Sonic Rush

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Sonic Rush
System(s): Nintendo DS
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team, Dimps
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1-2
Official in-game languages: 日本語 English Français Español
Release Date RRP Code Rating US 2005-11-16 $? NTR-P-ASCE NTR-ASCE-USA CA 2005 $? NTR-P-ASCE NTR-ASCE-CAN UK 2005-11-25 £? NTR-P-ASCP NTR-ASCP-UKV FR 2005-11-25 €? NTR-P-ASCP NTR-ASCP-FRA FR (Pack Exceptionnel) 2007-10-26 €? NTR-P-ASCP NTR-ASCP-FRA DE 2005-11-25 €? NTR-P-ASCP NTR-ASCP-NOE DE (EUU) 2005-11-25 €? NTR-P-ASCP NTR-ASCP-EUU ES 2005-11-25 €? NTR-P-ASCP NTR-ASCP-ESP IT 2005-11-25 €? NTR-P-ASCP NTR-ASCP-ITA JP 2005-11-23 ¥4,800 (5,040) NTR-P-ASCJ NTR-ASCJ-JPN AU 2005 $? NTR-P-ASCP NTR-ASCP-AUS TW 2005 NT$? ?

Sonic Rush (ソニック・ラッシュ) is a game by Sega for the Nintendo DS, released in November 2005. The two playable characters are Sonic the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat. Though their adventures are mostly separate from one another, they cross paths multiple times and play through the same zones (albeit in a slightly different order). Sonic is the only playable character until the first boss is defeated, but Blaze's game starts first chronologically.

Miles "Tails" Prower and Cream the Rabbit act as non-playable supporting characters to Sonic and Blaze respectively, cheering them on during boss battles and helping them throughout the game's storyline. Amy Rose and Knuckles the Echidna make brief cameos throughout the game.

Story

See also: Sonic Rush transcript

Blaze the Cat, a female feline character from another dimension, suddenly appears in Sonic's home dimension. Upon arrival, she notices that the Sol Emeralds, powerful gems she was carrying with her, are gone. The last thing she remembers is that she was chasing "him" before being engulfed in a white light. She proceeds to the nearest city, Night Carnival Zone, to begin her search for the Emeralds, which Blaze claims could lead to the destruction of her world should they be lost.

Upon reaching the boss of the area, Blaze manages to find "him", revealed to the player as Dr. Eggman. Eggman flaunts the Sol Emeralds in Blaze's face, stating that he needs them to access ultimate power. Enraged, Blaze defeats his contraption and regains one of the seven Sol Emeralds, while Eggman manages to escape.

Confused and alone, Blaze ponders how she will get the Sol Emeralds back, and indeed, how to return home. Cream and Cheese spot her while hiding in the bushes, where they are quickly found. Eager to make friends with Blaze, they speak for a moment before Cream flies her to her house, where Blaze meets Vanilla, Cream's mother, who understands how pushy Cream can be. After hearing her explanation, they tell Blaze that Sonic would be able to help her reclaim the Emeralds, but she dismisses the offer, stating she can do it all on her own. Regardless of her solitary nature, Cream tags alongside Blaze anyway, who is mostly indifferent to the young rabbit's efforts to be her friend.

Elsewhere, Sonic is traveling through the Leaf Storm Zone, where he encounters Dr. Eggman, again talking about his desire for ultimate power. Upon defeating him, Sonic sees the Sol Emerald he drops, at which point Blaze appears in a blaze of fire and reclaims it, thanking Sonic for defeating Eggman before leaving. Sonic eventually meets and battles a new villain, Dr. Eggman Nega, a character from Blaze's dimension who wants to take over Sonic's world. Meanwhile, an analysis from Tails reveals that the space-time continuum has been torn, resulting in a slow merging of both Sonic and Blaze's worlds.

As Sonic and Blaze race through the zones collecting Emeralds, they become increasingly curious about each other: Sonic wonders about her alliance, while Blaze ponders who he really is, as seemingly every new face she stumbles upon mentions Sonic in one way or another. Eventually, Sonic and Blaze meet up again, although their reunion results in a fierce battle when Blaze insists Sonic gets out of her way in her mission. After Eggman/Eggman Nega gets away, Sonic and Blaze form a pact to track him down. In Blaze's storyline, Cream gets captured. At this point, Blaze has become strongly attached to Cream as a friend, and so decides to take down Eggman herself.

