Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Not unlike Phantom Hourglass, again, progression comes from gathering abilities to access new areas, and battle proficiency to navigate them without death. The difference is that abilities are bound to particular characters, rather than Link's equipment and weapons as they are in Zelda. Sonic can traverse loop-the-loops; Tails can fly; Amy can smash things up. There are at least nine playable characters in total to access. As you explore, little icons appear showing things like wings to indicate that you'll need a new ability to push any further here, and giving you a rough idea of what it is.

The most interesting thing about Sonic Chronicles, though, is BioWare's licence to mould the fiction. Sonic is a veteran of dozens of games, but his story isn't bound to a particular timeline and conflicting events are permissible. BioWare's choice is simple so far: in a world where Eggman, the series' traditional chaos emerald-hunting goon, is vanquished, Knuckles goes missing, and Sonic sets out to find him. Following a tour of familiar Zones - Central City, Metropolis, Blue Ridge - the game enters another dimension for its second act.

We're not being told much about this yet, and our preview code avoids it completely, but we are able to explore plenty of conversation trees (garrulous, but nowhere near as bad as Sonic Rush Adventure's crazy sweary Aussie nonsense), and watch a promising animated, CG-style introduction. Unchoked by canon, BioWare has the opportunity to make Sonic dramatic; it's arguably a tougher job than making him work as an RPG.

Whichever way you look at it, however, there are parallels here, for those who want them, with another maligned but relentless success: Star Wars. Borderline rubbish on the silver screen since 1999, it has clearly kept George Lucas in ranches (even if this preview is published against a backdrop of downsizing at LucasArts). Because the films did well, the merchandise did well, and while the direct games-of-the-films were as bad as everyone expected, others did well and continue to do so. Like LEGO Star Wars.

And like Knights of the Old Republic, also from BioWare. Whether by design or not, KOTOR completes the comparison rather promisingly. With Sonic now, as with Star Wars then, the initial reaction was confusion - even admonishment from the angry Internet: Naughty BioWare! Make a proper game! Except, as we discovered, it did. It very did.

Sonic will never be a Knight of the Old Republic, but as he zips along a similar career path to George's freaks and furries, he can be sure he's in good hands - hands of experts not just in RPG form and function, but in taking another company's once-cherished IP and caressing the reset button. Sonic Chronicles makes a functional first impression, but its function is fine, and its form is yet to be established; with BioWare at the helm, you'd be a fool to write it off.