Sea Chart

The Sea Chart is a gameplay mechanic in Sonic Rush Adventure. It visually depicts a significant portion of Blaze's world and it serves as a route planner where the player is able to plot a route on the sea for one of the available vessels (Wave Cyclone, Ocean Tornado, Aqua Blast or Deep Typhoon) to travel along during the Sea Stages of the game and/or to visit an island and play the Act Stages of the game.

Description
The Sea Chart's appearance varies slightly on whether the player access it via the "Set Sail" option or simply the "Sea Chart" in the menu. In both cases, the Top Screen displays a small map depitcing all islands (Act Stages) the player has visited; all main islands are represented by a huge unique-colored dots, in comparison to the smaller light-blue dots representing Hidden Islands. When accessing the Sea Chart via interacting a vessel at its dock and selecting "Set Sail", the selected vessel is highlighted in blue. In addition, Miles "Tails" Prower is present who would interact with the player.

The Touch Screen displays a close-up of the player's surrounding sea areas, displaying every island each with its unique icon. In addition, any Johnny's Race stages discovered are also depicted with an icon of Johnny's face (a red cross over it indicates that the player has successfully cleared that particular race). In the Touch Screen of the Sea Chart, the air force blue indicates that player has not explored that particular section of the sea while other shades of blue represent explored sea sections. Sometimes, explored sea sections may exhibit unique colors, usually around certain islands related to those islands' themes (such as icy blue nearby Blizzard Peaks). When accessing the Sea Chart via "Set Sail", there are also pink area details which areas of the sea the selected vessel is unable to travel across due to obstacles such as shallow water, rocks and icebergs).

Overview
In gameplay, the Sea Chart is primarily used to plan sea routes for the selected vessel to travel along for the Sea Stage. The player can move the view of the Sea Map by using the or holding the Nintendo DS stylus on the Touch Screen and drag it. He/she can also zoom in/out the map in three different scales by pressing / respectively or by touching the zoom buttons on the bottom-right corner of the touch screen.

For the player to begin drawing their routes, the player must use the stylus to draw from a starting location, typically from main island Act Stages (marked with an orange dot and the tip of a ballpoint pen) towards a certain point in the sea. The player is limited to the distance which it can travel (represented by an "ink" gauge on the top-left corner of the Touch Screen that depletes as the route is sketched). To reset the route and draw a new one, the player should tap the yellow button with a blue cross. Once the player has decided the route, he/she should tap the yellow button with a red circle and select Yes to confirm the route and be led to the Sea Stage gameplay.

Throughout the story, the Sea Chart may indicate specific areas the player must travel in order to progress. These are marked with an orange flag with an exclamation mark that usually lead to a new playable island Act Stage in the game.

While in Southern Island, the player can also access the Sea Chart via the menu (opened by pressing ). Here, the Sea Chart can only be used to visit islands previously explored by touching the green icon of the island. If the selected island is an Act Stage island, the player can play through all of its Acts consecutively.