Backlog Game Reviews 3: Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast)

                                           

 

The next game we'll be checking off of the backlog is Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. I first played this when it came out in 1994. I loved this game as a kid and played it non stop. When talking about this game now people seem to be divided into two camps. One side says this is a terrible game and if you defend it you're blinded by nostalgia. The other side likes the game and says it has nothing to do with nostalgia. Has this game really aged that badly? Is nostalgia really the only reason people still like this game? Or is it honestly a good game? Let's find out!

Sonic Adventure was released on December 23rd, 1998 in Japan and September 9th, 1999 in North America and Europe. Development of this game started in 1997. After Sonic X-treme for the Sega Saturn was canceled. It was made in only 10 months by 60 people. The speed that it was made in is impressive, but it's easy to see that it was put together hastily. Sonic Adventure was originally going to be on the Sega Saturn, but it became obvious that the Saturn was dying. So the development team started making it for the Dreamcast.

                                           Sonic X-Treme

     Sonic Adventure was released shortly after the Dreamcast. After the failure of the Sega Saturn, Sega was betting on Sonic to pull through for them like he did with the Sega Genesis. After Sonic Adventure was released it seemed like everything was going how Sega wanted it to. Sonic Adventure was criticized for its flaws but got high scores all around. It went on to be the best selling game ever on the Dreamcast. People believed that Sonic Adventure would make Sega a top competitor in the console market again.


It seems like Sonic Adventure was very well liked when it came out. But looking back on it now a large group of people say it's a bad game. Let's see just how well this game holds up today.

This game has a large focus on story as opposed to previous Sonic games. There are six characters you can play as, and each character has their own individual story. After completing all 6 stories a final 7^th story is unlocked. Let's start with of course Sonic.

    Sonic's gameplay is pretty much unchanged from old Sonic games. Your goal is to make it to the end of the level as fast as possible. His stages are a lot of fun. It feels good to go fast, but you most likely won't be able to keep the momentum up on your first time playing the stage. You'll have to practice it a couple of times. It's a good feeling when you do get good and are able to blaze through the stage.

  His gameplay feels a lot like the Genesis games, but it's not all the same. There are some new abilities that Sonic can use in this game. Sonic's most useful ability is the homing attack. After jumping press the jump button again and Sonic will lock on to an enemy and launch himself at it. It's a nice addition to Sonic's move set as trying to hit an enemy with a normal jump can be a little difficult. Sometimes enemies will be lined up over a gap and you'll have to do a chain of homing attacks to make it across. It's a fast and fun attack.

   Another ability Sonic has is the light speed dash. It allows Sonic to dash across a trail of rings. You'll mainly use it to cross over gaps. It's sometimes used reach high areas, or to access shortcuts. I didn't like this move very much and only used it when I absolutely had to. You have to charge up a spin dash before you can use it, and it just slows you down and brings the action to a halt.  

 Charging and using the light speed dash

   Other than having to use the light speed dash from time to time Sonic's gameplay is what you would expect, fast and fun. His gameplay is overall good, but what about his story?


To put it simply it's good for a Sonic game. It's nothing mind blowing, but it's not bad. In this game, Sonic and Tails are trying to find the Chaos Emeralds before Eggman. Eggman plans to give the emeralds to a creature called Chaos. Chaos gets stronger with every emerald he absorbs. If he absorbs all 7 chaos emeralds he'll be almost unstoppable. I can't really think of any complaints about the story. It's a basic straight forward story. For a Sonic game, I can't ask for too much more. So far Sonic's gameplay and story are both looking good, but it does have some flaws.

The main complaint I have is the controls. Sonic is kinda slippery. I always had trouble running in a straight line. Every character has some problems with how they control but it's most noticeable with Sonic when you're going fast. He just seems to go all over the place, it's hard to get him to go where I want him to. He gets easier to control with some practice, but even then it's still a little difficult. Another problem this game has is its camera. its terrible. It's a constant problem throughout the whole game. It tends to get stuck on walls or under floors. There were a couple of times when it got stuck and I couldn't see anything so I had to kill myself to fix it. These problems aren't exclusive to Sonic, but it was most noticeable when playing as him.

