As one of the first games I ever owned and obsessed over as a 3-4 year old, I'll never not love this game. Emerald Coast especially will just be one of those immaculate vibes permanently engraved in my soul. But yeah, it's a rough experience for like 60% of it.
Now, one thing I thing—having first tried the PC version of DX before quitting in 5 minutes for technical issues and "acquiring" a Dreamcast copy again—I was quite happy to learn that my old memories of how this game felt were actually quite accurate. In the areas where the devs clearly spent more time polishing the game can pretty darn fluid if not outright smooth. Having played a couple different ports of both Adventure titles, I thought my memories had just clouded my mind to what was always actually a complete clunky mess.
But no. Sega has just been comitting crimes of art with how its handled the porting of these titles.
Granted, as the first of Sonic's forays into 3D, this is far from a perfect title. There are a lot hiccups with the camera and world geometry that bugger your flow and make it a fairly jarring experience one you get past the first few levels of the Sonic campaign.
That doesn't necessarily end the fun, though. That lack of polish comes along with quite a bit of variety and nothing in the game could really be called a slog. The longest any one level takes is like maybe 8 minutes in a few of the outliers. Most levels are a quick 1-3 minutes.
Or at least they are for me at this point, but that's maybe unfair. It's been like 12-15 years since I last really played this game through but, once you add in the 2 years of early childhood I spent playing it, you could argue that I might have some knowledge and muscle memory advantages.
In any case: I won't argue that this game stands up as a timeless classic of the genre, between the inconsistent quality, jarring scene transistions, and incredibly simplistic writing on the story…
But I do think it's in any platforming fan's interest to give it a playthrough: It's not particularly long; fun enough for what's there; and it's a fascinating little time capsule of both culture at the time and of the genre's transition into new technological realms.
The whole idea of structuring the game as distinct Action and Adventure stages is something I wish a few more games tried as even its sequel dropped the exploration zones. You could argue games like Banjo Kazooie basically did the same thing and maybe better, but there's something about the clear division between no-stakes exploration and high-pressure obstacle courses.
So yeah. Fun little nostalgia trip for me. If you need a quick hit of speed-centric platforming, this could be a fun little adventure for you as well.
Now, one thing I thing—having first tried the PC version of DX before quitting in 5 minutes for technical issues and "acquiring" a Dreamcast copy again—I was quite happy to learn that my old memories of how this game felt were actually quite accurate. In the areas where the devs clearly spent more time polishing the game can pretty darn fluid if not outright smooth. Having played a couple different ports of both Adventure titles, I thought my memories had just clouded my mind to what was always actually a complete clunky mess.
But no. Sega has just been comitting crimes of art with how its handled the porting of these titles.
Granted, as the first of Sonic's forays into 3D, this is far from a perfect title. There are a lot hiccups with the camera and world geometry that bugger your flow and make it a fairly jarring experience one you get past the first few levels of the Sonic campaign.
That doesn't necessarily end the fun, though. That lack of polish comes along with quite a bit of variety and nothing in the game could really be called a slog. The longest any one level takes is like maybe 8 minutes in a few of the outliers. Most levels are a quick 1-3 minutes.
Or at least they are for me at this point, but that's maybe unfair. It's been like 12-15 years since I last really played this game through but, once you add in the 2 years of early childhood I spent playing it, you could argue that I might have some knowledge and muscle memory advantages.
In any case: I won't argue that this game stands up as a timeless classic of the genre, between the inconsistent quality, jarring scene transistions, and incredibly simplistic writing on the story…
But I do think it's in any platforming fan's interest to give it a playthrough: It's not particularly long; fun enough for what's there; and it's a fascinating little time capsule of both culture at the time and of the genre's transition into new technological realms.
The whole idea of structuring the game as distinct Action and Adventure stages is something I wish a few more games tried as even its sequel dropped the exploration zones. You could argue games like Banjo Kazooie basically did the same thing and maybe better, but there's something about the clear division between no-stakes exploration and high-pressure obstacle courses.
So yeah. Fun little nostalgia trip for me. If you need a quick hit of speed-centric platforming, this could be a fun little adventure for you as well.