One of Eggman's lines during Speed Highway as Tails is "I'll take the whole city with me", implying that he actually was just going to blow himself up with the city. Eggman always seemed a bit more unhinged in SA1, like a lot more of a madman than most other games.
And during Tails' story, he speaks with a lot more aggression throughout. Compare the cutscenes between Tails' and Sonic's story, Eggman gets louder and angrier during the Tails one and I always took it as Tails being more intimidated by Eggman.
Except a brief scene in Lost World where he said "I will burn your world you rebellious scum!" And smashed a block screen followed up with, "As long as I can still strangle a Zeti, my hands are fine."
I like an evil egg man, and I feel like the more they don’t play his evilness less affective as a bad guy he really is. Because in the OG games even though it’s comical he was doing some serious stuff.
What makes SA1 endearing to me is how different it feels from other entries in the series, even SA2. I especially love the free roaming adventures fields, with Mystic Ruins being one of my favourite areas in video games.
I agree.... I love the game in it's existing state, but can you imagine the potential of this game if it were remade and given a lot more polish? Or if we got a Sonic adventure 3 that was done in SA1 style?
Sonic adventure to me was….Sonic’s return to form. Sonic adventure should have been a saturn launch title. Then it would have been a pack in title graphical upgrade for the dc . Sega had a reputation for rushing games out. And sonic adventure was a victim of that, they get the games up and running , but just rush through everything else into mediocrity. They could have fixed the voice acting and affixed the mouth movement with the voice. Naughty dog did this in psx already with crash, so there was no more excuse for bad mouth movement for va. The camera didn’t need to get stuck or swing, when it get in trouble, it needed to zoom out and back a little bit and stayed still for a while until, figuring out what is going on or the character remove from tight spaces . The human characters npc’s could have used some more detail . Glitch and bug squashing could have been given some more time Physics & momentum system could have been placed in certain areas, They run through small rivers like it’s invisible, water don’t even slash the control vibrate and the character slow down a bit
Easily my 3rd favorite Sonic game behind 3K and Unleashed I'm glad that you took an in-depth look at what did and didn't work instead of blindly bashing it like most people. While we may disagree, I really liked this review.
"player already knows this" You're missing the fact that the stories can be played out of order, so the player might not already know this. In fact as the challenge ramps up, it becomes natural to check out other stories before progressing the Sonic story. The easy filler becomes welcome. You boot up Sonic Adventure for just half an hour every day and are immersed in the world and advance something at least a tiny bit, and the spaced out cutscene repeats are not annoying at all. Very little of the overworld has an actual gameplay function, but it feels believable for this reason, as if it was more of an actual place that could exist than an artificial obstacle course. Furthermore the stories all have cute little touches, the cutscenes differ ever so slightly in tone while conveying same information, or continuity is deliberately broken, adding to characterisation, which granted, makes everyone prone to lying, which isn't very deep, but i'll take that, i thought it was mildly humorous at the time. The main inspiration is i believe Rashomon, a Japanese classic that was about to turn 50 and features several unreliable narrators with interweaving and merging stories. Now naturally Sonic Adventure is not about to ever be viewed as a comparable narrative masterpiece, but i think the ambition is admirable in a way. The way i see it, Sonic narratives are all about character caricatures, usually without any character development because they have to be these unchanging toys, lovable and adored by everyone based on their core character traits, and story and continuity are basically a myth. Whenever someone goes on about continuity in Sonic universe, i really want to slap them pretty hard. Now naturally these elements which i believe worked well enough at the time have not aged very well. We are viewing the game through the lens of busy lives and 35+ years of game backlog that we are yet to get back to, while more games get added to the backlog every year. You may be subject to reviewer fatigue, where a game that was intended to last several months is raced through within mere days and things that aren't actually bothersome at normal pace become quite grating. You also have the skill to complete so many things on first try that a 9 year old which encounters the analogue controller for the first time probably didn't, so for you the game is 80% filler, for a child, it used to be 80% falling down bottomless pits or running out of rings, with a welcome calm respite in between. Playing games can get really, really tiresome if you're not terribly good at them! Makes me wonder, should old games be reviewed against modern sensibilities or the circumstances at the time of their release? And i still like it a lot more than SA2. Then again i love Rouge so there's that. OK i love her cutscenes, when it comes to her stages, i don't actually care about them at all.
@@ukyoize To what extent? Does it matter? There is no character development at all. Bloody Knuckles gets fooled by Eggman every damn time, he never learns.
@@SianaGearz what are your talking about? Not only was knuckles last tricked by Eggman in 2002's Sonic advance 2 18 years ago but did he also only believe Eggman after he saw Sonic holding the green Chaos emerald which from a distance looks like a shard of the Master emerald or in other words he didn't trust Eggman up until he saw evidence that he wasn't lying. Everyone and there mothers got mad just a few year ago about Forces concerning Tails because the development he received in SA1 about becoming more brave and independent did end up sticking all the way to 2008 in which unleashed was the first game to disregard it. Same goes for Amy over the games from SA1 to 06 and Rivals one does she go from someone rather weak with no believe in her own strength (Start of SA1) to being overconfident after a major victory( most of SA2) to actually becoming reasonable and through hard work reaching a level of strength that allows her to hold her own among the heroes(shadow and 06) And while Amy developed so did Sonic's relationship to her from also seeing her as weak only letting her tag along when he things she needs protection (Sa 1 and 2) to after seeing her growth (Heroes and Battle) letting her participate in real battles (Shadow , advance 3) and even trust her to deal with real threats (vs Silver in 06) he even stopped his running away routing with her by the time 2006 with Rush being the last game in which he just ran away with the reason "just because". I could now also go on about Shadow's arc or how knuckles since Heroes became a full one friend with Sonic after he got friendlier with him over the time span of the adventure games or how post SA1 Angle island would consistently stay grounded as seen in games like Sonic Battle or how some plot threats would carry over between games like Shadows return or the fate of Emerl. It this enough for you or do I have to go one?
2015: "Sonic Adventure is an awesome game.... [It] is enjoyable." 2020: "Sonic Adventure is a *chore* to play through." Now that takes guts, deciding to take the time to look at something you've reviewed before in a new perspective. I don't believe in calling out contradictions between your old review and this one, but I will admire that you decided to give your current thoughts in what you think is your most possibly objective stance on this game. Keep up the good work.
You didn't say something along the lines of "Sonic the Hedgehog has always had a rocky transition to 3d", so 0/10: not a true review. Get off of RUclips, faker.
I usually avoid reviews that pass the 30 minute mark at all cost, but i did an exception with your unleashed review and i just loved your objectivity and the way you put things into perspective. The sonic franchise is one filled to the brim with overreactions (from detractors and fans alike). Thank you for bringing new perspectives and going in deep what makes these games tick (and what doesnt)
Regarding the 'bad port job' of SADX, I agree overall, however most of the complaints that this game is glitchy, ugly, has weird controls and bad audio mixing come from the PC version, not the Gamecube version. Most people that buy Sonic Adventure today go and purchase it on the PC, understandably. After all, why should you prefer having to play on the Dreamcast over having a 16:9 aspect ratio, high resolution textures, a smooth and consistent framerate and all of the other extras that having it on PC provides? Simple - the PC version is not only a port, but it's actually a port of the Xbox 360 and PS3 version, which itself is a modified version of the Gamecube port of the original game. Not only did the game not take very nicely to being reoptimised for each system over and over, but it actually deteriorated and became exponentially worse with each version. So the criticism of the DX port is not centred towards the Gamecube version (which is a fine version to play if you don't mind the change of artstyle), but the Frankenstein's monster of bad ports that is being sold on PC.
"This sort of combo system would be a great addition to the sky chase sub stages." It was part of them. I don't know how I figured it out but I figured it out pretty early on as a 5 year old come on.
@@tadaokou4919 I they are kinda right. Games that a significant amount of people like are SA 1 and 2, Unleashed, original trilogy, Generations, and Mania. Not going to include the handhelds because most of them were good and I'm just going to talk about the main home console games. I mean I personally hate the adventure games, but there's no denying that opinions are all over the place with the adventure games
This video is incredible! I love these sonic analysis, have just to say that the word "terrific" was very confusing to me, its clear during the video that its something very awesome, but I was confused with terrible during the whole video, almost fell at floor when he said that for the soundtrack... and then I was just "wow, he was telling a good thing, ok"!
I can't help but think that if you feel the need to make dry charts to quantify how much fun you think you should be having in a game, then you're already well past the point of being reasonably charitable toward it.
@Cameron Douglas But the very concept is flawed. This is a Sonic game from 1998. Imagine all the kids who keep struggling without anywhere near as much gameplay experience, having to try and try and try again. Their ratio is going to be a lot heavier on the gameplay than the "everything else" part. Plus, videogames tend to be a lot less fun in general if you play them like a reviewer, as in trying to get through the whole thing as fast as possible. It's not really a solid outlook.
This is my favourite Sonic game so it was kind of difficult to analyse your complaints, but at the end of the day, I'm glad I did. I still love the game, but this review helped me understand why so many people don't, and that's okay! It only makes me more excited for a possible remake that could potentially make this game the masterpiece it could've been. You should've touched on the chao garden though, that's like half of the game's playtime for some.
21:42 Whaaaat!? I've completed the game like 6-7 times but never knew you could do this. I don't think I ever saw any barrels in SA. Is it exclusive to this level?
Yes yes yes! I’ve been waiting! God bless you Kris! Made my whole night! Edit: I wanted to go back after watching and give some of my opinions to add to the discussion. I have to say, right off the bat, I felt like I watched 41 minutes of my own thought. As a child playing through this game was a blast, every last bit of it. Those CGI cutscenes were everything to me for some reason and just helped bring the game to life a little more. The music is fantastic. And while I do agree that this is a video game and so gameplay should have most of the focus I do enjoy some of the adventure field moments. Flying super high in the jungle as Knuckles was always a favorite as a kid to kill time and mess around. Maybe by today’s standards their rather boring but for their time I think they’re fun and engaging enough. My rose tinted goggles keep me protected from most of the hate, but I do acknowledge the downfalls of the game. As you said, it’s a chore to play through but it’s my chore and I still love it. Great video and keep up the work as always!
Man I love this channel SA1 was super fun for me as a kid. But I was the kid who would just run around Hyrule Field and Peach's Castle, so I loved running around the adventure stages. Haha I actually remember groaning when I accidentally stumbled upon an action stage.
It’s worth noting that Big’s gameplay isn’t quite as random as this review would portray it. When Froggy or a fish bites the line, the player is supposed to hold down on the analog stick in order to get a hit. This information can be found in the “instruction” section while selecting a character and in the instruction booklet. Knowing this doesn’t really improve Big’s gameplay in any significant way, but it helps to reduce the randomness. There definitely should have been some sort of on-screen prompt during gameplay informing the player to hold down instead of stashing it away in menus and booklets that most players don’t read.
Starway_ Also if any fish ever goes directly below Bigs exact location, the fish gets off. A weird quirk that’s annoying in Icecap but just something that helps to know. Same for the glass aquarium walls in Hot Shelter, it makes it cancel whatever you’re catching for some reason.
Tails figuring out about the positive energies of the chaos emeralds from Tikal was something I never picked up on, even after all this time having played the game. Good review and strong insight.
Wow, yeah. This in-depth look definitely mirrors a lot of the more sober thoughts about the game and how it's aged. I used to love this game, but even before I saw all the reviews around it, I played it less and less. Eventually, I just couldn't bring myself to keep playing through it, despite playing some of it occasionally. I love this game for what it meant to me as a child, but heck, even I've aged better than Sonic Adventure's lip movement.
Lipsync follows Japanese audio, not English, and it's actually remarkably good... at least if you're on the Dreamcast and the tiny little audio drift induced by platform transition and porting process has not taken hold yet.
Also, the game never was polarizing, this is historical revisionism, it was critically acclaimed when it came out, only matched by Sonic 3, Mania and Sonic Adventure 2. *This is definetly one of the worst analysis on Sonic Adventure that i ever seen* . It lacks the Adventure part in the analysis, so, the filler aspect doesn't make sense if all is tied as a whole like SA2 did too and with the exception of Big The Cat, the gameplay styles fit the basics of Sonic. Also, the game's progression is very streamlined, you can argue that not skipping cutscenes hurts the replayability but this was fixed in DX.
