Sonic Adventure

"Almost perfect with just one big flaw."

Sonic Adventure is a 3D game. If you do not know who Sonic is, you must have been asleep under a rock during when the Genesis came out. Sonic is a hedgehog and is Sega’s Mascot, this game is a very excellent conversion to 3D from its 2D past games. Let me break it down for you.

Game Play:
The game play of this game remained in the same way as the original... the game play just mainly transformed from 2D to 3D. (When I don’t mention anyone else, I’m talking about Sonic).

Movement: First off, this game is 3D with an active camera that follows the chosen character around. The camera is actually pretty good, especially when you consider that this is one of the fastest 3D adventure games out there today. Any ways, you move with the left analog stick... this may take a long while getting used to as this was one of the first games out of Dream Cast... so you might have to adjust. Jumping in this game is very easy to pull off and you jump pretty far. Other characters can glide, high jump, and even fly! The only really bad part is that moving along a narrow passage or bridge may be harder than doing this in real life is... this is made apparent in one part of Sonic’s snow levels... The ice makes balancing even worse...

Combat/Attacking methods: Well like in all the 2D Sonic the Hedgehog games in this one, Sonic mainly attacks by jumping... Now you must be saying to yourself... If this adventure is mostly a fast action game, how can Sonic hit the enemies good? Well you get a sort of an auto aim... Sonic can home in a smash up a robot with no problem... You can even stay in the air and continue to do this action, just like Shinobi (A ninja game...). Sonic also has is ever so trademark spin dash attack returning, this is when you turn into a ball and fling at high speeds either you attack or to get up a high hill. Then Sonic can acquire special shoes that will enable him to sort of do a Spin Dash/Jump and kill combo. Again, from the original, you collect rings. These golden rings are like the “Coins” or “Womba Fruits” of Sonic the Hedgehog... but as a twist they are also your health. You see, every one-hundred you collect, you receive a extra life… But, if you get hit even once, you lose ALL of them... you can pick up just a few again... get hit with no rings in your possession, you DIE! Keep in mind there is five more characters to play as, they will be mentioned later.

Enemies: If you ever followed this series before, you would know that all the enemies are robots with little captured animals trapped in them... some enemies are from the past... Once you kill an enemy, its random animal pops out of its rubble... you can collect the cute little guy and keep ten of them... These are used in a mini game to feed (Not really feed, but you know) to your “Chao.” They are cute and take on the appearance of the animals you bring the little cuddly poo drop. They are used to race and win Emblems... they can also be taken on a Visual Memory Unit and even fight with a friend!

Bosses: The bosses in this game are great and still have that same kick they had back in Sonic’s early days. There are basically three types of boss in this game. Robotnic, with his robots, Choas and how he tranforms, or your friends may get into a fight (Sonic Versus Knuckles) Bottom line: Bosses equal fun.

Layout: First off, just like any Sonic game, this adventure is broken up into levels. But unlike before, the levels are played back to back. There are now three hub levels... Station Square (A city), Mystic Ruins, and the Egg Carrier. Another new part is how you can select new characters, once you see them in the story mode. Other than Sonic you can be... Tails, Knuckles, Amy, E-102 r (Gamma), and Big. All are very interesting, except for Big, which is just a character that fishes.

Well the Game play is nearly perfect. Everything is well done, except for Big’s four levels. If he wasn’t in this game, I would of given this and the game itself a perfect score…
Good

Challenge:
Well this game is either easy or difficult depending how you play it.

For the soft core gamers that just want to beat the game, this game isn’t that hard. Only about the last four levels for Sonic are hard, that’s it! Most of the levels aren’t that tough. The hard part comes out when you try and collect a large amount of emblems. Now, every level has three emblems... A, B, and C. A is just given to you when you beat the mission, B is usually given to you when you beat a mission with fifty rings or more, and C is usually done if you beat the mission extremely fast.

Some C emblems for Sonic are extremely hard to get, but they are incredibly fun to get, since once you are able to take down a level flawlessly, you will look friggen sweet doing it :D

But going slow in this game makes it mad easy except when fishing. Fishing already sucks, to top it off, it is so unnecessarily hard. A fish could be two inches away from you and it will get away... Even if you are good with fishing games, this part will most likely annoy you to no end.

