Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush

***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush*** is a party game for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the second ***Sonic Party*** game released for the system after ***Sonic Party: Island Tour***, and the fourteenth game overall. The game, as with most entries of the ***Sonic Party*** series, is a multiplayer-oriented party game, where up to four players compete in an interactive, digital board for the most chaos emeralds. What sets this game apart from its precedents in the ***Sonic Party*** series is its main mode, Chao Scramble, where, instead of players using designated Sonic characters from the start, take control of a color-coded member of the Chao species and collect Sonic characters around the board. Also unlike other ***Sonic Party*** games, all players move at one turn, streamlining the gameplay. The board designs are non-linear as well, also unlike previous boards in the ***Sonic Party*** series, where players travel in a straight line around the boards. This concept is retained in ***Sonic Party: The Top 100***, in the Minigame Match mode. The game is compatible with amiibo, which have various different uses depending on the mode that is played on. The game requires 3018 blocks for a digital download from the Nintendo eShop.

***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush*** also has a version of the game called ***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush*** - Party Guest. This app can be downloaded off the Nintendo eShop for free. While it can be played alone with very restricted minigames, the primary focus of the app is to play full multiplayer with other players with only one game cartridge. If players buy an official copy of ***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush***, players can transfer saved data from ***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush*** - Party Guest to their copy of the game.

## Gameplay

***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush's*** board gameplay is the main focus of the game. Players traverse around a board, using a Dice Block numbered from 1-6. Due to the nature of the boards, most spaces landed on the boards in ***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush*** do not trigger a special effect, while there are very few spaces that do: for example, specifically landing on a ? Block space grants the player a random item for use. Minigames can be collected from playing Chao Scramble and Ringathlon, with both modes having different ways play a minigame; in Chao Scramble, for example, players need to pass a Ring Balloon to trigger a minigame.

Chao Scramble is the only mode where players cannot choose a designated Sonic character, instead, starting out with a colored member of the Chao species, corresponding to a player; said Sonic characters can be used only when collected in the board, set as the leader, or with a use of an amiibo. In all other modes, however, players can choose and play as a specific Sonic character, including Chao himself as an option if players wish to play as a Chao in other modes.

### **Game Modes**

Ten game modes appear in ***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush***. At the beginning, the Chao Scramble mode is the only mode players can play, however, players unlock other modes as they play the game.

The game features a hub for a main menu, where players can visit areas by either using touchscreen controls or moving around. Chao is the default character, but players can change their hub character by visiting the Character Museum. When players reach Level Chaos Emerald, a giant gold Sonic statue can be seen over the Character Museum.

### **Character Museum**

The character museum allows players to view characters collected in the game. The playable characters can be chosen as the hub character. amiibo options are also found here: when players use amiibo, they unlock stamps. The quality of the stamp is dependent on how long players touch the touch screen. Players can choose to reapply stamps if the outcome is not desired. When players unlock stamps, they earn an extra set of points to increase their Party Level. If players have unlocked the Staff Credits, it can be viewed in here. Players can also play minigames from here, by viewing the minigame appearances tab for respective enemies.

## Characters

### **Party Characters**

* Sonic the Hedgehog
* Miles "Tails" Prower
* Knuckles the Echidna
* Princess Sally Acorn
* Cream the Rabbit
* Amy Rose
* Shadow the Hedgehog
* Rouge the Bat
* E-123 Omega
* Espio the Chameleon
* Charmy Bee
* Vector the Crocodile

### **Chao Scramble Characters**

* Hero Chao
* Dark Chao
* Neutral Chao
* Omochao

### **Bosses**

* Metal Sonic
* Dr. Eggman

## Boards

Boards can be played in three modes: Chao Scramble, Balloon Bash, ***Sonic Shuffle***, and Ringathlon. Out of the four modes, Chao Scramble and Balloon Bash have differing selectable boards, each with their own layouts and gimmicks.

### Chao Scramble Boards

***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush*** features 15 boards in the main mode, Chao Scramble, the most boards out of any ***Sonic Party*** game in the series. The names of the boards are based off levels in various Sonic platformers. Each of the worlds feature a specific theme: World 0 features a grassland theme, World 1 features a tropical island theme, World 2 features a ghost house theme, World 3 features a birthday cake theme, and World 4 features a Dr. Eggman theme. The latter three worlds are unlocked by finishing a game on a map from the previous world.

### Balloon Bash Boards

Balloon Bash features 3 boards, unlocked by playing them in succession.

## Mini-Games

***Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush*** has a total of 53 minigames, a considerably lower amount than its predecessors (in comparison, ***Sonic Party: Island Tour*** has 81 minigames and ***Sonic Party 10*** has 75 minigames). As in all ***Sonic Party*** games, minigames are unlocked for the Minigames collection simply by playing them. In Chao Scramble and Balloon Bash mode, players select and play 4 out of a total of 26 Free-For-All minigames when they pass a Ring Balloon, whereas in Ringathlon, players play three minigames from a pool of 12 minigames under the label "Ring Chaos". In the Minigames collection, Ring Chaos minigames function as single player minigames, where players try to get a high score from all three variations of the minigame, and the only items that appear are those that are beneficial to the player rather than offensive items.

Boss Battle minigames are triggered when players land in a Boss Battle space in front of the eponymous boss in Chao Scramble. In Balloon Bash, they are triggered when two Ring Balloons are popped. The 1st place and 4th place player are put on a team and the 2nd and 3rd place players are put on another team to fight the boss, which is chosen at random except for any of Dr. Eggman's three Boss Battles. However, unlike Chao Scramble and Minigames, the first phase of each fight is fought instead of two phases. This variation of the Boss Battle cannot be selected and played in the Minigames mode, however.

One of the three Dr. Eggman's Gauntlet minigames are triggered in Ringathlon at random during a five lap or seven lap race, usually after the player has run half of the laps.

This is the second ***Sonic Party*** game to not feature 1-vs-3 minigames, the first being ***Sonic Party: Island Tour***. This game is also the third ***Sonic Party*** game to not have a category of 2-vs-2 minigames, although the team Boss Battles featured in Balloon Bash function similarly to 2-vs-2 minigames.

## Voice Sounds

Sonic Party: Chaos Emerald Rush/Voice Sounds