When the Sonic the Hedgehog series debuted back in the early 90s with the SEGA Genesis, gamers would always compliment on its single, bold attribute – its speed. These revolutionary examples of gameplay forced players to make quick decisions, while avoiding obstacles at the same time.

Now for the past several years, Sonic Team focused their efforts on creating that nostalgic feel. Starting with the Sonic Adventure series of titles for the Dreamcast in 1999, Sonic Team often attempted to recreate once again a revolutionary gameplay scheme for a platformer. Reaching for a benchmark that Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 accomplished in 1996, Sonic Team’s efforts were praised for their first effort, but criticized for following up the series with a strikingly linear game in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. It seemed as if the adventure element just wouldn’t mix with the platformer as well as Mario did.

A couple years back, SEGA started to once again focus on what gamers valued the most in the Sonic titles – the neck-breaking speed. A month ago, SEGA released the next peculiar title in the series with Sonic Heroes. Although the title still features a plethora of unnecessary supporting characters, Sonic Heroes strips away most of the elements that slowed down its previous Adventure titles. It was time to get back in high-speed mode for Sonic Team. In only a few moments of gameplay, the game seemed to be more true to its 2D roots than the previous 3D versions actually were.

The name “Sonic Heroes” implies the necessity of multiple characters, and this is where the title truly shines. This time, the series has players controlling three characters at a time, divided into four different teams each (from easiest to most difficult to play with) – Team Rose, Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Chaotix. Players are able to control one of these teams during gameplay, each of the three team members having his or her unique strengths. Your team abilities change by pressing the X and Y buttons, where you can cycle through the different characters to assign a team leader. Thankfully, the team members are color coded to signify the strength of a character – blue characters are the fastest, yellow characters can sail through the air, and red characters are basically each team’s badass, the most combat-oriented. Once you’ve mastered the team formation abilities, switching between team leaders for every situation comes second to mind.

The combat system can constantly change based on your team’s leader, but is simple for the most part. The hectic pace of the levels force Sonic and his friends to fight with mind-less attacks, most of which are done by racing down lots of narrow paths accompanied with Sonic-inspired stairways, corkscrews, loops, and even a racing strip where the team rides in a rather quick bobsled. What might seem to be the most consistent element in the game is the fact that each level is pretty-much straightforward, with hardly any level objectives. My hat goes to Sonic Team on this one, for making sure that the older gamers are rewarded with gameplay elements that resemble the old-school Sonic titles. Although the mindless runs will force gamers to be more wary of what’s ahead of them rather than what they’ve missed, the game strays away from unnecessary filler content. This “hang-loose” element provides an experience that even the newest Sonic fans should be happy with.

With fourteen different levels, each stage experience is varied from familiar beaches, to even Sonic-nostalgic Casino stages. While only some of the levels offer unique experiences, [especially rooting from the previous Sonic Adventure titles] they are meant to be completed as fast as possible – showing off its myriad of boost and jump pads. Each level is designed to implement the strengths and weaknesses of each team, making the challenge rather different at times. Although the inclusion of the four teams is meant to enhance the replay value, it comes to a disappointment that the different level configurations for each team aren’t completely re-done; it’s more like a mirrored stage from the other teams with a few branched areas. Although Sonic Team pushes the storylines of each character, they tend to forget one important fact. People play these titles to play as Sonic the Hedgehog solely.