I was lied to, I was deceived, bamboozled if you will.

It wasn't Sonic who had a rough transition to 3D. It was Sonic Team.

Sonic Adventure is a mess, and I mean, in what world it wouldn't have been? It follows the long lasting tradition of the franchise of having bat-shit and insanely short development cycles, plus the fact it was the game that followed a myriad of disastrous attempts of bringing the blue bastard to the third dimension without inducing massive headaches or implicating near-death experiences; and what fucking worse better ingredient to add to this mixture of chaos (eh? see what I did there?) than good ol' crunch time?! The game needed, nay, it HAD TO release alongside the Dreamcast's launch, which considering how that console was the ''make it or break it'' for the company, in a way it makes sense, but it only worsened the making of a really ambitious game that already had a ton of issues to begin with. I could keep talking about the problematic design and development philosophies of SEGA and Sonic Team and the problematic relationships between the American and Japanese divisions but it would take me quite literally more than entire reviews I’ve written in the past, so for know let’s simply say that this was yet another Sega moment™.

Even if you didn’t know the game was done under sever crunch, it’s not like it hides it very well. When I say Adventure is a mess, I mean it, it has the whole pack: really clunky animations which, even if in part can be justified when taking into account the time of its release, the really weird pacing and direction of the scenes sure can’t; the movement of almost every character can sometimes feel imprecise and things like Sonic’s homing attack just decide to not work out of nowhere; extremely buggy collisions that make running along walls feel extremely unreliable and glitchy and it seems that the lands surrounding Station Square must have poor soil since you are able to go fall through thE GROUND SO MUCH; the main overworlds, while sometimes cool, feel pretty empty and don’t really point you in the right direction and that can make it very confusing to navigate them, and even if there are reasons to explore them since there are secret emblems and even power-ups to get, a lot more work could have been put into making places like Mystic Ruins feel more engaging to traverse and explore; the whole story parts related to Tikal and Chaos feel rushed and disconnected to the individual stories and even the overarching basic plot, and while by the end we may get the overall story, I really doubt that the characters aside from Sonic and Knuckles know what the hell was going… Oh and just to add a little bit of salt to this really weird dish, many of the glitch related problems are even greater in the DX version, since what should have been the ‘’definitive’’ way to play Adventure just screw things up even more! This, in all honesty, should have been unbearable, I’m not exactly one to be really bothered by technical problems, but when so much of the game feels so rough around the edges and when movement, the hubs and the ‘’puzzles’’ feel so archaic and/or choppy, it should have made the entire game in nothing more than a cool history piece, the first dive of the hedgehog into full-blown 3D and another showing at how we could have almost had a fantastic game if the team was just given enough time… except no, that’s not how the story goes, much less how it ends, ‘cause after having a laugh at the funny animations and weird dialogue and voice acting when I started the game, I began the first phase in Sonic’s story and I… enjoyed myself, like, despite some moments of frustration because of the aforementioned problems I was having a great time? And I actually adored the levels and concepts and found them to be really entertaining? And I during the whole game I was actually having a ton of fun with the story and actually getting invested? WHAT KIND OF WITCHCRAFT IS THIS??!!

Things that by all accounts should have been almost anger inducing where the ones I grew so attached to; the corny voice acting and animations became so endearing in a way I cannot describe, the dumb songs with lyrics that play during cutscenes that at first where annoying turned into something I cannot get enough of, the glitches-no, those are still bad, especially when they made me lose a life, but certain things like the bosses’ life bars nor feeling the gauge and certain aspects of the game’s ‘’unpolishment’’ were… adorable, not in a ‘’Awwwwwww ~, they are trying his hardest, it’s so cute’’ but in a ‘’There’s a incredibly solid game here and that makes the minor mistakes really endearing’’ type of way, ‘cause yeah, the only reason these things awaken these feeling in me is because, despite everything, there’s a metric ton of fun to be had with Sonic Adventure.

