Sonic Adventure

"How Was His First Highspeed Adventure?"

Sonic the Hedgehog. The Hedgehog with an attitude that dethroned Alex Kidd as Sega's mascot ever since his debut on the Genesis. His gameplay style has always adhered to the principles of platforming, but his popularity is best known for the inclusion of one element that games like Super Mario Bros. didn't have: that was speed. This speed allowed gamers to do things that Mario could not, like run up walls and ceilings, and speed through corkscrews and loop-de-loops. This ability brought Sega's Genesis to the mainstream gaming audience, which was at the time dominated by the original NES, thus resulting in a “console war” with one another. Throughout this war, the mascots of both companies were used to provide great games to the systems, and as a result would become imperial franchises.

Then the day of September 26 of 1996 premiered the debut of Super Mario 64 for Nintendo's Nintendo 64. This game became the definitive 3D platformer for 3D platformers in the future to follow. Of course with this success, Sega resorted to bringing their beloved mascot into the 3D realm. Sonic Team originally planned to launch Sonic into 3D under the title Sonic X-treme. It was however canceled due the failure of Sega's Saturn system, thus resulting in merely semi-3D transition games. Sonic 3D Blast was released for the Genesis to fill in the lack of Sonic X-treme, but only featured 2.5D graphics. Sonic Jam, a compilation of Sonic games, featured a 3D world, but not a high speed one that Sonic fans were used to. And then, the day of arrival came, after 3 years of waiting, Sonic made his first high-speed jump into the 3D realm as a launch title for Sega's Dreamcast system under the title: Sonic Adventure. So is this game a successful move for Sonic?

To begin with the story: The story is much more deep than most Sonic games in the past, though it isn't exactly material that competes with deeper storylines like that of Xenogears. Previous Sonic games have been as simple as the Super Mario Bros.' series, being that the story was simply there to provide the player with something to do rather than be thought provoking or phenomenal. The story of this game though, is one of where Doctor Robotnik “Eggman” has resorted to destroy his long time enemy Sonic by using a legend to his advantage, awakening an ancient monster known as Chaos. To do this, he must collect the seven chaos emeralds and bring them to Chaos, and then all his fury will be unleashed. In doing so though, the story is told from the perspectives of Sonic and five other characters he will meet in his adventure: his old partner Tails, his old rival Knuckles, his self-proclaimed girlfriend Amy, the evil robot turned good E-102 “Gamma”, and the dim-witted Big the Cat. Each character has his or her own reason for traveling to eventually meet up with one another at the conclusion of the game, thus resulting in the story's climax.

In judging the graphics: As said before, Sonic Adventure was part of a line of launch titles that the Dreamcast brought out in its release. For a game that came out in 1999, the graphics are not half-bad. The graphics look better than some Playstation games that I can name that came out before and after this game. The level design is also wide and colorful and though being subjected to high speed action that Sonic brings, has only a small amount of pop ups that come out of nowhere.

The sound is a true highlight for this game, not for its advancement, but because of how awesome it is. The sound effects are very well tuned and realistic and the game even has some of the classic sounds from its previous games like the jumping sound and that fun “bling” sound when your character collects a coin. Much of the sound's strong points though, come from its music. The music is what I like to call “Pumpin'!” because it is simply so fun to listen to and sets you in the mood of speeding through the levels and knowing the personality of the character you control. The best part of the music though, is the song “Open Your Heart” which is played partially in the intro and the final boss fight, but performed fully in the ending credits. This song is truly a classic tune in the videogame realm, and I hope that Crush 40 got some good groupies for their performance of this song. Unfortunately, I could not say the same thing for the voice actors… Simply put: the voice actors are just bad. Though I have heard worse voice acting back in the day, and some that came out today, this still shows a lack of effort on their part to make characters that sound realistic in various situations. Thankfully, Sonic Team decided to go easy on our ears and put in the option of selecting Japanese voice-overs, so this should save the game for those who can't tolerate bad voice acting.

