IGN: Sonic Adventure Review

[Radrappy]

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3181366

Much more insightful and well written, if equally harsh.  

For the most part, people (including myself) are forgiving when it comes to releases of old 2D games. Like a Sega Genesis game that doesn't feel super smooth, or doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles dropped on top of the original; it can still be easy to divine some fun out of them. With certain 3D action games like Sonic Adventure, it's harder to appreciate them more. The rate at which they age seems to triple. Its once-realistic graphics aren't so much anymore; the controls we thought were perfect now seem extra fumbly. And if the new people in charge aren't going to fix anything, then it shines a light on the original developers' intent to get things done without possessing much foresight, which leads to a proportionally jankier, less appreciable game. What kind of legacy is that?

[Orta]

I'll see what European reviewers have to say. This America Hates Sonic bandwagon doesn't call for unbiased opinions. I played Sonic's levels the other day (on the Dreamcast) and while it felt more sluggish than what I remember, I still had a good time with it. I don't like the word "aged" or "dated" in video games, I find the expression ridiculously stupid considering we've been playing the same old shit since the 32bit era outside of many of the games that were released on the Dreamcast.

And remember kids, if you're aiming for all achievements there's probably 40 hours of game right there. That's what my save file said. :cry:

[MadeManG74]

I do not understand how it could ever be considered for such a low score. Speaking on content alone, it is easily the largest Xbox Live Arcade game so far, maybe even twice as large as anyone I can even think of, and for a very fair price.

Hmm, what about something like SOTN? That has the whole castle, inverted castle, Richter and all the secrets in it. I agree it's quite a big game, but I don't think it's THAT much bigger than some other gameso n the service.

[Aki-at]

Well adding up all the characters Sonic Adventure has around 30 stages plus 4 mandatory minigames IIRC though I've forgotten most about SOTN so cannot be 100% sure on the length of the two.

It's nice to see that it locks on 60fps, but I'm not sure I can take that comment from IGN seriously since the whole review seems like they were reviewing Sonic Unleashed instead.

Although all things considered, I would have thought a 5 or 6 would have been fair enough, but would have been nice if they actually gave these ports the same care and attention stuff like Virtual On and Afterburner Climax has recieved, though I suppose they have no real incentive since this particular title will sell anyway.

[Barry the Nomad]

My thoughts as posted at TSS:

I downloadad the full version, and after playing the Chaos battle and the first Sonic stage I can safely say that the negative reviews are full of shit. If you played SA last week on the Dreamcast or Gamecube and enjoyed it, youll enjoy this. In fact the solid 60 fps, fast load times and achievements make this marginally better! The only major negative would be the lack of widescreen, however Ive just used the smart stretch mode on my tv (sides stretched, middle normal) and it works out fine. I say try the demo and give the game a positive star rating to show up the boneheads at IGN.

[Team Andromeda]

IGN are shit, that review is piss poor. Sonic Adv is pure class and still as much fun as it was on the DC. Yes the graphics as aged, but then it was a 1st gen rushed game to try and meet the system launch (it came just a few weeks after ) and ever DC game has aged

IGN are just a joke , like this review . This is the IGN that gave the like of DOOM II (7.5) a game that has aged worse, Duke Nukem 3D a 8.5) and best of all Castlevania SON a 9.

I'm bloody fuming over this piss poor review,by the joke that is IGN.

[Monkeroony]

That's a shame (1up review), I was hoping this would be done as well as the Banjo Kazooie and Perfect Dark remakes, with improved controls, graphics and 16x9 resolution.

[Barry the Nomad]

Well, good news is on XBLA the game has a star rating of 4.7/5 with 500+ votes.

[Alex Supersonic]

SEGA has released a trailer, which is very nice
[youtube:2juqvqfk]In2YfrjRvIw[/youtube:2juqvqfk]

[CrazyT]

SEGA has released a trailer, which is very nice
[youtube:1lxisjxl]In2YfrjRvIw[/youtube:1lxisjxl]

Watching that video, having played the game and all, still makes  the game look pretty awesome in this trailer.

It kind of makes me hope for a sonic game taking the same free roaming direction of sa1 again.... minus the alternating gameplay styles.

I liked seeing knuckles wallrunning on that last section of speed highway, that's kind of how I imagine knuckles gameplay to become as well, with a nice implementation of his punching, gliding and climbing.

Sonic colors looks great but when you think about it, if sa1 controls were replaced with sonic colors, the game would practically become unplayable.

Sonic colors controls are limited and only encourage 2d gameplay and running forward. The fluid steering, running around from sonic adventure series is nowhere to be found since sonic heroes.

[MadeManG74]

IGN are just a joke , like this review . This is the IGN that gave the like of DOOM II (7.5) a game that has aged worse, Duke Nukem 3D a

Symphony of the Night is better than Sonic Adventure in my opinion though. I agree that the graphics have aged and the port was bare-bones, but then again Sprites age much more gracefully than early 3D I think.

[max_cady]

Well, I enjoyed the heck out of Sonic Adventure. Makes no sense not to enjoy this one.

I admit that the original game is buggy and Sega's a little too lazy to fix this since it's launch, but by 1998 standards, it was a remarkable game, of course, this was a time when platformers we're slowly dying and only Super Mario 64 held it's own.

One question, Barry: does the game feature english and japanese voices without having to change the language on the dashboard?

I enjoyed the bad voice acting back then, but it's was also cool to listen to the japanese voices.

[Autosaver]

I keep hearing "I'm having so much fun as Sonic!"
Is everyone ignoring every other character?

Before you say I'm anti-Sonic. I'm not. I totally agree with you that the score was terrible. But this game does not deserve higher then a 8. It doesn't fix any glitches, it doesn't have Widescreen. And Big,Amy, and Knuckles seriously bog down the experience. IGN is crap. News? Nope

"It was impressive for its time!"
Well, that was for its time. IGN isn't going to give SA a 9/10 anytime soon.

Sonic colors controls are limited and only encourage 2d gameplay and running forward. The fluid steering, running around from sonic adventure series is nowhere to be found since sonic heroes.

The controls are fine, but yeah. Sonic Colors and Sonic Unleashed both focus on limited 3D exploring.

[Barry the Nomad]

One question, Barry: does the game feature english and japanese voices without having to change the language on the dashboard?

I enjoyed the bad voice acting back then, but it's was also cool to listen to the japanese voices.

Yes sir it does! Menu is the same as the Dreamcast's (though the DC controller is replaced with a 360 controller for the vibration option)

[max_cady]

The interesting part of the glitches and bugs in the early SA1 and SA2 is that people actually took a comedic approach to them. If you look at SA1 and SA2's gamefaqs boards, there's a full list of glicthes and how to actually do them and back then it was actually fun to trigger them.

Because here's the funny part as buggy as SA1 was, it's core gameplay remained solid and that's what made it so special at that time.

But frankly Sonic Adventure does require some skill to play as with some Dreamcast games, you get better with how much time you put into it.

I take Crazy Taxi as an example, back in those days, I managed to get Awesome rankings and I recentely played again only to get a stinkin' S-rank and little more.

Even playin' Sonic Adventure 2 recentely and I felt nervous and uneasy playing it, it's like my muscle memory was entirely gone and only plowing the game again can you get somewhere.

On a negative note, I wished Sega would make an english version of the Dreamcast Reprint(Dreamcast Collection) website.

Update:
@Barry

Thank you, Barry. Now I want this game so badly, it hurts.