A launch title for the Dreamcast, and the first 3D game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It was released in Japan on December 23rd, 1998, receiving releases in Europe, North America and Australia between September and December of 1999.Much like Super Mario 64 did for Mario, this title catapulted a flagship video game character into 3-D. It was also the first Sonic game to have a Rashomon Style plot: Sonic is embroiled in yet another world domination scheme of Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, this time using the stolen Chaos Emeralds to empower Chaos, a morphogenic creature under his control. Once Chaos is fully powered up, the Doctor reasons, it can easily pummel the big city of Station Square, thereby paving the way for Robotnik to erect his own garish city. Sonic's story is tied into the other characters' paths, as well, although their goals differ. In addition to the series regulars, Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma join the cast for the first time. This was also the first Sonic game to include a song by Crush 40.Sonic Adventure was generally praised as a revival for the series, which had been wallowing in spin-off games and remakes during the Sega Saturn era. However, a few points of criticism would haunt later iterations, like the gratuitous Camera Screw, Gameplay Roulette, a few noticeable bugs, and slippery controls — problems that have sealed Sonic's reputation as having having a subpar 3D leap. It has nevertheless remained popular among fans as a defining game for the sequels that followed.A direct sequel, Sonic Adventure 2, sold in 2001 to commemorate the series' 10th anniversary, and rumors of a third iteration of the Adventure series linger on.Re-released for the Nintendo GameCube and PC in 2003 as Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut (ironically after its sequel's remake), which added special missions and unlockable Game Gear games. As of September 15th, 2010, it is now available for purchase on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, with the DX: Director's Cut extras sold separately*
. Roughly half a year afterwards, it also saw a release in this manner on Steam.Playable Characters and their gameplay types:
Sonic the Hedgehog — Sonic's gameplay style is the most reminiscent of the side-scrolling games: Just get to the goal (which is sometimes an animal capsule reminiscent of the Genesis games, sometimes a Chaos Emerald, occasionally just an end area).
Miles "Tails" Prower — Sonic's lil' two-tailed fox buddy. All of Tails's stages pit you against Sonic (and later Robotnik) in a race to the end of the stage. The stages are just a single section of Sonic's stages, hopelessly broken by Tails' flying ability. Sonic is a cheating bastard for this very reason, but even speed boosts can't help him.
Knuckles the Echidna — Current Guardian of the Master Emerald. When Chaos is released from the Emerald, it is naturally broken into pieces. Thus, the goal of each of the echidna's stages is to find three shards, using his Spider-Sense to pinpoint their locations. Reappeared in Sonic Adventure 2 for Knuckles and Rouge.
Amy Rose — In her stages, Amy must outrun Zero, a robot in pursuit of her, and get to the giant balloon that will carry her away. Zero is actually not after Amy, but instead the little bird she is carrying, who unbeknownst to her, has a Chaos Emerald in its locket. Amy is not very strong or agile, and carries a mallet for protection.
Big the Cat — After his pal Froggy swallows a strange looking jewel and runs away from home, Big chases after the frog. The goal of each of his stages is to fish Froggy out of a body of water; indeed, these sections qualify as minigames, with little danger posed to Big himself. Nevertheless, Big's fishing pole can double as a weapon.
E-102 "γ" (Gamma) — Shoot things up and get to the end of the stage before time runs out, which can be increased by combo-killing multiple enemies at once. Like Knuckles', this also was re-used for Tails and Eggman's modes in Sonic Adventure 2
Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Averted with Station Square's sewers, played straight with those of Casinopolis (you get dumped in there if you lose a game of pinball and come away with less than 100 rings).
Air Vent Passageway: The game actually makes use of this trope a number of times in order to progress from level to level.
For example, Sonic and Tails travel through the sewers of Casinopolis in order to find the Chaos Emerald located there.
This is also how Gamma and Amy choose to travel through the Hot Shelter in the Egg Carrier.
