Muffin Shuffle

Continuing my one post trend of old games on old systems, I'll next be reviewing a board game style of video game similar to Mario Party but with less ass. Also on the dreamcast, this game is called Sonic Shuffle. Sonic Shuffle is as you can imagine, played with all the loveable charactersof the Sonic games that we all know and now despise because of all the shit games that have come out in the past year about them. But this is before all of that. So erase all of that knowledge from your tiny game filled brains before going into this because it will be totally useless to anything this game has to offer you. Which is mainly awesome, confusing and win.

First improvement from Mario Party, is the movement system. This is actually something that you can control now, instead of it being almost completely random. The dice block system was replaced by a card system, and you are dealt a series of cards that you can choose from by looking at the little screen on the controller that's a part of the VMU, the littleinsert that's equivalent to a memory card. However, you can also throw it to chance and choose one of the other players cards as well. You have two Eggman cards thrown into the deck before it's dealt and two S cards that allow you to give your timing a test to see how high or low you can get your number, depending on what you need in the way of spaces moved at the time of your card choosing. You also use the cards for nifty little battles that take place when you land on certain spaces, and you have to win battles to advance in the gameplay and actually serve some chance of winning.

Secondly, you don't have to catch Chaos Emeralds, surprisingly, and Stars serve no purpose to Sonic. For this game, you're gathering some sort of jewel of which the utterly meaningless name escapes me. You still get coins to buy fun things that make the game go faster, slower, or more interestingly, depending on what type you get.

Thirdly, and I do believe lastly, are the maps. There's almost constantly something going on in the map that you don't know how it effects you until you're suddenly sent back to the start or get lost on the way to the jewel. This happens more often than you think and you really have to think when you're trying to get to the jewel because you get penalized if someone else gets there first and you happen to be the furthest away from it at the time.

Personally, I love this game more than I ever could with Mario Party. The Mario Party games all have some kind of gimmick to them that as soon as you figure it out they become so little of a challenge that you could do them while simultaneously eating some form of junk food that you more than obviously just have sitting next to you. The games in Sonic Shuffle however, all seem to be out to get you, and the AI is ridiculous, even on easy. The challenge is always there and it doesn't let up, which is a nice change of pace from the horrifyingly easy learning curve that accompanies most modern games.

>Ryft