Sonic Adventure

"Needs work, but it's still a good addition to the DC Library."

I've been looking foward to this game for a while. Now I can say that I finally have it, but it's not everything I was hoping for. But this is one of those games that is, although is a letdown, kicks serious butt.

Graphics: They're defenitley on par w/ the Dreamcast, and nothing else could have mimicked them, except maybe a top of the line, high-end, made-for-gaming PC. Nothing else comes close. However, the camera needs a lot of work. GRAPHICS: 9

Music and Sound: A real letdown here. Actually, the sound isn't bad. I have one complaint with that, I'll get to it later. What's REALLY bad is the music tracks in the Adventure Stages, as well as the character's own theme songs. The only good one is Gamma's music. Knuckles' and Big's is average, and everyone else's sucks. They're too corny to listen to. And as for my sound complaint, it's with the voice acting. WHO CAST THOSE GUYS? Tails has it worse. It's so bad, my fantasy is now meeting Tails, and ripping his larnyx out. Yes, that bad. MUSIC AND SOUND: 5

Story: Eh, they could do better. It involves the evil Dr. Robotnik finding out the secret to the Chaos Emeralds: that they're fed to a monster by the name of Chaos, who grows bigger and stronger with each emerald. Once he gets all seven in him, Chaos becomes an invincible monster. Robotnik plans to use him to destroy a town called Station Square so he can build Robotnikland on its ashes.

Let me reinterate.

Instead of Robotnik using Chaos to hold the world for ransom and become the ruler of Mobius (or are we on Earth now?), he just wants to use him to knock down a city and build his own town on it's ashes.

Good plan, Doctor Pencilneck--I mean Robotnik.

So, your job is to save Station Square and stop Robotnik. Or so that's only Sonic and Tails' story. You can control 6 different characters (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, Big, and E-102 Gamma [Gamma for short]) each with their own agenda that relates with the story. As Knuckles, you have to find shards of the Master Emerald to get Angel Island floating again. As Amy, you have to guard a bird and keep away from one of Robotnik's robots at the same time. As Big, you have to hunt for your friend Froggy by fishing for him. (What the hell?) As Gamma, you hunt down your E-Series brothers, and destroy them to set them free. Everyone except Big plays an integral part of the story.

Of course, every now and then you go into the sidestory. This has nothing to do with the game as far as I know. They're just there to provide backstory. But everything is so jumbled up, that you'll see the backstory after you take a long time piecing everything together. And it's totally useless.

The main plot is flawed, and some of the induvidual plots are flawed, so what does this leave? A so-so story that plays out like an episode of Pokemon. STORY: 6

Replay Value: Very little known. You'll play each character's pitifully short adventure (the longest one, Sonic's, is only 2 hours), go back to get all the emblems, and as far as I know, there's nothing to come back for, unless you like the Chao mini-game. REPLAY VALUE: 4

Gameplay: The adventure stages are flawed, scattered with simple lock and key puzzles. But the action stages are where the game is at. They warp your mind with skin-ripping speed. Sonic has the regular stuff...collect rings to stay alive, reach the end of the level, yadda, yadda, yadda...but for the other characters, there's other stuff. Like to race? Be Tails, as his objective is to reach the end of the level before Sonic. Like to search? Knuckles has to find three emerald shards for each level. You looking for survival horror (sort of)? Amy has to outwit and escape an enemy robot that she can't kill. Like fishing for certain fish? Big's objective is to catch his frog friend by fishing for him. Do you just want to blow stuff up? Gamma's your man.

It figures, though. You have to go through Sonic's adventure up to the Chaos 6 boss to get every character. But his stages are pretty intense when you factor in the speed. You might get motion sickness, to be exact.

(Note: Due to a screwed up VMU, I haven't been able to try the Chao mini-game. So it has not been factored in for this segment of the review.) GAMEPLAY: 8

Control: Like a dream. It looks hard to control by looking at it, but you get the hang of it. It's easy to learn, and you learn how to use each character by selecting him and hitting instruction. It'll teach you how to use the character before you go onto the game. Good one, Sega! CONTROL: 10

Final Math: 9+5+6+4+8+10=7

Opinion: Not bad. If there is a next game, though, let's hope it improves on this one drastically.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/00, Updated 01/06/00