@@pipeslimeproductions76 If his points about the gameplay styles and story were valid, Sonic Adventure 2 can't be a thing because they also did again the same thing of the same story, only now hero vs dark and some similar cutscenes vs the 6 characters, it's another take on basically the same concepts. Some of his points were very flawed, i can understand if Big the Cat plays objectively bad or that the voice acting is kinda cringe but i don't see any of this supposed "filler" in a *Adventure Action-Platformer* with Sonic characters in it.
@@pipeslimeproductions76 I mean I did write an oversize comment ripping most of his negative points apart. And in his video description does he call this and Analysis of Sonic Adventure meaning his opinion for the most part should be irrelevant because an Analysis is not about "What I like and dislike" its about "This things are objectively in this production and this is how there measure up against my criteria" So he him self at least claims that this is not just his opinion but rather an empirical breakdown of the game.
Awesome video! Only complaint is that some of those optional upgrades (particularly the one for Tails) are really useful, and not talking about them felt a bit disappointing. Otherwise, a great analysis as usual Kris! ^o^
It is indeed a game with several flaws, but oh man was it mindblowing at the time. I remember a kid me jaw dropping over the whale, I was like "games can't get better than this"
After thinking it over, I see some flaws in your review. You can skip cutscenes in the DX version so you don't have to sit through each one. The Adventure Fields are similar to Super Mario 64 Peach Castle where you can also play with the characters moveset along with NPCs you can talk too. DX version also includes a Mission Mode giving each character objectives to complete with unlockable Gamegear games for collecting medals and beating missions, even Metal who pretty much plays like Sonic for doing everything. The Chao garden while optional still adds to the experience. I understand the criticisms but for a port it did alright and for Sonic's first 3d attempt it landed.
A pretty fair apraisal, my dude. It's an above average game due to certain parts & moments but others bring it down. I'm personally quite fond of it but acknowledge it's flaws at the same time.
40:22 ExoParadinGamer Said that you can Skip the cutscenes in the Gamecube version So I don’t understand why you need to complain about this. But I don’t know what button is required to do this action. Yeah the game shows it’s age, but look at other games from 1999/ 2000 have they aged better?
@@ikagura Even if the PS1 did not have the best graphics, especially on modern TVs, the gameplay, in MGS1 is still stellar and easy to pick up for its simplicity and creative play
You're clearly trying to be analytical and informative, but it seems like you had no interest in actually exploring the levels and game mechanics to begin with. You simply breezed through the "actually playing the game" part, as if to get it out of the way as quickly as possible and focus on dissecting that short experience - yet, for some strange reason, you never considered simply skipping all those cutscenes you dislike. SA1 and 2 are fun because the levels are so replayable. Collecting animals for your Chao, trying out different routes, getting A-ranks, completing missions, time attack mode... and in the case of SA2, score. SA1's level geometry encourages experimentation while SA2's scoring system encourages endless arcadey play.
@@ikagura that's a part of it but that doesn't mean you shouldn't explore the levels or replay them to get better times. part of the appeal is finding the best route for the best time.
Sonic adventure made the same mistake donkey kong 64 made. It was trying too hard to be something it shouldn't have been. They should've tried to make something more like a fast paced 3D donkey Kong country, and sonic should've tried to make a fast, 3D sonic game that's just FUN. I see so much missed opportunity when sonic went 3D.....
I don't think DK64 is really "trying too hard to be something it shouldn't have been." Rare were good at making 3D platformers in an age where 2D games were shunned for being outdated or old, and DK64 definitely wouldn't have been able to be a 3D version of DKC - the N64 just couldn't cope with games like that. Rather, DK64 tries too hard to be way more than it reasonably should be, which alienates most people.
Well said ! I personally like the game despite not growing up with it, I looked at it more as a kids game which helped alleviate the pain of walking around as well as the story not being too serious.
i always thought of gamma's story to be extremely heartbreaking. he literally sacrifices himself for the bird trapped inside him. :'( this was abnormally deep for a sonic game since.
The adventure part of Sonic ADVENTURE, is why it's good, not why it's bad. If you don't like the adventure parts, you're playing a game that isn't for you. If you don't care about the story, there are plenty of Sonic games that are action-centric.
Just asking, is the playtime breakdown based on the Dreamcast version where your couldn't skip the cutscenes or the DX version where you could. Were the skippable cutscenes taken in account in this breakdown?
Ya some of the items are just questionable at best. Like the charge up attacks are pointless. And Amy's spinning hammer upgrade would be cool... if there was ever a point to use it, like once at all ever.
I really like Sonic, but since I had a PS2 I didn't really play this game until 4-5 years ago, as such I don't really have the Nostalgia factor most people have towards this game (despite being hugely nostalgic towards Sonic). I must say that I had a blast playing through most of Sonic's level, the cutscenes are obviously hideous, but compared to many games of that time they aren't as "bad" and idk I find them funny in a "so bad is good" way. I always giggle when Sonic says "Something buggin' ya" or "C'mon ya big drip", but that is due to my taste in humor. I like Tails gameplay, but yeah it's just a Sonic light playthrought, but having Tails playable with his moveset in 3D is still pretty awesome (specially because we only got it in this game and in Sonic 06). I don't like Emerald hunting but compared to SA2 approach this one is great. Amy is meh, Big the Cat shouldn't even exist, and E102-Gamma campaign and gameplay is pretty cool in my opinion, but nothing groundbreaking obviously. I think that this game is a product of his time, for people who are used to play older games and love Sonic it will be more tolerable than to newer gamers, it's from an era where Sonic Team actually had ambition instead of releasing souless games that try bank on nostalgia like Sonic Forces (I don't think Forces is a terrible game, but it's really shallow). And the soundtrack in this game, as per usual in Sonic, is absolutely fantastic, might be my favorite soundtrack in Sonic franchise and easily up there with my 5-10 greatest soundtracks.
I heard that the lip syncing mirrored the Japanese speech, not the English script, so that would make more sense if true. But I guess they should have localized it, but honestly we make such fusses over things in games that aren't even that important at all.
Wow, comparing this to your older review is fascinating, you said it was a masterpiece back then. Personally though, I love this game regardless of its flaws, and I definitely prefer the Dreamcast graphics so I use a modded pc version that combines the best of both versions.
Big's problem's are worse with his extra missions. Like trying to catch the big fishes is just random, some times it takes forever to reel in, and the mechanics never really became intuitive. For Froggy you don't have a problem you can almost always just hold the button down or mash it, it's far more tedious for the big fish though.
It's worse than anything in the series, I spent 30-40 mins trying to catch a big fish literally going to the TV screen trying to measure it out with my hands and than I realised I need to get upgrades. The game doesn't tell you about this. Sa2's treasure hunting hard mode tell you in the hints you need the goggles or the sun glasses. This shit sucks. That was after I spent 30 mins in twinkle park the first time because I didn't know how to play the playstyle
Is this a thinly veiled plea for a Sonic Adventure remake, Impact? Oh, and this is still the best overall all around 3D Sonic. Which is...quite sad actually.
@@cloudycanine9682 I have no idea as to who you mean as the mario galaxy titles and odessy put it to shame by comparison. Better use of power ups, story, level design, and maybe the music as well. I dont know what 64 does better than any of the future 3d mario entries
Dab dab 64 has a great balance of exploration focused levels and plat forming, I like Odyssey but it reeks of being a fillery game with a lot of empty space and Moons just lying about, only 40% feels like it’s real platforming challenges. Basically what I mean is there’s reason to play 64 and it has merits over the more modern games just like SA1 has.
I always come back to your Sonic videos, also never realized how many angry fans there are in the comments. Nevertheless, love your analysis on this one. Even as someone who still holds the adventure games close to my heart, it's nice to hear other people's thoughts and points
IMO if you say that sonic's new model in DX is not bad, you have no right to judge stuff like the shinyness of the characters in Heroes. You also simply can not tell me that they intentionally changed the rays of light shining to the floor of The Casinopolis Sewer stage into a stupid looking grating.
Good review. I wonder if the controls on the GC are less forgiving than the DC? possibly too fast at 60fps. I found the controls very forgiving for someone who had not played a 3d sonic game before. I got my dreamcast in 2018 and had a PS4 but was still blown away by the dreamcast's graphics and attitude. it was unlike anything i'd seen or owned before. I only played the sonic campaign and left it there because i wanted to have a want to come back and play the rest.
So because I really like Sonic Adventure and disagree with you quite a lot here are my thoughts on your video in the order I observed them. 1) Upgrades So you really want to tell me you want to objectivly judge the games upgrade system without actually getting all of them? This from the start of your argumentation on them makes you point weak because the 3 completely unmentioned upgrades do advance the gameplay quite a lot, Tails Jet Booster increases his overall flied speed and while this makes his stages even easier so does it become quite handy in his further missions in which collecting rings and a more challenging Sonic make these stages far less easier than there were at first. Knuckles Fighting Gloves allow him to perform his own version of the Light speed attack but its far more useful for him because at time will Emerald shards be located inside of Robots and so does it become handy in 2 ways for one does it allow to quickly get the emerald when the enemy carrying it is part of a larger group because instead of painfully taking them out one by one until you get the right one can one maximum head attack take care of all of them and get your the shard in a fraction of the time it would have taken you other wise, And the second why it comes in handy is because the Maximum head attack ignores enemies invulnerable phases meaning that even a spinner that has his electric shied up can be easily destroyed without having to wait. Obviously does this come in handy for Knuckles A mission which has strickt time limits and disallows the usage of Tikal's aid. And the Long Hammer is not only far easier to get with the help of the Warrior feather ability but its increased attack ranged helps greatly with all combat in Amy's stages especially the Fight with Zero becomes a lot easier and getting rid of an annoying enemy while doing the get 50 ring missions in her levels becomes far less dangerous because one doesn't have to get as close to the enemy anymore. And Never mind that BIg's A mission is near or in case of Twinkles park completely impossible without maxed out lure upgrades This obviously effects on its own already the balance between useful and un-useful upgrades. Than would we come to your assessments of the already mentioned upgrades. For one complaining about having to get the ancient light to get to Red mounten while being okay with Big needed to get the lifebelt to get to Ice cap when in both cases the upgrade is just a few steps away from the level entrance is kind of hypocritical of you. And No its not like you were hindered to enter until now because the ancient light hasn't spawned yet the area containing both the ancient light and the entrance to Red montan is locked off by a door until you return there during the story. Your complains about the usefulness of the rhythm batch seams to be more up to your personal preferences given that I have heard from a few people that through a bug skipped it had a far harder time fighting the Egg Walker. And you completely under represent the Light speed dash because there are a few additional paths that aren't obvious at first that can be taken with it. Further more because the Charging of the dash actually creates particles that can activate switches can it also at time be used to activate some rocked early making progression faster. Now for the Gameplay types I feel like you judge Tails purely on his C missions which are rather easy and hard to fail at but his B and A missions are far more challenging the 5 missions because collecting rings distracts from the actual race meaning one will quite often have to give up the leading position in order to optain the wanted amount of rings. And the Faster Sonic can also be much harder to beat especially on Ice Cap is the faster Sonic a steep difficulty increase. And DX further more give Tails even more to do with his unique abilities for his missions in mission mode. Amy's stages are actually buidl around her entirely the only parts she shares with others are the end of Twinckles park (the beginning of it was with the barrels obviously designed around her and using her Hamma ability to quickly get over the barrels and get all 3 switches.) and the start of Final Egg which you however even used as an positive example for her skill usage. The Puzzles are also not nearly as bad as you describe them beside the one in Final Egg does there usually give Amy a Room to learn the mechanic and fallow it up by a segment were the player has to perform the learned action under the stress of Zero chasing the player and while its possible to push him back will he become immun the the plays punches after a few have landed which can make for example the match colors puzzle at the end of Hot shelter really stressing if Zero already became immun. And Zero also far more powerful as level go on if you allow him to fight you in Final Egg for example will he already use most of his boss encounter moves. The real issue seams to be Zero's AI really that often doesn't seam to be able to keep up with Amy and so doesn't cause problems because if you allow him to fallow you into the elevator room in Final Egg will waiting for the Elevator become a battle for survival because Zero will use many powerful attacks while you are confronted in a small room and have to wait for the elevator to finally arrive. As for Big you apparently didn't even bother to check the introduction option on Big before writing his part because the elements that you describe as random are mostly explained in his introductions that can be selected from the Character select menu at any given time after unlocking him. The only somewhat Random element are the Fish AI but this is mostly so that you can't get an heavy fish easily. Actually when you aware of Big's actual mechanics and try to tackles his A missions will you first realize how adrenaline raising the struggle with the Fish can be its than easily on paar with any spectral set peace of a Sonic Stage(even if more anger inducing thanks to really mean Fish AI and the impossibility to know in advance if the fish will be big enough for the mission). Froggy is obviously as easy to catch as he is(as in bottom smashing is enough) so that Big and his fishing wouldn't end up as a roadblock for most players. I am not saying it great or anything but its certainly a lot better than you make it out to be here. I now have to mention Sky Chase because well IT HAS THE SAME COMBO FEATURE its just not required to win but if you ever plan to get a high score in any of the 2 Acts of Sky Chase than will you have to use the Combo feature to get big enough score points because combos give more points than individual shots. And the game actually also gives an incentive to get a High score because in both Acts can you earn a additional second Emblem by beating a certain high score as long as you have already gotten your first meaning the repetition of Sky Chase gives a good opportunity to get these 2 Additional emblems in a single Run of the game. To be continued