All Is Well That Ends Well: At the end of the game, as the characters are recuperating after their battle against Perfect Chaos, Tails invokes this trope verbatim, ignoring the fact that the city has been completely inundated and destroyed.
Almost Out Of Oxygen: A staple of the franchise. That countdown music is unnerving.
Already Done For You: Given that the storylines (Apart from the Super Sonic storyline) are done in a Rashomon Style, expect this to happen very often.
And Your Reward Is Clothes: Getting all medals unlocks Metal Sonic, who is essentially a reskinned Sonic with slightly altered animations. You can only use him in Trial mode.
Another Side, Another Story: Play through the main story from 6 different perspectives. Each character also gets a piece of the backstory of Chaos and the echidna race, only by playing through all stories do you get the complete sequence.
And the exact same scenes get alternate dialogue.
Art Evolution: SA1 introduced the art style for Sonic and friends that would be used in future games. Amy was the one affected most by this, as she no longer looks like a pink Sonic in drag. However, the Sonic-themed pinball table in Sonic's version of Casinopolis does feature stock artwork from the earlier games.
Ascended Extra: Amy, originally a minor semi-recurrer beforehand, gained a prominent playable role in this and many titles following it.
Badass: Sonic. Thanks to the new 3D presentation, we now get to see him outrun a killer whale, run down a building, and even take out a water god.
Balloonacy: A single balloon is all Amy needs to float away from Zero's grasp.
Book Ends: Knuckles's story begins and ends with him narrating how he was fated to stay forever on Angel Island guarding the Master Emerald. In the beginning, he mentions that he doesn't know why he was given this role in life, but in the end, he believes he is better off for that.
Born Again Immortality: The Chao can come back from death this way if raised correctly. In fact, dying and being reborn twice is one of the requirements for a Chao to become a perfectly immortal Chaos Chao.
Boss Rush: Beating a story unlocks a minigame where you fight each of the bosses faced in that story one after the other (the exception being Super Sonic, whose story only consists of a single boss fight with some Adventure Field navigation beforehand).
Also, Gamma only fights Beta and Beta II. The other E-100s are left out.
Even Big only fights Chaos 6, but it's just for the sake of having the player fish out Froggy in a quick time.
Broken Bridge: Parts of the Mystic Ruins, including Angel Island itself, are blocked off by pedestals that require magic stones. The same goes for Station Square, except that the keys are more mundane.
Call Back: Icecap first appeared as "Ice Cap Zone" in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and it opened with a snowboarding segment, too. Red Mountain's inner section is also clearly part of Lava Reef from Sonic & Knuckles. Both are set on Angel Island.
Character Development: Tails learns to take on troubles without Sonic's help, and he even musters the courage to stop Robotnik's attack on Station Square. Amy also goes from being a Damsel in Distress depending on Sonic to save her to an Action Girl beating up the very robot that constantly pursued her. Finally, E-102 Gamma learns about love and caring, which motivates it to stop being a mindless servant to Robotnik, go on its own mission, and make the ultimate sacrifice in the end to free the bird trapped inside.
The music for Twinkle Park's hovercraft and Windy Valley's "The Air" segments are remixes of the Panic Puppet and Green Grove Zone themes from Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island.
And the second piece of music for Emerald Coast is a redo of Act 2 of Green Grove.
Convection Schmonvection: Sonic and Gamma can survive just fine in the incredibly hot volcano section of Red Mountain, with lava and geysers being the only hazards that damage them. Then again, this is true of all Sonic games where the characters don't suffer any ill effects from standing only a few inches above a lava pit.
Crazy-Prepared: Eggman. Not only does he have the God of Destruction at his command, he has a giant flying carrier (although it functions more like a battleship), a second carrier to use against Chaos if it goes rogue, a HUGE missile stationed off the coast of Station Square should the Egg Carrier and Chaos be defeated, and a giant base in the middle of Mystic Ruins.
