14/01/2024
I Finished Sonic Adventure for the First Time
Sonic Adventure is a game I've been meaning to really dive into for years now. Ever since I became a fan of the Sonic franchise in my childhood, the Adventure series always felt like something I just barely missed out on, due to being born after the Gamecube port of Sonic Adventure 2 was released. In the years since, I have gone and played segments of both Adventure 1 and 2, but only the first few Sonic levels. I never got to truly give them a fair shake other than what I had already known about the stories. A few weeks ago, however, I finally got the urge to play the game from start to finish
I should also clarify that I'm playing the Dreamcast version of the game, as later ports added many issues and graphical changes that I didn't want to deal with. I wanted to play the most polished version of the game that was released officially.
Considering the structure of this game, I'll talk about each segment of the game separately, except for the Chao, as I never interacted with that portion during my play time. If I ever do a follow up on Sonic Adventure 2, maybe I'll dive more into the Chao, as the mechanics are more fleshed out compared to Adventure 1.
Sonic: It should come to no surprise that this is both the best and most fleshed out portion of the game. For all the talk of Sonic's "rough transition into 3D", I think they did a great job in his first true outing. Sonic's controls in this game are the best they've ever been in the 3D games until probably Sonic Frontiers. For the most part, I thought all the levels were great as well. My favourite stages were probably Speed Highway and Red Mountain, the former emphasizing Sonic's speed, and the latter being a surprisingly great translation of the classic series' level design into 3D. Sky Deck was probably a low point for me, however. That stage did not feel like it was designed for this incarnation of Sonic.
Tails: This segment of the game was super easy, but also surprisingly fun. Tails' levels are built around racing an opponent, usually Sonic, to the end of the stage. Since Tails can fly, this can completely break the game, especially since a lot of the chosen levels for Tails give him a lot of open space to just bypass all the level's obstacles, and find new creative ways to get around the levels. I do wish his part of the game had been longer, however. Tails' levels are usually just one specific part of a Sonic stage, where I think it would have been more interesting if he raced Sonic through the entire level.
Knuckles: Gameplay-wise, this is probably my favourite part of the game after Sonic's segment. His gameplay focuses on searching segments of stages for pieces of the Master Emerald. Unlike Tails, Knuckles' gliding and climbing gameplay works perfectly with the more playground-like level segments that were chosen for his portion of the game. The two highlights here would probably be Red Mountain and Lost World, as those really exemplified the playground nature of his levels.
Amy: I wanted to like this segment more, the idea of each level being a chase sounds perfect for a Sonic game. My main issue honestly might be with Amy's controls. Using her hammer usually stops all forward momentum, while the hammer jump only shows up occasionally while running, usually after a jump. Because of that it's harder to rely on to propel her forward than I would have hoped.
Big: Honestly Big's segment barely counts? It's a subpar fishing minigame that got forced into the main story, and that's its biggest issue. If this was just an optional fishing minigame, I don't think the response to it would be so negative, since you could easily ignore it.
Gamma: In terms of gameplay, this was by far the easiest section of the game, though the concept of playing as one of Eggman's robots was still very entertaining, and I actually enjoyed his levels quite a bit. Gamma's segment easily has the best storyline of the entire game, however, and that kept my full attention during that part of the game.
The final boss with Perfect Chaos was also pretty fun. Especially since the music plain during it was "Open Your Heart", the first Crush 40 song to appear in a Sonic game, which leads me to my final point on this game. Sonic Adventure has one of the best soundtracks in this series of fantastic game soundtracks. The combination of previous tracks from Sonic 3D Blast with the new music composed for this game leads to an amazing soundtrack to represent Sonic's transition from the classic era to what he would be like going forward in the 2000s.
Overall, I think Sonic Adventure is very fun, despite many flaws due to its nature as an early 3D platformer. It is immensely replayable, however, and I'll probably keep going back to replay the Sonic levels, along with a few other modes as I have with other games in this series.
