Sonic Shuffle
From Sonic Retro
Sonic Shuffle | ||||||||||||||||||||
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System(s): Sega Dreamcast | ||||||||||||||||||||
Publisher: Sega | ||||||||||||||||||||
Developer: Hudson Soft, Sonic Team | ||||||||||||||||||||
Genre: Table | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Sonic Shuffle (ソニックシャッフル) is a video game for the Sega Dreamcast and was Sega's answer to the successful Nintendo party game, Mario Party. The game was co-developed by Hudson Soft, who also developed Mario Party.
The story involves Sonic and his companions getting caught up in a mess in a land called Maginaryworld. A villain named Void has shattered the Precioustone into many pieces and Lumina Flowlight and the rest of Maginaryworld are counting on Sonic to restore it. At the end of the game it is revealed that Lumina and Void both are Illumina, the Goddess of the land who disappeared when the Precioustone was shattered. The game features around 50 mini games and around 30 mini events.
Despite Hudson's success with the Mario Party series, this game failed to meet expectations. It was criticized due to the confusing rules in some mini-games, excessive load times, poor music, an unfulfilled promise of network play, and an AI which would frequently cheat and steal the player's best cards. The game manual and in-game tutorial was largely unhelpful to players as well.
Contents
Gameplay
In Sonic Shuffle, the player can select one of the main characters of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. The game supports 1 player in Story Mode and up to 4 players simultaneously in Versus Mode and the Sonic Room. The four players can play in teams and play against one another on a giant game board, going around and playing mini games to collect Emblems. Whoever has the most emblems at the end of each board wins. The overall goal of each board is to collect the most Precioustones, out of a total of 7. There are 5 boards in total: Emerald Coast, Fire Bird, Nature Zone, Riot Train, and Fourth Dimension Space.
The game also features 8 playable characters (four of which need to be unlocked), each with their own unique abilities. The available characters are Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles. The unlockable characters are Super Sonic, Big the Cat, Gamma, and Chao.
The game features around 50 mini games and around 30 mini events. Mini games ranged in variety and challenge and they were divided by Teams of 2, Teams of 3 versus a Single Player and a Free-For-All. The mini events generally involved a little story, or event, and usually a choice given at the end to determine your prize or punishment. As well as having a single-player Story Mode and a two- to four-player Versus Mode, the game had a “Sonic Room” where you could play your favorite mini-games, after unlocking them, with your friends without starting a full game in a place called the "Toy Box", as well as a stereo to play your favorite soundtracks. Both of these must be unlocked by buying Photos from the Photo Album.
The game play involves playing randomly given cards. The deck of cards has four of every card numbering 1-6 and four wild cards. Three of the wild cards have an “S” and the remaining card is the “EGGMAN” card. Playing the cards would dictate the distance your player would move on the board. The S cards could be played as a 7 if you had decent timing as the card changed from 1 to S. The "EGGMAN" card was bad fortune for one or all of the characters and would generally cause trouble for the players in myriad ways. A full game could take anywhere from 20 minutes to two and a half hours, depending on how many Precioustones you decided to be available to you at the beginning.
