"It's been eight years, and it still outclasses a few games I've seen today."

Sonic Adventure -- wait, scratch that -- Sonic the Hedgehog holds a special place in my heart. Sonic was the first game I ever played, after all. Well, that and Mario. But anyway. Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis was the first game I learned to play well. The little blue dude with oodles of attitude and insane speed was just what a young boy could ask for.

Fast-forward from the halcyon days of the mid 90s to September 9, 1999. My mind is on fever pitch as I wait for my mom to pick me up from school and take me home to my new Dreamcast, Sega's last home console and my second-to-last one. (For what it's worth, the last one was a Microsoft Xbox.) The only game I cared about at the time was Sonic Adventure, and it was the one I pre-ordered along with the system. Dreamcast hooked up to television -- check. Disc inside Dreamcast -- check. Me in front of television -- check. Ready to go.

As I booted up the Dreamcast and watched the opening credits, my eleven-year-old eyes grew big as dinner plates. Previously only exposed to a Sega Genesis and an aging 486 desktop computer, the visuals blew me away even before I got to the actual game.

And the game itself was a sight to behold. Here was the Sonic I knew and loved, fast as a sound wave and with attitude to spare, as fast as he ever was and in full 3D. As the hours turned into days, the days into months, and the months into years, I've continually revisited Sonic Adventure, beating the game multiple times and setting my own records, then obliterating them in the actual game part of it. My temporary fetish with the Xbox came and went, as did one with PC gaming, but my little gray box with the little blue hedgehog have remained constant. So I decided one day to sit down at my Mac and record my thoughts on the game.

Gameplay (66/100)
One of the things that first struck me about this game, that so grabbed me about its gameplay, was just how gosh-darned neat it was to see Sonic in full 3D. The action stages themselves are engrossing, full of, well, action. For Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Gamma, at least. The Knuckles and Big levels could well have been left out of the game.

Sonic, as the titular character, has the most levels (ten). His levels are the same speed-driven, time-those-jumps-right affairs they were on the Genesis, only in three dimensions, which makes them much more enjoyable -- and somewhat more difficult.

Tails' levels are similar, though half as numerous. Tails races Sonic through the levels, and his sole objective is to reach the end before Sonic does. This adds an extra element of challenge, before the player gets experienced anyway, at which point they just seem repetitive. Yes, Tails can fly, just like in Sonic 3, and that makes the levels that much tougher.

Amy's three levels are somewhat like Sonic's, her objective to reach the end, except that she's running from one of Robotnik's automatons through the course of her story (and the stages). Her stages are rather enjoyable, and thanks to her method of attack (a comically large hammer called the Piko Piko Hammer), are very enjoyable. (Three is too small in this case; I'd have loved to see more levels with Amy and her hammer in them.)

And E102 "Gamma's" levels are basically big shooting galleries, where the objective is to reach the end and vanquish the foe at the end. Vauguely reminiscent of boss battles, the little fights are in and of themselves reason enough to play the stages; shooting enemies is necessary to keep the timer from reaching zero, an interesting twist on regular gameplay.

As for Knuckles and Big...

The premise of Knuckles' story is that he is, of course, the guardian of the Master Emerald. The too-fragile Emerald shatters, and he is charged with traversing the world to find the pieces of it so that he can reassemble it. His stages in the game, as a result, take the form of a "hot/cold" game, where you locate the shards (three in each stage). If it sounds like it would be tedious, that's because, after the first couple of stages (it is initially rather fun), it is. (Knuckles gets five levels of this too.)

If you like tedious, Knuckles' gameplay is right up your alley, as is Big's. Big, a rather tall, rotund, purple feline, is on the search for his best pal, a frog named (unsurprisingly) Froggy. Froggy has been possessed by the tail of the monster Chaos, and has also (incidentally) consumed a Chaos Emerald. Robotnik, on his search for the Chaos Emeralds, winds up with the frog. It escapes, and Big is tasked with getting the frog back. Big, being rather rotund, can't run so fast, but he can wield a fishing rod. Fans of "Sega Bass Fishing" probably see where this one is headed. Yes, that's right. Your task is to fish for the frog. Even in the context of hammer-wielding femme-hedgehogs and punchy spike-knuckled echidnas, dual-tailed foxes and comically obese mad scientists, this seems somewhat out of place. (This coming from the company that turned bass fishing and taxicab driving into arcade games.)

So gameplay gets 66/100, because the 2/3 of it that is good is very good, and the 1/3 of it that sucks, well, sucks unbelievably hard.

Graphics (80/100)
For a Dreamcast launch title released eight years ago in the United States, this game still has rather nice graphics. The framerate drops are minimal, and the models are well rendered with good textures. The environments are immersive, the buildings realistic, and the characters fun to watch move and interact.

