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The DS RPG mode is awesome. I was expecting it to be a glorified hub, but it's almost a game in its own right. Most of the cast are handled quite well. I even liked the way they wrote Vector, who is more like his original personality, a thrill seeking kind of carefree goof instead of talking about money.

Some other notes:

It very much has the atmosphere of a Mario game, yet the universes mix surprisingly well.

The game manages to make me hate Silver even more. He's a jerk up until you beat him twice, at which point he starts talking like you will kill him (?!). But because he is teamed up with Blaze, he passes the stench of fail to her too. They both have a grudge against Sonic for no apparent reason, and repeatedly reference being from another time and dimension respectively, yet they're teamed and say "let's go home." So SEGA can't decide whether it's a time or dimension and have taken to just having them contradict each other about which it is.

Every character other than them gets handled well. Charmy surprisingly manages to be silly and cute but not annoying. Even Shadow has a kind of "underneath the arrogance he's OK" thing going. Wario and Waluigi got me to laugh out loud at one point. Most of them get character appropriate minigames and challenges.

The gameplay is not much, but they manage to put a few surprises into map mode and keep the events varied. Most of the fun is seeing how they integrate universes.

After talking to the super polite Mario cast it gets kind of embarrassing just how many times SEGA has tried to create stupidly conceived "Knuckles wannabes."

You start with Knuckles, who has a nice simple Sonic style design, correcting Toad that he is not Sonic's friend exactly.
Then you get to Shadow, who is kind of over the top but still looks like a Sonic character, being arrogant and insulting, but a good sport about your win.
Next is Rouge, who has some rather silly design elements, and doesn't give a rat's ass about your quest unless she gets some gems.
Here comes Blaze, who is quite a bit more over the top than Shadow, and is kind of rude.
That leads you to Silver, who looks like what would happen if you started a Sonic fan character generator, added uglier hair options, and puked on the results, and is more of a jerk.
Finally you battle Jet, who is genuinely ugly and covered in points and stripes and things, and he is just an insufferable prick with an irritating voice.

Next game has a brown polka dot hedgehog from Mars who became convinced Sonic is evil because Metal Sonic interrupted his favorite reality show. His jedi powers are too much for Sonic, but Shadow and Silver defeat him, just as Amy tackles him believing he IS Sonic. Then he realizes Eggman is his true enemy, but still becomes enraged every time he encounters Sonic, dropping F-bombs every other sentence. He has a bowler hat, spiked gloves, braided spines, and 5 foot long chest hair. Oh and he is also like Majin Buu in some way, and has to fight an air elemental monster.