‘’How the hell do we translate this character’s gameplay from 2D to 3D?’’ is a question that many major franchise’s had to face, and it was especially difficult to answer back during the fifth and sixth generation; Mario found its answer in a more open world approach, with different missions in big areas not divided by levels, and Sonic, after so many trials and tribulations, found its own way to resolve the conundrum by bringing new ideas to the table as well as keeping what worked from the pixel days and expanding upon it. As I mentioned before, we have a few ‘’Adventure Fields’’ at our disposition, and while as I said I find them to be too big and empty for their own good, they are still pretty neat playgrounds to test the different characters moves and it’s cool they managed to create areas in which everyone can traverse easily, plus since you’ll be re-visiting these places so much during the six camapaings, it's fun to quickly know and react to what you need to do to progress and even find ways to resolve the same puzzle with different abilities at your disposal, even if it’s clearly still re purposing content and a by-product of the lack of time the team had to expand upon each area. But where the true meat lies it’s on the action stages, and oh my sweet chaos, this stuff is GOOD. Instead of the 2D Zone and Act usual division, we get singular stages that we revisit multiple times with different characters each; every time they are perfectly adapted to the character’s gameplay and objection, and it honestly feels like we are visiting different places of the same area each new time, which makes it not only feel overall bigger, but when we actually get to explore same lay-outs feel worth-wile and allows this weird world feel alive and connected. Specially in Sonic and Tails’ case, these zones feel like an bringing old levels to the third dimension, having speed sections and different paths to take and explore, but it also functions as an expansion of that concept, there’s more verticality, more twists and turns, more ideas thrown to you to resolve and more puzzles and obstacles to beat than ever before, some may be a bit uninspired, but most fit the theming and new environment extremely well, like platforms that allow you to walk vertically or switches that activate rockets and secret passages. There may be hiccups along the way, but it’s all just so consistently and just so… uncompromised. Despite all the problems and hurdles, it’s clear that the team didn’t want to give up on ideas, it’s clear they believed that they game wouldn’t be what it needed to be unless they put everything it needed: six full stories with six completely different characters, three main huds with a ton of NPC’s with funny interactions and even upgrades to the movesets and kits, and overarching plot that works incredible with the different perspective idea and a god-damn entire sub-game about raising a Chao that is incredibly well designed and mechanically deep and connects to the main game really naturally… Yeah, I wasn’t joking when I asked which witchcraft they used, they called fucking Ixis Naugus for this shit. And you know, all this talk about how fun and mechanically sound the game is and the six different stories, makes me want to rank them and talk a bit about them individually… but nah, I honestly don’t have that much to sa- SIKE LET’S DO IT.

-Number 6 is Amy’s story, I like the idea of a more stealth approach, but Amy herself probably feels the worst to control out of all the characters and the phases go on for too long despite the story itself being pretty short. It also just doesn’t add a lot to the overall plot, even if I like the idea of Amy gaining more independence and helping the little birdie. Last boss is also pretty cool.

-Number 5 is Big the Cat. Even ignoring my love for the absolute unit that its Big, I really didn’t hat its phases, I understand why it can be the least favorite to some but I liked the phising mechanic once I got used to it and this more calm, slower set of levels was a fun way to change things up. Last boss sucks ass tho.

-Number 4 is for Knuckles. It flip-flops between being pretty fun and a chore; the echidna himself controls like silk and I like a more exploration-based gameplay, but the randomness of the emerald pieces placements made it so it was either a walk in the park or extremely frustrating. But hey, punching enemies and bosses was a blast and Knuckles’ personality and theme were pure gold. I loved the stupid rad red.

-Number 3 goes for Tails. As an individual story plot-wise it was probably my second favorite, I loved this kid’s story of self-improvement and how that tied on beating Sonic on the levels themselves, plus the fact that it was him who ended up saving everyone from Eggman made it such a fantastic way to wrap up his arc, since after all is Sonic who gets the spot-light in the final story. Some clunky combat and frustrating movements because of flight make it so it can’t be higher, but it’s still pretty damn good.

-Number 2 is for Sonic and Super Sonic. The fact that this is one of the best it’s the best possible outcome since it’s also the longest. Just a fantastic translation of Sonic’s gameplay into 3D, I loved the light dash and the homing attack here (except when they didn’t want to work) and going fast can be an absolute joy. Super Sonic is also a great send off to the game, a fantastic final boss and a really nice implementation of the yellow version of the hedgehog.

-And finally, number 1 is Gamma. I… wow… I just…. I honestly wish it was even longer. Gamma has by far the most interesting narrative in the whole game, and probably in any Sonic game period. It tackles incredibly interesting themes without spelling them out to the public, and whether that was intentional or because it was rushed, the result was outstanding nonetheless; and it did that while also being a really fun journey with thight controls, shooting down enemies and hovering was probably the most fun I had in all the game along side Sonic’s sections. I loved Gamma’s story of self-doubt and discovery, it was fantastic and honestly, the fact it was so beautiful perfectly showcase the entire game as a whole.

It's so beautiful and full of heart at times, even if sometimes it’s rough and has little polish; it’s so fun to control and packed with content, even if that sometime makes it bite its own ass. Even if it has problems, what the team managed to accomplish here is nothing short of commendable. It still pains me that I cannot say that I liked it more, but you know what? I’m happy that I like it this much. Sonic Adventure is shattered dream, one that they managed to put the pieces back to place, and even if easy to see the places where its broken, it’s extremely charming, fun, and full of passion and genius. Rough… yeah, that may be true… but also sleek when it really wants to be…

Oh… I completely forgot about the music, didn’t I?... Well, it doesn’t matter…

No really, It Doesn’t Matter, ‘cause IT’S A FUCKING FANTASTIC SONG AND AN INCREDIBLE OST LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-