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Rating: Good When I first started playing Sonic Adventure, I thought it absolutely sucked. I ended up liking it more as I played it more, but I still don't think it lives up to its massive hype. When you've got action that's as fast and intense as the action in Sonic Adventure, it would make sense to put the focus of the game on the action. For some reason, the Sonic Team chose not to do this, and instead they decided to force the player to spend large amounts of time wandering around pointless "Adventure Fields" while solving insultingly easy puzzles and sitting through story line sequences that couldn't possibly be any more lame. The story line sequences aren't skip-able, and they're home to some of the worst voice acting ever heard in any video game. The only time the voice acting is bad in a funny way is when Big the Cat speaks; with all the other characters it's just pathetic. Sega claimed that they were going to greatly improve Sonic Adventure in the conversion from Japanese to American, but they failed to do from the biggest of flaws to the simplest of details. The biggest flaws of the Japanese version were its lousy camera and its multitude of glitches. Unfortunately, Sonic Adventure's camera is still a pain in the butt that prevents you from seeing where you're going quite often, and the game is still very buggy. For example, one time I was walking around with a key in my hands and I put it down for a moment, only to find that it had somehow gotten stuck in the wall. Sega didn't even bother to match up the characters' mouth movements to the new dialogue, so it's a common sight to see a character keep moving his lips several seconds after he's done talking, or vice-versa. Also, the game is very inconsistent in whether it refers to the main enemy by his American name (Dr. Robotnik) or his Japanese name (Eggman). As the only US Dreamcast game to have any sort of online component, one could reasonably expect Sonic Adventure to have some substantial Internet options. If you were disappointed to learn that there would be no online gaming on the Dreamcast until sometime next year, you will also be disappointed when you click on Sonic Adventure's Internet button. I can just imagine your thoughts now: "Gee... I can access a Sonic web site. What else? Oh, wait... that's it." Some of the music is good, but a lot of it stinks due to embarrassingly bad lyrics. Also, sometimes the music is so loud during the story line sequences that you can barely hear what the characters are saying, although that might be a blessing in disguise when you consider the quality of the dialogue... Despite its many flaws, Sonic Adventure still has a certain charm and addictiveness that's hard to deny, and its six playable characters add some replay value to what would otherwise be a very short game. Sonic Adventure is the kind of game that makes me shake my head in disgust when playing it sometimes, and yet even as I'm doing this, I'm still playing the game and I still want to play it more. The strength of the game is definitely its action stages, which have successfully made the leap to 3D without losing the thrill of the Sonic games for the Sega Genesis. As thrilling as it can be at times, I couldn't help but feel very detached from the action given that all you're really doing for the bulk of the action sequences is pressing forward on the analog joystick. Sometimes it just feels like you're not in control, but sometimes you can actually let go of the controller completely and the game will keep going without you. Sonic Adventure feels a lot like the PlayStation game Jumping Flash at times with its huge jumps. The difference is that you were in full control of your actions in Jumping Flash, while in Sonic you just run into a launch pad and watch. Sonic's jumping control is also much looser than Jumping Flash's. As if you need me to tell you, the graphics are very impressive, and they do a great job of showing off the Dreamcast's power. However, I'm not looking for a game that shows off the Dreamcast's power, I'm looking for a game that will entertain me for weeks or months, and Sonic Adventure is not that game. Send your thoughts on this review to ivan@mastergamer.com
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com