This is almost a replay, I'd nearly beaten it years and years ago when I was like 10 on GameCube but came back to it a few times on PC but gave up each time when it would crash a few minutes in or so. Revisiting, and now playing through BetterSADX to restore the Dreamcast's visuals with very minor QoL improvements, I honestly want to lower it closer to a 4/10 instead of the weak 5 it passes with.
I played every character start to finish without mixing and matching, and tried to play them in a way that gave me some variety without overlapping too quick. So, for me, that was Sonic > Gamma > Big > Knuckles > Amy > Tails. The controls are fine but the physics are wack, camera's also shit, even with the fixes there are still loads of clipping issues and getting stuff to work reliably like simply stepping on a button with Gamma is tricky. What sucks too is that Gamma is the best part of the game, yet also the shortest at around 20~ minutes or so of gameplay if you're not bad.
Sonic is okay, but the ice level is mad boring and a glorified autoscroller set piece in the "2nd act" and the Casino while having a nice vibe is insulting; if you're TOO good at the minigames, it won't send you to the sewer, and you're led on to think you might need to farm 500 rings through only pinball. What they don't tell you is >200 rings are in the sewer, and intentionally flubbing the pinball games cuts this level down by 80-90%.
I like the visuals of the game decently for something made in '98 but the rest of the presentation is really off to me even compared to its contemporaries (N64, PS1 especially). Whenever the environment starts to do something cool with a setpiece, you're thrown onto a scripted section that you don't really have any control over.
This may be a Hot Take:tm: but I really, really don't like the overworld, especially as characters who are slow as balls (Big, Amy) and get stuck on every little pebble. Whoa there bucko! You better stop, go through 3 different loading zones, grab that ice stone, bring it back through 3-4 more loading zones to play the 2nd worst (imo) level in the game! THREE times (Sonic, Tails, Big). If you don't stand close enough to a character it won't activate the next cutscene even if you're basically at the spot; the game varies wildly with this, some being giant areas that progress (as it should) and others being a character you have to hug to get to trigger. There were multiple instances of the game telling you to meet someone, but not telling you where they went; so it's extremely obtuse to progress the story at a couple moments without just scanning every room in the game where they may reasonably be.
Big's Big Fishing Extravaganza was actually not terrible, albeit it's obtuse initially, then once you figure out how to hook it becomes trivial. Big as a character is my tied favorite with Gamma, they're both so chadly.
Amy's was the most boring to me gameplay-wise, she's insufferably slow, every action she does halts her momentum completely, and only after running for a significant amount of time are you able to do her signature hammer jump (and if you fuck up I hope you enjoy running in a circle for several seconds to try again). Her cutscenes are uncannily smoother than anyone else's though, and weirdly sounds like Gamma got a different voice in her cutscenes?
Tails offers relative freedom but it boils down to "fly into the ring"
Knuckles' stages are all either boring or janky, can never tell what I can and can't climb until I bash my head into a wall (literally). Everyone loves going "BUT THE RADAR LETS ALL 3 BE ACTIVE" as if that's a massive boon but does it matter when all but 1 level is fucking tiny? I think SA2 would be improved with it very marginally but the hints basically eliminate the need, and I enjoy their somewhat vague clues.
Universally, the bosses are mind numbingly boring, with me spending half of them just holding forward and pressing the action button (sometimes the former isn't even required, like most of Gamma's!)
Very minor note too but some of the sounds are fucking comically goofy, like every explosion or enemy death in the game (like even rubble being destroyed?) has this squishy "SPLORCH" noise and Chaos's noise is sounds like a mayo jar getting fisted.
The final act was pretty metal though, and made me feel less like I wasted my time going through this '98 tech demo. I understand why it's a cult classic but I'll never understand the people that insist it's somehow leaps and bounds better than its sequel; they're both mid at best, and I'm more inclined to play the sequel due to its story but That's Just My Opinion.
