Nice levels with good graphics (Sonic Adventure (DC))

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Product:	Sonic Adventure (DC)
Date:	01/06/01 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Extra Characters, Nice levels

Disadvantages: May be hard to control

I guess that most people reading this review will have played a sonic game on the Mega Drive at some point or another. For those of you that haven't, this is how it went: For the first two games you could only play as Sonic, or his sidekick Tails (virtually identical in every way) except in Sonic 1, where only Sonic was available. Along came Sonic 3, and another character, Knuckles came along who could glide in the air, and smash through the walls, adding another level to the gameplay. The ultimate point of the Sonic dynasty came in the sequel to Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles. This was an open top cartridge like an action replay, and you could plug any game into it. Various games opened up various interesting mini games, but the best thing to do was plug Sonic 3 into it to get "Sonic 3 and Knuckles". Absolutely brilliant (by the way, the final game on the Mega Drive, Sonic 3D, is barely worth mentioning).
Sonic Adventure is a very different game than the earlier games. For a start, there are now 6 characters available to play with (all with incredibly different styles of gameplay), with a 7th becoming available after finishing the game with the previous 6. Each have their unique objectives for their stages. For each stage of a character, there are 3 different difficulty levels to complete it on, each with different objectives. With mini games and other things as well, there are 130 emblems in total (you gain an emblem for completing a "challenge", for example a level or mini-game) to collect. With some of the "A" emblems being incredibly difficult to complete, you will not finish this game in a hurry.
However, for gamers that do not really care about completing a game fully, it is possible to complete it without getting all of the emblems. While I feel that some characters adventures could have been improved (Big the Cat in particular was b-o-r-i-n-g), this game remains true to the feel of the originals while adopting the new
characters as a way of taking the gameplay to a whole new level.
The graphics and sound are astounding, and in some sections the speed and gameplay is blistering. One of the only complaints I can really make is that at times the camera can be awkard, and you die because it suddenly decides to change angle. But, fortunately, this is minimal and the joy of playing the game easily makes you forget all about it.
To conclude, this game has a few minor faults (Big the Cat's Adventure and annoying voice, not being able to skip cut scenes and the sometimes precarious camera), but nothing that detracts from the amazing gameplaying experience, as well as the amazing size and challenge of the game. There are well in excess of 30 different levels (although a few are variations of the same level), but with the objectives of different characters they seem like new levels.
This is a brilliant game and you will not regret buying it once.

Summary: