[Note: I used the BetterSADX patch.]
As my first Sonic game I was surprised by how immediately Sonic Adventure charmed me. By the end I felt I could call myself a Sonic fan. A rough transition to 3D this was not!
I'll cover some more general thoughts for now, character-specific thoughts will come later. I'm really impressed by how they managed to use the whole animal to this degree, they mined everything they could to keep the gameplay fresh across the 6 characters. I'm excited to see how adventure 2 refines this formula. As is here, the way the stories are spread across 6 characters means that some barely interact with the main plot. It's not strictly a bad thing though, the way Adventure is structured makes the game feel big in a way that's charming today and would have been incredible when it came out. The ending was well too. Really triumphant finale with some fun buttrock to sell the moment.
[Sonic]: Some jank started cropping up in the last couple levels (Egg Viper 🙃), but all around a great time. I whooped and hollered a bunch of times at all the setpiece moments, Twinkle Park and City Speedway especially.
[Tails]: Tails' story was fun as like, a catharsis after how the Sonic levels were paced. A totally breezy and fun experience using his flight and speed to skip huge parts of the stages.
[Knuckles]: Knuckles was pretty fun too! I liked the scavenger hunt aspect of his gameplay too. The open-endedness of his wall-climbing and gliding really gets to shine in these stages.
[Amy]: Amy's story was like, a tier below the first three, mostly because she's slow enough that the games momentum kinda acts against her (mainly on slopes). Her hammer is fun to mess around with though, and the stuff her levels ask you to do are interesting and unique.
[Big]: Big just sort of bumbling into and out of the actual story of the game was pretty funny. His fishing minigame is pretty janky, but it functions? Not much to say here.
[Gamma]: Gamma's is probably one of my favorites in the game, I really like his gameplay and the story hits its beats well. Just really well done.
As my first Sonic game I was surprised by how immediately Sonic Adventure charmed me. By the end I felt I could call myself a Sonic fan. A rough transition to 3D this was not!
I'll cover some more general thoughts for now, character-specific thoughts will come later. I'm really impressed by how they managed to use the whole animal to this degree, they mined everything they could to keep the gameplay fresh across the 6 characters. I'm excited to see how adventure 2 refines this formula. As is here, the way the stories are spread across 6 characters means that some barely interact with the main plot. It's not strictly a bad thing though, the way Adventure is structured makes the game feel big in a way that's charming today and would have been incredible when it came out. The ending was well too. Really triumphant finale with some fun buttrock to sell the moment.
[Sonic]: Some jank started cropping up in the last couple levels (Egg Viper 🙃), but all around a great time. I whooped and hollered a bunch of times at all the setpiece moments, Twinkle Park and City Speedway especially.
[Tails]: Tails' story was fun as like, a catharsis after how the Sonic levels were paced. A totally breezy and fun experience using his flight and speed to skip huge parts of the stages.
[Knuckles]: Knuckles was pretty fun too! I liked the scavenger hunt aspect of his gameplay too. The open-endedness of his wall-climbing and gliding really gets to shine in these stages.
[Amy]: Amy's story was like, a tier below the first three, mostly because she's slow enough that the games momentum kinda acts against her (mainly on slopes). Her hammer is fun to mess around with though, and the stuff her levels ask you to do are interesting and unique.
[Big]: Big just sort of bumbling into and out of the actual story of the game was pretty funny. His fishing minigame is pretty janky, but it functions? Not much to say here.
[Gamma]: Gamma's is probably one of my favorites in the game, I really like his gameplay and the story hits its beats well. Just really well done.