Sonic Adventure
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega Team
Review
Sonic Adventure released as a launch title for the Sega Dreamcast in 1998.
When the game starts up, you choose which character to play as. Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails all make appearances. The game also allows some other playable characters: Amy, Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma, a robot whose initial purpose was to serve Dr. Robotnik.
Each character has specific abilities and upgrades to find, and their levels all play in vastly different ways. Sonic and Tails are basically simple traversal levels. Knuckles searches for pieces of the shattered Master Emerald. Amy has a big hammer, Gamma shoots his way through levels and Big gets to go fishing.
None of the campaigns are overly long. Even with the cooler characters like Big (? -ed) and Sonic, that is a relief, because the levels would get boring after too long.
Players traverse maps connected by certain doors. These give the feeling of being free without the crushing overwhelming feeling that comes with most open world games.
The characters, not just the playable ones, are amazing. Chaos, a shapeshifting water-monster, is the main antagonist aside from Dr. Robotnik, and the final boss fight of the game stands up to be one of my all time favorites in any game ever.
Official Dreamcast Magazine, DC-UK and Dreamcast Magazine universally agreed that Sonic Adventure was a quality title and all three awarded exactly the same mark of 90%. They were all impressed with the graphics and the amount of game available - mainly because of the 6 different playable characters. However all commented on issues with the camera being a frustration and other glitching and pop-up issues are also mentioned.
The characters were redesigned to give them more detail, taking better advantage of the greater graphics capability and keeping in mind their occupying of a 3D space. And, well, to make them look cooler.
All in all I have no issues with the redesigns. Sonic is a bit taller and has longer spikes, which is sensible as he no longer needs a compact frame to take up less space on a 16-bit screen. And the nemesis Dr. Eggman is given a much more detailed look, one that is less cartoonish but still recognizable as a new iteration of Robotnik. He fits in more feasibly this way in the more realistic-looking world created for Sonic Adventure. All in all, this was clearly intended to be a relaunch of the franchise.
Sonic Team went all out with this game. They wanted it to look amazing, sound awesome, and be a perfect transition of Sonic’s gameplay from 2D to 3D. They ultimately created six playable characters, each with their own unique play style. This allowed the developers to really get a good feel for programming all sorts of things for the Dreamcast, and made Sonic Adventure a nice showcase of what they determined the system would be capable of from day one.
As you proceed through the story you link up with the other five characters and unlock them as playable characters. The five are Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big and E102 Gamma and all of them have their own game play styles. Tails levels require you to race to the end of the level before another character, Knuckles is using his treasure hunting skills to search for the pieces of the broken master emerald, Amy is trying to escape the relentless pursuit of one of Dr Robotnik’s hench robots, Big is trying to catch his friend froggy Sega Bass fishing style and E102 Gamma levels have a distinct shoot-em up bent. None of these differing styles manage to eclipse Sonics own levels (it is his game after all!) but Tails and Knuckles levels are a particular highlight. In addition to all this you can return to any completed level a further two times to attempt to complete them with different goals.
Lastly there are the various sub-games. You will find yourself snowboarding, piloting a plane, kart racing and even indulging in a spot of Sonic pinball. All are nicely done and provide a welcome distraction to the main adventure. The most substantial sub game involves the delightful Chao. Best described as a virtual pet these can be hatched and raised in secret Chao gardens and then transferred over to the VMU for some portable shenanigans. It wouldn’t be a Sonic Adventure without the occasional boss battle and these are present in spades. In fact you end up fighting the same boss battle at certain points with differing characters which smells of padding. The boss battles themselves highlight one of the major issues with the game, it is just too easy and presents very little challenge. It’s not until the final levels that the challenge level increases a little and the game becomes massively more enjoyable as a result.
Conclusion:
Sonic adventure is one hell of a game, and one of the best sonic games ever.
Lots of action in different levels ,good graphics ,nice music but the camera might be a little annoying sometimes.
Also,you should try the other characters story to have different experiences and complete the whole game.
In case you never played this game,well you should.
The characters were redesigned to give them more detail, taking better advantage of the greater graphics capability and keeping in mind their occupying of a 3D space. And, well, to make them look cooler.
All in all I have no issues with the redesigns. Sonic is a bit taller and has longer spikes, which is sensible as he no longer needs a compact frame to take up less space on a 16-bit screen. And the nemesis Dr. Eggman is given a much more detailed look, one that is less cartoonish but still recognizable as a new iteration of Robotnik. He fits in more feasibly this way in the more realistic-looking world created for Sonic Adventure. All in all, this was clearly intended to be a relaunch of the franchise.
Sonic Team went all out with this game. They wanted it to look amazing, sound awesome, and be a perfect transition of Sonic’s gameplay from 2D to 3D. They ultimately created six playable characters, each with their own unique play style. This allowed the developers to really get a good feel for programming all sorts of things for the Dreamcast, and made Sonic Adventure a nice showcase of what they determined the system would be capable of from day one.
As you proceed through the story you link up with the other five characters and unlock them as playable characters. The five are Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big and E102 Gamma and all of them have their own game play styles. Tails levels require you to race to the end of the level before another character, Knuckles is using his treasure hunting skills to search for the pieces of the broken master emerald, Amy is trying to escape the relentless pursuit of one of Dr Robotnik’s hench robots, Big is trying to catch his friend froggy Sega Bass fishing style and E102 Gamma levels have a distinct shoot-em up bent. None of these differing styles manage to eclipse Sonics own levels (it is his game after all!) but Tails and Knuckles levels are a particular highlight. In addition to all this you can return to any completed level a further two times to attempt to complete them with different goals.
Lastly there are the various sub-games. You will find yourself snowboarding, piloting a plane, kart racing and even indulging in a spot of Sonic pinball. All are nicely done and provide a welcome distraction to the main adventure. The most substantial sub game involves the delightful Chao. Best described as a virtual pet these can be hatched and raised in secret Chao gardens and then transferred over to the VMU for some portable shenanigans. It wouldn’t be a Sonic Adventure without the occasional boss battle and these are present in spades. In fact you end up fighting the same boss battle at certain points with differing characters which smells of padding. The boss battles themselves highlight one of the major issues with the game, it is just too easy and presents very little challenge. It’s not until the final levels that the challenge level increases a little and the game becomes massively more enjoyable as a result.
Conclusion:
Sonic adventure is one hell of a game, and one of the best sonic games ever.
Lots of action in different levels ,good graphics ,nice music but the camera might be a little annoying sometimes.
Also,you should try the other characters story to have different experiences and complete the whole game.
In case you never played this game,well you should.
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