    So far the game has some problems, but Sonic's gameplay was pretty good. Now that we're done with Sonic, let's take a look at Tails.

  Tail's story is pretty much the same as Sonic's. There's a part where he gets separated from Sonic and fights Eggman by himself. Other than that Tails and Sonic share the same story.

His gameplay is also the same as Sonic's except it revolves around him racing Sonic to the goal. Tail's stages are shortened versions of Sonic's. There are short cuts that Tails can take by flying. Just like Sonic's stages, his stages are built around speed. It feels good to go as fast as you can and to get a lead on Sonic. Thanks to his ability to fly they don't feel like copies of Sonic's stages. Just like Sonic, Tails was a lot of fun to play as. 

Let's move on to the next character.

 

  In Knuckles story, the Master Emerald was shattered and the flying island that Knuckles lives on has fallen into the ocean. His story is about him trying to restore the Master Emerald. His stages are a lot different from Tails and Sonic's. All of his stages are open world versions of Sonic's stages. Knuckles has to search the stage and find 3 master emerald shards hidden in the stage. You have a radar to help you. It'll go off whenever you're close to a master emerald shard. It'll flash blue if you're close, green when you get closer, yellow when you get even closer and red when you're right by it. At first, I didn't like Knuckles stages very much, but they started to grow on me in time. His stages focus on exploration but he's fast like Sonic and Tails. You can speed through the stage or take your time and look around. You can go wherever you want and do what you want. His gameplay offers a level of freedom that Sonic's and Tail's don't.



 

 Now we have Amy.

 

  In this game Amy is looking after a bird that is being chased by one of Eggman's robots. After helping the bird escape she decides to help it look for its family. Like Sonic and Tails, Amy just has to get to the end of the stage. What makes her gameplay different is that she's being chased by the robot. You'll have to run away and sometimes hide from it. You can attack it but you'll only slow it down, you can't kill it. Amy's stages aren't bad but she's a bit slower when compared to Sonic Tails and Knuckles. She can't attack by jumping, she has to use her hammer.

 

   
  It's not a bad weapon, but you can't use it while moving. If you build up enough speed Amy will take out her hammer. If you press the attack button at this time you'll do a long high jump. It's good for jumping over and ignoring enemies. You can use it to reach high up areas but it's hard to pull off. I had a hard time building up enough speed without running into something.

I liked playing as Amy. Her hammer is a nice change of pace from jumping on enemies. It would have been nice if her stages had more emphasis on speed, but overall I liked her gameplay. Her story doesn't have much impact on the overarching story. It has some funny scenes, but she has probably the second weakest story in the game.


 

 Let's move on to the next character. E102-Gamma.

 

The next character is a unique one. A robot that was just created by Eggman. Like Amy, his story isn't important to the main story line, but it is an interesting one. He became sentient after being shown kindness from Amy and seeing how Eggman mistreated the other E-100 robots. He turns on Eggman and decides to free his brothers from Eggman by destroying them. It has no relevance to the overarching story, but it does hold up well on its own. The ending is probably one of the most emotional scenes in a Sonic game.

 

 

 Gamma's first boss

That's enough about his story, let's look at his gameplay. Like Sonic, Gamma just has to make it to the end of the level. There are two differences though. The biggest one is that Gamma has a time limit. He starts every stage with 3 minutes. You can get more time by defeating enemies. This is where his second difference comes in. Gamma defeats enemies by shooting them. His gun is easy to use. You activate a laser with X or B. Touching an enemy with the laser will lock on to them. After locking on to an enemy release the X or B button and Gamma will shoot at the target. Defeating an enemy will add one second to your remaining time. You can lock on to multiple enemies at once giving you a bigger time bonus. Hes not slow but not that fast. It feels good taking out large groups of enemies at once.  

 

  A small nitpick that I have is that Gamma's bosses are too easy. At the end of every stage, Gamma has to fight an E-100 robot. These fights are incredibly easy. All you have to do is stand still and spam the shoot button. His final boss is a bit of a challenge, but every other boss is really easy. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to you though. Other than that I really liked playing as Gamma. He has a good story, shooting enemies up is a lot of fun. He's a really good character.


  Next we have who most people agree is the worst character in this game. Big the Cat.

