I have a very long and personal history with Sonic Adventure. It's the first game I ever beat as a kid (with help from my older sister) and has remained one of my favorites to revisit for much of my life. For this replay, I played the original Japanese release on Dreamcast for the first time. I'd seen the Dreamcast visuals and played the PC version with PkR's wonderful Dreamcast Conversion and ItsEasyActually's SA1_Chars, but to see the real thing in action was a treat despite the lower framerate and occasional slowdown. I also want to go out of my way to commend the Japanese voice acting for this game, it's genuinely great stuff and I'm very glad that same cast has voiced the characters ever since.
Sonic Adventure's general gameplay is an admission that classic Sonic's physics-playground design was not properly translated to 3D. However I do think it's a solid first try at a Sonic Team 3D platformer and in some ways still holds up well against its most popular contemporary, Super Mario 64. General movement for most characters tends towards tight and snappy, levels are VERY big and complex for 1998, and the camera does an okay job of not being a hassle. The quality of gameplay itself can vary between the playable characters, but a full playthrough isn't too demanding when it comes to repeating content or doing tedious objectives like many later 3D Sonic games would be.
The game is structured around individual character stories, which itself comes with some inherent benefits and problems. You begin the game with Sonic and gradually gain access to the other characters as you run into them in whatever story you are playing. You can play a story from start to finish, or hop between them to vary your play sessions. Though, Sonic's story is by far the longest at around 2-3 hours, and most other characters can be completed in under 2. The stories will overlap as characters meet each other, though perspective and memory come into play as each character gets unique dialogue for repeated scenes in the English version (this is not true in Japanese afaik and there is MUCH speculation as to why this is the case).
Sonic's story is a typical adventure for the hero, who runs into a powerful being called Chaos who he learns Eggman is using with the chaos emeralds to wreak havoc as usual. The plot is downright goofy at times and I love it for it, though the real focus of this part is the fun levels. There's a great variety of platforming, enemies, setpieces, and the environmental detail was above and beyond compared to even the best 3D platformers of the time. Though, with Sonic's speed, the whole thing is over by the time you will likely be craving more, and the rest of the game isn't quite the same.
Tails is the closest character to Sonic both in control and story content, as most of his time is spent racing Sonic in segments of his levels Tails follows in. The focus here is in using his flight (which last much shorter than in 3&K) to go through shortcut rings, which is decent fun but definitely not as interesting as Sonic's more organic level flow. The two get separated, and Tails begins a character arc or learning to believe in himself (heh) by saving Station Square from Eggman's backup plan of "well I guess I'll just nuke em".
Knuckles' gameplay is the most unique of the classic lot, dubbed "treasure hunting" by the fans for its freeform goal of collecting hidden master emerald shards instead of traversing to a goal of some kind. He's usually confined to a portion of a level Sonic went to, though in the new context these levels become more like interesting puzzle rooms. My only real complaint about this mode is that it's over so fast, and on repeat playthroughs you can often complete levels in under a minute or two. This game has by far my favorite portrayal of Knuckles as a character, this lone wolf who is tasked with preserving the last remaining treasure of his long lost people. He's noble and thoughtful, though very easily fooled as he has little experience with others and society.
Amy is the last of the returning characters and the one who got her playable debut here. This one I'm pretty conflicted on, the main issue being her acceleration curve (the startup is even slower than Sonic 1), though once she's up to speed and can hammer jump she's fun to use. Her story, like Tails', is about independence and self-reliance, though with more of a "girlboss" angle that I appreciate despite the surface-level nature of it all. Quite possibly the first feminist platformer character, what a true icon. She's actually got an original level that Sonic doesn't visit, along with a few unique places in his levels too.
Big the Cat is a new character for this game whose main purpose is to go fishing for his best friend Froggy who is very strenuously related to the Chaos plot. The fishing is in pools of water along the Sonic path of larger levels, and it's... not very good. Once you learn that you have to flick the analog stick down to "yank" the line, it's just a matter of spamming that to do everything. While many people dread this part, I sort of just grit my teeth and rush through it. I do kinda appreciate Big and Froggy as characters, it's just not fun to play this part.
The last character, and secretly the best, is newcomer E-102 Gamma. Gamma is one of Eggman's new line of E-series sentient robots to replace the Egg Robo as all-purpose hitmen and general service bots. Though, Gamma quickly realizes all of his "brothers" are only seen as useless tools to Eggman, and his creator would toss him aside and experiment on him the same if he were ever to fail at a task like they do. Through a chance meeting with Amy and the bird she protected, he resolves to free the captive animals powering his brothers by killing them. His gameplay introduces shooting, and has a time-bonus combo system that's decent fun to get good with. This story was surprisingly touching and emotional for a Sonic game, and stands out as a series highlight. Honestly if you've never played this game, it's worth it just for this.
That leads pretty well into music, which this game absolutely nails. The soundtrack is incredibly varied, with hints of rock, jazz, electronic, and funk spread through a huge amount of unique tracks. There's a kick ass song for literally every little thing you could think of getting its own song in this game, it's wild. And this game began the absolutely legendary trend of a lyrical rock song over the Super Sonic vs. final boss battle, featuring the newly formed band of Crush 40 who would then go on to be one of the biggest names in video game music period.
Over the course of the rest of the characters' stories, you will slowly learn about Tikal, the origins of Chaos, and more about the history of the echidna tribe Knuckles comes from. This overarching history is a defining feature of this game and frankly is the secret sauce that ties classic and modern Sonic neatly into one continuity in my eyes. And the way it all leads into the final Super Sonic story is very well written, especially for a game trying all these ideas out for the first time.