In the Extra storyline, it is revealed that Eggman and Eggman Nega have teamed up to conquer the world, and that the Chaos Emeralds and Sol Emeralds coexisting with each other will lead to total destruction. Determined to stop the two doctors, Sonic and Blaze use the Emeralds to transform into Super Sonic and Burning Blaze. Upon success, the two share a few last words (with Blaze having learned by now the true meaning of friendship thanks to Cream, Sonic, and the others) before Blaze returns to her own dimension. She realizes that carrying the world's weight on her own shoulders could lead to irresponsibility, and so she vows to live life with a more open heart.

Gameplay

The game is a 2D platformer for virtually its entire duration, much like the Sega Mega Drive and Game Boy Advance titles in the series. However, the player, as well as the bosses, are fully polygonal. There is only one part in the game's duration involving three-dimensional movement. Both the top and bottom screens of the DS are used during Acts, and the player switches between them when they reach certain heights or depths.

Sonic Rush expands upon the trick system, first introduced in the 2D series in Sonic Advance 2. Aside from allowing Sonic and Blaze to extend their jumps after hitting a ramp or a spring, buttons can be pressed (depending on the action) to rack up points and fill up the Tension Gauge, which allows for an instant burst of speed upon pressing the / buttons while running. Aside from tricks, this gauge can also be filled by destroying enemies, passing through checkpoints, and collecting meter-increasing power-ups. When the gauge is completely full, the player can boost infinitely for a limited time (signified by the character glowing), which can be slightly extended by running through enemies and checkpoints. A blend of tricks and speed are required to earn a high Rank on each Act and boss stage (C being the lowest and S being the highest), although there is no reward for getting all S ranks in the game.

The Touch Screen has only one use in the game: Special Stages, which can only be accessed through Sonic's gameplay. The game's Special Stages look and play similarly to those from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (running through a half-pipe and collecting rings while avoiding mines), but Sonic is controlled with the stylus rather than with the D-pad. There are also springs that launch Sonic into the air; when this happens, the player is prompted to tap certain spots on the screen and is rewarded with 5, 10, or 20 Ring bonuses. Additionally, enemies are present and can be attacked by tapping their location on the screen. While Sonic must earn Chaos Emeralds the traditional way, Blaze automatically collects Sol Emeralds by defeating bosses.

Sound test music

#	Title	Usage
001	A New Day (Title Edit)	Title Screen
002	What U Need Is Remix	Main Menu
003	The Ordinary Zone	Overworld Map
004	The Last Zone	Overworld Map (before beating F-Zone/Exception)
005	Right There, Ride On	Leaf Storm Zone - Sonic
006	Right There, Ride On Blaze Version	Leaf Storm Zone - Blaze
007	Back 2 Back	Water Palace Zone - Sonic
008	Back 2 Back Blaze Version	Water Palace Zone - Blaze
009	Ethno Circus	Mirage Road Zone - Sonic
010	Ethno Circus Blaze Version	Mirage Road Zone - Blaze
011	Ska Cha Cha	Night Carnival Zone - Sonic
012	Ska Cha Cha Blaze Version	Night Carnival Zone - Blaze
013	Jeh Jeh Rocket	Huge Crisis Zone - Sonic
014	Jeh Jeh Rocket Blaze Version	Huge Crisis Zone - Blaze
015	Get Edgy	Altitude Limit Zone - Sonic
016	Get Edgy Blaze Version	Altitude Limit Zone - Blaze
017	What U Need	Dead Line Zone - Sonic
018	What U Need Blaze Version	Dead Line Zone - Blaze
019	Metal Scratchin'	Vs. Boss
020	Metal Scratchin' (Part 2)	Vs. Boss Pinch
021	Vela-Nova	Vs. Hero
022	Vela-Nova (Part 2)	Vs. Hero (Climax)
023	Bomber Barbara	Final Boss
024	Bomber Barbara (Part 2)	Final Boss Pinch
025	Groove Rush #4	Final Boss Clear
026	Raisin' Me Up (Prologue)	Last Event
027	Medley Rush #1	Credits
028	The Secret	Jingle for unlocking something
029	I Wanna Breath	Hero Drowning
030	One Up!	Extra Life
031	Theme of Sonic's Event	Event - Sonic
032	Theme of Blaze's Event	Event - Blaze
033	Theme of Comical Event	Event - Humor
034	Theme of Strained Event	Event - Tension
035	Theme of After The Fight	Event - After Vs. Hero
036	Theme of Warm Event	Event - Cream's House (Sonic)
037	What U Need Is PSG	Level music in DS Download Play demo
038	Groove Rush #1 PSG	Act Clear in DS Download Play demo
039	Groove Rush #2	Game Over
040	It's A New Record !	New Record
041	Groove Rush #1	Act Clear
042	Groove Rush #3	Boss Clear
043	Groove Rush #2 PSG	Game Over in DS Download Play demo
044	After The Fight	Event - After various boss battles
045	Blaze Appear	Scene when Blaze first appears
046	Kick the Eggman	Scene after Blaze's boss fights
047	A New Day	Special Stage
048	A New Day (Intermission)	Special Stage Start & End
110	The Extra Zone	Jingle for unlocking Exception (at Character Select)
111	Anxiety	Extra Demo #1
112	A Flicker of Hope	Extra Demo #2
113	The Metamorphosis	Extra Demo #3
114	Blaze Pinch!	Scene after Exception
115	Wrapped in Black	Exception (Extra boss)
116	Wrapped in Black (Part 2)	Exception Pinch
117	Groove Rush #5	Exception Clear
118	Raisin' Me Up	Extra Ending
119	Medley Rush #2	Extra Credits

