30 Days of Sonic 2023
Day 8: Sonic Adventure DX (modded)
I popped off when I pulled off Casinopolis skip for the first time. Anyways:
I think above all else, Sonic Adventure was always supposed to be groundbreaking first and foremost. It's intentions were clear from the very get-go: to not only be the flagship title on a new flagship console to save a dying company, but to also showcase the technical capabilities of the Dreamcast.
That much is true when you actually really look at the contents of the game: Did Knuckles really need a treasure hunting-style gameplay? Perhaps so, when you consider that the horizontal mobility he can achieve through a singular glide, but hey, it's an excuse to showcase how the Dreamcast excels graphically at loading huge 3D maps, with detail beyond what most consoles were capable of at the time. Casinopolis sneers at Bob-omb Kingdom.
Then of course there's the obvious presence of Big and Gamma's playstyles: nowhere near the style of gameplay Sonic has modelled itself of during his Genesis days, but they certainly are great ways to show how capable the Dreamcast is at arcade-style shooter games! Heck, Rez was released on the Dreamcast 2 years later, and that game fucking rules. The same can be said for Big, whose fishing gameplay prompted the birth of fishing simulators and every single fucking simulator that came after (where's my cynical game critic simulator huh), or Chaos, which is basically a flashing neon sign saying "HEY LOOK AT OUR WATER EFFECTS! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN WATER THIS REALISTIC BEFORE???? THIS WATER IS SO AWESOME!!!!!!11!!1!!"
Later on, Sonic Adventure even got DLC through online distribution, a common reoccurrence that in 2000 was still considered a rarity. No matter how you slice it, Sonic Adventure and the Dreamcast set out to break new ground upon release.
But the groundbreaking factor of SA1 extends beyond its technical aspects. The scope of the story increased, going from a mostly uninhabited island in the sky to a whole-ass city that ends up getting completely destroyed by the ensuing threat of Chaos (with zero casualties? the fuck-). With six playable characters, the developers somehow put in the effort to construct and weave these tales into one singular grand narrative that serves to tell the overarching plot of the main story at hand. And while it doesn't do a particularly great job of articulating certain plot elements (Knuckles sees other echidnas for the first time in his life and has zero reaction? the fuck-), credit has to be given for trying out something this ambitious for, at that point, modern 3D platformer standards (Klonoa did it better but STILL).
And then there's the self-contained storylines, which have a diverse range in terms of tone, from the melancholy of Knuckles and Gamma, to Tails and Amy's arcs of self-actualisation, to Big being the frontal figure of this game's overall campiness, and Sonic's usual kick-ass 90s edge awesome theme, SA1 has it all. To tell such a wide range of stories in a platformer can also be considered groundbreaking for a 1998 new-gen console title.
But there is more to SA1 than just merely 'groundbreaking', no - over the years, a dedicated group of speedrunners have taken a groundbreaking landmark in the gaming industry, and hundreds of new tricks have emerged popping out the woodwork, proving that SA1 wasn't just 'groundbreaking'. It was simply just 'breaking' apart. The culprit-in-chief being Sonic's spindash, which doesn't just enable Sonic to break the sound barrier, but apparently, even physical barriers and invisible barriers alike. The amount of versatility this move alone provided in speedruns was so notorious, Sonic Team had to actually nerf it come SA2. Ever wanted to see your childhood get destroyed in about less than 52 seconds? Go watch the speedrun world record for Emerald Coast and stare in horror as speedrunners mercilessly tear the level to shreds.
Honestly, though, that's a net positive on SA1's side, because the game is what I consider a prime example of being too 'groundbreaking' for its own good. While it sure is nice of Sonic Team to showcase the ability for an already varied game to also run pinball on the side, it's also super appreciated that Casinopolis skip exists so I don't have to waste 5 minutes of my time farming for rings.
Another thing that can probably be considered groundbreaking at the time was that Sonic Adventure introduced the Auto Camera, which allowed the screen to constantly follow along the characters during gameplay without the requirement of manual input from the player. Unfortunately, that seems to be the most broken part of the game today. Yet, it still doesn't take away from the sense of scope and spectacle the auto camera allows during the whale chase, for example.
They did not consider the fact that just a month before SA1's Japanese release, a little game called The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time released on the Nintendo 64, introducing a groundbreaking and now revolutionary camera control method known as Z-targeting. Ocarina of Time is now commonly regarded as THE greatest game of all time.
Talk about a heartbreaker.