Critical Existence Failure: As in most games in the franchise, Sonic and the cast can take any amount of damage, from a barrage of Eggman's launched missiles to an explosion a third the size of the Egg Carrier, without any outward sign of injury, but after their last ring is lost, brushing against a robot chimp is enough for a K.O.
Curb-Stomp Battle: In the final route of the game, Robotnik hops into the Egg Carrier 2 to tame Perfect Chaos. It's onscreen for maybe 30 seconds before Perfect Chaos blows it up.
Cutscene Power to the Max: Now we know why Sonic refuses to sit in the cockpit of Tails' plane — because gravity means nothing to him. He survives falling several kilometers to the ground not once, but twice in the game. The second time, Sonic's body endures a comical pancake effect when he hits the ground, but he's no worse for wear.
Darker and Edgier: At least in comparison to most Sonic games released before it. This game literally starts off with its opening cutscene depicting a city being flooded by Perfect Chaos, and later in the game, the echidna tribe crosses a Moral Event Horizon.
Deus ex Machina: The Chaos Emeralds' positive energy becomes this during the final battle, the first of many times the Chaos Emeralds would pull our heroes out of a hopeless situation.
Development Hell: This wasn't the first attempt to bring Sonic to (non-isometric) 3D platforming. Sonic X-treme for the Sega Saturn was supposed to do this, but turmoil within the company over the game's direction reduced it to Vapor Ware. According to Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka in an interview for the first issue of Official Dreamcast Magazine, SA1 was at one time supposed to be a Saturn game, but the idea was scrapped when the company decided to focus on the Dreamcast.
Elite Mook: The E-100 series robots. Oddly despite their more advanced intelligence and power than Eggman's usual badniks (apparently enough to rival Sonic individually abiding by Gamma's story) they are mostly given mundane tasks by the doctor such as searching for a frog in a beach.
Freudian Excuse: Pachacamac retroactively gets one through Chronicles.
Friendly Playful Dolphins: Dolphins jump around you in Sonic's first stage, Emerald Coast, if you're looking in right place at the right time. The appearance of these dolphins and their numbers seems to be performance based, or it might be random.
Futureshadowing: Some of the visions of the past do this. No, seriously.
Game-Breaking Bug: Windows will crash in certain times in DX. Most notably the fight with Dr. Eggman in the Mystic Ruins.
In the backstory, Tikal tries to defend the Chao and the Chaos Emeralds from her dad and his soldiers. Said soldiers brusquely push her aside and proceed to incur Chaos' wrath.
In the aftermath of Sonic's (or Tails') fight with Gamma, regardless of who wins, Amy intervenes to convince the victor to let the other live.
Going Through the Motions: Not a major example, but quite noticeable in Amy's ending when she performs her boss victory animation and then abruptly snaps back to her standing animation.
Gravity Screw: Most notably in Lost World, where panels on the wall glow when orientated correctly by hitting a switch, allowing Sonic and Knuckles to simply walk up the wall. The last part of Sky Deck changes orientation as well, and Knuckles can actually control this.
Hall Of Mirrors: A segment exclusive to Amy's version of Twinkle Park.
Heroic Sacrifice: Before the events of Sonic Adventure, in order to save the world from Chaos' destruction, Tikal sealed him, along with herself, in the Master Emerald.
Also Gamma, who self-destructs, or at least planned to if you prefer to think Beta Mk. II's final attack is what really took him out, in order to release the last Flicky bird.
Hong Kong Dub: The lipsyncing is just plain bizarre and off a lot of the time.
Hub Level: Station Square, Mystic Ruins, and the Egg Carrier.
100% Completion: Getting all of the emblems entails beating the action stages again, under more challenging circumstances. At most, you have to:
Sonic: Finish each action stage within an allotted timeframe.
Tails: Beat Sonic again (he's faster).
Knuckles: Same as Sonic, only the allotted time is one to two minutes.
Amy: Same as Sonic.
Big: Catch a fish weighing in at 2000 grams and catch Froggy.
