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While it's far from perfect, Sonic and the Secret Rings at least puts the blue blur back on the right track.

The Sonic series has been in serious trouble. The franchise has been stuck in a ditch ever since it made the transition over to the 3D era and no matter how fast the little blue blur can run, he just can’t seem to climb out of it. While you would expect a franchise to get better with age, the 3D Sonic games have actually progressively gotten worse over the years, climaxing with the catastrophe that was Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

It seemed pretty apparent that the current formula for 3D Sonic games just was not working and that something else needed to be done if the Hedgehog was going to survive in the third dimension. Thankfully the Nintendo Wii opened up the doors to a new kind of Sonic experience in Sonic and the Secret Rings which, for the most part, is a vast improvement over previous 3D Sonic games. But we’ll get to that in a bit. First let’s talk about the story.

The story in Sonic and the Secret Rings surprisingly has nothing at all to do with chaos emeralds, the master emerald, Dr. Eggman, or any of the other staples of a traditional Sonic plot. Instead the game takes place inside the slowly vanishing world of the Arabian Nights. The plot is a bit on the ridiculous side and involves pages of the Arabian Nights book being absorbed by an evil spirit known as the Erazor Djinn. The genie of the ring, Shahra, comes to Sonic pleading for his help and saying that if the Erazor Djinn is not stopped, not only will the world of the Arabian Nights be destroyed, but his power will be brought forth into Sonic’s world as well. Never one to back away from an adventure or let an evil spirit roam free in his world, Sonic jumps into the pages of the Arabian Nights to put an end to the Erazor Djinn.

After a quick confrontation with the Erazor Djinn himself, Sonic is struck by a cursed arrow that causes a fire to burn on his chest. Sonic is told that when the fire burns out, so does his life. The Erazor Djinn commands that if Sonic wishes to save his own life, he must collect the Seven World Rings and brings them to him. And so begins Sonic’s race against time to collect the Seven World Rings before the flame on his chest extinguishes.