Part 2 So first of all repeating cut-scenes really aren't an issue with any version of the game beside the original Dreamcast release because every version after it allows to skip cut scenes rendering this complain pretty mood Now for your statement about Tails story because you are absolutely wrong here Tails big "I really did it without sonic" ending has been build up throughout the game starting by the very Gameplay mechanic behind every Tails level "being better than Sonic" over his reflection to the person he was after the crash with the Egg Carrier to him using his own abilities to crease the Tornado 2 a plain that would successfully conquer the Egg Carrier were Sonic's plain the Tornado has failed. And when it comes to the race against Eggman does it now thematically fits thanks through the interconnection from Story and Gameplay because up-until this point did you try to beat Sonic at a race now does all of this knowledge gained from your friendly play with Sonic into working when its needed to stop Eggman and the Fight afterwards just shows as well that Tails can do it him self its not like he was just sidelining the entire game. He was always in the middle of the action and as I already said the success over the Egg Carrier was his not Sonic's. This is also shown to a lesser extent through Sonic's story in which he quickly decided to stop searching for Tails in favor of Protecting Amy because he simply trust Tails more do deal with a problem than he does with Amy which is a theme that would by the way be further developed on for the 8 years after SA1's release. Also there is a reason why Tails at the start is so close to Sonic its to invoke what Tails up to this point throughout the classic was sonic's side kick that fallows him every step on the way (in fact when ever you story wise have Tails with you will he fallow you during the action stages in Sonic's story and just like in the classic can someone with a second controller play as tails than during Sonic's story) and by reminding us what Tails was and through his flash back what he was even before he meet sonic can we far better see how he changed The only reason Knuckles actually believes Eggman this time around was become he saw Sonic with the green chaos emerald from a distance mistaking it for a shard of the Master emerald because there look near identically and so concluded that Eggman wasn't lying. Ones again did with Amy the Character development fly right over your head throughout the entire Game does Amy become more and more Independent. At the start wanted she Sonic to protect her Bird friend, after her escape from the Egg Carrier did she discover that her new friend has still a family that is missing and as we learned about her when she defended Gamma from even her beloved Sonic would Amy go to extrem lengths for her friends and so with Sonic not an viable choose does she set out into the adventure to help her friend to reunite with her/his family. This on its own already is more independents than she had at the start of her story and this could than continue when she finally meets the birds family only for it to be ruined by Zero now is she angry and now starts her fight with Zero and place keep in mind Zero in Amy's story was so far framed as an untouchable monster much the same way a horror game would treat an enemy and so was so far there only one option when he appeared to runaway in fact each of her levels goals is to reach a balloon to escape him but now does she actually fights back and beats him even. This in therms gives her lots of confidence in her self which is why at the end she wants now Sonic to respect her because she grow to believe in her own strange rather than hiding in the face of danger behind Sonic. And this Ladies and Gentleman is the point were objectivity was thrown right out of the window with your "I don't care about X..." statements here because this is purely subjective and while you can dislike it its not a universal truth because I for example had lots of fun trying to peace all 6 stories as well as all of Tikal's Flash back together and understand whats happening its especially great for me when I actually can meet a few characters on the adventure field outside of a bigger event like seeing Sonic reacting to the just kidnapped Amy in Big's story or listening in on how bored Amy is in her live before her own story actually starts. As for the continuity problems you points out this is actually the point here we see the story from the point of view of our player character so Eggman is more menacing for Tails so it reflects in his dialog, Gamma obviously wins when he tells the story while the reopening of Ice cap and the like are obviously differences done for purely Gameplay reason to insure the developer can control when which character has access to which level. And finally for your point about not needing to see scene twice there are 2 points to that one. 1)As already stated is this a Dreamcast exclusive problem because you can skip them in any other version of the game And 2)The Scenes are obviously repeated because there are important to both stories lets take the Gamma and Amy scene as example, Gamma needs it for his own character growth while Amy needs it to explain why she is free after being captured and why she would defend Gamma even from Sonic. More over there is nothing that would prevent you to unlock or play characters in a different order meaning while fallowing the obvious route from sonic out would Amy's scene come first but if you play Gammas story first would there be a glaring jump because the Cut-scene in this version would only play for Amy to prevent repetition. So no matter how you turn it you can't just cutout these scenes without a peace of the story missing. But to refer to point 1) again if you as the player already know it all can you just simply skip the scene anyway. So Now for one more really big point the adventure fields First of all you completely neglect to mention how the adventure field actually tie all action stages together while you say that there positioning makes no-sense is this simply wrong it makes sense in-universe-logic-wise the entrance to the Casino is were you would expect it in the middle of the city, you enter emerald coast from a beach area, Ice cap is accessed on Angle Island and Speed highway 2 entrances line up perfectly with the buildings there are entered in (the other side of the city hall for Knuckles and the upper layer of a skyscraper for sonic) Tie this together with the ongoing stories of random people on the adventure field and you will realize that some of the intuitive level progression was sacrificed for a more logical connected and consistent world in which hubs and Action stages unlike most games of its era ala Mario 64 or Banjo & Kazooie are actually directly connected. This than leads to an increase in the immersion of the games world and story enhancing enjoyment gained through this factors. While you made it clear that you personally don't care about the story does it makes sense that this decision didn't increase your enjoyment with the product but its not en inherent flaw because for those that do get involved in the story will the way how alive the world of Sonic Adventure is increase there enjoyment tremendously far above what simple Gameplay on its own could accomplish. And I just have to mention now before actually reaching my conclusion you did not even talk about the extra missions, the reward for the Emblem hunt or the optional Twinkle park races or the Chao Garden So now after seeing how you ignored entire Gameplay features, didn't even bother to look up how one of the Gameplay styles (big) actually works in the in game manual for it, ether didn't pay enough attention or being simply blind to it in the Character growth of 2 characters, let your own bias influence your evaluation of the story presentation, ignored the Skip cut-scene option and even after finding out about 3 additional upgrades refused to properly evaluate them but rather stayed on by your preconceived conclusion CAN'T I do anything but judge this as a rather shallow and bias driven review that doesn't hold all that much Merritt in its assessment of the games overall quality. And I wonder if anyone will actually take the time to read all of this.
One more thing Because my comment so far was rather negative would I like to mentioned that the things I didn't mentioned in my comment were things I pretty much agreed with or couldn't find any actual problems in and I didn't feel the need to say I agree to all points I did especially given that my comment already became pretty oversize as it is.. And despite the fact that I love SA1 do I also not see it above criticism I my self could technically go on for a long while pointing out all the problems in execution of Ideas, technical short comings and half backed Gameplay elements.
Great review. Haven't played this since the time it came out & was blown away by it back then but looks a slog to get through now. Its looks have aged well tho, still a pretty game. Do you still have any plans to cover the Banjo Kazooie games at some point?
Good video, although I'm sure many will miss the point and get angry. You've highlighted a lot of the fundamental issues present within SA1 (and sometimes SA2 as well) that many fans, such as myself, have almost forgotten about so many years later because we just don't question it anymore. We've played the game so many times that it's easy to lose any sense of judgement.
The thing that this game nails, and does very well...is strictly Sonic's CORE gameplay. The responsiveness, the precision, sensitivity, speed and control...is dead on and mostly how I want Sonic to move, jump, run and play in 3D. His physics are a playground in themselves, I love it. It's unfortunate that the overall structure of the game itself, is so poorly done as you proved. Still worth playing at least ONCE imo just for Super S, but after that, just have a blast with Sonic's campaign, time attack and such.
If this was pre-2014 Implantgames, this would have gotten a 5 out of 5 score. I am liking what I am seeing here. For the record, I still haven't finished this game. Every time I watch an analysis video on it I feel less and less inclined to fire it back up. I do recall enjoying the Sonic action stages quite a bit, but like you my tolerance for replicated content and unnecessary padding has waned. A modern game, Devil May Cry 5, pulls some of the same nonsense, making you watch the same cut-scene from multiple different player perspectives as the game goes on.. AND it makes you fight the same intro boss repeatedly. Huge. Waste. Of. Time.
I feel like this is a very "Statistical" review Like The whole "Fact vs perception" thing in regards to everything else vs action stages/bosses disregards why it makes the player feel like there's more time on action stages/bosses. Remember, this is a game that designers made choices on, and there's likely a reason it feels that way. The stories are just portrayed as a series of events but there's a lot of character in those cutscenes, especially in Big's story, and to disregard that entirely is really missing a lot. But I get only focusing on it from one perspective, because it shouldn't be a 4 hour video.
You say that upgrades take a while to find, then jump into the red bubble tells you exactly where to go. You say you don’t care about story details, but bother to mention continuity issues ( a random man puts the key to the ice cap lol). Dx is not that different, other than worse lighting. Dx is still not the reason why the game is hated.
@@beta511ee4 ...Dude, it's been 3 years since that comment. Also, dude said that he couldn't see a difference between the DC and DX versions besides the REALLY damn obvious. Alsoo, this wasn't adressed to you.
I'll respect the foundations that Sonic Adventure left for future games in the series but other than that I'm pretty much with you after replaying the game last year as part of a 3D Sonic marathon I did on a Discord server. Took a while for me to really sink in what it was that made my re-playthrough not that enjoyable but "sluggish" was pretty much the main recurring theme I felt. If it wasn't the now laughably bad story telling in the cutscenes, it was the gameplay that is oddly restrictive at best and jank at worst that now makes the game hard to revisit. Also thank you for covering the whole DX vs Dreamcast debacle. There's no doubt some things the Dreamcast version did better but acting like DX was completely unplayable for mostly visual touches and a couple of extra glitches, is something I couldn't really settle on. Heck in the Dreamcast version you couldn't even skip the cutscenes which only made the sluggish issue worse for multiple playthroughs. If anyone had to pick one version of the game, they're better off just getting the PC version (2004 DVD, Steam, doesn't matter) and applying some mods via the "SADX Mod Installer" program that help make the game more playable, though that only carries it so much since at the end of the day the main package has aged.
@@Deeznutsjoemama1 I don't think linking a random video is going to change my mind on what I think of the game now, especially when it's on a review I agree on.
If Sonic Team still wants to do this several stories idea, they should first make sure that their stories are well fleshed out enough to deserve such treatment. They could have made Tails’ story a single level instead of slogging through a bunch of filler. Great review, as always! You always give such great insight on Sonic titles!
This is easily the most suprising review I've seen of yours so far. Most opinions I've come across is that this game is great or not much worse than good with critiques mostly around Big the cat sucks Character fights are boring Amy is meh And some bits of the story That and the dx port being a butchered job appareantly I found myself lost twice in the game but I'm not sure if it was just me several months ago, or that tails isnt that good. Also I guess I'd say that I felt you understated how bad big the cat is as a playstyle but also unsure as it might've just been terrible luck on my part. Good content as always^^
@@ChiefMedicPururu I used the Dreamcast mod on my PC, in some areas the game has aged, no doubt about it, just like Mario 64 has aged. I am loving Adventure 2 so far though
When I go against egg Walker I actually always find it easy to avoid all his shock waves and then just do the rhythm attack on all four of his legs. wait who are these idiots who say that Sonic Adventure DX is worse than Sonic Adventure? It is the same game but with some updates to it. That's it and some added Easter eggs. because Sonic Adventure was released before Sonic Advance 2 Cream the Rabbit isn't even in the game. But since Sonic Adventure DX was released after Sonic Advance 2, you'll end up finding Cream the Rabbit fly around in Station Square after completing some levels. The graphics look more polished in Sonic Adventure DX than they do in Sonic Adventure. In fact the graphics in Sonic Adventure DX look a little more akin to the graphics in Sonic Adventure 2 which is better graphically than Sonic Adventure. And last but not least there are better reasons to gather emblems in Sonic Adventure DX because every 20 emblems you get you unlock a classic Game Gear Sonic game wish for me was the first time I played several of those games.
