The tale of 6 (Sonic Adventure (DC))

Member Name:

Product:	Sonic Adventure (DC)
Date:	22/07/02 (120 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: look below

Disadvantages: look below

Sonic Adventure is like no other Sonic game – Sega should be proud of themselves with a game of this calibre on a machine such as the Dreamcast. SA does not just follow Sonic, but five other characters as well, each with their own storylines, stages and ultimately, bosses.

Sonic was relaxing in a hotel in Station Square. It was a quiet day – the sun was shining and the beach sand was a brilliant white. Yet out of nowhere, a plane appears! Sonic instantly recognises this as Tails, his two-tailed fox friend. Yet not all appears well – Tails is thrashing with the controls! He takes a left, a right, and a nosedive! CRASH! Sonic ventures off to find his friend…

After participating through the first level, Sonic eventually reaches Tails and the crashed wreckage of the plane – Tails now becomes a playable character. Each of the other characters – Amy, Knuckles, E-102 Gamma and Big the Cat – are unlocked like this, creating multiple angles to look at the storylines. Sonic inevitably has the most stages and probably the best mini-games. Each character also comes with special items needed to complete the stages – like Sonic’s wristband that lets him follow a series of rings and E-102 Gamma’s jet pack that lets s/he float down to the ground.

Each stage carries a grade – C, B and A. When you first compete in the stage, the aim is to get the ‘C’ ranking. If achieved, you can re-enter the stage in game or through trial mode (see below) to attempt the next ranking. The fruits of your exploits? Sonic Emblems – this is how you can monitor how well you fare against other people. I think that if you achieve every single emblem something special happens, but I can’t do it yet! And in each mini-game there are two emblems to collect as well – achieve a high score or low time to win them. The various mini-games include fishing, driving and snowboardi
ng with a panache of flying.

Each stage is individual (even though some characters do the same stages), with some containing the enemies that we see frequently from the Sonic games, some with those funny bouncy things, and even two pinball tables – one with the one-armed bandit like in the casino stage on Sonic 2 and the other similar to poker.

There is one other mini-games to test yourself with – Chao racing. The technique is one similar to a tamagotchi, but in some aspects completely different. In SA, there are three ‘Chao gardens’, each with fruit to feed your chao – this raises their statistics. If you give them animals collected from the stages, it transforms not only their appearance, but also the distribution of abilities. You can download a chao onto your VM (Visual Memory, the Dreamcast memory card) and raise it that way as well. TO test your Chao, pit it in a race against computer controlled chao or your friend’s chao on one of three increasingly difficult courses. Win in a certain time and receive special items. Although your Chao never dies, I couldn’t be bothered to raise one because my VM batteries run out!

My favourite aspect(s) of the game – in the casinopolis stage there are mini versions of pinball-style quests. One quest involves a slot machine (like the casino levels of the original sonic games) and the other involves poker (?!). If you fail top get 100 rings in 3 (pin)balls then you get chucked into the sewers. My other favourite is Big the Cat fishing – at times it can be easy to play but difficult to master.

Although I haven’t completed the game yet (stuck on Knuckles and the forest statues – help anyone?), I felt compelled to write an opinion on such a brilliant game. The graphics, like the Dreamcast, are top notch and flow without any trouble whatsoever. The sound is classic Sonic music that is never boring, so that’s cool.


Although I hate to end on a bad note, there is one crippling factor to SA – its camera. Every so often it moves into a very annoying position that means that you die, no matter what direction you press, because the camera is stuck behind the scenery.

Overall, a stunning effort from Sega – and now I have to convince my friend to let me borrow Sonic Adventure 2!

Advantages:

New angle on Sonic
More than just Sonic, Tales and Knuckles
Varying levels of difficulty

Disadvantages:

Bad camera

IanJC

Summary: