Revisited SA1 for first time in years

So they just turned a camera the most claustrophobic way, making it to display a solid empty wall. Good job.

 

Whereas I don't think even Sega has access to the SA1 source code anymore.

 

Yeah, I was gonna say. The wheel-of-feet-ish blur certainly isn't there, though I do remember the stretched shoes being there.

It's a shame that the entire effect is yet another thing lost in SADX. What a crap port. :\

 

Transparency effects are one of the most fickle things Sonic Adventure. You'll notice that emulators always have a really hard time with it, and ports tend to screw them up as well.

I'm not sure what it is but something about them just makes them unweildy to work with. Then again, even in modern games translucency can be tricky to work with. Try dealing with it in Unity sometime and you'll discover a bunch of quirks that make you want to pull your hair out.

 

Is this because of hardware Order-Independent Transparency on Dreamcast?

Well, Unity is certainly not an example of modern engine I'd bring up. I've spent much time reading how old school HL modders throw a crap to it.

 

Replayed all of Sonic's stages a few days ago and my god the camera work is flat-out awful. Glitches out or is placed in inappropriate areas way too many times.

On the plus side, my theory was mostly true in that I was able to play each level and boss in Sonic's story without being required to use the Homing Attack at any point. Came close to doing so a few times due a few HA chains, but they were thankfully short enough to evade with a spindash or a well-placed jump. Hitting most enemies wasn't difficult either, especially since the doesn't incorporate any significant bouncing momentum for Sonic to reflect off the enemies.

So yeah, unless momentum-based physics were in play, I (still) don't buy the idea that the Homing Attack is necessary for Sonic in a 3D space. Have distinguishable shadows and (maybe) incorporate the bounce attack so players can use them to perform more accurate landings on enemies, and I think Sonic should be good to go.

 

Been playing through this again just to get the achievements on Steam. While doing the missions for Knuckles I noticed they updated the notice boards for a particular mission;

Spoiler

 

This game was pretty crappy compared to its sequel for me. Maybe that's because it is or just because I played SA2 first I dunno.
I still think it's a good game until Big and Gamma. I didn't actually mind Amy's levels and that green robot (Zero?) still terrifies me. It made me turn the console off it was that scary when I was younger!

 

I played through this game recently, all six stories. I thought it was going to be bad, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. It was playable and I experienced very little in the way of glitches and across the entire playthrough I experienced death by camera precisely one time. It certainly doesn't have a Sonic 06-esque fragility like I was led to believe. I'm relieved actually; for me it held up better than I thought.

Edit for clarity: Yes, I did play this game on DC in 1999.

 

Fudge the critics and the haters. Just play the game. A critic can paint the game in a more favorable light making it sound better than what it is or slam it and paint it in a negative light that maybe way over exaggerated in way that sounds worse than it actually is. Enjoy it for what it is. Prospective is all you need. It's the not the best you'll ever play, it's not the worse you'll ever play (which can be subjective). You either enjoy it fully or completely hate it or some place in between (a matter of personal taste).


IN LIFE:
Haters will celebrate your failures and ignore your successes. This can get really messed up.

Fanboys will think it's better than everything else and will ignore everything else. Engaging in psychotic worship sometimes (I don't even need to say how messed up it can get).

 

I played through the game recently and, overall, it's a pretty decent game.

Sonic's (and Tails, since, you know, he's pretty much the same with only a few key differences) gameplay is the closest Sonic Team has ever come to getting Classic Sonic into 3D. Its physics and overall gameplay style are a good start to what should be the "ideal" 3D Sonic. Sonic's fast, but not too fast, and he controls really well. The levels are decently fun and aren't too linear or restrictive. However, I do have some problems with it. For one, it's obviously not polished very well; by that, I mean that there are a lot glitches and weird graphical quirks. Now, that's more of a criticism against the game itself, not the gameplay style. The one complaint I have about the gameplay style is that... well, it's not as close to "the Classic's in 3D" as it could be.

Sonic controls perfectly fine, I admit, but his levels, while fun, don't really take advantage of the physics. Sonic should be about rolling into a ball, going up slopes, and using that momentum to access new areas of the level. Sonic Adventure doesn't really do that, and neither does anything (at least, in terms of the 3D games) since. There are points in SA1 that are sort of like that, but most of the time it isn't. The levels aren't too linear, as I said, but they could be even less linear than they are; they could have had more pathways, more slopes... I guess you could say that the levels should have been more natural, more flowing than what they ended up being (the Windy Valley Beta level is close to what I'm talking about). Again, I'm not saying it's bad or anything-- far from it, actually, as it's decent fun-- but it could've and should've been refined just a bit more. And if that couldn't have happened here in SA1, then they should've done that in the sequels. Unfortunately, that didn't happen (mostly), but I digress...

As for the other gameplay styles, I'm not too fond of them. I mean, Knuckles, Amy, and Gamma are alright, but they aren't something to really look forward too. And Big is just... ugh. So, I really only enjoy about a third of the game. The rest is just 'okay'.

For me, though, the alternate gameplay styles aren't my biggest problem with the game. My biggest problem is the presentation. The voice acting is horrible (outside of a few of Eggman's lines), the lip-syncing is god-awful, and the cutscene animation is really bad. The story itself is actually pretty good, but the presentation and writing of it just take me out of it. Granted, most of these problems are due to the age of the game, and if it were remastered today with better voice-acting and animation, these problems would all but vanish. But still, the presentation is a problem in the game as it is now, and it really detracts from my enjoyment of the game.