Adventure DX didn't really improve on anything and messed up many visual elements of the game. Plus it showed the game's age even more than other remakes like RE1 or MGS on the Gamecube.
I hope we eventually get a remake of this game because I really did like this game as well. I played the DX version since the GameCube was my very first console I ever played. Glitches happened occasionally, controls were sometimes rough on the edges, and storyline was meh. I hope they apply a similar story method in a future remake like they did in the sequel. I give it a 7.5 tbh
I always like your take on games that are so polarizing, you're not biased or jaded, you just say it like it is to a modern video game player. PS. Bring back the podcast
I recently played through Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 not too long ago to see if my opinions on them still hold up. Your review mirrors several of my complaints about this game. I actually would say about half of the gameplay is good, but not in the way others divide it. I think certain stages for certain characters are good, so that it rounds up to about half. Thankfully, the DX port also gives you the ability to skip the cutscenes. On the other hand, I still massively enjoy Sonic Adventure 2, despite its camera issues, and some overly large stages for Knuckles and Rouge. I know you primarily looked at the Dreamcast version of that game, and the GC port has similar lighting issues to the DX port of Adventure 1, but there are two significant changes that you didn't mention in your previous review of it. The GC port of Adventure 2 decreases the amount of time that Tails' and Eggman's laser takes to lock on to enemies by a few frames. That doesn't sound like a lot, but I find it to be very significant, given that I'm used to the speedier lock-on. Second, an additional indicator is added to Knuckles' and Rouge's gameplay, in the form of a red exclamation mark near their head when right on top of the emerald piece, since the the basic blinking red indicator wasn't exact enough. I know you didn't like the mech and treasure hunting stages in 2, but I do feel those two changes improve the game more than you might think. It makes the mech combat snappier and the hunting stages a little less aggravating. I also feel like it would have been good for you to discuss the extra acts and missions in the game, most of which were added in the DX port. It's a part of the game not many people discuss, and focusing on tasks in the action stages could make up for the lopsided stage-to-filler ratio in the main campaign. Even so, it's also something 2 did a lot better with more attainable goals, and clear rankings to indicate that improvement is needed.
You're attempting to take subjective matters and present them as objective. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, gamma, and Amy's gameplay are all fantastic, and to be honest I'd much rather spend time in The Amazing Hub world than some of the action stages. What you find to be padding, I find to be amazing world building
"You're attempting to take subjective matters and present them as objective." "Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, gamma, and Amy's gameplay are all fantastic..." Sure, _he's_ the one presenting opinions as fact, not you. Projection much?
So does anybody else play Tails without really flying? I enjoy using his spin ball's momentum to turn the stages into the "hard mode". Never been a fan of the green sky boosters, so if his stages were all made like Speed Highway it'd be a lot more boring for me
I agree with everything you say but People play the game to replay Sonic Action Stages and the game was a revelation back in 1999. That's something anyone can steal from the game
To be fair, there is some truth to people blaming the ports for the reception Sonic Adventure 1 has these days. While stuff like the repetitive script, the questionable English translation (outside of Eggman's famous mince meat line and some of his other threatening moments), the actors and actresses being given no context for their lines, fishing in general, mouth flaps only fitting the Japanese voices, and laughably outdated animations (though ambitious for the time) are issues that have plagued even the original version, not every criticism originates with that version. The GCN version did some good; such as bumping up the frame rate (especially since the Dreamcast version was originally going to run at 60fps), added in the mini-map feature, reduced loading times, made the water look much prettier, gave an incentive to collect some of the emeralds, included an option to control the camera with the c-stick, expanded the Chao Garden system, and added more polygons to the character models. However that doesn't mean it is a perfect version. The replacement of the Dreamcast version lighting engine (even if there was potential compatibility issues that led to this happening) with a flatter lighting system was not well received. As for collision detection issues and glitches, there are undeniably more; even if they don't prevent the game from being playable enough. When it came time for the XBox 360/PS3/STEAM version, they unfortunately carried over the glitches and flatter lighting system. It doesn't help they removed the incentive to collect the emeralds in those newer versions. Not to mention they have the worst audio balance of any version. Even SA2 was given a rather bad audio balance treatment with SA2 HD once brought over to the XBox 360 and PS3. One thing that saves the STEAM version; unlike the PS3 and Xbox 360 version, is that it's compatible with BetterSaDX.
I enjoyed this, so I'll give my unasked for opinions. This game was certainly groundbreaking at the time, Six stories all in one was unheard of and it shows that Sonic Team wanted diverse gimmicks for diverse characters. Amy: A young, smart-ish, lovestruck girl who has little to no fighting experience wants the attention of her crush. Sonic: He's Sonic! Gotta go fast and do the thing! Tails: Tails idolizes Sonic, and like the fanboy he is, he daydreams of being just as "cool" and "awesome" and "epic" his hero is, and he wants to make him proud, and to me, It's satisfying to see Tails at least get a glimpse of being a hero by saving Station Square. Big: It's silly, it's funny-ish it's not really essential to the plot. E-123 Omega: Just a robot that gained sentience... The Rise is coming! Knuckles: He's just a confused echidna that believes he needs to stay on an island for the rest of his life to protect the Master Emerald. All in all, it's still a fun, good game, graphics by today's standards aren't as Mindblowing as they were back then, and voice acting is a bit awkward with all the sudden pauses... But nobody can change my mind that the final Chaos fight is the best part of the whole game hands down.
Hey, thats my childhood you talking shi...oh who am I kidding, I talk shit about Sonic Adventures flaws all the time. Aged poorly but I can still enjoy it. Surprised you didn't mention how Sonic Adventure was also a tech demo for the Dreamcast. Big, Amy, Chao , Skychase and Gamma were designed to show that the dreamcast could do those gameplay styles(Shooting, fishing, "Stealth", railshooters, Virtual Pets, etc). Chaos was designed to demonstrate the DC's ability to render transparencies after all. Not an excuse for the padding but probably that Sonic Team might have stretched themselves thin to show off the capabilities Sega's final console. No mention of the Chao either, oh well. SADX had the better Chao system anyway. OG Chao are super primitive.
@@ChiefMedicPururu I suppose. There are the stand out titles that have aged fairly well however I do also feel that some of the popular early 3D titles are held in high regard mainly due to nostalgia. Then again It was a transitional phase so most early 3D titles have some strange quirks that have aged poorly.
This is my favorite Sonic game and I knew from the start this video would be painful for me to watch...not to say this is a bad review or anything. Oddly enough, I think your viewing of Amy's and Gamma's campaigns is pretty much the opposite of how I feel about them. Very few sections of Amy's levels are shared with the faster characters, and I think most of the time Amy's slower acceleration and high hammer jump actually complement her levels fine. You already showed the lasers in Final Egg, but I also noticed barrels and a large fence you can hammer-jump over in Twinkle Park. I also think Amy's slow acceleration rarely clashes with her levels, that one slope near the end of Twinkle Park being the one exception. Gamma's levels, however, just felt like really short retreads of Sonic's levels (so short that you can complete some levels without shooting anything and still beat the time limit. At least his Hot Shelter level is pretty neat?). I think the best experience with this game is probably playing the story once and going for all the emblems and missions in the same save file, not playing the story three times. Given that the issues you had with this game lay within undercooked upgrades; spending too much time traversing hub worlds; repeated cutscenes; and the entirety of Tails', Amy's and Big's campaigns, I'm interested in how you'll tackle Adventure 2. You don't seem to like it even though it deals with all the issues you mentioned in this video. In terms of it showing its age, I guess I can see it. The game has an autosave feature, though, so it clearly aged better than Sonic 1 and 2, lol.
One of Eggman's lines during Speed Highway as Tails is "I'll take the whole city with me", implying that he actually was just going to blow himself up with the city. Eggman always seemed a bit more unhinged in SA1, like a lot more of a madman than most other games.
And during Tails' story, he speaks with a lot more aggression throughout. Compare the cutscenes between Tails' and Sonic's story, Eggman gets louder and angrier during the Tails one and I always took it as Tails being more intimidated by Eggman.
Except a brief scene in Lost World where he said "I will burn your world you rebellious scum!" And smashed a block screen followed up with, "As long as I can still strangle a Zeti, my hands are fine."
I like an evil egg man, and I feel like the more they don’t play his evilness less affective as a bad guy he really is. Because in the OG games even though it’s comical he was doing some serious stuff.
They make that random
AoStH Robotnik was better
18:49
Let's be honest, none of us pushed those stairs. We just jumped awkwardly into the hole in the wall.
I didn't even know you could push the stairs lol
Amy got some arms.
What makes SA1 endearing to me is how different it feels from other entries in the series, even SA2. I especially love the free roaming adventures fields, with Mystic Ruins being one of my favourite areas in video games.
Yeah, I loved talking to all the NPC’s throughout he game and following their stories!
This video: "7.8/10 Not Enough Adventure"
I agree.... I love the game in it's existing state, but can you imagine the potential of this game if it were remade and given a lot more polish? Or if we got a Sonic adventure 3 that was done in SA1 style?
@@branchminer1 not nearly as cool as sonic unleashed
Sonic adventure to me was….Sonic’s return to form.
Sonic adventure should have been a saturn launch title.
Then it would have been a pack in title graphical upgrade for the dc .
Sega had a reputation for rushing games out. And sonic adventure was a victim of that, they get the games up and running , but just rush through everything else into mediocrity.
They could have fixed the voice acting and affixed the mouth movement with the voice.
Naughty dog did this in psx already with crash, so there was no more excuse for bad mouth movement for va.
The camera didn’t need to get stuck or swing, when it get in trouble, it needed to zoom out and back a little bit and stayed still for a while until, figuring out what is going on or the character remove from tight spaces .
The human characters npc’s could have used some more detail .
Glitch and bug squashing could have been given some more time
Physics & momentum system could have been placed in certain areas,
They run through small rivers like it’s invisible, water don’t even slash the control vibrate and the character slow down a bit
Easily my 3rd favorite Sonic game behind 3K and Unleashed
I'm glad that you took an in-depth look at what did and didn't work instead of blindly bashing it like most people. While we may disagree, I really liked this review.
My favorite is Unleashed
"player already knows this"
You're missing the fact that the stories can be played out of order, so the player might not already know this.
In fact as the challenge ramps up, it becomes natural to check out other stories before progressing the Sonic story. The easy filler becomes welcome. You boot up Sonic Adventure for just half an hour every day and are immersed in the world and advance something at least a tiny bit, and the spaced out cutscene repeats are not annoying at all. Very little of the overworld has an actual gameplay function, but it feels believable for this reason, as if it was more of an actual place that could exist than an artificial obstacle course.
Furthermore the stories all have cute little touches, the cutscenes differ ever so slightly in tone while conveying same information, or continuity is deliberately broken, adding to characterisation, which granted, makes everyone prone to lying, which isn't very deep, but i'll take that, i thought it was mildly humorous at the time. The main inspiration is i believe Rashomon, a Japanese classic that was about to turn 50 and features several unreliable narrators with interweaving and merging stories. Now naturally Sonic Adventure is not about to ever be viewed as a comparable narrative masterpiece, but i think the ambition is admirable in a way. The way i see it, Sonic narratives are all about character caricatures, usually without any character development because they have to be these unchanging toys, lovable and adored by everyone based on their core character traits, and story and continuity are basically a myth. Whenever someone goes on about continuity in Sonic universe, i really want to slap them pretty hard.
Now naturally these elements which i believe worked well enough at the time have not aged very well. We are viewing the game through the lens of busy lives and 35+ years of game backlog that we are yet to get back to, while more games get added to the backlog every year. You may be subject to reviewer fatigue, where a game that was intended to last several months is raced through within mere days and things that aren't actually bothersome at normal pace become quite grating. You also have the skill to complete so many things on first try that a 9 year old which encounters the analogue controller for the first time probably didn't, so for you the game is 80% filler, for a child, it used to be 80% falling down bottomless pits or running out of rings, with a welcome calm respite in between. Playing games can get really, really tiresome if you're not terribly good at them!
Makes me wonder, should old games be reviewed against modern sensibilities or the circumstances at the time of their release?
And i still like it a lot more than SA2. Then again i love Rouge so there's that. OK i love her cutscenes, when it comes to her stages, i don't actually care about them at all.
My favourite way to play this game is finishing Sonic's story last.
