VideoGame This game is good, and it's faults are more acceptable for the time than the 2003-2009 games.
The first thing that anyone will tell you about Sonic Adventure is that
1. It was amazing at the time.
2. It has aged.
I am not going to dispute either of these points. Sonic adventure has six different gameplay styles. However, In this game there is a clear difference in how they are presented. In later games it would be attempted to make these into equal sections of the game. However, in Sonic adventure? Sonic's gameplay, the MAIN gameplay as you will, dwarfs the other character's in playtime. They are clearly supposed to be side characters.
Sonic's gameplay is essentially a 3D distillation of the Classic series, but with a few new additions. Sonic can run, jump and spindash. There are also a few new moves, particularly the homing attack, a move designed to help 3D gameplay. Sonic runs through wacky 3D worlds rife with dangers, platforming, loops and some particularly memorable set-pieces. These levels succesfully emulate the feel of the classic series in a 3D enviroment. There is speed, but also wide open areas to explore, and hidden item boxes. The levels feel fantastical and surreal, and do not usually try to emulate reality. And even when we get urban city levels, there is a bizzare twist to it. The game's graphics are fantastic for the time ans the music is funky and overall good.
Tails's levels are fun, racing levels in the same style as Sonic's. However, the flying ability opens up many new paths and is very fun to use.
Knuckles's levels are simple, fun and exploration based games,I never found them particularly difficult.
Amy's are inoffensive platforming levels, not great but not bad either.
Gamma has shooting levels. Fun, and a nice break from the main platforming.
Big's levels involve fishing.Crap.Thankfully this does not take long and is only a small section.
Much has been said about this game's camera. Personally, I don't think it's very bad, most of the time. This might be a bit controversial. However it DOES occasionally screw up, which is annoying, but little more than that. Even so, in a 3D debut game like this a bad camera is infinitely more acceptable than in a game made in the middle of the 2000's.
Overall, I think this is a good game, especially for the time. Of the other playstyles 3 are fun and the 2 that disapoint only make up a small bit of game.
VideoGame Awesome for its time, fairly decent now
While not my favorite 3D Sonic game, Sonic Adventure is still a classic, and being the first true 3D Sonic game in the series, I'm willing to forgive a lot of the hiccups it was inevitably going to carry.
The game isn't quite as grand in scope as its 2D predecessors (let's face it, in this game, Eggman has a huge airship. In Sonic 2, he has a fleet of airships and the Death Star), but it still feels like the most epic Sonic game yet because of its cinematics, and while they're Narmtastic nowadays, having that much voice acting and animation was pretty impressive back in those days. So go ahead and watch Chaos grow while Eggman has a spaz attack. If nothing else, it's gloriously cheesy.
The plot is pretty good, though there is one plot hole, nothing too major (the Egg Carrier seems to explode for no apparent reason when characters are through with the stages on it). Even so The voice acting is... well... and the dialogue can be pretty unnatural as well. That was sort of standard for those days, though, and it certainly works better than something like Mega Man 8.
Gameplay-wise, the game is structured thusly: choose a character to play as (you start with only Sonic and unlock the others). You run around in the hub world, do whatever the cutscenes and the shiny red ball tells you to, grab some powerups and complete the missions. 6 characters to work with, you dig?
- Sonic: Get to the goal
- Tails: Beat Sonic to the goal
- Knuckles: Find the Emerald Shards
- Amy: Escape from Zero
- Gamma: Shoot stuff
- Big: Go fish
Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Gamma are all pretty fun to play as; Amy and Big do feel a bit slow, but aren't altogether bad diversions (even if Big's gameplay does feel a bit out of place). There are 11 stages, and each character gets to play a set number of them. The stages are sometimes designed differently depending on who you're playing as, most noticeably with Big.
The controls are wonderfully fast paced, and this game has arguably the best handling 3D Sonic. YMMV. Level design is pretty good (Sky Deck anyone), and the glitches therein make this a speedrunner's wet dream.
Lastly, the music is incredible, but that's a given for this series.
So I definitely recommend Sonic Adventure. It may feel pretty old, but it's by no means bad.
VideoGame Great play mechanics, ambitious design, broken execution, but still fun
I had a funny love->hate relationship with this game back in 1999, when its many flaws overshadowed the things I initially enjoyed about it. Now that I've been replaying it again, I actually like it a lot. But let's look a bit closer.
Much of the feel of classic 2D Genesis Sonic games has carried over to this one. The level designs tend to contain many of the elements of the older games, although in 3D. Sadly, the levels are very linear and rather lacking in alternate routes, something the 2D games had a great many of - something that dragged it down considerably once my views had started to sour. Alternate routes tend to be short and very quickly get reassimilated into the main path.
