Sonic Heroes

"Best Sonic game since his genesis days."

OK, we all know that the past Sonic games have been well, bad to say the least. But this is easily one of the Best Sonic games since his genesis days.

Graphics
They're actually not too bad. The graphics during the cut scenes are actually up to par, but there is a down side. The graphics during the gameplay is somewhat Dreamcastish. They're not too bad, but no Resident Evil, Ninja Gaiden. But you can't say that they needed to take full advantage of the Xbox console, because remember this game is multiconsole. So they needed to make this game playable on all 3 consoles. The enviroments during the levels are great. They are very nice. One level is the Casino Stage (Yes, some of you might remember this from Sonic 2). The stage is extremely nice. The pinpall and everything.

Story
There's not much you can say about this game when it comes to story. No offense, but it's a Sonic game. The stories aren't quite good in any of them. The story is enough to keep the game going, but it's not enough to draw in people looking for an oscar award story. This game has a mediocre story at most.

Gameplay
This is where the game really shines. There are three different teams. Team Sonic (Tails, Sonic, and Knuckles), Team Dark (Shadow, Rouge, and Omega), Team Rose (Amy, Cream, and Big), and Team Chaotix (Espio, Charmy, and Vector). Team Sonic is fast, Team Dark is for the intermidiate player, Team Rose is for the newbie, and Team Chaotix is for the explorer. This game is FAST and I mean fast! Team Sonic's fastness is up to par of F Zero GX. This game can get quite confusing with this speed, but it's worth it. Not only is this game fast, but as many of you know this game has a very nice feature in it. In it you can swap 3 you're three members. This allows for different branching levels, and for a much less linear game. The switching of the characters is a little complicated at first, but after the first couple of levels, you'll be able to switch almost automatically just by seeing the blur of the box that tells you what character to use. Though this game is fast, there is one problem. With the amount of speed, there are a couple of parts with well, slowdowns. There are also many cheap deaths. I have yet to have a problem with the camera, except for one part early in the game. Another great addition to the game is the RPG part. Yes, I said RPG. Every level you can find an orb that is the color of one of your characters. With this orb your character(s) gain a level (with a max of 3 levels). Why would you wan to do this? Easy. Better attacks. One example could be Knuckles. His lvl 1 attacks or OK. His lvl 2 attacks are pretty good. But his lvl 3 attack is amazing. Ita allows the player to make a storm of fire, allowing him to almost clean out a room.

Even with those few flaws, this game still is one of the best Sonic games ever created. With the new addition of Team's and their formations this makes the game great.

Dart246 gives this game a 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/04