Exactly! My character order is Tails, Big, Gamma, Amy, Knuckles, then Sonic. Saving Sonic for last is the best imo
They are caricatures now, but there is pretty strong continuity from sonic 2 to sonic 3&k to adventure 1
@@ukyoize To what extent? Does it matter? There is no character development at all. Bloody Knuckles gets fooled by Eggman every damn time, he never learns.
@@SianaGearz what are your talking about?
Not only was knuckles last tricked by Eggman in 2002's Sonic advance 2 18 years ago but did he also only believe Eggman after he saw Sonic holding the green Chaos emerald which from a distance looks like a shard of the Master emerald or in other words he didn't trust Eggman up until he saw evidence that he wasn't lying.
Everyone and there mothers got mad just a few year ago about Forces concerning Tails because the development he received in SA1 about becoming more brave and independent did end up sticking all the way to 2008 in which unleashed was the first game to disregard it.
Same goes for Amy over the games from SA1 to 06 and Rivals one does she go from someone rather weak with no believe in her own strength (Start of SA1) to being overconfident after a major victory( most of SA2) to actually becoming reasonable and through hard work reaching a level of strength that allows her to hold her own among the heroes(shadow and 06)
And while Amy developed so did Sonic's relationship to her from also seeing her as weak only letting her tag along when he things she needs protection (Sa 1 and 2) to after seeing her growth (Heroes and Battle) letting her participate in real battles (Shadow , advance 3) and even trust her to deal with real threats (vs Silver in 06) he even stopped his running away routing with her by the time 2006 with Rush being the last game in which he just ran away with the reason "just because".
I could now also go on about Shadow's arc or how knuckles since Heroes became a full one friend with Sonic after he got friendlier with him over the time span of the adventure games or how post SA1 Angle island would consistently stay grounded as seen in games like Sonic Battle or how some plot threats would carry over between games like Shadows return or the fate of Emerl.
It this enough for you or do I have to go one?
Never thought I'd see the day someone compiled data on playtime for each character.
Eye opening!
2015: "Sonic Adventure is an awesome game.... [It] is enjoyable."
2020: "Sonic Adventure is a *chore* to play through."
Now that takes guts, deciding to take the time to look at something you've reviewed before in a new perspective. I don't believe in calling out contradictions between your old review and this one, but I will admire that you decided to give your current thoughts in what you think is your most possibly objective stance on this game.
Keep up the good work.
His objective stance on his opinion of a game?
Good work? It's totally bad
@@mep6302 How so?
@@mep6302 how? Because he disagreed with your opinion on this nostalgic game? Take the goggles off buddy
You didn't say something along the lines of "Sonic the Hedgehog has always had a rocky transition to 3d", so 0/10: not a true review. Get off of RUclips, faker.
MarioandSonicfan04 Same I would have immediately clicked off.
No need to say what is obvious
@@ikagura That doesn't stop any other youtuber.
@@Legoluigi26 Yeah so?
'Faker? You're comparing yourself to me? HA! You're not even good enough to be my f-I'll MAKE YOU EAT THOSE WORDS!!'
I usually avoid reviews that pass the 30 minute mark at all cost, but i did an exception with your unleashed review and i just loved your objectivity and the way you put things into perspective. The sonic franchise is one filled to the brim with overreactions (from detractors and fans alike). Thank you for bringing new perspectives and going in deep what makes these games tick (and what doesnt)
...
@@ChiefMedicPururu what?
Regarding the 'bad port job' of SADX, I agree overall, however most of the complaints that this game is glitchy, ugly, has weird controls and bad audio mixing come from the PC version, not the Gamecube version.
Most people that buy Sonic Adventure today go and purchase it on the PC, understandably. After all, why should you prefer having to play on the Dreamcast over having a 16:9 aspect ratio, high resolution textures, a smooth and consistent framerate and all of the other extras that having it on PC provides? Simple - the PC version is not only a port, but it's actually a port of the Xbox 360 and PS3 version, which itself is a modified version of the Gamecube port of the original game. Not only did the game not take very nicely to being reoptimised for each system over and over, but it actually deteriorated and became exponentially worse with each version.
So the criticism of the DX port is not centred towards the Gamecube version (which is a fine version to play if you don't mind the change of artstyle), but the Frankenstein's monster of bad ports that is being sold on PC.
Finally someone said it.
This is why we need to encourage the Dreamcast Conversion mod
One word. BetterSADX. Dreamcast conversion mod is a godsend
What new art style lol Nintendont logos who cares
SEGA!!! Fuck the rest
Sorry but the NGC version is also glitchy, look at Gamegrumps' let's play
"This sort of combo system would be a great addition to the sky chase sub stages."
It was part of them. I don't know how I figured it out but I figured it out pretty early on as a 5 year old come on.
Yes! Another Sonic review!
There are also other ways to get rings in Casinopolis, like via the dump (14:01)
2020 and this game is still one of the best games from the franchise.
Opinion
I personally disagree
I think it is in the middle
@@tadaokou4919 I they are kinda right. Games that a significant amount of people like are SA 1 and 2, Unleashed, original trilogy, Generations, and Mania. Not going to include the handhelds because most of them were good and I'm just going to talk about the main home console games.
I mean I personally hate the adventure games, but there's no denying that opinions are all over the place with the adventure games
@@teneesh3376 That is why I said I personally disagree
It is just my opinion that they are not sooo good
@@tadaokou4919 I know, I was agreeing with you. I'm just bored
My 5th favorire Sonic Game
This video is incredible! I love these sonic analysis, have just to say that the word "terrific" was very confusing to me, its clear during the video that its something very awesome, but I was confused with terrible during the whole video, almost fell at floor when he said that for the soundtrack... and then I was just "wow, he was telling a good thing, ok"!
I can't help but think that if you feel the need to make dry charts to quantify how much fun you think you should be having in a game, then you're already well past the point of being reasonably charitable toward it.
@Cameron Douglas But the very concept is flawed. This is a Sonic game from 1998. Imagine all the kids who keep struggling without anywhere near as much gameplay experience, having to try and try and try again. Their ratio is going to be a lot heavier on the gameplay than the "everything else" part. Plus, videogames tend to be a lot less fun in general if you play them like a reviewer, as in trying to get through the whole thing as fast as possible. It's not really a solid outlook.
Mario 64 is better and came out way before this game
@@ikagura no one cares. Wrong video.
@@safiahussein9785 Yes people cares, Adventure is trash, period.
@@ikagura funny how you watch something when you hate it.
This is my favourite Sonic game so it was kind of difficult to analyse your complaints, but at the end of the day, I'm glad I did. I still love the game, but this review helped me understand why so many people don't, and that's okay! It only makes me more excited for a possible remake that could potentially make this game the masterpiece it could've been. You should've touched on the chao garden though, that's like half of the game's playtime for some.
Why does nobody ever notice you can lock onto things in sky chase
I did that always as a child, I thought this is suppose how to do it rather then just aiming manually D:
21:42 Whaaaat!? I've completed the game like 6-7 times but never knew you could do this. I don't think I ever saw any barrels in SA. Is it exclusive to this level?
8:09
I'd like to note the Light Speed Attack deals double damage with the Chaos 6 boss fight.
Same thing with the Maximum Heat Attack with Knuckles.
you’re amazing, thanks for uploading
Even though I don’t agree with everything said here this is still a pretty great video. Deserves more views honestly
I was the weirdo who liked Big the Cat's section of the game.
Ewwww
Ok nice.
Yes yes yes! I’ve been waiting! God bless you Kris! Made my whole night!
Edit: I wanted to go back after watching and give some of my opinions to add to the discussion. I have to say, right off the bat, I felt like I watched 41 minutes of my own thought. As a child playing through this game was a blast, every last bit of it. Those CGI cutscenes were everything to me for some reason and just helped bring the game to life a little more. The music is fantastic. And while I do agree that this is a video game and so gameplay should have most of the focus I do enjoy some of the adventure field moments. Flying super high in the jungle as Knuckles was always a favorite as a kid to kill time and mess around. Maybe by today’s standards their rather boring but for their time I think they’re fun and engaging enough. My rose tinted goggles keep me protected from most of the hate, but I do acknowledge the downfalls of the game. As you said, it’s a chore to play through but it’s my chore and I still love it. Great video and keep up the work as always!
Finally someone who capitalists God
Yeam, I was getting damn tired of all these people who communists God.
I really appreciate you challenging the bogus 1/3 statistic people never shut up about
“Character battles pad out the length” Are you serious? It takes a couple seconds
24:38 To be fair, Eggman seemed pretty pissed off during that entire moment, he lost his freaking mind
25:33 Yes
@@megapokesonicx neat
Man I love this channel
SA1 was super fun for me as a kid. But I was the kid who would just run around Hyrule Field and Peach's Castle, so I loved running around the adventure stages. Haha I actually remember groaning when I accidentally stumbled upon an action stage.
It’s worth noting that Big’s gameplay isn’t quite as random as this review would portray it. When Froggy or a fish bites the line, the player is supposed to hold down on the analog stick in order to get a hit. This information can be found in the “instruction” section while selecting a character and in the instruction booklet. Knowing this doesn’t really improve Big’s gameplay in any significant way, but it helps to reduce the randomness. There definitely should have been some sort of on-screen prompt during gameplay informing the player to hold down instead of stashing it away in menus and booklets that most players don’t read.
Starway_ Also if any fish ever goes directly below Bigs exact location, the fish gets off. A weird quirk that’s annoying in Icecap but just something that helps to know. Same for the glass aquarium walls in Hot Shelter, it makes it cancel whatever you’re catching for some reason.
Tails figuring out about the positive energies of the chaos emeralds from Tikal was something I never picked up on, even after all this time having played the game. Good review and strong insight.
Wow, yeah. This in-depth look definitely mirrors a lot of the more sober thoughts about the game and how it's aged. I used to love this game, but even before I saw all the reviews around it, I played it less and less. Eventually, I just couldn't bring myself to keep playing through it, despite playing some of it occasionally. I love this game for what it meant to me as a child, but heck, even I've aged better than Sonic Adventure's lip movement.
Lipsync follows Japanese audio, not English, and it's actually remarkably good... at least if you're on the Dreamcast and the tiny little audio drift induced by platform transition and porting process has not taken hold yet.
WTF are you smoking? Lol
@@SianaGearz
Sorry to disappoint, but I just meant the game's mouth movement in cutscenes in general. It's...not good.
Mario 64 aged better
@@ikagura No, it pretty much aged like SA1, but it's Mario, people are willing to excuse when he mess up on stuff.
Also, the game never was polarizing, this is historical revisionism, it was critically acclaimed when it came out, only matched by Sonic 3, Mania and Sonic Adventure 2.
*This is definetly one of the worst analysis on Sonic Adventure that i ever seen* . It lacks the Adventure part in the analysis, so, the filler aspect doesn't make sense if all is tied as a whole like SA2 did too and with the exception of Big The Cat, the gameplay styles fit the basics of Sonic.
Also, the game's progression is very streamlined, you can argue that not skipping cutscenes hurts the replayability but this was fixed in DX.
Dude the points in the video are valid complaints and make sense. Besides it's just his opinion.
@@pipeslimeproductions76 If his points about the gameplay styles and story were valid, Sonic Adventure 2 can't be a thing because they also did again the same thing of the same story, only now hero vs dark and some similar cutscenes vs the 6 characters, it's another take on basically the same concepts. Some of his points were very flawed, i can understand if Big the Cat plays objectively bad or that the voice acting is kinda cringe but i don't see any of this supposed "filler" in a *Adventure Action-Platformer* with Sonic characters in it.
It's a bad game, deal with it
@@ikagura That is factually wrong. ruclips.net/video/mvcNpMdEk7Y/видео.html
@@pipeslimeproductions76 I mean I did write an oversize comment ripping most of his negative points apart.
And in his video description does he call this and Analysis of Sonic Adventure meaning his opinion for the most part should be irrelevant because an Analysis is not about "What I like and dislike" its about "This things are objectively in this production and this is how there measure up against my criteria" So he him self at least claims that this is not just his opinion but rather an empirical breakdown of the game.
Awesome video! Only complaint is that some of those optional upgrades (particularly the one for Tails) are really useful, and not talking about them felt a bit disappointing. Otherwise, a great analysis as usual Kris! ^o^
Dude I'm so glad I finally get to watch this I had to work all day and take the kids to basketball finally I can sit down and watch!!!
It is indeed a game with several flaws, but oh man was it mindblowing at the time.
I remember a kid me jaw dropping over the whale, I was like "games can't get better than this"
It doesn't have many flaws. Play the dreamcast version!
@@mep6302 was this supposed to be ironic?
