Sonic Adventure (PSN) Review

A Speedy Adventure.

 Sega's iconic blue hedgehog made his first proper 3D debut with Sonic Adventure, released in 1998 for Sega's last home console, the Dreamcast. The game was well-received by fans and critics alike, most of the praise going to its game mechanics and level design. It was successful to spawn a sequel, Sonic Adventure 2, released in mid-2001 and being the last Sonic The Hedgehog game on the Dreamcast. After going third-party, Sega released an enhanced port of the game tiled Sonic Adventure DX for their former competitor's (Nintendo) 6th gen. console, Nintendo GameCube in 2003. Finally, in 2010, Sega released the game digitally for the PS3 and Xbox 360 via PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, respectively. Now that the history lesson is out of the way, does Sonic Adventure remains a fun adventure today? Let's find out.

STORY- Your typical Sonic vs. Eggman story. This time Eggman threatens the city of Station Square located somewhere in the United States. He unleashes an ancient creature known as Chaos, who destroyed an ancient civilizations thousands of years ago. It's up to Sonic and his friends to thwart Eggman's plan by collecting all of the seven chaos emeralds and destroy Chaos. The story isn't award-winning by any means, but does a good job of keeping the pace going. Sonic is joined by five other characters, totaling to six playable characters, each offering their own point of view on the events.

Sonic and company must save the day again.

GAMEPLAY- The main area where Sonic games excel is the gameplay. The gameplay is split into two sections: Adventure fields and Action stages. Adventure fields are basically hub worlds which you can freely explore for power-ups that'll give new features. There are three main locations to explore: Station Square, Mystic Ruins, and the Egg Carrier. In Action stages, are the levels you can play depending on each character. 


 There are six main characters to play as: Sonic The Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles The Echidna, Amy Rose, Big the Cat, and E-102 Gamma. Each character has their own unique play style. For example, Sonic has his classic levels where he speeds through the end of the level. Compared to the rest of crew, Sonic has the most levels. Tails races Sonic in most of his levels and take shortcuts by flying boosts in air. Knuckles' stages are a bit slow-paced and exploration-heavy. You'll need to search each level for three shards of the destroyed Master Emerald. In Amy's stages, you'll need to get to the balloon located at the end of the stage while evading one of Eggman's robots, Zero. Amy's a bit slow and stiff to control but makes up for that with powerful attacks. E-102 Gamma's stages may interest fans of shooters. In his levels, you'll be shooting your way to destroy his brother units. Last and least, are Big's stages. There's no speed or action, just plain old fishing. For story reasons, Big's pet frog, Froggy, is on the loose and its up to Big to get him back. In his stages, Big has his trusty rod to fish out Froggy. I really liked playing as Sonic the most since most of his levels offer high-speed platforming but I personally found Big's stages to be completely pointless and minor to the story. 

Gameplay remains for the most part solid.

 Moving on, let's talk about the game's level design. Since things are in 3D, you can roam around levels collecting rings and power-ups such as shields and lives. The game introduced the homing attack mechanic, which became a staple in later games. Since Sonic is the main lead, he gets twelve levels. Tails gets seven, Knuckles has five, Amy has three, Gamma has five, and for some reason Big has four. The levels themselves are diverse and interesting. Three of my favorites include Windy Valley, Casinopolis, and Speed Highway. In Windy Valley, Sonic races through long tracks and eventually ends up inside a tornado and must get out. Casinopolis is one big casino with a giant golden Sonic statue in the middle. The goal is to collect 400 rings to reach the chaos emerald. There's even a NiGHTS cameo in a section of the level. In Speed Highway, Sonic'll pass by many skyscrapers and evade lots of helicopters. The main focus of the level is obviously speed, which is always a fun thing in Sonic games.

 Occasionally, there will be some sub levels during story mode, some of them being optional. One has you fly aboard the Tornado shooting at Eggman's carrier while another has you kart racing. If you finished them during story mode, you can unlock them in the menu screen. They do a nice job of changing things up a bit. In some levels, you'll be fighting bosses. They are split into two: Bosses and mini-bosses. Mini-bosses are basically fights against characters. For example, Sonic vs. Knuckles and vice versa. I personally found them to be a joke since they are extremely easy and take less than two minutes to finish. Bosses, on the other hand, are slightly more longer yet still easy. You'll be mostly fighting Chaos and Eggman and in Gamma's story, his brother units. 


 With all the good said, Sonic Adventure does have its shortcomings. For starters, the camera can be summed up by one word: crap. On many occasions, I found the camera to be unreliable since it obscures some enemies, often leading you to your death. Don't be surprised if you end up fighting with the camera every now and then. Furthermore, there are some minor clipping issues. This is most noticeable in an early portion in Emerald Coast. An issue I have with the digital release of the game is that it does not include the DX add-on, which includes Metal Sonic and 60 new challenges, rather it's sold separately for $2.99.

PRESENTATION- For an early Dreamcast game, Sonic Adventure shows its age, but it's still enjoyable. While not so spectacular today, back in 1998, The character models, backgrounds, and effects were something to talk about. The voice-work on the other hand is... average at best. Interactions between characters feel awkward and stiff thanks to the mediocre dialogue. Thankfully, the soundtrack is a joy to listen after 18 years. Throughout the adventure, you'll be hearing some catchy and neat tracks. Some of my favorites being "Open Your Heart" and "Welcome to Station Square". As for the "HD edition", Sega didn't put much effort in it. They didn't bother to optimize the game in full screen like its PC counterpart. The game is viewed in a 4:3 aspect ratio and you get purple borders filling the rest of the screen. At first they may seem ugly and annoying, but they'll take a while to get used to.

For the most part the presentation hold up decently.

OVERALL- Sonic Adventure was a great game for its time and still is now. The gameplay is fun and varied and will last you a while. It took me around seven to eight hours playing as all of the characters and find the emblems. While Sega could have easily made the necessarily improvements to this so called "HD edition", for $4.99, it's a short yet fun time.

IMPRESSIVE