Final rating: 7/10
Day 8: Sonic Adventure DX (modded)
I popped off when I pulled off Casinopolis skip for the first time. Anyways:
I think above all else, Sonic Adventure was always supposed to be groundbreaking first and foremost. It's intentions were clear from the very get-go: to not only be the flagship title on a new flagship console to save a dying company, but to also showcase the technical capabilities of the Dreamcast.
That much is true when you actually really look at the contents of the game: Did Knuckles really need a treasure hunting-style gameplay? Perhaps so, when you consider that the horizontal mobility he can achieve through a singular glide, but hey, it's an excuse to showcase how the Dreamcast excels graphically at loading huge 3D maps, with detail beyond what most consoles were capable of at the time. Casinopolis sneers at Bob-omb Kingdom.
Then of course there's the obvious presence of Big and Gamma's playstyles: nowhere near the style of gameplay Sonic has modelled itself of during his Genesis days, but they certainly are great ways to show how capable the Dreamcast is at arcade-style shooter games! Heck, Rez was released on the Dreamcast 2 years later, and that game fucking rules. The same can be said for Big, whose fishing gameplay prompted the birth of fishing simulators and every single fucking simulator that came after (where's my cynical game critic simulator huh), or Chaos, which is basically a flashing neon sign saying "HEY LOOK AT OUR WATER EFFECTS! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN WATER THIS REALISTIC BEFORE???? THIS WATER IS SO AWESOME!!!!!!11!!1!!"
Later on, Sonic Adventure even got DLC through online distribution, a common reoccurrence that in 2000 was still considered a rarity. No matter how you slice it, Sonic Adventure and the Dreamcast set out to break new ground upon release.
But the groundbreaking factor of SA1 extends beyond its technical aspects. The scope of the story increased, going from a mostly uninhabited island in the sky to a whole-ass city that ends up getting completely destroyed by the ensuing threat of Chaos (with zero casualties? the fuck-). With six playable characters, the developers somehow put in the effort to construct and weave these tales into one singular grand narrative that serves to tell the overarching plot of the main story at hand. And while it doesn't do a particularly great job of articulating certain plot elements (Knuckles sees other echidnas for the first time in his life and has zero reaction? the fuck-), credit has to be given for trying out something this ambitious for, at that point, modern 3D platformer standards (Klonoa did it better but STILL).
And then there's the self-contained storylines, which have a diverse range in terms of tone, from the melancholy of Knuckles and Gamma, to Tails and Amy's arcs of self-actualisation, to Big being the frontal figure of this game's overall campiness, and Sonic's usual kick-ass 90s edge awesome theme, SA1 has it all. To tell such a wide range of stories in a platformer can also be considered groundbreaking for a 1998 new-gen console title.
But there is more to SA1 than just merely 'groundbreaking', no - over the years, a dedicated group of speedrunners have taken a groundbreaking landmark in the gaming industry, and hundreds of new tricks have emerged popping out the woodwork, proving that SA1 wasn't just 'groundbreaking'. It was simply just 'breaking' apart. The culprit-in-chief being Sonic's spindash, which doesn't just enable Sonic to break the sound barrier, but apparently, even physical barriers and invisible barriers alike. The amount of versatility this move alone provided in speedruns was so notorious, Sonic Team had to actually nerf it come SA2. Ever wanted to see your childhood get destroyed in about less than 52 seconds? Go watch the speedrun world record for Emerald Coast and stare in horror as speedrunners mercilessly tear the level to shreds.
Honestly, though, that's a net positive on SA1's side, because the game is what I consider a prime example of being too 'groundbreaking' for its own good. While it sure is nice of Sonic Team to showcase the ability for an already varied game to also run pinball on the side, it's also super appreciated that Casinopolis skip exists so I don't have to waste 5 minutes of my time farming for rings.
Another thing that can probably be considered groundbreaking at the time was that Sonic Adventure introduced the Auto Camera, which allowed the screen to constantly follow along the characters during gameplay without the requirement of manual input from the player. Unfortunately, that seems to be the most broken part of the game today. Yet, it still doesn't take away from the sense of scope and spectacle the auto camera allows during the whale chase, for example.
They did not consider the fact that just a month before SA1's Japanese release, a little game called The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time released on the Nintendo 64, introducing a groundbreaking and now revolutionary camera control method known as Z-targeting. Ocarina of Time is now commonly regarded as THE greatest game of all time.
Talk about a heartbreaker.
Final rating: 7/10