OXCGN’s Sonic Adventure XBLA Review

Do Dreamcast titles cut it in today’s technological world?

by Belgavion

© 2010 Gav Ross

You’d be forgiven for thinking that there are already enough (or too many) Sonic games available through the Live Arcade Marketplace.

However, now that the most of the Mega Drive and Genesis classics have been exhausted, it’s time to move to the next level.

Sonic Adventure was the centerpiece launch title for Sega’s Dreamcast when it was released in September 1999; it was no doubt the game disc most early adopters inserted first and most definitely the demonstration game to play in front of friends as the owner desperately tried to tell themselves they’d invested in a long-term machine and those poor suckers with Playstations were living in the past.

As is usual with time, what was impressive more than a decade ago isn’t so impressive today. Rather than being a direct port of the original Dreamcast title, the Live Arcade release is more akin to the 2003 Gamecube version titled Sonic Adventure DX – which was marketed at the time as an ‘enhanced port’.

Granted, the textures in the DX version are much clearer and the frame-rate doesn’t seem quite as janky, but on new widescreen HD televisions this XBLA release remains true to its 4:3 aspect ratio and there’s been no remastering of any kind done to make the game easier on the eyes of HD gamers.

It certainly doesn’t look terrible; it’s just that there’s no advantage whether you play this on a dusty old CRT or a shiny new flat panel.

Sonic Adventure was the first time the cheeky blue hedgehog went into open-world mode and, to be fair, it was a big step for Sonic Team to take.

The game still has a classic stage structure with camera movement to take full advantage of the 3D graphics, but the part of the experience that was new at the time was being able to roam around environments in between stages, interacting with other characters, solving puzzles and looking for collectables.

As it is today in new retail Sonic titles, wandering around talking aimlessly to strangers in that terribly annoying, exaggerated tone Sonic has become infamous for was as tedious back then as it is now.

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Sonic is able to muster up the help of 6 of his friends throughout his journey, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned about these friends it’s that their voice-acting is even worse.

It’s incredible that after all these years Sonic can still possess such a loyal following when he has possibly the worst set of friends in gaming.

The bright side of playing as Tails, Knuckles, Amy or any of Sonic’s other lame mates is that they each have their own action stages that gives the gameplay some variety.

As expected in any Sonic game, the storyline revolves around Dr Eggman and the Chaos Emeralds. There’s a little more to it than just that – with some mystical spirit guide and a super enemy named ‘Chaos’ itself playing a part – but nobody plays a Sonic game for it’s deep narrative now do they?

The target audience for this release will no doubt be those who played the game in the past and have fond memories of that time. The unfortunate truth is that even if you recall Sonic Adventure being a blast of a game that you wasted many childhood hours on, you’ll probably have had enough of playing it again after about 10 minutes.

Moments that were probably regarded as epic back in the day – such as the killer whale chasing Sonic during the first action stage, crashing through bridges and everything else in its path – don’t quite pack the same punch they used to.

One aspect of Sonic Adventure that hasn’t been lost after all these years is the constant glitchiness. This is reason enough alone to forget about revisiting the game.

It always was a bit of a glitch-fest – with bad collision detection and, quite often, parts of the path in front of you not even loading properly, causing the hedgehog to fall into nothingness – but it seems so much worse by today’s standards of testing that’s it’s close to unplayable.

It would have been nice if Sonic Team could’ve at least gone back and ironed out some of the rough spots.

Those wanting a nostalgic taste of the game are best advised to remember it as you already do. Everyone else, forget about this relic and save your points for the upcoming Sonic 4 XBLA release.

Hopefully Sonic and his cohorts won’t open their mouths much in that one.

“4/10

© 2010 Gav Ross

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Filed under: New Xbox 360 Games, XBLA News-Reviews, Xbox 360 Game Reviews Tagged: | Dreamcast, Gamecube, games, Genesis, Mega Drive, Sega, Sega Mega Drive, Sonic, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure DX, Sonic Team, Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (series), Video game, XBLA, Xbox Live Arcade