Sega’s FTP site uploaded a few new screens today. We’ve got some day and some night from Shemar, one of the levels. This game still looks spiffy!

October 10th, 2007. You open www.smashbros.com and what do you see? Sonic is in Brawl! It’s been one year since then and the game has been out for seven months. What has changed since then? It’s pretty cool how the excitement happened only a year ago, but now it seems common.

Source Smash Bros. Dojo!!

The official Japanese site for Sonic and the Black Knight has updated with a trailer from the Tokyo Game Show 2008 showing some actual movement from the game. You remember the screenshots from Nintendo Power? They’re back, in video form! The official site also has the main theme playing over the video, so you should go take a listen and watch it.

Here’s the video from YouTube, but it doesn’t have the lyrics of the main theme. Just an instrumental version. Hit up the main link for a higher quality, lyrical version of the movie.

Source Sonic City Blognik & Sonic Channel Blog

The Sonic Channel blog posted the link to the preview page of Sonic and the Black Knight. It doesn’t really give anything but the logo, the release date, the platform, and a couple other facts. The page is in Japanese, so I can’t read anything but the numbers. Check it out!

Source Sonic Channel Blog

Nothing spectacular that we didn’t already know was revealed in the article for Sonic Unleashed except various controls for the Wii version.

• You move Sonic with the Nunchuk’s Control Stick and Jump with A.
• You do a quick side-step by holding B and moving the Control Stick in the desired direction (left or right).
• The new drift mechanism let’s you earn bonuses by holding B or Z to whip around tight turns.
• You use Sonic’s Homing Attack by shaking the Wii Remote
• Shaking the Wii Remote also lets you use a speed boost that’s filled from a guage at the bottom of the screen.
• While being the Werehog where you have a damage guage, you swing the Wii Remote for Sonic’s right hand and the Nunchuk for Sonic’s left hand.
• Pressing Z lets you block and by chaining together combos and mixing in advanced moves by swinging the remote and nunchuk up, down, or toward each other you can really dish out the pain on enemies.
• You can also use B to grab and toss the enemies.
• Pressing C let’s you activate Unleashed Mode; a powered-up state during which you gain new attacks and take less damage from your enemies.
• If you’re danging off an enemy, you can wave the Wii Remote to swing back and forth.
• You can climb poles by lifting the remote and nunchuk alternately, or raise a heavy gate by yanking up with both controllers.

Look for this game to arrive on November 18th in the US for the Wii, PS3, PS2, and 360.

As for the Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood review, it received an 8.0. The game was praised for the Elite Beat Agents style of attacks, the whitty dialogue, the great cast of characters each with an important role, how benched characters also level-up, equiping Chao to characters to boost their abilities, a series of Chrono Trigger inspired Team POW movies makes every new combination of fighters interesting, and the option to choose between lengthy chats or straight-to-business conversations. Some of the downsides being that the EBA sytles of attacks starts to get annoying after a while and some enemies being strong enough that you need to use POW attacks. Normal attacks do no damage to them. The game will take you about 15-20 hour to beat, but it will be well worth it. Look for it next week on the 30th for the US, or the 28th if you happen to be near the Nintendo World Store in New York City and wish to get the game a couple days early and an exclusive Chao.

Go out to a newsstand somewhere and buy issue 234 of Nintendo Power, which is November 2008. One other thing that I noticed about these two items is that the Unleashed articles was done by Chris Hoffman and the Chronicles review was by Casey L. Why didn’t Steve Thomason do them? He had always been the one writing anything related to Sonic in Nintendo Power. I would always check for his name, knowing he was a Sonic fan like us.

Source Nintendo Power #234

Sega recently send out an e-mail telling us about various free things you can get from preordering Sonic Chronicles. Go out to either GameStop or Game Crazy for a three pack of Stylus’ or head over and preorder it at Circuit City for a Sonic Chronicles DS Lite skin. You only have until the 30th! That’s a week and a half. Hurry!

The Sonic Chronicles Facebook page updated today saying that Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood has now gone gold. This means that the game is completely finished and is ready to be printed and shipped out. Look forward to it’s release on September 26th for Europe and September 30th for NA.

“If you cannot wait until the 30th and live in New York, Sega is also hosting an event on September 28th at Nintendo World Store from 1-4pm where you will have the opportunity to purchase the game early. You will also have the chance to get an exclusive collectible Chao that is not included in the game. So bring your DS if you are attending this event!”

That’s not the chao you’ll be getting, but I figured it would be a nice image to put with this post. Chao!

Source Sonic Chronicles Facebook Page

GoNintendo got a hold of the official artwork for the characters of Sonic Chronicles and they look pretty spiffy. Check it out!

