Sonic Adventure Review

Sonic Adventure
developer: sonic team
platform: dreamcast
release date: 9/9/99

Story: discovering some ancient tablets telling the tale of a water beast that destroyed a civilization centuries ago, robotnik releases a being called Chaos from the Master Emerald, crashing Angel island. planning to destroy Station Square and build his own city on top of it, this is the beginning of the story that covers tousands of years, many characters, and a whole lot of my time. Each character has their own story, ending, and moral to it all. Seeing how they change and how their story interacts with the others is interesting, and playing through more than once shows you stuff you never saw before. Plus its infinately better than any sonic story before, i only had a few questions on how things happend. I give the story 9/10.

Control: simple controls make the step well from the one button play of the past games to this one, i didnt have any trouble with any of the characters, even when starting. Except for big, moving him around in water is a bit difficult. But not for anybody else, even with sonic at top speeds control was smooth and easy. i give it a 10/10

voice acting, sound effects, and music: Ok, this stuff just ruled, the voices were perfect, made for the characters, not a single flaw. sound effects were good and yet you were reminded of the classic games, hitting save posts, breaking ring boxes, and of course the rings themselves, bring back memories of the emerald hill zone. and the music, heh yeeeeeah. everybody has their own songs, which rule themselves. the levels have fitting, catchy tunes. and the music always fits the situation, action, humor, serious. My personal fav is when sonic gets to the room with the carving of Chaos. If i didnt give this a 10/10 you'd have my permission to give me a straighjacket.

Gameplay: more like gameplays, 6 characters (one secret by beating the others) each with their own way to play. Sonic gets to the end of the level with speed...serious speed...major freakin speed, i mean they dont call this the fastest platformer ever for no reason, first time i played speed highway i saw a guy leave the room cause he was so queasy. Tails has to beat sonic or robotnik to the end of the level. Knuckles has to find three pieces of the master emerald in each level, which lets you explore massive levels for as long as you want. Amy Rose is running from an invincible robot named Zero. E-102r Gamma is mass destruction, shooting enemies to add time to your score, and making it to the boss at the end of nearly every level. and for you relaxin types; Big the Cat has his fishin, find froggy, and a bunch of the biggest, ugliest fish you seen in a long time. Only faults in this lie in clipping problems, and only with sonic really, at that speed he sometimes goes through walls or over small ledges...yeah dying sucks when you dont deserve it. that and some problems with a few objects and people moving through each other during the in game sequences are the only problems i've had. Want replay value? try 130 emblems, a special A-live virtual pet thang where you take animals that you free from enemies in the levels, take them to Chao gardens and create your own pet, you can raise it in your VMU in a simple RPG style game, and battle it with friends over the VMU. Or race it in the in-game Chao Races (5 courses) Plus you can go online and upload your level scores to the World Rankings, see how well you do against other people. So after a while this might get old....a very long while, plus with a engaging story, interesting characters, and SPEED, you will be kept busy till then. This game was the main release game for the system and the best selling DC game ever for a reason, if you own a dc and like platformers and dont buy this.....well i know where you live. give this a 10/10

Final Score: I give this game a 98/100...not a must-buy...a should-be-illegal-not-to-buy.