Perhaps the best example of this game's graphics is the level "Lost World," playable by Sonic and Knuckles. The textures in this level are mind-blowing, the environments full of graphical detail. At the risk of contradicting myself, however, the creatures called Chao that you can raise in the rightly-deemed "Chao Gardens" are visual treats unto themselves, proving that the Dreamcast is a capable rendering powerhouse somehow ahead of its time.

In comparison to later games, though, this game looks somewhat dated. This doesn't detract from the graphics score at all; Sega's game designers and programmers still weren't fully indoctrinated to the Dreamcast as a development platform at this point, so I have to give them full credit for doing what they did with what they knew.

Sounds/Music (75/100)
Voices (25/75)
Within the context of the Sonic universe, the voices of the characters have a certain way about them. They seem to fit the characters, although I feel that the Japanese voice acting is somehow better than the American voice acting. I'm not alone; many other reviewers feel the same way.

Tails' voice is particularly annoying; he sounds like a prepubescent boy, the most annoying voice possible for a main character. It wouldn't be so bad if the Japanese voice weren't so much better, but it is, and it annoys me.

SFX (40/75)
So much of what makes this game fun to play is the sound effects. The sound of picking up a ring, crucial to the aural feel of the game, is pleasantly exactly like that of the Genesis games, much to my satisfaction, except that it's been redone to take advantage of the superior audio hardware in the Dreamcast. It doesn't seem like much, but it makes a perceptible difference.

Running through the various areas, both Action Stages and Adventure Fields, you find that they're rife with sound effects. From the cars and other city noises of Station Square to the rustling of plants and the invisible fauna in the Mystic Ruins, to the sound when you plunge into the water, this game is full of sound effects, and they're used to great effect.

Raising the Chao exposes you to a plethora of other sound effects as well. The Chao will melt your heart; not only are they obnoxiously cute, but they sound like the works of offensive cuteness that they are.

Music (10/75)
For a game to get it right sound-wise, it has to have good music in addition to the other sounds and the voice acting. Games that got it right... they're not many in number, at least not with the soundtrack. To be fair, the game's main theme, "Open Your Heart," by group Crush 40, is not a bad tune. But the rest of the characters' themes, I'm rather indifferent about. The music degenerates from tolerable to plain damn annoying rather quickly, and it's dominated by something Sega rather likes (and that I find only tolerable in small doses) --- guitar rock. Sonic Adventure leaves me reaching for my KT Tunstall CDs (or my Cowon D2 PMP) these days --- and left me reaching for my other favorite sound du jour for much of the time I've owned my Dreamcasts and played this game. Who in their right mind wants to hear the same riffs over and over again?! Certainly not I.

Long-Term Appeal (100/100)
One of the most appealing features of this game in the long term is that you can raise creatures called "Chao." The Chao help you to earn some emblems, and they're cute enough that even the coldest-hearted person will find them a joy to raise up, even if it's only for the emblems.

Chao start out in eggs, and it's up to you to get them strong enough to take on the various races you can enter them in. Sonic Team get an award here for using the VMU for one of its most rousing successes: Chao Adventure, which is a fun little minigame that allows you to raise your Chao's stats and give the little creature (one at a time) a name.

As far as emblems go, there are 130 of them, and it took me twenty-something hours of playing to get them all; I'm hardly the best at video games, but I had to improve my skill a lot in order to get the emblems. The characters' missions and play styles differ enough to give the game a modest amount of long-term appeal, even if said appeal is somewhat limited. There is a limited amount of long-term replayability in this purist aspect, but it doesn't detract from the fun you can have with this GD-ROM in the long run.

Miscellany (45/100)
What on Earth were Sonic Team thinking, not including any multiplayer in this launch title? The Dreamcast has four controller ports, and you'd think that the system has enough power to make at least two-player mode possible! SA would be a much better game if I could take it to my college dormitory and have at least my roommate be able to join in on the fun. It would also have been a better selling point for the Dreamcast.

And the story mode, what you can see of it anyway, doesn't differ across characters enough to make it worthwhile. Four characters will see much the same cutscene, with only minor differences, and three characters will fight two of the same bosses. So much for "multiple playable characters." After the fourth time I battled one boss, I was ready to chuck my Dreamcast controller through the television I was using at the time.

Final Verdict
If you ever encounter a Dreamcast, ask its owner if you can play Sonic Adventure, as odds are said Dreamcast owner has a copy, and for good reason. It's NOT a bad game. It has its warts, as all games do, but it's not a bad game in and of itself. As a continuation of the Sonic story, I'm sort of doubtful ("Robotnikland? You're kidding, right? Right?"), but I'd say that bringing Sonic and company into three dimensions on a rather powerful little gray box was a rousing success. There's a reason it was the top seller on the platform.

Gameplay: 66/100
Graphics: 80/100
Sound: 75/100
Long-Term: 100/100
Miscellany: 45/100

Total: 366/500 (73.2%) (7/10)

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/28/08

Game Release: Sonic Adventure (US, 09/09/99)