Other than that, some bosses may be hard... like the fishy Chaos or one of Robotnic’s final robots... but all can be conquered with learning their moves.

This game has a perfect balance of difficulty, since all the hard things are purely optional, so it remains fun for soft and hard core gamers alike.
Outstanding

Control:
The button layout couldn’t be better... after all, it is pretty hard not to get it pretty when there is about two things you can do with each character. Either you press a button to jump, one to attack, one in mid air, or hold something in... that is it.

The execution is perfect too. In this game, it is easy as hell you jump across gaps and you will not die from a cheesy fall.

The only bad part is the use of the analog stick. It is just hard to maneuver through things or on narrow passages. It would not have been so bad if you were able to move strait with the direction pad and made the manual camera used in a different manner.
Great

Story:
Wow... just wow. I remember the old days... when the story used to be like this: Sonic or something had something bad happen to them... they then had to kill Robotnic. After his defeat, Sonic is usually seen running with the animals he saved, if you collected all the emeralds, he turned into Super Sonic and jumped at the screen with a thumbs up or something like that, the End.

This was the story for all of the Sonic games before this... I had almost given up any last hope on this series story line... hell I thought Knuckles was a she for a while...

Any ways, the main story is about Chaos and how Dr. Robotnic is trying to get it some Chaos emeralds... You see, Chaos was made because he was pissed... remember how I was describing those Choa’s before? Well almost each character has a flashback to a past time in history, with a race of Knuckles’ species... this shows how they tackled all the Choa’s and the master emerald was destroyed.

Each character has his or her own little story that is revealed as you play through with them. Mostly all the characters run into each other during their trip.
Outstanding

Visuals:
The graphics for the most part, are great and not flawed, they really put a lot of work into them.

All the characters look great. Every furry animal you play as has a neat little texture to him or her if you look really close. The enemies, although all robots, look well and are deigned pretty well too. The mouth move when they talk too... even when they aww.

The back grounds are also pretty good. Mostly every level is packed with high speed ramps, loops, and obstacles which include common things like fire and spikes.

The full motion videos are simply amazing to watch. Especially the opening video (which kind of ruins the whole ending if you watch it...) looks fantastic.

All the time of this game’s release, this was one of the best graphical games out there, and is still a extremely great looking one today.
Outstanding

Audio:
The beginning levels all have a sort of a classical feel to them (I think they may have a re-mix or two). But all the levels are easy to listen to (No annoying tracks). Some are really great, you’ll see when you get to the speed highway or the ruins.

The sound effects are good, I guess. Nothing sounds crappy... when you get hit rings fly and make their token noise... you still here a odd sound every time you perform a jump... You should know what to expect by now.

They also added voices to all the characters. Most are great... except for tails... he sounds like a kid.
Great

Re playability:
Now, to just beat the game, it can take you while, quite possibly longer than most games. With a total of seven characters, Sonic with ten levels... you get the point. Plus between each level there are cut scenes which develop the story farther.

Now there are two more in depth parts that make this game last for ages.

The first is the Choa’s. It is basically a mini game where you rise a Choa and feed it stuff. All it is mainly for is to win five races and to get five Emblems.

The second part if collecting all the Emblems. There are a total of 130 of them to collect. Most are achieved by completing levels, a hand full are found just laying in the hub area, and five are from the races mentioned above. Some are hard to get, especially that dam cat, Big. If it wasn’t for him, I would have had all of them!
Outstanding

Pros:
It’s Sonic
Great 3d adventure game
5 good different characters
Great levels that are actually fun to just play
The story is actually the best I ever seen in a “mascot” game

Cons:
You can’t skip the ending Credits or cut scenes
The stupid cat, Big.

Rent or Buy:
If you got a Dreamcast, buy this game. If you never heard of Sonic... buy this game. Unless you are someone who only likes strategy games or can’t stomach manimals, I would buy it.

Final Rating:
This game is extremely fun and well made. The flaws in this game are just that stupid Cat. So unless you like fishing with dumb looking felines, this is the game's only Big flaw. This game gets a nine out of ten.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/29/03