Bioware and Sonic are, on paper, somewhat of a curious mixture, rather in the line of Stephen Fry penning a sublime dry comedy and then having Big In The Nineties hero Noel Edmonds stepping up into the main role. On one hand we have the folks behind the rather epic Mass Effect amongst others working away behind the scenes giving us a rather fun action/RPG hybrid for the DS, whilst on the other we’ve got knackered old Sonic and his ragtag bunch of friends piling along in the hope that this once they’ve actually been given something decent to appear in.

See, ever since this was announced way back when, I have been rather enthused about the prospect of playing this. Yeah, yeah – I am one of those folks who still clings to happy memories of Sonic 2 and all, but I am also someone who has played through and rather enjoyed the Mario RPG titles through the years and as such am always up for a little bit of slightly comic adventuring. The end results don’t, sadly, match up to any of the aforementioned Mario titles, but it’s still a decent enough title to warrant some sort of reasonably cheerful games critic high-five.

Subtitled The Dark Brotherhood so as to perhaps trick people into thinking that Sonic has gone all gritty and mature, the game is nonetheless a jaunt through a pretty familiar Sonic-type story and some well-known (or rehashed, depending on your point of view and general level of cynicism) locations. Sonic is on holiday after beating Doctor Robotnik (no, I am not calling him bloody Eggman) once more, but finds out that official greatest Sonic character ever Knuckles has been kidnapped and the Chaos Emeralds have been nabbed. Gasp.

Hence, off you wander as Sonic, recruiting chums as you progress through various areas and challenges so you can get to the bottom of this rather tricky muddle. The first thing that hits you in the face like a wet kipper from the very moment you start tooting about in Dark Brotherhood is that the game, viewed from an isometric overhead viewpoint in the field and from behind your characters in the turn-based combat, looks rather spiffing, with bright colours and bold shapes chucked around left, right and centre. The tunes bopping along in the background are all vaguely familiar too, with most being remixes of older themes from Sonic games past. So far, so acceptable.

The game itself can be entirely controlled with the stylus (although buttons also work should you wish), so dragging Sonic around to run through the various areas collecting rings, Chao (ugh, those things again) eggs and completing tasks is really quite simple. Each character in your ever-expanding party has a particular ability that they can use in the field; Sonic can spin through pipes and ramps, Knuckles can climb walls, Tails can fly etc, and hence returning to certain places once you have new characters or higher-level abilities will open up new paths for those intent on getting as close to a 100% completion rate as they can. It’s not a hugely clever system by any means, of course, but it works well enough.

The combat is also good fun, mainly as Bioware decided to actually make use of the touch screen facility for something other than merely selecting attack options and the like. Selecting a POW attack for each character will throw up a number of little touch screen tasks for you to follow (quickly tapping, following a circle with the stylus as it moves around the screen, tapping circles when they appear etc), with perfect execution unleashing a perfect attack. There are the standard combat options of defending, attacking and using items too, and apart from the above-mentioned touch screen tinkering it’s pretty standard turn-based combat fare. Still, once again it’s enjoyable and will keep you on your toes.

You’d have thought that getting the basics right would spur Bioware on to then lavish their usual flourish, but disappointingly there’s a distinct air of playing it safe when it comes to the games difficulty, progression and story. For starters, the game is supremely easy to complete – it’ll take about ten hours or so across the nine chapters, and during that time you hardly ever (if at all) need to grind away to level your characters up. This isn’t necessarily bad, of course, but having polished off the final boss and completed the game you do get the nagging feeling that at some point it could have challenged you a lot more. Once you get a smattering of each character’s POW abilities most battles are merely a matter of biding your time and waiting until you have unleashed enough attacks to fell whichever enemy you have come up against.

Part of this is also down to the rather simple way the game sets out tasks, and how comparatively few of them there are. Each of the game’s areas, from Green Hill Zone to the latter space-based levels, are rather small in map size and offer one or perhaps two main tasks alongside a couple of additional ones should you choose to undertake them, but they always follow one of two patterns: go to X and get item Y, or go to X and defeat opponent Z. Occasionally the two kind of merge together, rewarding you with an item after defeating a particular boss. Hum. Not exactly a thrill-packed ride through variety, eh?

Topping this all off, the story isn’t exactly particularly engaging either. Okay, yeah, sure, it was never going to be an award winning emotional rollercoaster given the subject matter, but at the same time you do find yourself wondering in the earlier stages if the thing is ever going to kick into gear. It kind of does about midway through when you find yourself having to go to another dimension to sort out a rather evil echidna, but it’s standard Sonic stuff that we’ve all seen before. How much of a problem this will be to you depends entirely on your love of the little blue hedgehog fellow. Oh, and two incidental matters: Tails is extremely annoying and constantly reminds you to save (until, thankfully, you get the option to tell him to shut up about it) and Cream the Rabbit, possibly the biggest nonentity in Sonic character history, actually ends up being possibly the most useful character out there due to her healing abilities. Yeah, didn’t see that one coming either.

Hence, it all adds up to being rather more disappointing that you may have originally hoped, although in fairness it’s still enjoyable enough to warrant a better-than-average score. It’s short, easy and has a simple story, sure, and in many ways it seems more like an ideal starter adventure for younger players than a fully-fledged RPG to absorb yourself into. On the positive side it does bring that certain Sonic charm to the table well enough and it is, despite the problems, still enjoyable enough to prod you along gently until you reach the game’s conclusion, which is a lot more than you could say for a whole raft of titles out on the market at the moment. Dark Brotherhood might not be in the same league as the Mario RPG titles, but there’s enough in there to enjoy and to suggest that the series is one worth maintaining if certain concerns can be ironed out.