E102 Gamma: Finish each stage within a certain amount of time left on the clock.
I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: Knuckles, who is seemingly jealous of Sonic, says this after Tails informs Sonic that he can harness the true power of the Chaos Emeralds after Perfect Chaos absorbed their negative energy.
Idiot Ball: All three incidents when Sonic and Tails lose chaos emeralds to Robotnik. The third time this occurs, when two chaos emeralds are knocked out of Sonic/Tails's Hammerspace (depending on what character you're being) by a sharp impact. He then proceeds to lie there while Robotnik lazily floats over and beams them up.
Ignorant of the Call: Most of the cast react this way to Tikal's flashbacks. Near the end of his story Sonic fails to get the message that he should go after Chaos instead of Robotnik.
Incoming Ham: Robotnik has this moment after Sonic beats Chaos 0. "You know NOTHING, fool, It's CHAOS, the GOD of DESTRUCTION!!!!"
Indy Escape: At various points in Sonic's storyline, he has to evade the jaws of an angered orca, an avalanche and an Indiana Jones-esque flaming boulder.
Inferred Holocaust: Station Square is completly destroyed in the final battle.
Insurmountable Waist High Fence: Right towards the end of Twinkle Park for Sonic, there's an iron gate blocking you from getting to a spring if you end up on the right side of it. You can barely jump higher than it by yourself and you can definitely jump higher than it if you get up some speed with a Spin Dash. However, the game won't let you pass it from that side, you have to circumnavigate the entire circular roof to approach the spring from the other side.*
However, unlike other examples, this CAN be circumvented by simply jumping at the spring from one of the floating platforms leading to the roof. If you execute a homing attack at it, the game won't block your progress, which is good for the A Emblem.
I Cannot Self-Terminate: Played with during Gamma's story. Gamma is perfectly capable of self-terminating, it's just that up until the penultimate boss Gamma dosen't realize that his self-given mission technically requires him to kill himself. The moment of contemplation conncerning his mortality that he has when he realizes this is almost heart-breaking despite almost no dialogue or music being present in the scene. He ends up averting this trope and allows himself to die from his injuries so that the Flickie inside of him can be freed.
Implausible Deniability: Knuckles seems to pull this off after Sonic asked him if he got tricked by Eggman again. This quote from Knuckles' story sums it up: "Like, you weren't?"
I Owe You My Life: Not directly stated, but E-102 Gamma's resolve to rescue the animals trapped inside the E-Series robots was partly due to Amy saving its life. Gamma brings the trope to its natural conclusion by giving up its own life so that the Flicky powering it could be reunited with the bird Amy was taking care of.
Said act by Amy was also provoked by Gamma freeing her and Birdie from Eggman's cell inside the Egg Carrier (which would later crash land into the ocean) making it both issued and returned at the same time.
Kaizo Trap: Egg Viper. The camera angle isn't great either, so even if you know his suicide attack is coming, you won't be able to tell where he's gonna hit so you may still die anyway. Cue rage.
Kick the Dog: Robotnik does it a lot in this game. He's protrayed as a lot more evil here than in most portrayals.
Knight of Cerebus: Chaos. He is the first major threat Sonic and co. face that has no humorous quirks or traits whatsoever in persona and design; while his threat is genuine, he isn't seen as much more than a Dragon to Eggman until the climax and finale, when things truly take a turn for the worse when he finally turns on Eggman and gets all of the Emeralds.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Knuckles being tricked into fighting Sonic led the two colliding with each other. As a result, Sonic fumbles the two remaining Chaos Emeralds (one of them being green which Knuckles thought was a piece of the Master Emerald), only for Dr. Eggman to steal them and power up Chaos into his fourth form. As Sonic best puts it:
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Sonic does not have a way to defeat Chaos 6, but luckily Robotnik keeps dropping ice-spewing egg robots onto the battlefield that S Onic can use to freeze Chaos and hit him.
