One of my soft New Years resolutions is to finally get around to clearing my backlog. Mine isn’t too bad, only around 15 games or so, but I have a bad habit of only finishing parts of games before abandoning them for months. However, I’ve set a new rule that I can only buy a new game once I’ve finished two I already have to incentivize me to actually wrap said unfinished games up (and shows, cough cough Digimon Frontier). The first game I’ve finished under this system is, as you can probably guess from the title, Sonic Adventure.
Instead of a traditional, linear structure, Adventure instead has 6 separate stories that intersect to form the full narrative, with each featuring a different character that has their own motivations / arc / playstyle. I’ll get into my full thoughts on this later on, but as each character is very different, I’ll be trying out a unique way to get my rating. I’ll give each story its own score, assign another score encompassing the general world / graphics / music / etc, and average them all out to get my final verdict.
Starting with Sonic’s story, the first thing I noticed is the overall jank (which persists throughout the entire game in different forms). He’s really fun to zip around as, but his movement sort of feels like you entered in a cheat code to make him 3X faster than he should be. If you aren’t playing very carefully, you’re virtually guaranteed to be constantly bumping into walls since the small stages don’t really feel designed to handle how fast he can go. This is reinforced by how rigid the level geometry is. Invisible walls are everywhere, easy to get caught on, and instantly kill all speed, which creates the sense that you’re very boxed-in even in open-looking areas. In addition, there are a lot of times where the game will try to take control for a set piece, but not very well, and you have to try and work with it so it doesn’t bug out and kill you. Despite all that, Sonic’s story still feels by far the most fleshed out and generally enjoyable. His narrative is the most straightforward and heroic, he has the most stages (and they’re the most tailored to his playstyle), the most dramatic moments, and just obviously had the most QA / resources put into making it a somewhat polished experience. The whole experience just has a very relaxing summer vibe to it, and I think its biggest strength is that I think it translates both Sonic’s character and personality incredibly well from his original “soft edgy” early 90s persona to more of a “cool” persona that fits the late 90s / early 00s much better in my opinion. I’d give it a 9/10.
Moving on, Tails’ story is next, and he’s honestly almost the same as Sonic except for being able to fly. The jank this time around is more that the flying ability is incredibly OP. It generates an absurd amount of lift and a lot of his stages do nothing to stop you from abusing it to just fly over everything. To spice up the gameplay, you’re always racing against another character. Some of the reviews I read before playing mentioned that these races are dead easy, but I actually found them a decent challenge. Not enough to actually lose any, however they kept me on my toes enough for the stages to feel meaningfully different from Sonic’s. Aside from Sonic, I’d say Tails’ story is the second most fleshed out. He goes through almost all the stages and it lasts a pretty good length of time. The narrative mainly centers around becoming more independent from Sonic, which is executed decently in my opinion. I really like how they made Eggman sound genuinely threatening in the final battle to reflect Tails’ perspective. It’s also hinted at earlier, though subtly enough that I’m unsure if it was intentional given how obvious everything in this game is. I’d give it an 8/10 overall, it feels like a very solid expansion even if it wouldn’t quite hold up as a standalone game like I think Sonic’s would.
Next up is Knuckles, and things begin to take a bit of a hit starting here. He moves slower as the objective is to find three pieces of the Master Emerald rather than just speeding through levels. The design of his stages tends to be more vertical since you can both glide through the air and climb. They’re… fine, which is the word I’d use to sum up this story. There’s nothing, too easy, too hard or inherently “wrong,” but there also isn’t much of a spark making things fun. All the levels just felt like arbitrary obstacle courses I had to clear in-between cutscenes. The narrative pulled things up a good amount for me though. It centers around him guarding the Master Emerald and retrieving it from Chaos. It’s the first time we actually diverge from Sonic / Tails’ perspective, and I find it really cool how the characters see the same scenes differently. It was also interesting seeing the Angel Island subplot we didn’t get to see much of before get resolved. I’d give Knuckles’ story a 7/10, kinda weak on the gameplay front, but solid narratively.
Number four out of six is Amy, who continues the downward spiral of quality. She moves slowly as well, but her gimmick is that there’s a robot continuously following behind her that you need to avoid. It ends up being quite annoying. Her hammer attack brings her to a dead stop, and the robot is in this annoying space where you can’t just enjoy the quality music, but it also isn’t much of a challenge. I’d say she ends up being in roughly the same spot as Knuckles gameplay-wise. Not offensively bad but aggressively mediocre. The true downgrade comes from the story. She’s essentially discount Tails in that her story is about detaching from Sonic. Her trying to make it so she doesn’t need to be rescued rather than just generically relying on him is essentially the only difference, and it isn’t a meaningful one. I’d give it a 4/10, I felt like I was completely done with her playstyle by the end despite it being rather short.
Stepping up to bat after her is Big, sort of the laughingstock of this game online, and for good reason. He’s as annoying to control as he seems. Before I learned the trick to his levels online (alternating the aggressive and light reeling in), I thought I may just be stuck and not be able to finish the game because I couldn’t catch anything for the life of me. You can barely maneuver the rod, Froggy is nearly impossible to see, and he seemingly breaks off at random. It’s absolutely maddening trying to play legit without abusing the exploit. The narrative of him chasing Froggy to all these locales was actually pretty funny, but the awful gameplay prevents it from being “it’s so bad it’s good.” It’s just bad. I’d give it a 2/10.
Finally, we have Gamma, who’s actually surprisingly good. A lot of reviewers seem to almost glaze him, but I only half agree with that take. The portion I disagree with was his gameplay, which centers around shooting enemies to gain extra time. It’s fun and certainly unique, but lacks polish in my opinion. Only the final zone actually feels like it was designed with him in mind, and even it still has some jank. On the flip side, his narrative is probably the outright best of the six, even better than Sonic’s. We get to see him turn on Eggman and save his brothers, and it’s executed in a surprisingly tactful, even somewhat emotional way. I’d give it an 8/10.
On the general world / graphics / music, it’s all really great for its era and still holds up well today. It really strongly conjures this feeling of liminality with how enclosed the world / areas are and the repetitiveness of the music. It feels like you’re only allowed to explore a tiny piece of what you’re supposed to imagine existing, which makes what you can see more special. It’s honestly hard to convey the precise vibe over text, but it’s something I’d say I’ve only experienced playing this game. The world itself is fairly interesting, I like how Takal is integrated into the story and the connection between the Mystic Ruins, the past civilization and Station Square, even if it’s simple, and the OST is full of bangers like every Sonic soundtrack. I’d give all three a collective 9/10.
Averaging all the scores together gives 6.7/10, which I’d say reflects the overall quality well. It’s a firm mixed bag with a lot of bad, but a majority is definitely made up of good elements. I’d say it’s absolutely worth it if you’re a Sonic fan who’s somehow never played it, but if you’re not one, I’d leave it until a breezy summer to match the vibe or if you’re just absolutely craving a 3D platformer.