After thinking it over, I see some flaws in your review. You can skip cutscenes in the DX version so you don't have to sit through each one. The Adventure Fields are similar to Super Mario 64 Peach Castle where you can also play with the characters moveset along with NPCs you can talk too. DX version also includes a Mission Mode giving each character objectives to complete with unlockable Gamegear games for collecting medals and beating missions, even Metal who pretty much plays like Sonic for doing everything. The Chao garden while optional still adds to the experience. I understand the criticisms but for a port it did alright and for Sonic's first 3d attempt it landed.
Sonic Adventure is my fav Sonic game and I grew up on the 2D games, that's how much I loved the game.
I hope they make the next main Sonic game with the Adventure style of gameplay instead of boost.
People like Arin and Jared are making SEGA think the Adventure formula is shit.
A pretty fair apraisal, my dude.
It's an above average game due to certain parts & moments but others bring it down.
I'm personally quite fond of it but acknowledge it's flaws at the same time.
I love the hub worlds. It makes Sonic Adventure feel like an actual Adventure which is something no other Sonic games does right, imo.
We need more Sonic games with hubworlds.
Well... There's also sonic unleashed
Elia Caneschi doesn’t count. Sonic Unleashed had a hub, but the levels were on-rails boost crap for half the game.
@SAZ Gens was better. Colors and Forces sucked though, I agree
@@ketrub Colours was good
Sonic Adventure 1 was supposed to be a JRPG, like Shenmue was a Virtua Fighter RPG.
Awesome work man, that’s some dedication. Still waiting for the reboot of the and/or you reviewing The Sly Cooper Series podcast ;-)
you are the best reviewer on youtube, by far
Of course he's not
@@mep6302 i didn't ask 💘 let me compliment content creators i like. also my comment was 4 months old why did you feel the need to reply
@@mep6302 Your onion, m8.
40:22
ExoParadinGamer Said that you can Skip the cutscenes in the Gamecube version So I don’t understand why you need to complain about this.
But I don’t know what button is required to do this action.
Yeah the game shows it’s age, but look at other games from 1999/ 2000 have they aged better?
Start button.
Yes, Mario 64 and MGS both have gracefully aged
@@ikagura Even if the PS1 did not have the best graphics, especially on modern TVs, the gameplay, in MGS1 is still stellar and easy to pick up for its simplicity and creative play
@@ChiefMedicPururu DC version has unskippable cutscenes
20:18 But...there IS a combo system in the Sky Chase levels?
You're clearly trying to be analytical and informative, but it seems like you had no interest in actually exploring the levels and game mechanics to begin with. You simply breezed through the "actually playing the game" part, as if to get it out of the way as quickly as possible and focus on dissecting that short experience - yet, for some strange reason, you never considered simply skipping all those cutscenes you dislike. SA1 and 2 are fun because the levels are so replayable. Collecting animals for your Chao, trying out different routes, getting A-ranks, completing missions, time attack mode... and in the case of SA2, score. SA1's level geometry encourages experimentation while SA2's scoring system encourages endless arcadey play.
Because Sonic is about going fast
@@ikagura that's a part of it but that doesn't mean you shouldn't explore the levels or replay them to get better times. part of the appeal is finding the best route for the best time.
@@RaymondoPerson Fuck, even the Genesis games asked you to stop sometimes.
@@ikagura stop with that closed minded bullshit
Never forget that the guy who voices big the cat also voices duke nukem
Based.
Sonic adventure made the same mistake donkey kong 64 made.
It was trying too hard to be something it shouldn't have been.
They should've tried to make something more like a fast paced 3D donkey Kong country, and sonic should've tried to make a fast, 3D sonic game that's just FUN.
I see so much missed opportunity when sonic went 3D.....
I think sonic heroes is exactly the game for you
I don't think DK64 is really "trying too hard to be something it shouldn't have been."
Rare were good at making 3D platformers in an age where 2D games were shunned for being outdated or old, and DK64 definitely wouldn't have been able to be a 3D version of DKC - the N64 just couldn't cope with games like that.
Rather, DK64 tries too hard to be way more than it reasonably should be, which alienates most people.
DK64 just has too much arbitrary stuff.
@@alfiehicks1
NO!
cuz this is MY United States of WHATEVA!!!
Yeah, DKC is like the Sonic serie, after the 3rd game and going to 3D was a big mistake, the level should be linear
I love your videos dude. awesome review. 🦔💙
Yes been waiting on this one. I loved this series as a teen.
Well said ! I personally like the game despite not growing up with it, I looked at it more as a kids game which helped alleviate the pain of walking around as well as the story not being too serious.
i always thought of gamma's story to be extremely heartbreaking. he literally sacrifices himself for the bird trapped inside him. :'( this was abnormally deep for a sonic game since.
The adventure part of Sonic ADVENTURE, is why it's good, not why it's bad. If you don't like the adventure parts, you're playing a game that isn't for you. If you don't care about the story, there are plenty of Sonic games that are action-centric.
Just asking, is the playtime breakdown based on the Dreamcast version where your couldn't skip the cutscenes or the DX version where you could. Were the skippable cutscenes taken in account in this breakdown?
Ya some of the items are just questionable at best. Like the charge up attacks are pointless. And Amy's spinning hammer upgrade would be cool... if there was ever a point to use it, like once at all ever.
Nice sum 41 reference!! (Of course I know it’s all killer no filler)
I really like Sonic, but since I had a PS2 I didn't really play this game until 4-5 years ago, as such I don't really have the Nostalgia factor most people have towards this game (despite being hugely nostalgic towards Sonic).
I must say that I had a blast playing through most of Sonic's level, the cutscenes are obviously hideous, but compared to many games of that time they aren't as "bad" and idk I find them funny in a "so bad is good" way. I always giggle when Sonic says "Something buggin' ya" or "C'mon ya big drip", but that is due to my taste in humor.
I like Tails gameplay, but yeah it's just a Sonic light playthrought, but having Tails playable with his moveset in 3D is still pretty awesome (specially because we only got it in this game and in Sonic 06).
I don't like Emerald hunting but compared to SA2 approach this one is great.
Amy is meh, Big the Cat shouldn't even exist, and E102-Gamma campaign and gameplay is pretty cool in my opinion, but nothing groundbreaking obviously.
I think that this game is a product of his time, for people who are used to play older games and love Sonic it will be more tolerable than to newer gamers, it's from an era where Sonic Team actually had ambition instead of releasing souless games that try bank on nostalgia like Sonic Forces (I don't think Forces is a terrible game, but it's really shallow).
And the soundtrack in this game, as per usual in Sonic, is absolutely fantastic, might be my favorite soundtrack in Sonic franchise and easily up there with my 5-10 greatest soundtracks.
But than again crash bandicoot and spryro had better lip animations for the time
I heard that the lip syncing mirrored the Japanese speech, not the English script, so that would make more sense if true. But I guess they should have localized it, but honestly we make such fusses over things in games that aren't even that important at all.
@@retrosoul8770 crash bandicoot had better lip synching baiscly the dreamcast got its ass handed by the ps1
Great review dude love your videos. When will you upload again.
Wow, comparing this to your older review is fascinating, you said it was a masterpiece back then. Personally though, I love this game regardless of its flaws, and I definitely prefer the Dreamcast graphics so I use a modded pc version that combines the best of both versions.
Big's problem's are worse with his extra missions. Like trying to catch the big fishes is just random, some times it takes forever to reel in, and the mechanics never really became intuitive. For Froggy you don't have a problem you can almost always just hold the button down or mash it, it's far more tedious for the big fish though.
Actually, it's about your gauge with those fishes.
It's worse than anything in the series, I spent 30-40 mins trying to catch a big fish literally going to the TV screen trying to measure it out with my hands and than I realised I need to get upgrades. The game doesn't tell you about this. Sa2's treasure hunting hard mode tell you in the hints you need the goggles or the sun glasses. This shit sucks.
That was after I spent 30 mins in twinkle park the first time because I didn't know how to play the playstyle
Is this a thinly veiled plea for a Sonic Adventure remake, Impact?
Oh, and this is still the best overall all around 3D Sonic. Which is...quite sad actually.
Why? Mario 64 is still seen as one of the best games in the series by a lot of people
@@cloudycanine9682 I have no idea as to who you mean as the mario galaxy titles and odessy put it to shame by comparison. Better use of power ups, story, level design, and maybe the music as well. I dont know what 64 does better than any of the future 3d mario entries
If we're including the boost games then im not so sure about that
Dab dab 64 has a great balance of exploration focused levels and plat forming, I like Odyssey but it reeks of being a fillery game with a lot of empty space and Moons just lying about, only 40% feels like it’s real platforming challenges. Basically what I mean is there’s reason to play 64 and it has merits over the more modern games just like SA1 has.
Cough Cough Generations
Would you ever consider covering sonic 3 again?
Thank you for this retrospective!
I always come back to your Sonic videos, also never realized how many angry fans there are in the comments.
Nevertheless, love your analysis on this one. Even as someone who still holds the adventure games close to my heart, it's nice to hear other people's thoughts and points
Yeah, Sonic fans are always angry, but it's understandable for people to be fan of a bad series.
@@ikagura And here we go with the arrogance, again.
@ReliX Probably because it amuses him to be a douche towards anyone who likes Sonic, while shoving HIS tastes down your mouth.
@@ChiefMedicPururu Thanks for calling me a douche for preferring good games such as Sonic Colours and Sonic Mania.
@@ikagura Because you treat your tastes as facts.
IMO if you say that sonic's new model in DX is not bad, you have no right to judge stuff like the shinyness of the characters in Heroes.
You also simply can not tell me that they intentionally changed the rays of light shining to the floor of The Casinopolis Sewer stage into a stupid looking grating.
I'm judging the shininess of the characters in Heroes. In my opinion characters should have stayed that shiny in later games.
DX changed some stuff for the worse.
Good review. I wonder if the controls on the GC are less forgiving than the DC? possibly too fast at 60fps. I found the controls very forgiving for someone who had not played a 3d sonic game before. I got my dreamcast in 2018 and had a PS4 but was still blown away by the dreamcast's graphics and attitude. it was unlike anything i'd seen or owned before. I only played the sonic campaign and left it there because i wanted to have a want to come back and play the rest.
An epic in depth detailed analysis that I don't have anything to argue against
So because I really like Sonic Adventure and disagree with you quite a lot here are my thoughts on your video in the order I observed them.
1) Upgrades
So you really want to tell me you want to objectivly judge the games upgrade system without actually getting all of them?
This from the start of your argumentation on them makes you point weak because the 3 completely unmentioned upgrades do advance the gameplay quite a lot,
Tails Jet Booster increases his overall flied speed and while this makes his stages even easier so does it become quite handy in his further missions in which collecting rings and a more challenging Sonic make these stages far less easier than there were at first.
Knuckles Fighting Gloves allow him to perform his own version of the Light speed attack but its far more useful for him because at time will Emerald shards be located inside of Robots and so does it become handy in 2 ways for one does it allow to quickly get the emerald when the enemy carrying it is part of a larger group because instead of painfully taking them out one by one until you get the right one can one maximum head attack take care of all of them and get your the shard in a fraction of the time it would have taken you other wise, And the second why it comes in handy is because the Maximum head attack ignores enemies invulnerable phases meaning that even a spinner that has his electric shied up can be easily destroyed without having to wait. Obviously does this come in handy for Knuckles A mission which has strickt time limits and disallows the usage of Tikal's aid.
And the Long Hammer is not only far easier to get with the help of the Warrior feather ability but its increased attack ranged helps greatly with all combat in Amy's stages especially the Fight with Zero becomes a lot easier and getting rid of an annoying enemy while doing the get 50 ring missions in her levels becomes far less dangerous because one doesn't have to get as close to the enemy anymore.
And Never mind that BIg's A mission is near or in case of Twinkles park completely impossible without maxed out lure upgrades
This obviously effects on its own already the balance between useful and un-useful upgrades.
Than would we come to your assessments of the already mentioned upgrades.
For one complaining about having to get the ancient light to get to Red mounten while being okay with Big needed to get the lifebelt to get to Ice cap when in both cases the upgrade is just a few steps away from the level entrance is kind of hypocritical of you.
And No its not like you were hindered to enter until now because the ancient light hasn't spawned yet the area containing both the ancient light and the entrance to Red montan is locked off by a door until you return there during the story.
Your complains about the usefulness of the rhythm batch seams to be more up to your personal preferences given that I have heard from a few people that through a bug skipped it had a far harder time fighting the Egg Walker.