Nobody Poops: Surprisingly averted. One Action Stage (Hot Shelter) contains men's and women's restrooms, both of which can be entered, though not used.
One-Winged Angel: Chaos in Sonic Adventure becomes Perfect Chaos when he drains the negative energy out of the Chaos Emeralds.
Path of Greatest Resistance: Ever since Sonic Adventure introduced the Homing Attack, nearly all Sonic games since then have had paths identifiable (and accessible) only by finding a trail of stationary midair enemies. This is most commonly used to begin an expert path or for a shortcut; very rarely is it actually required.
Panty Shot: Amy belts one out in most of the cutscenes she's in, most prominently when you choose her in the character select screen. This is made unsettling by the fact that she's only 12.
Pinball Zone: Sonic's version of Casinopolis features Sonic and NiGHTS-themed pinball tables. Naturally, Sonic is the pinball.
Polygon Ceiling - The camera and controls are a point of criticism to the game, and these would continue into later games, creating a bad 3D reputation for the series.
Poor Communication Kills: Rather than talk to Sonic about why he's after the Master Emerald shards, Knuckles instead immediately starts a fight with Sonic and Tails without reasonably asking the two directly about it, which could of prevented the whole fight in the first place.
The Power of Friendship: The bond of Sonic with his True Companions allows him to unlock the full potential of Super Sonic with the Chaos Emeralds, although Tails does say that Chaos only absorbed the negative energy of the Emeralds.
Rashomon Style: Who won in the character vs. character fights? It depends who you ask. Most of the dialogue was re-recorded for each story even when it doesn't need to be.
In Sonic and Tails's stories, the character played as is the one who fights most of the bosses and puts the keys in the Mystic Ruins.
Rule of Three: Tails' and Knuckles' stories has three bosses, Knuckles gets a vision of the past on three seprate occasions (Upon clearing stages 2, 4, and 5 (Whereas the other five characters' storylines gets one)) on his storyline, and Amy's storyline has three levels (The fewest level count any character has in this game).
Sealed Evil in a Can: Chaos was originally sealed in the Master Emerald along with Tikal when he was about to destroy the world, but in modern times, Robotnik freed him by destroying the Master Emerald. Subverted however that, when it turns out Chaos isn't actually evil, just very angry and vengeful.
Amy's intro cutscene has a bag marked "YU-2 Mart". YU-2 was what Yuji Naka was credited as in the Genesis Sonic games.
Shower Scene: Possible in Casinopolis with Sonic if you have him stand under a showerhead, whereupon he'll start scrubbing himself. Knuckles can also trigger the water spray, but he has no custom animation for it.
Smoke Out: Eggman employs a variety of these tricks, including a flash grenade and sleeping gas.
Spoiler Opening: The opening trailer contains the destruction of Station Square and Chaos's final transformation. Since this is the first Sonic game with an unlockable secret finale, it may have been intentional to prevent players from putting the game down after completing Sonic's story. Or just to get some extra milage out of the lengthy FMV sequence.
Stock Video Game Puzzle: Quite a few different puzzles appear at varying points across the levels and characters, notably in Lost World.
Suddenly Voiced: Everyone. The early games didn't even have subtitled lines.
Except Sonic and Eggman. They talked in SegaSonic The Hedgehog. (Ray and Mighty did too, but only Mighty reappeared, and even then only in Knuckles Chaotix.) A few months later, Sonic sometimes exclaimed in Sonic CD (Usually upon getting a 1-Up).
Team Rocket Wins: Playing E-102 Gamma's story at least, which allows you to fight and defeat Sonic in battle (though Amy stops him just short of finishing the job). So far Gamma is the only Eggman droid to individually defeat Sonic in the games storywise (albeit branching storywise).
That's No Moon: The excavation team at the Mystic Ruins is flummoxed by a "mountain" which suddenly appeared from nowhere. Unbeknownst to them (and the player, at first), it's actually Angel Island.