 

   

Let's get his story out of the way first. Big lives with his pet frog Froggy. One day Froggy runs away and Big goes looking for him. That's it. His story is just plain boring and has no impact on the overarching story at all. It feels like he was just slapped in there at the last minute.

 

Fishing for Froggy. 

 

    

So his story is awful, but what about his gameplay? It's just as bad if not worse. All of his stages are poorly designed and out of place fishing mini-games. In every stage, your goal is to find Froggy and catch him. You can catch other fish for extra points. Fishing is incredibly frustrating. To get a fish to bite the hook you have to move the lure into their line of sight. That's the easiest part. After they bite the lure you may have noticed that the fish keeps spitting the lure out. The game won't tell you this, but what you have to do now is hook the fish. How exactly you hook the fish seems to be a mystery. I always get it to work by hitting down on the control stick when they bite the hook. Some people say to press B, some people say to push the control stick in the opposite direction the fish is swimming in. The game doesn't explain how, and nobody seems to know for sure. You'll know that you've hooked the fish because "HIT" will flash across the screen.

  

   Now you have to reel it in. You have a pressure gauge, it goes up when you reel in while the fish is struggling. The bigger the fish the more pressure they'll put on the line. Stop reeling in the line to bring the pressure down. If the pressure maxes out the line will snap and you'll lose a life. It sounds easy, but it's not. You'll have a hard time getting a fish close to you by just reeling in the line. Whenever you stop to relieve the pressure the fish will just swim back out again. It also seems like there's a time limit to catch the fish before it gets away. The game won't tell you this but what you have to do is swing your fishing pole around like a mad man. Moving your fishing pole all over the place helps you reel in fish a lot faster for some reason. Also, make sure that you're not standing next to any tall walls when you cast your line. When you try to reel in a fish and if it runs into a wall it'll get stuck on the wall and you won't be able to reel it in anymore. It won't move up or anything. It'll just keep trying to go through the wall.

 

 Everything about Big just sucks. If his fishing segments were optional bonus stages then I would be ok with it. But you have to do his stages if you want to see the true ending. It's slow, boring, and has no place in a Sonic game.

   If you managed to beat all six stories you'll be able to see the true ending. Gameplay wise it's only a boss fight. There's not much to say about it. It's a fun final boss, and it wraps up the story nicely.

 

  That's all for the gameplay. Excluding Big, I liked how every character played. The controls are pretty awful, and the camera is all over the place. I was able to get used to the controls and ignore the camera for the most part, but I can understand how that can be pretty off-putting for some people and ruin the experience. If that doesn't bother you and if you can put up with Big the Cat then I would say this game has a lot to offer you.


Let's take a quick look at this game's presentation.
 

  For an early Dreamcast game, the graphics are really good. Eggman, Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles all had changes to their designs. They still somewhat resemble their classic designs in this game. They're not as tall as their modern counterparts. Their short height gives them a bit of a classic feel. They all look good, and except for Eggman, whose face never changes in this game, all of the characters are very expressive. But they sometimes have pretty strange expressions when talking. Other than that the graphics and designs are good.


As to be expected with a Sonic game all of the music is great. I can't think of a single song in this game that I didn't like. All of the stages themes are fitting for the environment. Every character has their own theme song. The lyrics for Knuckle's theme aren't the best, but it's still a good song. The Emerald Coast theme was my favorite song in the game. It's the theme for the first stage. It's a great song and get's you pumped to play the game. It's an awesome first level theme.


Before we finish let's talk about the Japanese voice acting. I've never heard a Sonic character speak in Japanese before so I didn't know what to expect. I thought I would end up liking the English voice over more, but I was pleasantly surprised. The Japanese voices are all really good. Sonic keeps his cool persona in the Japanese version. He says a lot of things in English, because speaking in English is cool in Japan. Sometimes its a bit hard to understand what he's saying, but his voice actor did a really good job. The voices are good in both versions, but I think I like Japanese Sonic more than English Sonic.

 

   That's all I have to say about Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. Overall it's a good game. I would recommend trying it out sometime. This ended up being pretty long but thank you for reading! Next time we'll take a look at a game on the Sega Saturn. I hope to see you again at Backlog Game Reviews!