Sonic Team Announces Mobile Games Service 'Sonic Cafe'

A bunch of new NiGHTS into Dreams and ChuChu Rocket! games have popped up on Sonic Team's official Japanese website. But they're not what you think - they're actually for your mobile phone. Crazy! Apparently, mobiles are really popular in Japan, and everybody plays little games on them. So in an attempt to get in on the action, 'Sonic Cafe' will offer a bunch of bite-size applications based on their famous franchises.

The games look a little like the sort of thing you'd see on a Dreamcast VMU, only in colour. NiGHTS into Dreams is a top-down game akin to the classic 'Snake' on Nokia phones, the aim being to collect the gems and circle around NiGHTMaren.

ChuChu Rocket! Puzzle and ChuChu Rocket! Edit are separate applications that are essentially lifted from the Dreamcast puzzle classic. You have to get the mice (ChuChu) into the rockets without letting the cats (KapuKapu) get to them. Edit lets you create these puzzles.

You can also apparently get a Samba de Amigo game for Japanese mobile phones, which is a very pared-down version of the arcade original. You have to hit buttons on your phone in time to the rhythm seen on-screen. You will also be able to download new songs over time.

These 'Sonic Cafe' games are heading to Motorola 503i phones on the NTT DoCoMo service from January 26th, and will initially be free to download until February 4th. After that time, if you want to keep the games you'll need to pay 300 yen a month.

Source: Sonic Team