"A revolutionary classic brought back to life on the GCN"

Introduction: When the Sega Dreamcast was first launched, Sonic Adventure amazed everyone, and it was one of the main selling points of the system. Now that it has been ported to the Nintendo GameCube, does it still hold a candle to today's games?

Gameplay: Sonic the Hedgehog has been around for a really long time now, and although he may not be as popular as he used to be, each installment(minus a few bad ones) manage to bring back that unique fast paced gameplay that we've all grown to love. Sonic Adventure DX takes the gameplay experience the Dreamcast version gave us and updates it with faster frame rate(this is a huge improvement) and smoother controls. In my opinion, Sonic Adventure feels like it was made to be played with the GameCube's controller. The rubber analog stick feels more comfortable and is less slippery then the Dreamcast's, to me small things like this made it much easier to control the characters. The GameCube controller's buttons also make it easer to play as they are larger and closer together. For those of you who didn't play Sonic Adventure, you can expect an extremely fast paced, fun, and easy to play platformer with lots of mini-games. Each character offers a different way to play the game, and in my opinion most of them are very fun. The one exception would be Big the Cat's levels, which are not consistent with the action experience of the other character's stages, and instead make you sit around and fish for your friend "Froggy".
A fun new addition that previous Sonic games did not have is the "Chao Garden". The Chao garden is a place where you raise small creature's that change form depending on the animals you expose them to. This has been improved to be more like Sonic Adventure 2: Battle's Chao system, but I'm not going to go into deep detail about it in this review, I suggest you look at some of the FAQs to find out more about Chao Gardens. Overall, the gameplay for Sonic Adventure DX is very good, but it's not perfect by any means. There are still some major glitches (i.e. running through an invisible hole in a wall and falling to your death), and some times you will find yourself simply holding the analog stick forward to run through the stage, I think this is to keep Sonic as being a pick-up-and-play game so that anyone can enjoy the stages without having to worry about navigating through obstacles such as loops or twisting paths(thats not to say this game is too easy, though).
8/10

Story: The story of Sonic Adventure varies depending on which character you play as, but they all eventually come together in some way or another. The primary storyline is about Sonic and Tails trying to find the Chaos Emeralds to stop the evil Dr. Eggman from using them to power up the water-like being known as "Chaos". Who is this monstrous creature, and what does Eggman need him for? Why, to rule the world, of course!(I bet you saw that one coming...) I won't spoil anything, but in order to see the games true ending you need to play through each character's story(yeah, that means you need to play through all of Big's, umm... "exciting" story, in the end it's worth it though, trust me). 8/10

Graphics: Although Sonic Adventure's graphics were amazing back in the day, they now look dated compared to todays games. Using the GameCube's technology, Sonic Team has completely re-done all of the character models, and they look simply beautiful(and really shiny! :D). Personally, I think Sonic has had the best makeover, in my opinion he looks better in this game then he does in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and maybe even Sonic Heroes. The level designs haven't really changed much, but they look good enough already so it doesn't really matter. 9/10

Sound: The music in this game stays true to the Dreamcast version, with some remixes from older Sonic games, some of the background music and songs are very catchy! The sound effects are nice, and they bring back memories of past Sonic games, but obviously not one of the main selling points of the game. They aren't very natural sounding, I think a 3-D Sonic might have worked a little better with more realistic sound effects then the 2-D games to fit with a more realistic environment. Not great, but not at all a reason to not like this game. Sonic Adventure 2's sound effects are exactly what I was hoping for with this game. Average, 7/10.

Replay Value: The high replay value is one of the best things about this game! After you complete all of the characters' story modes, your done with this, and it's time move on to another game right? Think again! You still have to collect all of the emblems, which are awarded for meeting certain standards on each level. Another new addition to the game is "mission mode", you must complete extra assigned missions hidden in the adventure fields and action stages, after you have completed some of these and have collected some emblems, more and more classic Sonic Game Gear games will be unlocked. Some of these games you will only want to try out a few times, but some of them are actually quite fun! Sonic Team also threw in a very rewarding secret for people who have collected all of the Emblems. Completing the extra missions and getting all the emblems isn't frustratingly difficult like it is getting all of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle's emblems, but it will instead make this a longer lasting and more entertaining game. Another thing you will want to stick around for is raising your Chao and competing in "Chao races". 9/10

Final Recommendation: Buy this game! Renting it won't even give you enough time to fully enjoy all thats packed into this tiny disk. I personally own the Dreamcast version, and bought this game the first month of it's release back in Summer 2003, and I still enjoy playing it to this day. Weather you want to buy it again for the GameCube really depends on how much you liked the original game. I suggest you do buy it, just don't expect it to be a complete remake and take it for what it is: a port with a couple of cool extras with improved graphics and frame rate. As for those of you who have never played Sonic Adventure, I say to get this game in a heartbeat, just keep in mind that it's a port of an older game and you will love it. Now days I have seen it at about $30 bundled with Sonic Mega Collection or Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, both of which are excellent games that everyone should own. 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/05