PlayStation in Japan and the United States. It is believed to have invented the term "survival horror" and it popularized the genre.


This is the only good thing about 1996

Don't forget Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Quake, The Neverhood, Waverace 64, Warcraft II, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Duke Nukem 3D, Bad Mojo, Suikoden, Daggerfall, The Pandora Directive, NiGHTS, Raiden Fighters, Terra Nova, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Saturn Bomberman, etc..

[Kidnemo]

This looks awesome and I love the art style.

[Rem]

Nothing good came out in 96 eh?

[Othello Harrington]

Oh shits, I stand corrected both by Neo (Panzer Dragoon and Suikoden) AND by Rem.

The only front mission game I played was the translated rom, and that indeed rocked as well.

[Low]

My respect to Bioware for pulling something light-hearted off so well. The challenge will be creating a compelling story out of Sonic's broken narrative, and for chrissakes NO VOICES. *-neo

[Cowdisease]

Don't forget Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Quake, The Neverhood, Waverace 64, Warcraft II, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Duke Nukem 3D, Bad Mojo, Suikoden, Daggerfall, The Pandora Directive, NiGHTS, Raiden Fighters, Terra Nova, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Saturn Bomberman, etc..

And The King of Fighters '96.

[Cowdisease]

Someone in NeoGAF made a bullet list of the game's features.

-Cover Story with nice artwork
-In game graphics have a water color look, all hand drawn
-4 party members at a time
-Each character can do certain things ex: Tails can float over things (standard stuff)
-11 party members total - 7 known are Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Rouge, Shadow, Big the Cat
-Control done fully with stylus - think Hourglass
-Able to split party into teams at certain moments
-Rings are used as currency
-No random battles, see enemies on the field
-Turn based battles, choose commands for everyone in your party before they actually follow through. Want battles to be fast paced
-Elite Beat Agents style special attacks
-Team attacks (like Chrono Trigger)
-"Fatigue Points" instead of MP
-Choose which attributes to increase when you level up
-Purchase and level special attacks
-Bits of story - Sonic's on vacation from defeating Eggman 2 years ago. Gets a call from Tails that Knuckles has been kidnapped by a group called the Marauders, and that 6 chaos emeralds are missing. Eggman not the main villain. But Bioware wants to make him a creditable bad guy again. Something about a "twist" between Eggman and Sonic that goes back to the earlier games.
-2 acts - first takes place in standard Sonic areas. 2nd takes place in a darker world
-Remixed classic tunes
-"fully animated cut scenes"
-simple dialogue trees
-Side quests

Don't know about you guys, but it sounds like we have another portable Sonic winner.

[Frogacuda]

The net's the same. Static backgrounds in 2007 are fucking ridiculous.

Why? Shit, Tales of Rebirth did it in like 2004 and it looked great. Pre-rendered crap is an excuse for technical limitations, but hand-drawn is a style choice I can get behind no matter what the year.

[mannerbot]

Those screens look pretty damn good to me. Never thought I'd be interested in a fucking Sonic RPG but here I am.

[bVork]

Anyone who claims to despise static backgrounds in games needs to go play the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games again.