"Someone forgot the spoon for the ice cream"

Sonic Adventure. Originally an launch title on Sega's now ill-fated Dreamcast. And one of the best titles on the system. Combining Sonic The Hedgehog elements like speed and agility, mixing them with adventure and simple puzzles seemed genius and a good way to bring Sonic forward to the next generation consoles, and into proper 3D.

Sonic The Hedgehog never did have an easy history to follow of course. Sega's blue wonder has been fighting for his life for over a decade, and many more to possibly come. Sonic Team are known for pushing games to there limits. Yet are also known to be lazy when updating/porting their old classics.

DX then. Rather then a simple update from the Dreamcast original, upgrades the graphics, adds 60 all-new missions and other things to unlock. But does it improve the game itself? On with the review.

GAMEPLAY 7/10

Hard to judge at best. On one hand you have six characters to choose from, all which play unique and different to each other. A quick rundown:

Sonic: Run around the levels at blazing speed. Easily the most enjoyable and best of the lot. Also has the longest amount of levels.
Tails: Race against an opponent in the levels. Fun, if not much different from Sonic, besides the ability to fly.
Amy: Slower, more platformy and a big hammer to whack robots with. Although Amy only has four levels, two of those can be real annoyances and no real fun. The element of being chased by a robot is however great.
E102-Gamma: Like to shoot things? This is your man. It's well implanted, if a little sticky here and there. Its a fun way to get high scores by trying to combo, however.
Knuckles: Find 3 emeralds pieces within the stage. Not for those who'd like proper adventuring. Yet the levels are the right size to not be annoying.
Big The Cat: Fancy a spot of fishing? Quite unexpected at first, and most will find it odd as well. However with a mere three stages, catching those fish is not much of a problem.

In all the game's main problem in the whole game is the camera. It can give a sudden swish from side to side, causing you to not see the character, stage or anything clearly. Many deaths can be caused this way, even in the Free Camera mode, which I've found rather useless. Despite this the character control is pretty good. Not perfect like an Nintendo platformer for example though.
It's fun to play then, but has it's problems.

GRAPHICS 7/10

The game certainly looks much better from the Dreamcast original for one. The levels all have aspects which you'll want to stop and stare at. A good example is Speed Highway playing as Sonic. It looks gorgeous standing still or running at god knows how many miles an hour.
However, despite looking better then the original, the game now has sudden slowdown and frame rate problems. However nothing is too noticeable, certainly not for those who have not played the original.
It's a realistic setting, yet has a feeling of a different world. Nothing to grip you to believe you are in it however.
The menu displays are all nicely done. The problem is, even with the new cover graphics you can see the age in the backgrounds. Certainly nothing for the Gamecube processors to worry about.

SOUND 8/10

This may well be all down to taste. The game is filled with soft rock tunes. Which can annoy some and delight others. However, whatever the taste, the music is done first class. No budget cheap band music. But by experts, and it shows.
Nothing catchy, some of the themes may stick to your head. But nothing to hum along to.
The sound effects all sound pleasant enough. From collecting rings to bouncing on springs, nothing broken.
The character voices are the usual Americanized style you'd find in games these days. Tails himself is done by Jake Loid from Star Wars young Aniken fame. Not to say his acting voice is that good, however. Robotnik in particular works well, and gamma.

STORY 7/10

Sonic games before Sonic Adventure were pretty much the same, Robotnik/Eggman steals emeralds to do evil plot to take over the world and sonic stops him. Sonic Adventure DX sticks old ideas with some new ones. Robotnik/Eggman now wants the Emeralds to feed the monster called Chaos ( made out of a liquid substance ). With each emerald the monster grows, can Sonic and the gang stop him?

The game's bad acting is a down point here. You can't really focus too hard on the story without being put off. However for what is there, it's good.

And my, a gripping finale.

REPLAY 8/10

Finishing the individual games is one thing. Emblems another. And the unlockable Game Gear games are whole games that can take hours of days and weeks of play. The mission mode can be from easy as pie to hard as stone. But there is plenty here to keep you amused for quite a while. The GG games are the main reason of this being an 8 however, there value in this game is a fine addition. Although I'd guess for non-nostalgic's who couldn't care less will dismiss them. Which is a pity.

On the other hand Mission mode introduces no new levels, which would have made it special. But that's just nit picking.

OVERALL 8/10

The game certainly tried to fix problems of the original. And added alot for gamers to toy around with. However you have to wonder why Sonic Team haven't fixed such things like the camera, aged backgrounds and even maybe new voice actors? Or how about totally new areas? No? Didn't think so.
But of course, we can always want more, and we'd never be pleased.

It's also hard to judge this game when, at the time of reviewing there's the sequal of this game in the form of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, and Sonic Heroes. On one hand you are getting what some consider the best of Sonic in 3D, along with a lot of Extras. On the other hand some think the other Sonic games available on the Gamecube are just so much better, and make this game look old when compared. And let's be honest, it is the oldest of the bunch. Those new to the experience however, pleasant playing.

For what you get, it's a decent bar of chocolate dipped into ice cream and sprinkled with nuts. But someone forgot the sauce. Ah well.

Final Score: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/04