I give Sonic Adventure a 5/10, it's charming but an exercise in patience as you wait for cutscenes, scripted sections, autoscroller setpieces and geometry to finish so you can spend around a minute or two playing the game.
I played every character start to finish without mixing and matching, and tried to play them in a way that gave me some variety without overlapping too quick. So, for me, that was Sonic > Gamma > Big > Knuckles > Amy > Tails. The controls are fine but the physics are wack, camera's also shit, even with the fixes there are still loads of clipping issues and getting stuff to work reliably like simply stepping on a button with Gamma is tricky. What sucks too is that Gamma is the best part of the game, yet also the shortest at around 20~ minutes or so of gameplay if you're not bad.
Sonic is okay, but the ice level is mad boring and a glorified autoscroller set piece in the "2nd act" and the Casino while having a nice vibe is insulting; if you're TOO good at the minigames, it won't send you to the sewer, and you're led on to think you might need to farm 500 rings through only pinball. What they don't tell you is >200 rings are in the sewer, and intentionally flubbing the pinball games cuts this level down by 80-90%.
I like the visuals of the game decently for something made in '98 but the rest of the presentation is really off to me even compared to its contemporaries (N64, PS1 especially). Whenever the environment starts to do something cool with a setpiece, you're thrown onto a scripted section that you don't really have any control over.
This may be a Hot Take:tm: but I really, really don't like the overworld, especially as characters who are slow as balls (Big, Amy) and get stuck on every little pebble. Whoa there bucko! You better stop, go through 3 different loading zones, grab that ice stone, bring it back through 3-4 more loading zones to play the 2nd worst (imo) level in the game! THREE times (Sonic, Tails, Big). If you don't stand close enough to a character it won't activate the next cutscene even if you're basically at the spot; the game varies wildly with this, some being giant areas that progress (as it should) and others being a character you have to hug to get to trigger. There were multiple instances of the game telling you to meet someone, but not telling you where they went; so it's extremely obtuse to progress the story at a couple moments without just scanning every room in the game where they may reasonably be.
Big's Big Fishing Extravaganza was actually not terrible, albeit it's obtuse initially, then once you figure out how to hook it becomes trivial. Big as a character is my tied favorite with Gamma, they're both so chadly.
Amy's was the most boring to me gameplay-wise, she's insufferably slow, every action she does halts her momentum completely, and only after running for a significant amount of time are you able to do her signature hammer jump (and if you fuck up I hope you enjoy running in a circle for several seconds to try again). Her cutscenes are uncannily smoother than anyone else's though, and weirdly sounds like Gamma got a different voice in her cutscenes?
Tails offers relative freedom but it boils down to "fly into the ring"
Knuckles' stages are all either boring or janky, can never tell what I can and can't climb until I bash my head into a wall (literally). Everyone loves going "BUT THE RADAR LETS ALL 3 BE ACTIVE" as if that's a massive boon but does it matter when all but 1 level is fucking tiny? I think SA2 would be improved with it very marginally but the hints basically eliminate the need, and I enjoy their somewhat vague clues.
Universally, the bosses are mind numbingly boring, with me spending half of them just holding forward and pressing the action button (sometimes the former isn't even required, like most of Gamma's!)
Very minor note too but some of the sounds are fucking comically goofy, like every explosion or enemy death in the game (like even rubble being destroyed?) has this squishy "SPLORCH" noise and Chaos's noise is sounds like a mayo jar getting fisted.
The final act was pretty metal though, and made me feel less like I wasted my time going through this '98 tech demo. I understand why it's a cult classic but I'll never understand the people that insist it's somehow leaps and bounds better than its sequel; they're both mid at best, and I'm more inclined to play the sequel due to its story but That's Just My Opinion.
I give Sonic Adventure a 5/10, it's charming but an exercise in patience as you wait for cutscenes, scripted sections, autoscroller setpieces and geometry to finish so you can spend around a minute or two playing the game.