4/19/08 - Sonny - In this game you play as a zombie named Sonny, who wakes up on a ship with no idea who he is after being killed and revived. After the intriguing animated storyline, you'll quickly jump into the fighting action where you'll experience excellent graphics and exciting effects with little if any lag. The music is excellent and sets the mood perfectly.

The gameplay consists of turned-based role playing game (RPG) battle sequences similar to Final Fantasy games. You earn experience, level up, find and purchase weapon and armor upgrades, choose your talents in the Ability Tree: all things you would expect from any RPG game. The controls are very easy as it just consists of the mouse. You click on the enemies or allies that you want to affect and a circular button set appears around them with all your choices.

The main drawback to the game is that it doesn't have any exploration or discovery. What typically makes RPG's so popular is not only the fighting scenes and leveling up, but also the fascinating new worlds you walk through, the unexpected places you discover, and sometimes the chance to dodge or chase down enemies. While Sonny has a world map and a "roaming" mode, these only consist of static background images with limited clickable buttons, and there's really no variation in how many fights you have to engage in before advancing. While the solid voice acting gives a good sense of where you are in your journey, it just isn't the same as being able to roam about freely.

RPG's are notorious for requiring that players kill enemies in order to proceed beyond what that the player would prefer to fight, commonly referred to as "grinding". This usually results in a lull in the excitement and more of a feeling of obligation than of fun. However, RPG players are willing to do the "work" in order to advance to the next area where they can again explore and see new places and enemies. With Sonny, since the entire gameplay is the fighting, it quickly gets to the "grinding" stage and doesn't really change it up too much. Admittedly, I probably get to that grinding stage a little quickly these days having played so many RPG's.

Overall, I think RPG players are looking for something more than the standard grind and level up theme and games like World of Warcraft have spoiled us with more first person shooting type elements in our role playing that Sonny leaves us wanting more. However, for a Flash game Sonny really is top-notch quality and for first-time RPGers I would definitely recommend this game.

Click here to check out Sonny

Reviewed by Steve