Mini Games
VS 4
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2 VS 2
1 VS 3
Accidents (VS 4)
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Sonic Parasol (Emerald Coast Only) - This game has four characters and one parasol on a beach with a sun. When the sun gets too bright, everyone has to take cover or else they will lose rings. Only one person can be under the parasol at a time. Walk up to it to pick it up if it is on the ground, but if someone is holding it, walk under it and jump to force it out of their hands. There are some sea creatures walking around that will cause you to lose rings if you hit it. If the person with the parasol hits an enemy, they drop the parasol. When the enemies start to hide under the sand, that means that the sun will get bright soon. When the sun is bright, it showers rings and sometimes a Forcejewel onto the beach. The person with the parasol can usually get all of the rings; the other three have to wait under the canopy until the sun gets less bright. The person with the parasol moves slightly slower than the rest. Whoever gets the most rings before time is up wins a bonus 20 rings. Second gets 10 and third gets 5. |
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Ring Tide (Emerald Coast Only) - There is a beach setting again, except waves crash down leaving rings, sea urchins, driftwood and the occasional Forcejewel. Avoid the urchins and wood as well as the crabs because they make you lose rings while collecting the rings that appear on the beach. If the wave lands on you, it is possible to get swept away by the undertow. Press ![]() |
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Rapid Climb (Fire Bird Only) - Everyone is on an airplane wing. The wind pushes you back, so repeatedly press ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Sky Bridge (Fire Bird Only) - Everyone stands on top of a plane that is flying under bridges. Press ![]() ![]() |
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Croc-Attack (Nature Zone Only) - Players must very quickly press ![]() |
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Ring of Fire (Nature Zone Only) - Everyone stands on a large platform while rings of fire pass by. Inside the rings are regular rings and occasionally a Forcejewel. Jump through the rings of fire to collect the rings without touching the fire, which will result in a loss of rings. Some fire rings rotate, making it trickier to get the rings, but these are the ones that usually hold Forcejewels. As the game continues, the platform rises and lowers. When the platform is up, some rings don't have to be jumped through while others are so low that they are unattainable. First place gets 20 rings while second gets 10 and third gets 5. |
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Thru the Tunnel (Riot Train Only) - This game is similar to Sky Bridge. Everyone starts on the last car of a train and the object is to run to the first car. Press ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Ring Lasso (Riot Train Only) - Everyone stands on a train while another one passes by. The doors open, revealing up to 8 treasures with either a direction or a button letter underneath it. Just press the direction or button to grab the corresponding treasure. You can grab as many as 3 times before the doors close and another car comes by with more treasures. The bigger the bag, the more rings are inside. Sometimes a Forcejewel is present. No bonus is awarded. |
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Final Frontier (Fourth Dimension Space Only) - Everyone stands on a square platform. More platforms come from the top while the ones on the bottom go away. The centers of the platforms open up that either give a blast of fire that will make you lose rings or shoot a small fountain of rings or Forcejewel. If you fall off the platforms, you'll pop out of the center of a platform while losing rings. Whoever collects the most rings gets 20 bonus rings; second gets 10, while third gets 5. |
Stage Clear
Screenshot | Description |
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Sonic Surfing - Surf down the tidal wave by pressing ![]() ![]() |
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Sky Diving - Everyone is falling to land on a balloon. Press ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() counter clockwise. Clouds slow you down while vortexes speed you up. Hitting another person will slow you both down. Collect rings while falling. First one to hit the balloon wins. If someone is trying to bump into you, move left or right. You will lose speed but not as much as getting hit. |
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Earth Quake - This is similar to Over the Bridge, except you are running on land. the areas ahead are foggy. The game warns you about half of the obstacles. Sometimes they switch to camera angle to a more difficult linear view. Jumping causes you to fall back so avoid doing it. Also, keeping to one side will slow you down. Whoever reaches safety first wins. Sometimes the warning signal moves from side to side before deciding on a place. |
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Stop the Train - The train is out of control and everyone has to push it to stop. When the train has the blue light on, repeatedly press ![]() ![]() |
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Void Battle - The longest mini game, with Void as a huge creature that is out to take your coins. Everyone is on a platform with a smaller raised platform in the center. Void goes around attacking people. In the meantime, there are a bunch of switches on the platform. Two light up at one time. If you are the first to jump on one of the switches, Void will throw rings in your direction. Rings get sprinkled around the area as well as rocks that can hurt you. Void's attacks include smashing the ground to create shockwaves, zapping one person, stomping on people and so on. The game ends when the lit switches are hit 16 times and the big center switch gets lit. When you see Void toss rings, you can steal them by jumping up to grab them. Sometimes they don't even land on the switch. |
Play Order
- Sonic Slot - Each players plays on a slot machine that first displays 999, then counts down. Turn order in the main game is based upon how close each player stops the slots to 000 without going under.
