Nick Adams Games Blog

Perhaps its the more recent news stories of the upcoming Sonic Unleashed or the huge announcement of Sonic as a confirmed character in Smash Bros Brawl, but I’ve been really wanting to replay through the original Sonic Adventure. I originally had Sonic Adventure International on import for my Japanese Dreamcast when I first played it nearly a decade ago. Its not the most polished game around, but there’s something about it that makes it one of my favourite games.

I had so much love for this game that I even got the Gamecube re-release of it in 2003, and it was great to play the game on a good controller with a decent analogue stick, and the way it linked up to the GBA instead of the Dreamcast’s VMU made much more sense.

The music selection in this game was so jaunty and light hearted. It had a shamelessly cheesy 80’s style Rock theme tune which wouldn’t seem at all out of place as a dream Guitar Hero bonus track. It even featured a embarrassing classic 1990’s rap track with Knuckles’ rap (“You can call me Knuckles/Unlike Sonic I don’t chuckle) and a frantic Drum n Bass theme to the twisting death trap of the Sky Deck stage.

What I liked about the game apart from the (at the time) incredible graphics and sense of speed was the story. Or to more specific I really enjoyed the narrative of the story. It sounds like a gimmick, but the way each of the 6 playable characters had their own interweaving stories really reinforced and gave integrity to what should have been a standard throwaway videogame plot.

We saw Tails’ struggle to branch out and become independent of Sonic, Knuckles journey as he tried to secure the shards of the Master Emerald, Amy’s constant escape from Eggman’s robot Zero, and E102 Gamma’s discovery of morals and conscience.

The level design in this game has some suprising depth as you replay it to get more of the Sonic Emblems. Its satisfying when you have to use creative solutions as you skip chunks of the levels in order to meet the harsh speed run time requirements. This brought a mild cerebral element to the fast platforming gameplay.

For a game which is coming up to a decade old now, its still fun to play. It marked a milestone in Sonic’s videogame career as he made the inevitable jump into 3D platforming, but for me, it also proves that satisfying 3D Sonic games are capable of being produced.