This game is the absolute definition of "overhated", it's pretty standard stuff for a platformer of the time. People compare it a lot to games like Mario Sunshine, Jak & Daxter, and Sly Cooper when in reality it came out closer to stuff like Spyro the Dragon, Crash 3, and Gex. There are certainly issues and stumbling points, but I'd say it was a decently faithful Sonic game, and feels appropriate as the first 3D game as well as the one to succeed Sonic & Knuckles.
Sonic Adventure's general gameplay is an admission that classic Sonic's physics-playground design was not properly translated to 3D. However I do think it's a solid first try at a Sonic Team 3D platformer and in some ways still holds up well against its most popular contemporary, Super Mario 64. General movement for most characters tends towards tight and snappy, levels are VERY big and complex for 1998, and the camera does an okay job of not being a hassle. The quality of gameplay itself can vary between the playable characters, but a full playthrough isn't too demanding when it comes to repeating content or doing tedious objectives like many later 3D Sonic games would be.
The game is structured around individual character stories, which itself comes with some inherent benefits and problems. You begin the game with Sonic and gradually gain access to the other characters as you run into them in whatever story you are playing. You can play a story from start to finish, or hop between them to vary your play sessions. Though, Sonic's story is by far the longest at around 2-3 hours, and most other characters can be completed in under 2. The stories will overlap as characters meet each other, though perspective and memory come into play as each character gets unique dialogue for repeated scenes in the English version (this is not true in Japanese afaik and there is MUCH speculation as to why this is the case).
Sonic's story is a typical adventure for the hero, who runs into a powerful being called Chaos who he learns Eggman is using with the chaos emeralds to wreak havoc as usual. The plot is downright goofy at times and I love it for it, though the real focus of this part is the fun levels. There's a great variety of platforming, enemies, setpieces, and the environmental detail was above and beyond compared to even the best 3D platformers of the time. Though, with Sonic's speed, the whole thing is over by the time you will likely be craving more, and the rest of the game isn't quite the same.
Tails is the closest character to Sonic both in control and story content, as most of his time is spent racing Sonic in segments of his levels Tails follows in. The focus here is in using his flight (which last much shorter than in 3&K) to go through shortcut rings, which is decent fun but definitely not as interesting as Sonic's more organic level flow. The two get separated, and Tails begins a character arc or learning to believe in himself (heh) by saving Station Square from Eggman's backup plan of "well I guess I'll just nuke em".
Knuckles' gameplay is the most unique of the classic lot, dubbed "treasure hunting" by the fans for its freeform goal of collecting hidden master emerald shards instead of traversing to a goal of some kind. He's usually confined to a portion of a level Sonic went to, though in the new context these levels become more like interesting puzzle rooms. My only real complaint about this mode is that it's over so fast, and on repeat playthroughs you can often complete levels in under a minute or two. This game has by far my favorite portrayal of Knuckles as a character, this lone wolf who is tasked with preserving the last remaining treasure of his long lost people. He's noble and thoughtful, though very easily fooled as he has little experience with others and society.
Amy is the last of the returning characters and the one who got her playable debut here. This one I'm pretty conflicted on, the main issue being her acceleration curve (the startup is even slower than Sonic 1), though once she's up to speed and can hammer jump she's fun to use. Her story, like Tails', is about independence and self-reliance, though with more of a "girlboss" angle that I appreciate despite the surface-level nature of it all. Quite possibly the first feminist platformer character, what a true icon. She's actually got an original level that Sonic doesn't visit, along with a few unique places in his levels too.
Big the Cat is a new character for this game whose main purpose is to go fishing for his best friend Froggy who is very strenuously related to the Chaos plot. The fishing is in pools of water along the Sonic path of larger levels, and it's... not very good. Once you learn that you have to flick the analog stick down to "yank" the line, it's just a matter of spamming that to do everything. While many people dread this part, I sort of just grit my teeth and rush through it. I do kinda appreciate Big and Froggy as characters, it's just not fun to play this part.
The last character, and secretly the best, is newcomer E-102 Gamma. Gamma is one of Eggman's new line of E-series sentient robots to replace the Egg Robo as all-purpose hitmen and general service bots. Though, Gamma quickly realizes all of his "brothers" are only seen as useless tools to Eggman, and his creator would toss him aside and experiment on him the same if he were ever to fail at a task like they do. Through a chance meeting with Amy and the bird she protected, he resolves to free the captive animals powering his brothers by killing them. His gameplay introduces shooting, and has a time-bonus combo system that's decent fun to get good with. This story was surprisingly touching and emotional for a Sonic game, and stands out as a series highlight. Honestly if you've never played this game, it's worth it just for this.
That leads pretty well into music, which this game absolutely nails. The soundtrack is incredibly varied, with hints of rock, jazz, electronic, and funk spread through a huge amount of unique tracks. There's a kick ass song for literally every little thing you could think of getting its own song in this game, it's wild. And this game began the absolutely legendary trend of a lyrical rock song over the Super Sonic vs. final boss battle, featuring the newly formed band of Crush 40 who would then go on to be one of the biggest names in video game music period.
Over the course of the rest of the characters' stories, you will slowly learn about Tikal, the origins of Chaos, and more about the history of the echidna tribe Knuckles comes from. This overarching history is a defining feature of this game and frankly is the secret sauce that ties classic and modern Sonic neatly into one continuity in my eyes. And the way it all leads into the final Super Sonic story is very well written, especially for a game trying all these ideas out for the first time.
This game is the absolute definition of "overhated", it's pretty standard stuff for a platformer of the time. People compare it a lot to games like Mario Sunshine, Jak & Daxter, and Sly Cooper when in reality it came out closer to stuff like Spyro the Dragon, Crash 3, and Gex. There are certainly issues and stumbling points, but I'd say it was a decently faithful Sonic game, and feels appropriate as the first 3D game as well as the one to succeed Sonic & Knuckles.