- Sonic Darts - The four players each throw darts at a moving target. Turn order in the main game is based upon the proximity of the players' darts to the center of the target.
- Sonic Hi Lo - A simple game of hi lo, with all four players playing at once. The players must act fast to get the card that they want. The winner moves first on the game board.
Boards
Interesting Facts
- Unlike in Sonic Adventure, there is not any voice option to switch between Japanese and English voice languages. These are defaulted according to the regional version, with the Western versions using the English voices and the Japanese version using the Japanese ones. The voice language option was once again restored for Sonic Adventure 2.
- Unlike in the English dub of Sonic Adventure, Ryan Drummond not only voices Sonic (and counterpart Super Sonic), but also Knuckles. Following Sonic Shuffle, the role was given to Scott Dreier in Sonic Adventure 2.
- This was Corey Bringas' last game as Miles "Tails" Prower, because his voice was noticably deeper. His brother Connor Bringas voiced Tails in the following game, Sonic Adventure 2.
- Debug mode files still exist in the game's data, they can be accessed by replacing the title.bin file with any other file, such as test_0.bin.
Manuals
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Main article: Sonic Shuffle manuals |
Voice actors
Role | Japanese Voice Actor | English Voice Actor |
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Sonic the Hedgehog | Junichi Kanemaru | Ryan Drummond |
Miles "Tails" Prower | Atsuki Murata | Corey Bringas |
Knuckles the Echidna | Nobutoshi Canna | Ryan Drummond |
Amy Rose | Emi Motoi | Jennifer Douillard |
Big the Cat | Syun Yashiro | Jon St. John |
E-102 Gamma | Jyoji Nakata | Steve Broadie |
Dr. Eggman | Chikao Ohtsuka | Deem Bristow |
Lumina Flowlight | Ikue Ohtani | Elara Distler |
Void | Urara Takano | Lani Minella |
Illumina | Yuko Minaguchi | Elara Distler |
Chao | Tomoko Sasaki | Tomoko Sasaki |
Production Credits
Producer: Shuji Utsumi
Director: Hidenori Oikawa
Supervisors: Akinori Nishiyama (Sonic Team), Yuji Uekawa (Sonic Team)
Production Manager: Masato Shibata
Project Leader: Bill Ritch
Lead Game Designer: Hidenori Oikawa
Game Designers: Koichi Takeshita, Daisuke Takeuchi
Lead Programmer: Yasuhiro Kosaka
System Programmers: Masatoshi Sugibayashi, Hideki Nishimoto, Shoichi Takata, Tetsuharu Takashima, Takuya Suzuki, Yoshitaka Shibata, Yoko Miyabayashi
Lead Artist: Hisashi Kubo
System Artists: Toshiro Okamoto, Taiichi Matsuda, Norihiro Kanie, Masahide Inaba, Hideki Soma, Motoshi Kuwahara
Mini-Event Artist: Akihiro Shibata
Lead Character Artist: Manabu Yanagisawa
Character Artists: Yasuhiro Fujii, Yuji Yano, Chiaki Nishiki, Masahiro Kamohara, Megumi Okazaki, Akemi Ihara
Cinematic Director: Shoji Mizuno
Cinematic Assistant Directors: Toshifumi Sekijima, Naoto Yoshimi
Cinematic Producer: Nobuya Okabe
Cinematic Assistant Producer: Satoshi Nagaoka
Cinematic Animation Director: Masayuki Goto
Cinematic Artists: Naoto Onuki, Takayuki Hayama, Shin Katada, Masanori Kubota, Tomoya Ohata, Ryoko Suzuki, Kazuyo Yoshida, Fumihito Saito
Cinematic Engineers: Jin Kamohara, Zenjiro Motono