At one point I disliked the adventure fields, because I was starting to prefer the straightforward "level-by-level" progression of the Genesis games. Initially, I liked running around the town at high speed, finding the occasional powerup (some of which are hidden), talking to the townspeople, and seeing how the adventure fields connect to the game's levels. Many of the townspeople have their own story mini-arcs (striking train workers, a kid waiting for her dad to come home), and it was neat revisiting the same person to see what they had to say next.
The one element that I feel just works and makes much of the game come together, is the one thing that is most important in any action game: play mechanics. It's fun being able to run at amazing speeds from a standing start, and the physics involved with slopes and jumps can result in absurd stunts like rolling up a slope and jumping right before the edge to launch 5 stories into the air and land on top of a temple. I feel the game would have been better if it had taken more advantage of what can be done with these mechanics.
Sadly, Sonic only has 10 levels to go to. Other characters are okay storywise (and I happen to like Big the Cat), while their gameplay styles are not as much fun. There are also various mild problems (invisible walls in town, glitches with loops and launchers misfiring, bizarre and awkward lip syncing animations) that hold the game back. Some of these add a So Bad Its Good feel to the game in hindsight, and my brother and I have been having fun revisiting it while cracking jokes at its expense.
While it may have fallen under its ambitions, I still feel this game is good overall.
VideoGame Sonic Adventure DX
Sonic Adventure DX is Sonic's first and major 3D game as well as the first Sonic Adventure game.The Main plot consist of Eggman freeing Chaos the god of destruction and using his power to destroy station square and rebuild to Eggmanland.Throughout the corse of the game you will play as six characters Sonic,Tails,Knuckles,Amy,Big,Gamma play all six and you will unlock Super Sonic.
Sonic the Hedgehog-The Hero and easily the best gameplay out of all six his gameplay consist of platforming and moving quickly.
Miles Tails Prower- The Tagalog kid his gameplay is the same as Sonic but you have to beat Sonic in a race.
Knuckles the Echidna-The Big Guy,his stages consist of Master emerald hunting find three emerald in each stage.These stages are pretty average IMO there pretty simple to do the sequel on the otherhand...
Amy Rose-Platforming but incredibly slow still very slow.
Big the Cat- The worst out all six and can be annoying to pull off however it rather simple to do it just can be very annoying getting the persistence green frog.
Gammma-A shooter the gameplay is very average.
Overall Sonic Adventure DX may have some flaw but it's a pretty good gateway to the series.Aslo if anyone read this please tell me how I can do better with these review.
VideoGame Still fun, but its really showing its age 20 years later..
I played this again on my uncles Dreamcast recently, and I have...mixed feelings about it. Some parts still hold up, but its safe to say the game is really showing its age two decades later and really suffers from overreaching at times. Gameplay wise, Sonic and Tails' gameplay still holds up well despite a few rough edges. Knuckles is fine too if a little uncohesive compared to the rest of the game. The rest of the characters are pure filler. Amy is as fun as dragging a laggy mouse around, Gamma is a boring, monotonous shoot-a-thon (the character himself is cool though), and Big the Cat...seriously, who thought fishing in a platformer game was a good idea, especially when the controls for fishing are so bonkers? The CGI/graphics are a mixed bag. The pre-rendered FM Vs still look pretty good, and some of the in-game environments range from decent to pretty good looking. The character models are where the game kinda falls short (though the DX port notably improved on them), especially with the in-game cutscenes—you can tell Sonic Team was biting off more than they could chew with them, especially with the ridiculous lip sync and facial expressions. Some of the animation of Chaos is nice, though the bulk of the character animation is really awkward and stilted now. The story is the one thing I really don't like about this game. Its just this weird Rashoman style fantasy/sci-fi story that makes no sense at all, like they dropped you into the middle of a shonen anime series without establishing to you what the rules of the world really are (not helping is the drastic shift in tone and world from the just plain surrealistic Genesis games). And I just find the idea of them trying to tell a serious epic story with cartoony characters like Sonic to be really pretentious and stupid (though it wasnt till Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006 where they really, really went off the rails with this). The sluggish pacing, terrible voice acting and cheesy writing combined with the dated animation doesnt help either, and worst of all, the cutscenes are unskippable in the DC version (the DX port fixed this, thankfully). The soundtrack is pretty good though. A very eclectic selection of genres and plenty of really catchy toe tapping tunes. I felt thats one of the parts of the game that has really held up as a whole. All in all, this game can still be fun, but its not the showstopping title it once was anymore.
Score: 6/10