Sonic was never good! No, maybe this is where he peaked, and everything thing else fell apart!
So many opinions about this game that are just widely talked about whether they enjoy this game, or just consider it the most mediocre thing since sliced bread. Hell, even I'm at fault at thinking that this is where the series peaked, and I haven't played this game since 2005. So, here we are nearly 20 years later, how does this game still hold up?
Pretty alright when compared to the rest of the sonic games to be completely honest. I wanna get my gripes out of the way so I can talk about the stuff that made me enjoy this very much.
We can't talk about the game without bringing up the very boring gameplay of the emerald hunt stages for both knuckles and rouge. I completed them in roughly around 6-7 ish minutes per level (Including mad space, where I thought I was gonna struggle a bit, ended up just taking me 4 minutes overall.) and moved on. I didn't feel much for these levels as I just wanted to get back into the action of the running and mech sections, since there's at least something to do there than just run around until my beeper starts beeping around an area. Didn't care much about these levels back then, and I still don't care about em now really.
This opinion is slightly mixed as I really enjoyed some parts of the eggman and tails stages at times. But some of these levels were total stinkers to deal with, such the beginning levels for the both of them when you have no upgrades, so you are just going through each section of the level holding up until you get to the goal. But I did have a grin on my face playing through cosmic wall and eternal engine. Man those levels rocked.
Another huge gripe is with the bosses in the game just being punch thing and wait for it to finish it's move without it deviating too much on how to tackle a boss. The only times where that changes is during the second to last boss and the final boss, where they just go all out in stopping you, (Even if the second boss gives you no way to get any rings, pretty much stopping you from getting any from below while in the air. ) but that's about it. No changes and just all punch punch till the thing is dead. The bosses are pushovers, but it wasn't a deal breaker for me continuing the game.
I'll get to the stuff that I did like now.
I'm surprised I didn't have that many complaints about this game like I did with frontiers! The movement still feels fine enough for all characters, with some occasional slippage, but all of it manageable. Sonic and shadow really do shine in their levels when playing through them as jumping to a platform with a spindash jump or even cutting through some levels like in Final Chase still feel like second nature to me after all of this time. I can't describe it, but the movement for these characters just feel pretty damn good.
This is something minor, but I'm glad that most of the levels were fairly short for the most part. Hell, even the ark joint level was roughly around 7 minutes, and it moved on from there. I don't think I can do another 16 hour sonic game like I did with frontiers, so I'm just pretty happy that once a level is finished, we move on to the next part of the story.
There are various different opinions on how a sonic game should be told in it's story and even if some things get deus ex machina'd to hell, it's still a fun time playing through the perspectives of both dark and light side.
I'm not going to be rating the extra content as I wanted to mainly focus on the story mode for this review, but I did play a bit of the extra stuff including chao garden by accidentally grabbing a key, and it's a pretty cute timekiller for someone that wants to raise and put em in events that they have in the garden. I might go back to it and see how far I can get compared to back then when I played on my gamecube.
Did I have fun with this game? Yeah, I really did. I would even say that I still love this game now than I did back then, but I can still recognize the faults that it has. This game is not the end all be all of sonic. And If there is a title for that, then that title should be given to Frontiers for captivating a new wave of sonic fans to enjoy that game.
As for me, I don't play sonic games anymore. I just wanted to see if I had any rose tinted glasses about this game or if what I played back then just sucked. If I had to rate this on the game and nothing else, this would probably be a 3/5 at best, and a 2/5 at it's worst, but my time with the game was just fun overall hearing those tracks while I played through each level.
I'm glad I had fun with this short but sweet ride.
So many opinions about this game that are just widely talked about whether they enjoy this game, or just consider it the most mediocre thing since sliced bread. Hell, even I'm at fault at thinking that this is where the series peaked, and I haven't played this game since 2005. So, here we are nearly 20 years later, how does this game still hold up?
Pretty alright when compared to the rest of the sonic games to be completely honest. I wanna get my gripes out of the way so I can talk about the stuff that made me enjoy this very much.
We can't talk about the game without bringing up the very boring gameplay of the emerald hunt stages for both knuckles and rouge. I completed them in roughly around 6-7 ish minutes per level (Including mad space, where I thought I was gonna struggle a bit, ended up just taking me 4 minutes overall.) and moved on. I didn't feel much for these levels as I just wanted to get back into the action of the running and mech sections, since there's at least something to do there than just run around until my beeper starts beeping around an area. Didn't care much about these levels back then, and I still don't care about em now really.
This opinion is slightly mixed as I really enjoyed some parts of the eggman and tails stages at times. But some of these levels were total stinkers to deal with, such the beginning levels for the both of them when you have no upgrades, so you are just going through each section of the level holding up until you get to the goal. But I did have a grin on my face playing through cosmic wall and eternal engine. Man those levels rocked.
Another huge gripe is with the bosses in the game just being punch thing and wait for it to finish it's move without it deviating too much on how to tackle a boss. The only times where that changes is during the second to last boss and the final boss, where they just go all out in stopping you, (Even if the second boss gives you no way to get any rings, pretty much stopping you from getting any from below while in the air. ) but that's about it. No changes and just all punch punch till the thing is dead. The bosses are pushovers, but it wasn't a deal breaker for me continuing the game.
I'll get to the stuff that I did like now.
I'm surprised I didn't have that many complaints about this game like I did with frontiers! The movement still feels fine enough for all characters, with some occasional slippage, but all of it manageable. Sonic and shadow really do shine in their levels when playing through them as jumping to a platform with a spindash jump or even cutting through some levels like in Final Chase still feel like second nature to me after all of this time. I can't describe it, but the movement for these characters just feel pretty damn good.
This is something minor, but I'm glad that most of the levels were fairly short for the most part. Hell, even the ark joint level was roughly around 7 minutes, and it moved on from there. I don't think I can do another 16 hour sonic game like I did with frontiers, so I'm just pretty happy that once a level is finished, we move on to the next part of the story.
There are various different opinions on how a sonic game should be told in it's story and even if some things get deus ex machina'd to hell, it's still a fun time playing through the perspectives of both dark and light side.
I'm not going to be rating the extra content as I wanted to mainly focus on the story mode for this review, but I did play a bit of the extra stuff including chao garden by accidentally grabbing a key, and it's a pretty cute timekiller for someone that wants to raise and put em in events that they have in the garden. I might go back to it and see how far I can get compared to back then when I played on my gamecube.
Did I have fun with this game? Yeah, I really did. I would even say that I still love this game now than I did back then, but I can still recognize the faults that it has. This game is not the end all be all of sonic. And If there is a title for that, then that title should be given to Frontiers for captivating a new wave of sonic fans to enjoy that game.
As for me, I don't play sonic games anymore. I just wanted to see if I had any rose tinted glasses about this game or if what I played back then just sucked. If I had to rate this on the game and nothing else, this would probably be a 3/5 at best, and a 2/5 at it's worst, but my time with the game was just fun overall hearing those tracks while I played through each level.
I'm glad I had fun with this short but sweet ride.
Reviewed on Dec 13, 2022