And you completely under represent the Light speed dash because there are a few additional paths that aren't obvious at first that can be taken with it. Further more because the Charging of the dash actually creates particles that can activate switches can it also at time be used to activate some rocked early making progression faster.
Now for the Gameplay types
I feel like you judge Tails purely on his C missions which are rather easy and hard to fail at but his B and A missions are far more challenging the 5 missions because collecting rings distracts from the actual race meaning one will quite often have to give up the leading position in order to optain the wanted amount of rings. And the Faster Sonic can also be much harder to beat especially on Ice Cap is the faster Sonic a steep difficulty increase.
And DX further more give Tails even more to do with his unique abilities for his missions in mission mode.
Amy's stages are actually buidl around her entirely the only parts she shares with others are the end of Twinckles park (the beginning of it was with the barrels obviously designed around her and using her Hamma ability to quickly get over the barrels and get all 3 switches.) and the start of Final Egg which you however even used as an positive example for her skill usage.
The Puzzles are also not nearly as bad as you describe them beside the one in Final Egg does there usually give Amy a Room to learn the mechanic and fallow it up by a segment were the player has to perform the learned action under the stress of Zero chasing the player and while its possible to push him back will he become immun the the plays punches after a few have landed which can make for example the match colors puzzle at the end of Hot shelter really stressing if Zero already became immun. And Zero also far more powerful as level go on if you allow him to fight you in Final Egg for example will he already use most of his boss encounter moves. The real issue seams to be Zero's AI really that often doesn't seam to be able to keep up with Amy and so doesn't cause problems because if you allow him to fallow you into the elevator room in Final Egg will waiting for the Elevator become a battle for survival because Zero will use many powerful attacks while you are confronted in a small room and have to wait for the elevator to finally arrive.
As for Big you apparently didn't even bother to check the introduction option on Big before writing his part because the elements that you describe as random are mostly explained in his introductions that can be selected from the Character select menu at any given time after unlocking him. The only somewhat Random element are the Fish AI but this is mostly so that you can't get an heavy fish easily.
Actually when you aware of Big's actual mechanics and try to tackles his A missions will you first realize how adrenaline raising the struggle with the Fish can be its than easily on paar with any spectral set peace of a Sonic Stage(even if more anger inducing thanks to really mean Fish AI and the impossibility to know in advance if the fish will be big enough for the mission). Froggy is obviously as easy to catch as he is(as in bottom smashing is enough) so that Big and his fishing wouldn't end up as a roadblock for most players. I am not saying it great or anything but its certainly a lot better than you make it out to be here.
I now have to mention Sky Chase because well IT HAS THE SAME COMBO FEATURE its just not required to win but if you ever plan to get a high score in any of the 2 Acts of Sky Chase than will you have to use the Combo feature to get big enough score points because combos give more points than individual shots. And the game actually also gives an incentive to get a High score because in both Acts can you earn a additional second Emblem by beating a certain high score as long as you have already gotten your first meaning the repetition of Sky Chase gives a good opportunity to get these 2 Additional emblems in a single Run of the game.
To be continued
Part 2
So first of all repeating cut-scenes really aren't an issue with any version of the game beside the original Dreamcast release because every version after it allows to skip cut scenes rendering this complain pretty mood
Now for your statement about Tails story because you are absolutely wrong here Tails big "I really did it without sonic" ending has been build up throughout the game starting by the very Gameplay mechanic behind every Tails level "being better than Sonic" over his reflection to the person he was after the crash with the Egg Carrier to him using his own abilities to crease the Tornado 2 a plain that would successfully conquer the Egg Carrier were Sonic's plain the Tornado has failed. And when it comes to the race against Eggman does it now thematically fits thanks through the interconnection from Story and Gameplay because up-until this point did you try to beat Sonic at a race now does all of this knowledge gained from your friendly play with Sonic into working when its needed to stop Eggman and the Fight afterwards just shows as well that Tails can do it him self its not like he was just sidelining the entire game. He was always in the middle of the action and as I already said the success over the Egg Carrier was his not Sonic's.
This is also shown to a lesser extent through Sonic's story in which he quickly decided to stop searching for Tails in favor of Protecting Amy because he simply trust Tails more do deal with a problem than he does with Amy which is a theme that would by the way be further developed on for the 8 years after SA1's release.
Also there is a reason why Tails at the start is so close to Sonic its to invoke what Tails up to this point throughout the classic was sonic's side kick that fallows him every step on the way (in fact when ever you story wise have Tails with you will he fallow you during the action stages in Sonic's story and just like in the classic can someone with a second controller play as tails than during Sonic's story) and by reminding us what Tails was and through his flash back what he was even before he meet sonic can we far better see how he changed
The only reason Knuckles actually believes Eggman this time around was become he saw Sonic with the green chaos emerald from a distance mistaking it for a shard of the Master emerald because there look near identically and so concluded that Eggman wasn't lying.
Ones again did with Amy the Character development fly right over your head throughout the entire Game does Amy become more and more Independent. At the start wanted she Sonic to protect her Bird friend, after her escape from the Egg Carrier did she discover that her new friend has still a family that is missing and as we learned about her when she defended Gamma from even her beloved Sonic would Amy go to extrem lengths for her friends and so with Sonic not an viable choose does she set out into the adventure to help her friend to reunite with her/his family.
This on its own already is more independents than she had at the start of her story and this could than continue when she finally meets the birds family only for it to be ruined by Zero now is she angry and now starts her fight with Zero and place keep in mind Zero in Amy's story was so far framed as an untouchable monster much the same way a horror game would treat an enemy and so was so far there only one option when he appeared to runaway in fact each of her levels goals is to reach a balloon to escape him but now does she actually fights back and beats him even.
This in therms gives her lots of confidence in her self which is why at the end she wants now Sonic to respect her because she grow to believe in her own strange rather than hiding in the face of danger behind Sonic.
And this Ladies and Gentleman is the point were objectivity was thrown right out of the window with your "I don't care about X..." statements here because this is purely subjective and while you can dislike it its not a universal truth because I for example had lots of fun trying to peace all 6 stories as well as all of Tikal's Flash back together and understand whats happening its especially great for me when I actually can meet a few characters on the adventure field outside of a bigger event like seeing Sonic reacting to the just kidnapped Amy in Big's story or listening in on how bored Amy is in her live before her own story actually starts.
As for the continuity problems you points out this is actually the point here we see the story from the point of view of our player character so Eggman is more menacing for Tails so it reflects in his dialog, Gamma obviously wins when he tells the story while the reopening of Ice cap and the like are obviously differences done for purely Gameplay reason to insure the developer can control when which character has access to which level.
And finally for your point about not needing to see scene twice there are 2 points to that one.
1)As already stated is this a Dreamcast exclusive problem because you can skip them in any other version of the game
And
2)The Scenes are obviously repeated because there are important to both stories lets take the Gamma and Amy scene as example, Gamma needs it for his own character growth while Amy needs it to explain why she is free after being captured and why she would defend Gamma even from Sonic.
More over there is nothing that would prevent you to unlock or play characters in a different order meaning while fallowing the obvious route from sonic out would Amy's scene come first but if you play Gammas story first would there be a glaring jump because the Cut-scene in this version would only play for Amy to prevent repetition.
So no matter how you turn it you can't just cutout these scenes without a peace of the story missing.
But to refer to point 1) again if you as the player already know it all can you just simply skip the scene anyway.
So Now for one more really big point the adventure fields
First of all you completely neglect to mention how the adventure field actually tie all action stages together while you say that there positioning makes no-sense is this simply wrong it makes sense in-universe-logic-wise the entrance to the Casino is were you would expect it in the middle of the city, you enter emerald coast from a beach area, Ice cap is accessed on Angle Island and Speed highway 2 entrances line up perfectly with the buildings there are entered in (the other side of the city hall for Knuckles and the upper layer of a skyscraper for sonic)
Tie this together with the ongoing stories of random people on the adventure field and you will realize that some of the intuitive level progression was sacrificed for a more logical connected and consistent world in which hubs and Action stages unlike most games of its era ala Mario 64 or Banjo & Kazooie are actually directly connected.
This than leads to an increase in the immersion of the games world and story enhancing enjoyment gained through this factors.
While you made it clear that you personally don't care about the story does it makes sense that this decision didn't increase your enjoyment with the product but its not en inherent flaw because for those that do get involved in the story will the way how alive the world of Sonic Adventure is increase there enjoyment tremendously far above what simple Gameplay on its own could accomplish.
And I just have to mention now before actually reaching my conclusion you did not even talk about the extra missions, the reward for the Emblem hunt or the optional Twinkle park races or the Chao Garden
So now after seeing how you ignored entire Gameplay features, didn't even bother to look up how one of the Gameplay styles (big) actually works in the in game manual for it, ether didn't pay enough attention or being simply blind to it in the Character growth of 2 characters, let your own bias influence your evaluation of the story presentation, ignored the Skip cut-scene option and even after finding out about 3 additional upgrades refused to properly evaluate them but rather stayed on by your preconceived conclusion CAN'T I do anything but judge this as a rather shallow and bias driven review that doesn't hold all that much Merritt in its assessment of the games overall quality.
And I wonder if anyone will actually take the time to read all of this.
One more thing Because my comment so far was rather negative would I like to mentioned that the things I didn't mentioned in my comment were things I pretty much agreed with or couldn't find any actual problems in and I didn't feel the need to say I agree to all points I did especially given that my comment already became pretty oversize as it is..
And despite the fact that I love SA1 do I also not see it above criticism I my self could technically go on for a long while pointing out all the problems in execution of Ideas, technical short comings and half backed Gameplay elements.
Too long; Didn't read
@@ikagura So may I ask than why you than commented at all?
@@Deeznutsjoemama1 Sure go ahead I don't have a problem with it.
Great review. Haven't played this since the time it came out & was blown away by it back then but looks a slog to get through now. Its looks have aged well tho, still a pretty game.
Do you still have any plans to cover the Banjo Kazooie games at some point?
Good video, although I'm sure many will miss the point and get angry. You've highlighted a lot of the fundamental issues present within SA1 (and sometimes SA2 as well) that many fans, such as myself, have almost forgotten about so many years later because we just don't question it anymore. We've played the game so many times that it's easy to lose any sense of judgement.
The thing that this game nails, and does very well...is strictly Sonic's CORE gameplay. The responsiveness, the precision, sensitivity, speed and control...is dead on and mostly how I want Sonic to move, jump, run and play in 3D. His physics are a playground in themselves, I love it. It's unfortunate that the overall structure of the game itself, is so poorly done as you proved. Still worth playing at least ONCE imo just for Super S, but after that, just have a blast with Sonic's campaign, time attack and such.
Ranks by points with rings and time bonis would have improved this game a lot i think
If this was pre-2014 Implantgames, this would have gotten a 5 out of 5 score. I am liking what I am seeing here. For the record, I still haven't finished this game. Every time I watch an analysis video on it I feel less and less inclined to fire it back up. I do recall enjoying the Sonic action stages quite a bit, but like you my tolerance for replicated content and unnecessary padding has waned. A modern game, Devil May Cry 5, pulls some of the same nonsense, making you watch the same cut-scene from multiple different player perspectives as the game goes on.. AND it makes you fight the same intro boss repeatedly. Huge. Waste. Of. Time.
YEAH MORE SONIC REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!! I CANT WAIT FOR MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sonic Adventure DX is my favorite game of all time
DX? Never played the DC version?
I feel like this is a very "Statistical" review
Like
The whole "Fact vs perception" thing in regards to everything else vs action stages/bosses disregards why it makes the player feel like there's more time on action stages/bosses. Remember, this is a game that designers made choices on, and there's likely a reason it feels that way.
The stories are just portrayed as a series of events but there's a lot of character in those cutscenes, especially in Big's story, and to disregard that entirely is really missing a lot.
But I get only focusing on it from one perspective, because it shouldn't be a 4 hour video.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with breaking a game down in such a manner, especially since he was doing it to verify his feeling.
In this day and age were classic video games from the past are getting remake or remastered this game will be a perfect candidate to update it
*where
You say that upgrades take a while to find, then jump into the red bubble tells you exactly where to go. You say you don’t care about story details, but bother to mention continuity issues ( a random man puts the key to the ice cap lol). Dx is not that different, other than worse lighting. Dx is still not the reason why the game is hated.
DX has more problems than that, tho.
You didn't even play Dreamcast Conversion?? It looks a million times better than DX.
Not an official creation.
@@beta511ee4 ...Dude, it's been 3 years since that comment. Also, dude said that he couldn't see a difference between the DC and DX versions besides the REALLY damn obvious.
