Well, I’ve been a long-life fan of Sonic. He was the video game icon that I grew up with through my early years – his games the first that I viewed the way I view all games now – as a true form of art. Sonic was the king of the 16-bit era, regardless of what you Mario fans may say – his games dominated, with fast and fun gameplay.

This is something that apparently was lost in newer Sonic titles. Sonic Adventure lost some speed for some adventure aspects, like Super Mario 64 lost pure platforming from the previous games. Sonic Adventure 2 was a return to full-on speed, but lost the charm of the original Adventure title, along with any sense of skill as the levels varied from “Press and Hold up” to frustratingly hard platform jumping. Sonic Heroes introduced the team system, which worked just fine but made for an overall decidedly mediocre game. Shadow the Hedgehog, you'll find out about in our upcoming review.

Similarly, the 2D titles seemed to have lost the energy of the previous games – Sonic Advance playing like Sonic Adventure (minus the adventure) – far too slow for a 2D Sonic, while Sonic Advance 2 copied Sonic Adventure 2 with high speed that provided little challenge, with Sonic Advance 3 trying to introduce the team aspect into the 2D Sonic world.

While all three were valiant attempts at introducing a 2D Sonic as good as the previous ones, and fine games in their own right, they never quite felt as good – or as much like tue Sonic games – as the classic games.

Now comes Sonic Rush, a Nintendo DS title making use of the second touch sensitive screen in an interesting way – instead of providing some form of control, you just don’t touch the screen – the levels of the game span across both screens, with Sonic speeding across both screens, flipping up and down between them. While this is not a new concept for a DS title, it is certainly an interesting choice for a game such as Sonic. It takes some time to get used to – the first two levels were very confusing for me, as I was staring at the top screen thinking “where the hell has Sonic gone?” – once you’ve played the game for a bit, switching your attention between the two screens is second nature.

The HUD displaying your lives, rings, and other statistics swaps screens to whatever screen Sonic himself is on. The camera work as Sonic swaps screens is impressive, as it could easily become dysfunctional, but the camera implemented entirely avoids this.

The title this time only offers two characters – the blue hedgehog himself and a new character, purple Blaze the Cat. She plays exactly like Sonic (though thanks to the power of some of her abilities I found it substantially easier than Sonic’s levels), so it’s nothing too special – just another character for the kids.

The gameplay of the title is much faster and fun, something we haven’t seen in a Sonic title for a long time. It is infinitely faster than the old Sonic titles, while remaining very fun and taking a level of concentration to play (as opposed to the ‘hold right’ play of Advance 2). In Sonic Advance 2’s faster sections, you’d be pelting along at an amazing pace, when the level design would throw an enemy in your path that would be near unavoidable. While enemies are still ruthlessly thrown in your path in Sonic Rush (but notably less so), this time, you do have the means to avoid it (with a press of X or Y, Special Moves) – making the game on a whole a lot more enjoyable.

There is a simple bar on the top of the screen that fills as you perform combos, defeat enemies and collect power-ups. The contents of this bar can then be used to perform your special move – making you aware that it is there for you to use, but does not become a crutch for the player. Ensuring the emphasis is on the classic speed platformer, Sonic gameplay is not ruined by these fast and powerful moves. It’s a superb addition that really adds a lot to the title, and could add a lot to the series as a whole in the future.

The tricks that were introduced in Sonic Advance 2 that you can perform when running off ramps or bouncing off springs by pressing R remains in this version, and to boot, the grinding first found in the second Sonic Adventure title is also present. Several combinations of R and D-Pad presses allow for many different moves that have many different effects.

The Sonic Advance titles seemed to increasingly encourage exploration of the levels, rewarding those who explored with more to play. While Sonic Rush has an intense complexity to many of it’s levels, the game also manages to perfectly balance this out (as with Sonic 3), encouraging you to run like hell – but also offering a decent level of depth to explore for those bored with running the level like a time attack.

Boss stages are comprised of small 3D arenas (which sort of remind me of the canned Sonic X-treme for Saturn) where you fight a full 3D boss. The 3D Sonic which you only see from the side in the regular platform levels can be seen properly here, and the graphics are indeed very nice, standing up to the best looking DS titles. Likewise, the sprites and backgrounds throughout the game are all beautifully crafted and all of an extremely high resolution. The 2D levels span the usual Sonic environments, with zones of Green, Ice, Desert, City, and so on and so forth. Every level looks individual and absolutely lovely.

Impressively, the 2D levels also use several 3D elements from time to time, giving the game a sense of depth as well as width – adding a new dimension to this classic style of platformer in a quite literal sense. Clearly a continuation from the semi-3D elements in Sonic 3 and the previous three 'Advance titles, it’s a great improvement in this game. In this way, Sonic Rush definitely outdoes its Mega Drive predecessors.

Special stages are once again Semi-3D, composed of yet another rehash of the Sonic 2 “tube” Special Stage. While it was classic, the amount of times I’ve played this, I am just a little bit bored of it now, which was disappointing. The twist this time is you control Sonic’s progress through the tube using the touch screen – pretty much (menus aside) the only instance in the title where you make use of the touch screen.

Continuity between levels is provided with a map screen ripped straight out of the Advance titles, and the story is advanced with text accompanied by character portraits. While the DS can certainly do better (Super Mario 64 DS, anybody?), it does just fine for me – story was never Sonic’s strong suite anyway.

Sonic Rush also features both Multi-Cart and Download Play multiplayer modes where players race each other to the level finish – this time only on a single screen, the second screen used to track your position in relation to your opponents.

And finally, Sonic Rush is home to an amazing soundtrack. As a great appreciator of game music, I love this soundtrack - it sounds like it's by the same person who did the Jet Set Radio games. It's techno-like sampling and looping of sound effects makes for new, fresh audio different from all recent titles that really fits the series well.

Sonic Rush is an excellent reworking of an old style of game - a game that will keep the 'old school' alive. It is only let down by a few minor things, such as the lack of 3D cutscenes, and the lack of any huge replay value. However, for a handheld title, there is more than enough to it to keep you busy, and with it's perfect controls, catchy soundtrack, and beautiful graphics, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. A must-have DS title.