The game offers a variety of gameplay options: Sonic and Tails are the high speeders, Knuckles is the flyer and destroyer of the environments, E-102 “Gamma” is the shooter, Amy is the maiden running from the evil robot ZERO to save her life, and Big is… the fishing cat… Most of the gameplay in Sonic Adventure is very fun to speed your way though, and destroying the environments does not get old. There are some occasional points in the game where you might get stuck and not know how to advance though, but they can be overcome with a few tries.

Probably the most annoying thing about Sonic Adventure, which makes it imperfect, is its camera problems. Sometimes the camera is just out of your control and moving it with the shoulder buttons might not do much to help. Sometimes the camera will be looking at you, but parts of the environments will be in your line of sight or just too far away from you. Most of these problems though, can be overcome with a press of the directional pad, so the camera problems can be manageable in most cases.

The prime of the gameplay is playing as Sonic and Tails, as they make their way to the goal at ultra high speed. Speeding through the stages as Sonic brings the classic 3D platforming gameplay that most gamers would want to play despite the occasional glitch or camera problem. Tails plays the same way, except the player controlling him has to catch up with Sonic and get to the goal before Sonic does.

Knuckles has you going through the levels searching for 3 pieces of the Master Emerald, which are hidden though different locations by finding them in certain places, destroying certain enemies, and destroying parts of the environment. He also runs fast and can climb on walls to reach higher areas, and jumping twice has him go flying so he can reach a distance far away. Despite some difficulty trying to find the emerald pieces, Knuckles is probably the second best playable character right below Sonic.

Amy has you running through the levels avoiding Dr. Eggman's evil robot ZERO, and if it catches you, you lose a life. He can be distracted by a swing of Amy's hammer, but doing so too many times can trigger its “rampage mode”, becoming faster and harder to avoid, which can be problematic especially in puzzle solving situations.

E-102 “Gamma”s gameplay is the only one with a time limit and functions as a shooting mode of the game. You hold the B button to bring out a laser, hold it to get a lock on targets, and then let go to unleash a volley of blasts. Destroying multiple targets can give you more time to achieve your objectives, and you'll certainly need it if you're having trouble finding the goal.

Earlier, I said most of the gameplay was good, which is because of the inclusion Big the Cat. His gameplay is fishing, which takes patience to go through. Considering that this is a game about high speed and making your way to a goal, this can be seen as an inconsistent part of the game, and rather boring if I say so myself. Although if you do enjoy fishing games, and haven't already played another game of the genre, then there's a chance you might have fun with this.

Besides just action stages, Sonic Adventure features bonus games that can be unlocked as you progress further in the game. There's the game where you can board your way down a mountaintop in the desert or a snow mountain, which adds to the games great sense of speed. There is also the ability to play in “Sky Chase” mode, which has you flying as Tails and shooting at Eggman's Egg Carrier to reach the end of the stage, and the more you destroy the higher your score. There is also a Twinkle Park stage where you can play as a character and race to the end trying to get a better “Best time”. There is also a “Whack a Sonic” game where you can play as Amy and destroy Sonic dolls to gain a higher score. All of these games are very playable and can provide a good time for those looking for some decent time killers.

There is also a feature in this game that allows you to raise a creature called a ‘Chao'. Chaos can be born when your care for eggs and bring the animals to raising grounds where the eggs are located. And if you have a VMU memory card, you can bring your Chao wherever you want, resulting in a new form of gameplay. This plays just like the Tomagatchi handhelds, and you can battle your friends with each others Chao. This was certainly an ambitious feature for Sonic Team to put in the game back in 1999, though considering so many years have passed, you'd be lucky if you could find anyone to still battle against.

So is this game worth your time and money? If you're a Sonic fan, undoubtedly you have already played this game in some way or form (either this version or Sonic Adventure DX for the Gamecube). If you're a fan of the platforming realm of videogames in general, then I would still like to say this is worth it. This game offers great music, and a variety of gameplay to suit any gamer's needs and you will indeed have a great time with it. If you're picky about the camera angles though, you might have a bit harder time trying to have fun, but not so much if you feel you can overcome them. The minigames are also good fun to pop in to play every now and then, adding to the time that you'll be devoting to this game. Overall, if you have a Dreamcast and haven't played the Gamecube version, this is definitely worth it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/08

Game Release: Sonic Adventure (US, 09/09/99)