Sonic and The Secret Rings - Reception

Reception

Sonic and the Secret Rings received mixed to positive reviews from critics. It received a score of 70.71% on GameRankings and 69/100 on Metacritic. The game charted well; it was the eleventh best-selling game of February 2007 worldwide, and third for the Wii. It proved the best-selling Wii game and fifth among all platforms in the United Kingdom. In North America, it was thirteenth overall, and fourth for the Wii, with 83,000 copies. In June, July, and August 2007, the game was the fourth, third, and seventh best-selling game for the Wii, respectively.

Critics felt Secret Rings was a general improvement over recent Sonic games, whose popularity and critical reception had declined. Electronic Gaming Monthly stated that it "does a decent job at stopping the bleeding caused by the recent 360/PS3/PSP Sonics", and 1UP.com's Shane Bettenhausen wrote that the Sonic series was "definitely on the mend" after suffering progressively-worse games after the release of Sonic Adventure. GameSpy's Patrick Joynt agreed, writing that Sonic had been "reanimated to a lurching existence". IGN's Matt Casamassina, Nintendo Power's Chris Shepperd, and GameSpot's Greg Mueller named Secret Rings the best 3D Sonic game, but criticized 3D Sonic games in general. Eurogamer's Rob Fahey praised the game for employing Sonic as the only playable character.

The game's level design received mixed reviews. Joynt preferred fast levels and felt that the ones requiring players to "move carefully" detracted from the experience. Bettenhausen praised the visual appeal of Secret Rings and compared it to that of Resident Evil 4, a game which critics acclaimed for its visuals. Casamassina agreed that the "Sonic Team has done a lot with ", and praised the varying missions and levels' aesthetic contrast. However, he criticized the placement of obstacles. Fahey denounced levels' "avoidable blind spots and leaps of faith", and found the number of stages and their re-use over multiple missions "a little bit disconcerting". He conceded that it added to the game's replay value, comparing the levels to tracks in racing games.

Control and camera movement concerned reviewers. Bettenhausen called the controls "a tad reckless at first – Sonic's momentum takes some getting used to, and trying to go in reverse is a pain – but become more natural and fluid as you get acclimated to the fast-paced, twitchy action." Casamassina and Mueller offered similar opinions, while Shepperd criticized the game's low camera angle and arbitrary targeting system. Bettenhausen dismissed the game's multiplayer mode as a failed adaptation of the Mario Party series. Fahey concurred, adding that a multiplayer racing mode would have been preferable to "lame" minigames. Casamassina compared the games to those in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz: "only a handful of them really stand out and some are downright pointless, but overall gamers will probably be happy that they were included." Shepperd agreed, but decried the necessity to "play the story mode extensively to unlock some of the party mode's best features."