The DS version has no “Festival Mode” but instead has a single player adventure mode dubbed “Adventure Tour” which sees Bowser and Dr. Eggman capture the World’s Snow Spirits in order to ruin the Winter Olympics, as Sonic and Mario arrive on the scene an escaped Snow Spirit called Frosty asks them to help and that’s where the game begins.

It gives us a simple trait of an RPG where you roam around the islands that you go to looking for items that will get you into events (such as skates for skating) which conveniently are in chests or get given to you by certain character. Once you beat an event mission it will give you a crystal which the spirits will use at ice walls that block your path to the rest of the island.

To accompany the fact that you can control both Mario and Sonic, Mario can use warp pipes and shrink where Sonic can use springs, and his spindash attack to knock through cracks in walls as well as knock down open bridges.

You can collect hearts from boxes or any interactive item to give you an extra retry if you fail a mission, run out of lives, run out of attempts. You can also get them from completing missions.

Every now and then throughout the game you’ll come to what can only be summed up as a Rival Battle, in which you compete in events against different characters in order to proceed onto the next stage or just continue through the world you’re on now. Each character used once; be it for a rival battle or a mini-game which unlocks your progress through the level, other character battles will unlock you a character for your party.