You can view the rest of the images over at the Sonic Chronicles Artwork page.

Source GoNintendo

I’ve received my issue of the Issue #232 September 2008 Nintendo Power with Sonic and the Black Knight as the cover story. Some of the key points that I think should be worth mentioning with direct NP text put in quotes:

-Developed by the same people as Sonic and the Secret Rings

-”This time, a sorceress named Merlina summons Sonic to the mythical realm of King Arthur, but it seems the fabled monarch has somehow been corrupted and now rules the land as the tyranical Black Knight.”

-Uses a similar storybook device as Secret Rings

-”As Sonic runs along, a simple flick of the Wii remote will execute a basic slash, which is enough to dispatch most low-level grunts.”

-More advanced swordplay consists of the ability to thrust, parry, and even pull off a buzz-saw maneuver midjump.

-”During out demo, we saw the hedgehog leap from a high precipice, then thrust the blade into a wall to slow his decent, sparks flying impressivly as steel cut through brick”

-”Combat is integrated in such a way that most of the time you can slice through any who stand in your path without even slowing down”

-Sonic is controlled with the Control Stick.

-”Our hero begins his quest as a mere knave. Only by becoming a full-fledged knight will he have any hope of defeating King Arthur.”

-”his sword, a talking blade named Calibur, serves as a mentor”

-If you help civilian townfolk in need of assistance, you’ll earn points toward knighthood. If you smite one of those civilians, your reputation will take a hit.

-”At the end of each stage, the game tallies your good and not-so-good deeds and updates your rank accordingly.

-You can purchase items from residents. “Sonic can aquire everything from gauntlets to magical tomes to new swords, and when equipped, each article bestows him with a unique benefit.”

-About 200 items in all, with some being able to be combined with others to make new ones.

-You have the option to go online and trade items with friends.

-Rings come in burlap sacks instead of monitors.

-Sonic uses magic elementals to help him do various things, such as a bounce pad or a speed boost. They look like chao heads. The red ones give him a jump and the blue give Sonic a speed boost.

-Sonic can cross large gaps by firing a ballista and grinding the rope to the other side.

-”On the audio side, veteran composer Jen Senoue is taking a smiliar approach, injecting familiar Sonic themes with a Celtic flavor.”

-”Each stage has multiple branching paths and searching for townsfolk and treasure chests provides an element of exploration that recalls Sonic’s early Genesis days.”

-”the camera will occasionally pan to a side-scrolling perspective for a quick dose of classic 2-D action”

-SBK Bringing back the skill system from Secret Rings, but they’re trying not to have the skill system interfere with the game’s tempo this time around.

-The mission structure also returns but the developers hope to make it less arduous.

-”And there will be no dinosaur eggs!”

-”Just as they subbed in for such characters as Ali Baba and Aladdin in Sonic and the Secret Rings, a number of familiar faces will assume Arthurian personas in SBK.”

-”This time, however, some of Sonic’s friends will be playable. Each hero will boast unique abilities, and though the team isn’t ready to divulge the full cast just yet, we do know the identities of two playable comrades: Knuckles, who brandishes two swords at once, and Shadow.”

-Playing as these other characters is entirely optional. You will be able to play through game as Sonic, or switch to the other characters if you choose.

-”When people see that Sonic is wielding a sword, they’ll probably have certain expectations of the multiplayer mode. And all I can say is that we’re thinking along those same lines.”

-While the old guages from Secret Rings are gone, a new special guage will “bestow him with similarly impressive powers. The meter fills gradually whenever Sonic vanquishes an enemy or snags a purple elemental, and when it reaches a certain point you can unleash a powerful combination attack capable of tearing through multiple foes in quick succession. You simply press the B button to lock onto the nearest enemy, flick the remote to strike him down, then press B again to move onto the next unfortunate soul. If you chain together enough smitings before the guage is depleted, Sonic will receive a speed burst at the end of the string.”

-”the team behind Sonic and the Black Knight is keenly aware of the franchise’s past missteps, and their enthusiasm for doing right by the series is infections”

Those are some key things I pulled out. If you want more, I suggest you pick up the September 2008 issue. It’s number 232 of Nintendo Power.

EDIT: I’ve thrown up some scans from the magazine to hold you over until some official images are put up.

An image posted online of the September 2008 issue of Nintendo Power has Sonic & the Black Knight as a Wii-exclusive game. The “Sonic swings cold steel” line most likely means swordplay is a part of the gameplay. While it hasn’t been confirmed yet, the image is too good for someone to put out a fake a couple of days before the actual issue of Nintendo Power comes out.

I went ahead and created a game page for it already. Nothing there, but it will be updated as soon as more information becomes available. That’s the update for today.