Game Review: Sonic Roll

I love all things Sonic the Hedgehog and today we are going to look at a game that takes that beloved world from the video games and moves it into the board game world!

Sonic Roll is published by Kess Games with design by Anthony Thorp. Art direction from Lauren Yu. It plays 1-4 players in 30-60 mins.

Overview:

In Sonic Roll players will run, jump and spin in a number of Zones as different characters from Sonic trying to stop Dr Eggman. If anyone loses all of their lives or time runs out the game is over and Sonic and his friends lose!

Gameplay:

Sonic Roll has all your favorite characters: Sonic, Knuckles, Tails and Amy. Each player chooses one character, gains their dashboard and all other game components are set up on the table. a Zone stack of cards is added to the center play area based on player count.

Each player goes through the 4 steps of their turn then it passes to the next player. The steps include:

1. Roll Action Step: Here players will choose a roll action and build a pool of dice.
   
2. Spending Step: Players spend one die at a time on a Zone challenge or Badnik. If they can’t play dice they take damage. If they have no dice they move to step 4.
   
3. Reroll Step: Reroll all dice still in the pool and players can use boost tokens here. Then step 2 is repeated.
   
4. In any dice are left they are discarded and a time token is taken. Play passes to the next player on the left.

Players will take dice and roll them based on one of the Roll Actions on their player board. This will also show you your dice pool for the round. The Spending and Reroll step go back and forth until a player decides to pass. Here players can fill challenge spaces and deal damage to the Badniks.

Rerolls can be dangerous and can leave you vulnerable to attacks from Badniks so there is some push your luck you need to be careful with.

If a player spends all their dice their turn is over and it passes to the next player. Be careful, if all time tokens are removed from the game the game is over. .

Impressions:

I really enjoy games with dice and Sonic Roll is a great way to get a property I like with a type of game I love. There are 3 settings you can play including cooperative, competition and campaign. The competition is the simple way to go back and forth and see who can get the most points. I enjoyed them all but really liked the campaign where you could traverse through all the Zones one at a time in order.

There is also a solo mode where time score is awarded based on how well you did and how little tokens you took. For a solo game it works well and would be a setting most would enjoy.

I love the push your luck aspect of this one working with your team, trying not to push too hard and making sure to not knock yourself out at the peril of your whole team. Working together and cheering on your team is a fun way to enjoy this with friends and family.

So if you enjoy a game with all things dice and special powers, this is one for you to check out. Sonic and his buddies bring the speed and the fun, and I really enjoyed the power ups, shields, dice and overall variety of options on the table. Make sure to check this one out, it is sure to be a hit at your next game night!