Alsoo, this wasn't adressed to you.
I'll respect the foundations that Sonic Adventure left for future games in the series but other than that I'm pretty much with you after replaying the game last year as part of a 3D Sonic marathon I did on a Discord server. Took a while for me to really sink in what it was that made my re-playthrough not that enjoyable but "sluggish" was pretty much the main recurring theme I felt. If it wasn't the now laughably bad story telling in the cutscenes, it was the gameplay that is oddly restrictive at best and jank at worst that now makes the game hard to revisit.
Also thank you for covering the whole DX vs Dreamcast debacle. There's no doubt some things the Dreamcast version did better but acting like DX was completely unplayable for mostly visual touches and a couple of extra glitches, is something I couldn't really settle on. Heck in the Dreamcast version you couldn't even skip the cutscenes which only made the sluggish issue worse for multiple playthroughs. If anyone had to pick one version of the game, they're better off just getting the PC version (2004 DVD, Steam, doesn't matter) and applying some mods via the "SADX Mod Installer" program that help make the game more playable, though that only carries it so much since at the end of the day the main package has aged.
@@Deeznutsjoemama1 I don't think linking a random video is going to change my mind on what I think of the game now, especially when it's on a review I agree on.
If Sonic Team still wants to do this several stories idea, they should first make sure that their stories are well fleshed out enough to deserve such treatment. They could have made Tails’ story a single level instead of slogging through a bunch of filler. Great review, as always! You always give such great insight on Sonic titles!
Sonic doesn't need any story to begin with
This is easily the most suprising review I've seen of yours so far. Most opinions I've come across is that this game is great or not much worse than good with critiques mostly around
Big the cat sucks
Character fights are boring
Amy is meh
And some bits of the story
That and the dx port being a butchered job appareantly
I found myself lost twice in the game but I'm not sure if it was just me several months ago, or that tails isnt that good. Also I guess I'd say that I felt you understated how bad big the cat is as a playstyle but also unsure as it might've just been terrible luck on my part.
Good content as always^^
DX IS a bad port, tho.
@@ChiefMedicPururu Yeah but how, this video said there really wasnt anything bad about it
@@ChiefMedicPururu Your onion, m8.
@@beta511ee4 That's your reply to everything.
Get a hobby, seriously.
@@ChiefMedicPururu You cared enough to comment, tho.
Finished today as a newcomer to the Sonic games, agree with everything you said.
Well, if you play the worst version and ignore that this is a game from 1998 originally, maybe.
@@ChiefMedicPururu I used the Dreamcast mod on my PC, in some areas the game has aged, no doubt about it, just like Mario 64 has aged. I am loving Adventure 2 so far though
@@orlandofurioso7329 I was talking about Implant. The guy just doesn't get it.
@@ChiefMedicPururu Because even the original hasn't aged well (even Mario 64 has aged better).
@@ikagura thank God the sm64 PC port exists, just the analog camera improves the game A LOT
When I go against egg Walker I actually always find it easy to avoid all his shock waves and then just do the rhythm attack on all four of his legs.
wait who are these idiots who say that Sonic Adventure DX is worse than Sonic Adventure? It is the same game but with some updates to it. That's it and some added Easter eggs. because Sonic Adventure was released before Sonic Advance 2 Cream the Rabbit isn't even in the game. But since Sonic Adventure DX was released after Sonic Advance 2, you'll end up finding Cream the Rabbit fly around in Station Square after completing some levels.
The graphics look more polished in Sonic Adventure DX than they do in Sonic Adventure. In fact the graphics in Sonic Adventure DX look a little more akin to the graphics in Sonic Adventure 2 which is better graphically than Sonic Adventure.
And last but not least there are better reasons to gather emblems in Sonic Adventure DX because every 20 emblems you get you unlock a classic Game Gear Sonic game wish for me was the first time I played several of those games.
Adventure DX didn't really improve on anything and messed up many visual elements of the game. Plus it showed the game's age even more than other remakes like RE1 or MGS on the Gamecube.
Personally 9-9-99 was a great day and I still love SA and the rest of the library for the console!
Man RUclips messing up by not notifying me when you upload :(
Despite this games issues this is still my favorite 3D Sonic game.I wish we could remake of this game from the ground up to fix some of its issues.
I hope we eventually get a remake of this game because I really did like this game as well. I played the DX version since the GameCube was my very first console I ever played. Glitches happened occasionally, controls were sometimes rough on the edges, and storyline was meh. I hope they apply a similar story method in a future remake like they did in the sequel. I give it a 7.5 tbh
I always like your take on games that are so polarizing, you're not biased or jaded, you just say it like it is to a modern video game player.
PS. Bring back the podcast
I liked Sonic Adventure but only for the PC. The hacks made this game soooooooo good and the hacking scene was so interesting.
I recently played through Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 not too long ago to see if my opinions on them still hold up. Your review mirrors several of my complaints about this game. I actually would say about half of the gameplay is good, but not in the way others divide it. I think certain stages for certain characters are good, so that it rounds up to about half. Thankfully, the DX port also gives you the ability to skip the cutscenes.
On the other hand, I still massively enjoy Sonic Adventure 2, despite its camera issues, and some overly large stages for Knuckles and Rouge. I know you primarily looked at the Dreamcast version of that game, and the GC port has similar lighting issues to the DX port of Adventure 1, but there are two significant changes that you didn't mention in your previous review of it. The GC port of Adventure 2 decreases the amount of time that Tails' and Eggman's laser takes to lock on to enemies by a few frames. That doesn't sound like a lot, but I find it to be very significant, given that I'm used to the speedier lock-on. Second, an additional indicator is added to Knuckles' and Rouge's gameplay, in the form of a red exclamation mark near their head when right on top of the emerald piece, since the the basic blinking red indicator wasn't exact enough.
I know you didn't like the mech and treasure hunting stages in 2, but I do feel those two changes improve the game more than you might think. It makes the mech combat snappier and the hunting stages a little less aggravating.
I also feel like it would have been good for you to discuss the extra acts and missions in the game, most of which were added in the DX port. It's a part of the game not many people discuss, and focusing on tasks in the action stages could make up for the lopsided stage-to-filler ratio in the main campaign. Even so, it's also something 2 did a lot better with more attainable goals, and clear rankings to indicate that improvement is needed.
"The most "notorious" character is Big the Cat". I see what you did there :)
You're attempting to take subjective matters and present them as objective. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, gamma, and Amy's gameplay are all fantastic, and to be honest I'd much rather spend time in The Amazing Hub world than some of the action stages. What you find to be padding, I find to be amazing world building
Its not really all that fantastic i hate to break it to you
"You're attempting to take subjective matters and present them as objective."
"Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, gamma, and Amy's gameplay are all fantastic..."
Sure, _he's_ the one presenting opinions as fact, not you. Projection much?
The test is pretty objective
@@epicredhot5675 lol he hearted the reply
So does anybody else play Tails without really flying? I enjoy using his spin ball's momentum to turn the stages into the "hard mode". Never been a fan of the green sky boosters, so if his stages were all made like Speed Highway it'd be a lot more boring for me
Can you please do a Pokemon Myestery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky review? I think you'll certainly enjoy that game.
I agree with everything you say but
People play the game to replay Sonic Action Stages and the game was a revelation back in 1999. That's something anyone can steal from the game
To be fair, there is some truth to people blaming the ports for the reception Sonic Adventure 1 has these days.
While stuff like the repetitive script, the questionable English translation (outside of Eggman's famous mince meat line and some of his other threatening moments), the actors and actresses being given no context for their lines, fishing in general, mouth flaps only fitting the Japanese voices, and laughably outdated animations (though ambitious for the time) are issues that have plagued even the original version, not every criticism originates with that version.
The GCN version did some good; such as bumping up the frame rate (especially since the Dreamcast version was originally going to run at 60fps), added in the mini-map feature, reduced loading times, made the water look much prettier, gave an incentive to collect some of the emeralds, included an option to control the camera with the c-stick, expanded the Chao Garden system, and added more polygons to the character models.
However that doesn't mean it is a perfect version. The replacement of the Dreamcast version lighting engine (even if there was potential compatibility issues that led to this happening) with a flatter lighting system was not well received. As for collision detection issues and glitches, there are undeniably more; even if they don't prevent the game from being playable enough. When it came time for the XBox 360/PS3/STEAM version, they unfortunately carried over the glitches and flatter lighting system. It doesn't help they removed the incentive to collect the emeralds in those newer versions. Not to mention they have the worst audio balance of any version. Even SA2 was given a rather bad audio balance treatment with SA2 HD once brought over to the XBox 360 and PS3. One thing that saves the STEAM version; unlike the PS3 and Xbox 360 version, is that it's compatible with BetterSaDX.
I enjoyed this, so I'll give my unasked for opinions.
This game was certainly groundbreaking at the time, Six stories all in one was unheard of and it shows that Sonic Team wanted diverse gimmicks for diverse characters.
Amy: A young, smart-ish, lovestruck girl who has little to no fighting experience wants the attention of her crush.
Sonic: He's Sonic! Gotta go fast and do the thing!
Tails: Tails idolizes Sonic, and like the fanboy he is, he daydreams of being just as "cool" and "awesome" and "epic" his hero is, and he wants to make him proud, and to me, It's satisfying to see Tails at least get a glimpse of being a hero by saving Station Square.
Big: It's silly, it's funny-ish it's not really essential to the plot.
E-123 Omega: Just a robot that gained sentience... The Rise is coming!
Knuckles: He's just a confused echidna that believes he needs to stay on an island for the rest of his life to protect the Master Emerald.
All in all, it's still a fun, good game, graphics by today's standards aren't as Mindblowing as they were back then, and voice acting is a bit awkward with all the sudden pauses...
But nobody can change my mind that the final Chaos fight is the best part of the whole game hands down.
I feel like you should make a video on Crash Team Racing, cause let's face it, it is the greatest competitor to Mario Kart
I’m too smart too have fun
Hey, thats my childhood you talking shi...oh who am I kidding, I talk shit about Sonic Adventures flaws all the time. Aged poorly but I can still enjoy it.
Surprised you didn't mention how Sonic Adventure was also a tech demo for the Dreamcast. Big, Amy, Chao , Skychase and Gamma were designed to show that the dreamcast could do those gameplay styles(Shooting, fishing, "Stealth", railshooters, Virtual Pets, etc). Chaos was designed to demonstrate the DC's ability to render transparencies after all. Not an excuse for the padding but probably that Sonic Team might have stretched themselves thin to show off the capabilities Sega's final console. No mention of the Chao either, oh well. SADX had the better Chao system anyway. OG Chao are super primitive.
Aged poorly? I mean, Mario 64 and OoT and many other classic games aged quite a lot during the 3D transition.
@@ChiefMedicPururu I suppose. There are the stand out titles that have aged fairly well however I do also feel that some of the popular early 3D titles are held in high regard mainly due to nostalgia. Then again It was a transitional phase so most early 3D titles have some strange quirks that have aged poorly.
@@ChiefMedicPururu No they didn't, SA1 and 2 did
@@ikagura Dude, they all aged. Even if you love them, it's a fact that they did.
@@ChiefMedicPururu Mario 64 aged like fine wine
This is my favorite Sonic game and I knew from the start this video would be painful for me to watch...not to say this is a bad review or anything.
Oddly enough, I think your viewing of Amy's and Gamma's campaigns is pretty much the opposite of how I feel about them. Very few sections of Amy's levels are shared with the faster characters, and I think most of the time Amy's slower acceleration and high hammer jump actually complement her levels fine. You already showed the lasers in Final Egg, but I also noticed barrels and a large fence you can hammer-jump over in Twinkle Park. I also think Amy's slow acceleration rarely clashes with her levels, that one slope near the end of Twinkle Park being the one exception. Gamma's levels, however, just felt like really short retreads of Sonic's levels (so short that you can complete some levels without shooting anything and still beat the time limit. At least his Hot Shelter level is pretty neat?).
I think the best experience with this game is probably playing the story once and going for all the emblems and missions in the same save file, not playing the story three times.
Given that the issues you had with this game lay within undercooked upgrades; spending too much time traversing hub worlds; repeated cutscenes; and the entirety of Tails', Amy's and Big's campaigns, I'm interested in how you'll tackle Adventure 2. You don't seem to like it even though it deals with all the issues you mentioned in this video.
In terms of it showing its age, I guess I can see it. The game has an autosave feature, though, so it clearly aged better than Sonic 1 and 2, lol.