Theme Song Power Up: Played with in the final battle against Perfect Chaos. "Open Your Heart" (the game's main theme and Super Sonic's personal theme, more or less) plays during the first half of the battle. After you hit Chaos a number of times, it revives and the second half plays out under Perfect Chaos' own theme. It's subverted because Super Sonic doesn't defeat the creature for good while his own theme is playing, inverted because Perfect Chaos' own theme ("Perfect Chaos Revival!") is what plays during the second half (after it's rejuvenated) so Chaos is the one powering up to its own theme, and averted because it doesn't do a lick of good anyway (it's already losing by the time its music starts up; you just have to land the finishing blow (or two (give or take)).
Tranquil Fury: In contrast to his usual Large Ham, Robotnik's encounter with Tails in the Egg Walker has him speak this way. Surprisingly, it's very unsettling.
Uncommon Time: The boss music for Chaos 6 alternates between a 7/8 and a 4/4 time signature.
Understatement: Gamma's concise nature of speaking creates such gems as "This is the wrong room" after accidentally walking in on his older brother being seemingly cannibalized for parts and upgraded while still active, or "This presents a problem" after being seemingly teleported back in time.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Tikal and the other Echidna residents seem completely nonchalent about the heroes' presence, or even a friggin' robot in the flashbacks to the past.
Updated Rerelease: The GameCube DX version, which added some more character cameos (namely Cream) and a catalog of Game Gear games. Further upgraded with the PSN and XBLA, with trophy/achievement support.
Upgrade Vs Prototype Fight: Gamma the robot is made to fight his "brother" Beta, who is the more advanced of the two. To Dr. Eggman's surprise, Gamma wins, so he is charged with carrying out the doctor's missions. Later, Beta is rebuilt and battles Gamma again, only resulting in foreshadowing the ending of Amy's storyline.
Utopia Justifies the Means: Pachacamac's reasoning for wanting the Chaos Emeralds taken from the shrine. It does nothing to cover up his power hungry nature and lack of regard for life at that point.
Video Game Caring Potential: Chao. If you are nice enough to a Chao, it will have a big smile on its face and clap whenever your character picks it up. Beware, however, that being too nice to a Chao might result in the little guy getting a spoiled personality, making it throw tantrums even when only a little hungry. Balance is the key, but regardless, if the Chao is happy enough, it will reincarnate into a baby at the end of its life.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: Likewise, you can hit the Chao, throw it, put it in water and watch it flail if it doesn't know how to swim, make it starve, and all other sorts of things. Such abuse will result in the Chao crying a fountain of tears, blowing a raspberry at you, or if it's aggressive enough, it'll charge at you and futilely throw punches. If the Chao is more sad/angry than happy, it won't reincarnate at the end of its life. You can kill your Chao outright this way.
Wasted Song: A few jingles and themes were unused in gameplay or for purposes different from how they are labelled (eg. "Calm After The Storm" is labelled as the theme for the crashed Egg Carrier Adventure Field in the Sound Test, but is used only in a short cutscene in Gamma's story). Many tunes were also truncated and can only be heard in full in the games' official soundtrack.
You Have Failed Me: Robotnik sorta does this to Gamma's E-Series brethren after they fail to retrieve the Chaos-enhanced Froggy, dispatching E-105ζ Zeta for a torturous upgrade and demoting E-103δ Delta and E-104ε Epsilon to generic "badniks" in random areas.
Which doesn't make a great deal of sense when you remember that they're the Egg Carrier's crew. How is Gamma meant to keep the place running by himself?
Admittedly, the rest of the Egg Carrier "crew" weren't really seen doing much outside trying (and failing) to collect Froggy (Gamma attempted to collect Birdie and destroy Sonic and again failed at both). Not to mention Eggman was nearly at the brink of completing Chaos, at which point they would likely be needless to his plan.
The Egg Carrier crashes not long after the scene in question anyway. So maybe Gamma couldn't keep it running by himself.
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