The Sonic Storybook Series

[EmeraldNova]

In honor of Sonic’s 35th Anniversary, the Games of the Month for June and July 2026 are the Sonic Storybook series. At the conclusion of the so-called Adventure Era of Sonic games, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) crashed and burned, leaving SEGA half a decade past its exit from the console market with its flagship IP in a tarnished state. Not only was Sonic no longer cool, he was retroactively never cool, his games were always bad, and everyone hated his dumb anthropomorphic friends. This state of desperation combined with Nintendo’s insatiable lust for tacked on motion controls for Wii shovelware brought us the Sonic Storybook series. Two games built with the Wii’s unique motion control gimmicks in mind and a nothing-left-to-lose attitude that motivated some very interesting design choices, as well as incubating the Boost Era of Sonic games.

The first game is Sonic and the Secret Rings. This game features Sonic, in a literal fever dream, being summoned into One Thousand and One Nights by a genie, Shahra, commanded by a magic ring worn by Sonic. (Yes kids, Sonic reads. Reading is cool.) Her name is suspiciously similar to Shahryār, the framing character in said book who is threatening to kill his virgin bride once she finishes telling her tales of Arabia. In fact, without delving too deeply, the story itself is a surprisingly understated account of an abusive relation. To me, this somewhat elevates what should just be a throwaway shovelware title.

The game itself is also elevated by, to my reckoning, the earliest version of the boost formula. The game controls awkwardly, automatically progressing forward with no input, using the Wiimote’s gyroscope to steer. It’s an on rails platformer, which is...a choice. The most bizarre change to the normal control scheme is probably the jump button, which charges a jump but does not initiate it until you release the button. On paper, this is an absolutely insane control scheme for a high speed platformer with some precision jumps. Yet somehow, holistically, it works. Early in the game you also unlock a special gauge which allows you to Speed Break (extended boost) or Time Break (bullet time).

Once you’re used to the game, it somehow feels good enough to want to gold medal each course. Like many other ranked mission Sonic games, there is a fair share of obnoxious missions that you will swear never to play again once you gold them. They usually involve some sequencing puzzle or worse, having to backtrack.
Somehow, on balance, despite the bizarre direction of game’s design, I have a lot of fun with this title. It’s somehow greater than the sum of its parts, and leads me to replay it. It doesn’t hurt that every track is a banger. And even in the years since I last played it to 100% completion, I have consistently had the OST on my playlist. After this review, I may go back for another 100% gold playthrough.

The second storybook game is Sonic and the Black Knight. This game feels like when a Hollywood producer looks at a success, learns all the wrong lessons, then tries to “fix” things in the sequel.
This time, Sonic is summoned by another magical supporting woman to Arthurian legend to fight the Black Knight, the corrupted King Arthur. You also you have an uptight talking sword sidekick to generate comedy relief. He even talks to you over the Wiimote’s speaker! The controls have also been made more normal, at least on paper. The jump button now jumps instantly, along with an air dash. You move with the analog stick on the nunchuck. The motion controls seem to be restricted to swinging your sword, including using a soul gauge as a bullet time homing attack for critical damage.

All these changes make the experience make more sense from a Sonic game perspective, but also dampen the creativity and artistic direction that made Secret Rings so uniquely fun. Even the soundtrack feels like it’s gotten a few token Crush 40 hits surrounded by safe, generic level tracks. My most vivid memory of this game is being furious at the mid-game credits rolling after a couple hours, feeling cheated. Now the story does continue after that first ending sequence with an interesting twist, but none of it really felt like it stuck the same way rushing through Evil Foundry did in Secret Rings.

At the time, the game did so poorly that it ended the Storybook Series, which had planned to continue with more Sonic adaptations of classics. In the last few years, Black Knight has gotten the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy treatment of fans claiming it’s secretly much better than most people give it credit for. I don’t see it, myself. In the meantime, Secret Rings is getting a fan recreation in Project Reignition. No such luck for Black Knight, but at least we got Knight of the Wind and With Me out of it. It’s an interesting curiosity in history of Sonic’s dark ages that might be fun to revisit if I can check my biases at the door and try to approach it on its own terms.