Mini-Game Design Leads: Issei Takahashi, Hop, Jinichi Fuyuki, Katsuhiko Sugiyama, Tomosuke Kashiwabara, Hiro Yokoyamax, Hisanori Fukuoka, Hiroyuki Yagi, Tetsuya Ishikawa, Koichiro Genda, Kouji Inokuchi, Kazunori Sato
Mini-Game Programmers: Juhyoung Kang, Tomokazu Ninomiya, Junsoo Bae, Sangyoun Lee, Donghyun Ban, Dandy Arai, Tetsuma Yoshida, Norihisa Takabatake, Naoki Hirasawa, Donpei Morita, Yoshinori Koiwa, Nobuyuki Mark Kimura, Tsuyoshi Tsuchimoto, Hisanori Fukuoka, Takahiko Murakami, Kazunori Sato, Shin Fukumoto, Hirotaka Iwayama, Keisuke Hino
Mini-Game Artists: Tomoyoshi Miyashita, Takeshi Murata, Hideto Ishikawa, Haeyoung Park, Misun Yang, Huichung Lee, Hyungjin Kim, Akira Katagi, Akiyoshi Otsuka, Minoru Sato, Kazuhiro Hayashida, Yoshikazu Aoki, Kouji Kato, Hironobu Hatta, Koichi Sakuma, Hiroyuki Kikkawa, Toshinori Tabata, Gengo Ito, Hideyuki Katsuyama, Hideaki Honjo, Noriaki Kawakami
Sound Production Managers: Keisuke Mitsui, Kenichi Funayama, Hidenobu "Kalta" Otsuki
Music Director: Akihiro Satoh
Sound Effect Director: Osamu Narita
Sound Effect Engineer: Hiroyuki Tsuboguchi
Opening Movie Music: Kazuhiko Sawaguchi
Opening Movie Music Engineer: Hironao Yamamoto
Music Composition, Arrangement & Programming:
- Kaltek Music Engine: Hidenobu "Kalta" Otsuki, Ryo "L.D." Fukuda, Takeo "3-Jya" Suzuki, Yoshitaka "Sat" Hirota, Kazumi Mitome
Japanese Character Voices: Jun'ichi Kanemaru, Atsuki Murata, Nobutoshi Kanna, Taeko Kawata, Emi Motoi, Syun Yashiro, Jyoji Nakata, Chikao Otsuka, Ikue Ohtani, Urara Takano, Yuko Minaguchi
English Character Voices: Lani Minella, Ryan Drummond, Jon St. John, Elara Distler, Corey Bringas, Jenny Douillard, Deem Bristow
Quality Assurance Managers: Hiroyuki Ohta, Shota Takahashi, Tetsuya Komatsu
Localization Producer: Osamu Shibamiya
Assisting Producer: Jason Kuo
Test Lead: Rick "Maverick" Ribble Jr
Product Manager: Rich Briggs
Marketing Director: John Golden
Creative Services: Bob Schonfisch, Angela Santos, Laura Belzer, Simon McIlroy
Public Relations: Heather Hawkins, Gwen Marker
Voice Recording Engineer: Rick Bowman
Voice Acting Supervisors: Jun Senoue (Sonic Team USA), Keith Palmer (Sonic Team USA)
Special Thanks: Takayuki Kawagoe (Smilebit), Yoichi Shimosato (Smilebit), Jin Shimazaki, Hiroshi Igari, Tetsuo Inoue, Jun Kanda, MP Team, All the Family Members of the Team for Waiting So Patiently to See Us Again
Presented by: SEGA
© Sega Corporation, 2000
Resources
Physical Scans
40 | Sonic Retro Average | |||||||
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Based on 1 review | ||||||||
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Dreamcast, US |
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Dreamcast, JP |
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Artwork
- Lumina.png
- Void.png
Wallpaper
Official wallpaper found on the Sonic Shuffle disc:
External Links
Sonic Shuffle | |
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Manuals |
show;hide
VS 4: 1 VS 3: 2 VS 2: Accidents:
Stage Clear: Play Order: |
Sonic the Hedgehog games for the following systems | |
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1998 Sonic Adventure 1999 Sonic Adventure International 2000 Sonic Shuffle 2001 Sonic Adventure 2 | Sonic Adventure 2 Birthday Pack | Sega Smash Pack Volume 1 |