"sonic had a rough transition into 3d"
cool, weird-ass game that proudly wears its status as sega flexing its shit on the previous gen right upon its sleeve. the monolithic status this game has in the fandom and the historical context of sonic as an entity is pretty interesting to me considering there really isn't that much to it - ten solid sonic levels and then little fragments that more or less exist to flaunt the possibilities of the dreamcast and what all sega was capable of at that point. i'm really endeared by games of this era that were chock full of weird side content and minigames just to show what the fresh hardware was capable of (final fantasy x also comes to mind), and sonic adventure is maybe nothing BUT that. combine that with its weird atmosphere and bizarre, campy writing and it fits right up there with the pantheon of Weird PSX JRPGs of '99.
speaking of writing - i was surprised on a playthrough how this game basically doesn't have a story so much as it has a bunch of isolated events that happen in proximity to one another in an arbitrary and sort of staggered fashion. sonic's story may be the main draw here in terms of gameplay (and clearly the star of the show in general; he's the only one of the stories you can't knock out in an hour tops) but it's also the story where pretty much nothing of note happens. honestly as cute as tails and amy's little mini-character-arcs are the only story worth writing home about here is gamma's, which i still find really poignant and thought-provoking even as an adult... something fatalistic and genuinely dark about this power-hour of pathos, even in comparison to the really dire places that sonic adventure 2's writings and greater themes go. honestly gamma's just the best part of the game in general, between his story, his variant of hot shelter easily being the best level in the game, and the boss fight against beta being one of the game's very best. kinda wish i cared for drakengard 3 at all because i would KILL for a version of his general plot pitch that's not written for children
can't help but feel like some of these little stories deserved a bit more time in the oven; gamma's shooting gameplay and knuckles' hunting were both eventually expanded upon in SA2 but i really like the "puzzle platformer where the female protagonist has to avoid a creepy stalker" idea with amy's gameplay and how tails' levels take sonic's ethos of playing as little of the level as possible to their natural extreme... such a shame their stories take about 11 minutes apiece to complete.
definitely not as polished, focused, effortless or full of finesse as sonic adventure 2, but honestly i don't think being less Good in one linear direction makes it Bad in the opposite linear direction either. sonic adventure is a strange, curious, funky little game, and it's lovely for it.
cool, weird-ass game that proudly wears its status as sega flexing its shit on the previous gen right upon its sleeve. the monolithic status this game has in the fandom and the historical context of sonic as an entity is pretty interesting to me considering there really isn't that much to it - ten solid sonic levels and then little fragments that more or less exist to flaunt the possibilities of the dreamcast and what all sega was capable of at that point. i'm really endeared by games of this era that were chock full of weird side content and minigames just to show what the fresh hardware was capable of (final fantasy x also comes to mind), and sonic adventure is maybe nothing BUT that. combine that with its weird atmosphere and bizarre, campy writing and it fits right up there with the pantheon of Weird PSX JRPGs of '99.
speaking of writing - i was surprised on a playthrough how this game basically doesn't have a story so much as it has a bunch of isolated events that happen in proximity to one another in an arbitrary and sort of staggered fashion. sonic's story may be the main draw here in terms of gameplay (and clearly the star of the show in general; he's the only one of the stories you can't knock out in an hour tops) but it's also the story where pretty much nothing of note happens. honestly as cute as tails and amy's little mini-character-arcs are the only story worth writing home about here is gamma's, which i still find really poignant and thought-provoking even as an adult... something fatalistic and genuinely dark about this power-hour of pathos, even in comparison to the really dire places that sonic adventure 2's writings and greater themes go. honestly gamma's just the best part of the game in general, between his story, his variant of hot shelter easily being the best level in the game, and the boss fight against beta being one of the game's very best. kinda wish i cared for drakengard 3 at all because i would KILL for a version of his general plot pitch that's not written for children
can't help but feel like some of these little stories deserved a bit more time in the oven; gamma's shooting gameplay and knuckles' hunting were both eventually expanded upon in SA2 but i really like the "puzzle platformer where the female protagonist has to avoid a creepy stalker" idea with amy's gameplay and how tails' levels take sonic's ethos of playing as little of the level as possible to their natural extreme... such a shame their stories take about 11 minutes apiece to complete.
definitely not as polished, focused, effortless or full of finesse as sonic adventure 2, but honestly i don't think being less Good in one linear direction makes it Bad in the opposite linear direction either. sonic adventure is a strange, curious, funky little game, and it's lovely for it.
6 Comments
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i feel like sa1's story is more about gamma and tikal than anything else. empathy is pretty much the thematic tissue connecting everything together (open your heart!!). the individual stories dont really do much of anything on their own besides gamma's (which hits way different when you save it for last). i guess tails has a nice little arc but it's just done again (and better) in sa2 lol
@theia thank you! yeah, it made a big impact on me as a kid too — even when i was like seven years old and just playing it before school i remember how weird the adventure fields made me feel, probably the first time i could identify atmosphere which is now a massive part of what i look for in any given game
@chandler for sure, it's just noteworthy to me that this entire playable cast just sort of exists in vague relation to those ideas rather than meaningfully engaging with them in any way (save for gamma, heart and soul of the game that he is). it's a bit funny how sonic suddenly begins preaching about addressing chaos's pain and anger at the end after being so thoroughly disinterested in engaging with any form of real storytelling for the entire game... especially considering they would later make sonic's static, unchanging nature as a character into a genuinely great defining trait that actually has a level of depth to it, particularly as a foil to shadow (the true protagonist of sa2 imo)
@chandler for sure, it's just noteworthy to me that this entire playable cast just sort of exists in vague relation to those ideas rather than meaningfully engaging with them in any way (save for gamma, heart and soul of the game that he is). it's a bit funny how sonic suddenly begins preaching about addressing chaos's pain and anger at the end after being so thoroughly disinterested in engaging with any form of real storytelling for the entire game... especially considering they would later make sonic's static, unchanging nature as a character into a genuinely great defining trait that actually has a level of depth to it, particularly as a foil to shadow (the true protagonist of sa2 imo)
"all's well that ends well!"
~tails after seeing an entire fucking city getting leveled
~tails after seeing an entire fucking city getting leveled
@chandler isn't it funny that Sonic immediately fucks off and doesn't help with any kind of rescue or rebuild effort at all
i like to think sonic n friends are totally disconnected to most all the humans and only really give a shit about the state of the world relative to themselves. it's funnier that way
theia
11 days ago
great review as always!!