I still don’t know what to think about BioWare’s attempt to re-legitimize Sega’s blue creature. Sonic has struggled for relevancy in a post-“Sonic Adventure” world, and while I’m more than confident in BioWare’s ability to make an RPG, the game is so…dark.

It didn’t work for “Shadow the Hedgehog,” of which I played a good amount. At Nintendo’s Media Summit late last week, however, I spent a little more than 15 minutes checking out — and playing — early bits from “Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.”

While the characters are rendered in 3D, the environments are made up of sprawling, beautiful bits of hand-drawn artwork. I’m told the BioWare offices are filled with gigantic versions of these Sonic worlds. I recommend they release some as desktop wallpapers.

With any luck, they will, but let me tell about how the game actually plays.

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Am I correct in believing that many “Sonic” fans have grown tired of Sonic’s friends?

That they are sick of Shadow and Rouge and the human characters he hung out with in his latest game?

I sure hope I read the situation right, because that’s what I grilled BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk about during part of Game Developers Conference interview with them last month. But don’t worry, they could handle it….

The reason for this line of questioning, of course, is because BioWare is developing “Sonic Chronicles,” a Sonic role-playing game for the DS that will feature Sonic and, yes, Sonic’s friends.

Here’s the back and forth:

Multiplayer: I think people pretty uniformly love the games you guys make. And I think people pretty uniformly are getting tired of Sonic having so many friends in all of his games. I think that puts you guys and your team in kind of a funny spot. Do you think …

Ray Muzyka, General Manager, BioWare: Which people?

Multiplayer: Which characters?

Muzyka: No, which types of people complain about them?

Multiplayer: It seems like the “Sonic” series, which was beloved when it came out on the Genesis…

Muzyka: [smiling] I still have my signed Genesis, signed by Yuji Naka-san plugged into my TV and it still works and I still play it. It’s fantastic.

Multiplayer: As the series has gone on, people loved it, loved it, loved it, and, when it went to 3D, there was some grumbling. The games have been somewhat maligned by the critics since then. And one of the things you hear is “Oh, every time they make a new ‘Sonic’ game, they’re adding this character or that character. Now there’s Shadow and he’s got a gun… And then [Sonic]’s in love with human women who are bringing him back to life”…

People are like, “Can’t we just have a game with just Sonic in it? A straight platformer like on the Genesis, maybe with Tails, maybe with Knuckles?” That’s what I feel like I read in reviews. I’m not a hardcore Sonic fan myself, but that’s what I sense…

So I’m wondering if you consider yourselves in that bind and if that’s given any extra motivation to figuring out: “How do we make sure these characters don’t drive people crazy this time?”

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Did you think that “Mass Effect“’s side quests could be better? If so, then the guys who run BioWare agree that there is room for improvement.

They told me so at GDC.

I care, because I’ve been to a lot of those side-quest planets in “Mass Effect.” In fact, I believe I’ve been to all of them. So I have my own feelings about what worked and what didn’t. I wanted to get the official developers’ take.

Here’s my chat with BioWare general manager Greg Zeschuk on the topic:

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