With every franchise save for the Mario one, there seems to be a circle of life. The character makes a huge splash out of the gate, and because of that popularity, game companies attach said character to every totally unrelated game possible…bowling, racing, RPGs, what have you. No matter how much time has passed, you always remember your first experience with the original.

For the first time in a long time, Sega’s Sonic Rush brings back all the great memories of the original, adds some new twists of it’s own and is easily the best Sonic game in years, if not the best Sonic game ever.

The backstory is pretty simple: Dr. Eggman is back and Sonic fights him. Sonic wins and Eggman leaves behind a ‘mysterious’ emerald, which is different than the Chaos Emerald (see the other 23 Sonic games for more information). Sonic now needs to figure out what’s going on with these new emeralds – they belonged to Blaze the Cat, but that’s about all we know. Hey, no one ever said the back-story had to make sense.

When you start off the game, it looks like any other 2D Sonic game from the early 1990s. Your time is displayed along with your number of rings. However, there is something a little different: the action takes place on both screens. That’s right…you can start off on the top screen, go around a loop and be spun right down to the bottom screen to continue your work. You can also grab a rope on the bottom screen and then be lifted up onto the top. The camera is fast and furious and doesn’t slow down with the transitions – it is very seamless and amazing to watch.

Aside from the power of the two screens, there are a few new things that Sonic can do. In addition to the usual spin jump, spin dash and jump dash, Sonic can now perform tricks, including a hop jump, a ‘jump step,’ and some grind tricks. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is Sonic’s Pro Skater, but the logic is there – Sonic does go up and down rails, so grinding isn’t a bad idea.

By doing these tricks, you fill up Sonic’s Tension gauge. Once the Gauge is full you can then perform a super boost which is helpful in some levels. During the boss levels, the tension gauge is unavailable, so be prepared.

There are seven "trick actions" you can perform. They don’t require an enormous amount of dexterity (as compared to a fighting game), but it still takes some time to remember what controls perform which move.

The graphics in the game are excellent. With such a frantic game such as this, I would have expected some jerkiness in the background presentation, but there is none. Flipping screens is seamless as well. It just looks plain fantastic.

The audio is also very good – mind you not as good as the legendary Sonic R, and you probably won’t have these songs stuck in your head after you play, but the music sure does add to the game play and is peppy enough to keep you going.

Although the game play encourages you to get through the level in the fastest time possible (you do get a time bonus), you’ll miss quite a bit of the fun if you do. Part of the fun is using all of those new special Sonic moves. The Emeralds are also hidden somewhere in the level which adds to the replayability of the game. These special stages are very reminiscent of an older Sonic game where you’re running through a half-circle trying to collect items. You use the touch screen on these levels…the touch functionality seems rather silly here – it’s almost as if Nintendo required some touch screen gaming, so they threw that in there.