History

Development

Main article: Sonic Rush/Development

Also released on

• Sega Fun Pack: Sonic Rush & Super Monkey Ball Touch and Roll for the Nintendo DS (2009)

Sales data

Number of copies sold	Sega IR Reference	Platforms	Regions	Cumulative sales total
410,000	FY2006 3rd Quarter Appendix	DS	Overseas (Outside Japan)	410,000
250,000	FY2007 3rd Quarter Results	"	EU	660,000
110,000	FY2007 Full Year Results	"	"	770,000

Production credits

Main article: Sonic Rush/Production credits

Manuals

Main article: Sonic Rush/Manuals

Magazine articles

Main article: Sonic Rush/Magazine articles

Promotional material

Main article: Sonic Rush/Promotional material

Artwork

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Box art

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Wallpaper

Official wallpapers available from the Sonic Rush website.

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  Blaze, 1600x1200

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  Sonic, 1600x1200

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  Maze, 1600x1200

Physical scans

Reception »

Nintendo DS, JP
Cover
Card File:SonicRush DS JP manual.pdf Manual File:SonicRush JP print adverts.pdf Print adverts

Nintendo DS, US
Cover
Card File:SonicRush DS US manual.pdf Manual

Nintendo DS, UK
Cover
Card File:SonicRush DS UK manual.pdf Manual

Nintendo DS, UK (alt)
Cover

Nintendo DS, FR
Cover

Nintendo DS, FR (alt)
Cover

Nintendo DS, FR (Pack Exceptionnel blue)
Cover

Nintendo DS, FR (Pack Exceptionnel black)
Cover

Nintendo DS, DE
Cover

Nintendo DS, DE (EUU)
Cover

Nintendo DS, DE (EUU alt)
Cover

Nintendo DS, ES
Cover

Nintendo DS, IT
Cover

Nintendo DS, AU
Cover

Nintendo DS, AU (alt)
Cover

Nintendo DS, CA
Cover

Nintendo DS, TW
Cover

Nintendo DS, TW (JP with sticker)
Cover

Technical information

The game features only one voice track in the game card and according to the regional version, due to size constraints. The Western versions have the English voice language whereas the Japanese version has the Japanese one, while the text language is entirely multi-lingual and manually selectionable in all regional versions.

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 3d630830 MD5 bd4dcf6ad27de0e3212b8c67864df0ec SHA-1 bc617530bb9b6e4179f2e54d7816c38676812dde	64MB		Card (US)
✔	CRC32 0a0dec19 MD5 69dcd5f80f00eac0cbe03daedf5e473c SHA-1 52e5024efcf7617a820fa23789b37e5168c3c4fc	64MB		Card (EU)
?	CRC32 047dce52 MD5 be3b2e1dc65aba9ca290b51ebb5fce20 SHA-1 8a5af404f063ed0342e20dcb0af0f42ce9509ac1	64MB		Card (JP)
✔	CRC32 82e987fc MD5 0b463b9a68f62bbec6446efeb6809c92 SHA-1 3cc80ca2f88d353510a3648eaf8ccfe5f4009046	64MB		Card				Page

External links

• Sega of Japan catalogue pages (Japanese): Nintendo DS
• Official website (Japanese)
• Nintendo catalogue pages: UK
• GameSpot's Sonic Rush E3 2005 hands-on preview

References

Sonic the Hedgehog games for the following systems

2005  Sonic Rush     2007  Sonic Rush Adventure     2008  Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games | Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood     2009  Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games | Sega Fun Pack: Sonic Rush & Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll     2010  Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing | Sonic Classic Collection | Sonic Colours      Unknown date  Super Speed Pack (201x)  Demos  Sonic Rush (E3 demo) | Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (demo) | Sonic Colours (demo)  Unreleased  Sonic DS