Reading through this post might make you think I don't like SA1, but honestly, I do. It's not my favorite 3D Sonic (hello Generations and SA2), but it's still a damn fun game to go through every now and again. The presentation and a couple of the alternate gameplay styles may kill some of the fun, but overall it's a decent first attempt at 3D Sonic that really should've been expanded upon and refined in later games. It's too bad that future games (no matter how good they are) would just exacerbate the fundamental gameplay issues that permeated SA1 instead.

 

I really like Sonic Adventure. Except for Big's story. Big can go fuck himself for all I care...

...

...

..but his theme song makes up for his story. I love the soundtrack for this game.

 

Well, my copy of SADX should be arriving in the mail tomorrow, so I'll get a chance to finally replay it and see how much fun it still is.

So, am I to assume you're not a fan of the homing attack, or was your research for purely academic reasons?

 

I actually don't mind the Homing Attack...at least I don't mind how the move was handled in that game, anyway. In fact, one given reason for the existence of the Homing Attack which I think is fairly valid is how it assists Sonic on accurately hitting enemies when moving at fast speeds (regardless on whether that's the player's own choice or the automated pace/pacing of the level). I just don't entirely buy the assertion that Sonic in a 3D space needs the Homing Attack-I feel that largely stems from how each game after Adventure being largely designed around the move. I mean this in terms of those games' now-staple use of enemies grouped across HA chains, especially over bottomless pits.

That said, I'm not happy how the use of HA chains has also spilled over the 2D games starting with Sonic 4, which I think emphasized the automated use of a move that while an understandable moveset addition in 3D I feel largely tears down the difficulty of the game in a 2D space due to how overpowered (and abusive, when the jump dash is factored in) the move is.

 

I replayed Sonic Adventure about a month ago.

It's got it's share of issues. Naturally the graphics feel dated, the character animations in the cutscenes look really bad and some of the dialogue is so cheesy, and yet Sonic Adventure is a game I always enjoy playing.

The main appeal for me is the diverse and original stage design, the gameplay and the wonderful soundtrack. The best part of the game for me is Sonic's story. I like how Sonic has to fight off four different versions of Chaos, and each fight gets a little more challenging. I like how all 10 stages have unique designs, gimmicks and none of them feel like a rehash of a previous stage.

Emerald Coast is a nice easy opening stage. Windy Valley has that bizarre, really neat sequence where Sonic gets sucked in a tornado, and you have to fight your way to the top to escape. As weird as Casinopolis is, it definitely has a certain charm. Gotta love the pinball tables, especially the NiGHTS one. Ice Cap has some good platforming ideas, although the snowboarding sequence needed better controls. Speed Highway is a really cool city stage. Twinkle Park is probably my favorite stage. The bumper-car sequence, the rollercoaster, the carnival and castle theme looks so cool, especially being able to knock-down skittles! Red Mountain is the first real test of the controls. Sky Deck is a bit of a nightmare due to the camera, but I love the end sequence when you have to climb to the top of the ship whilst it keeps twisting and turning. Lost World is perhaps the most frustrating level because it exposes some of the problems with the controls, especially the sequence when you're in the dark and you need to move the mirrors to light the way. The camera is horrendous in the Snake sequence.

Final Egg isn't particularly a hard stage. It's also generous on extra lives, you can get like 13 if you explore all the areas. The Egg Viper is an excellent final boss for Sonic's story. The only tricky bit for me is when Eggman launches the last 'suicide attack'. It's tricky to jump out-of-the-way in time.

Pretty much every stage has a really catchy piece of music. I honestly can't think of a music track in the game which I don't like.

Sometimes I'll just play Sonic's story and none of the other characters stories, because I get enough enjoyment from playing just with Sonic.

Not that the other characters gameplay isn't fun. It's fun racing Sonic using Tails, and I really like his final boss against the 'EggWalker'. It's a drag that you have to play both Sky Chase acts in Sonic's stpry and then again as Tails story. They're not hard stages, just kind of boring. Gamma's story is short but sweet. I would like Amy's gameplay if she wasn't so slow. I think Amy with a fast shoe power-up is still slower than Sonic's normal speed! It's frustratingly slow, which is a shame because her gameplay is pretty good. Knuckles has the second best gameplay after Sonic. It doesn't take long to find the emerald shards. The other day when I was playing with Knuckles in Casinopolis, I couldn't find the final emerald shard piece, which turned out to be hidden inside the massive statue in the center of the casino! A clever hiding place. I also like how Knuckles is the only character who gets to take on 'Chaos 2'. As for Big the Cat, once you learn how to catch Froggy it's easy enough.

Perfect Chaos is an easy final boss, although I always need two attempts to beat him.

Sonic Adventure has an interesting story. I like the sequences when each character gets a flashback of Angel Island's past, which - rather confusingly - pieces together what happened to Chaos, Tikal and the Echidna tribe.

Yeah, SA has it's share of issues and I really wish the PSN version had been given proper 16:9 widescreen like with Sonic Adventure 2. The spindash isn't that good and the light-speed dash could have been better designed, but I can overlook those flaws because there's too much about the game I enjoy.

Can't believe in a few years time this game will be 20 years old!

 

The soundtrack is like half the game. It just oozes with awesomeness. All of the character themes, despite some of them being zany, were good.

I'm surprised I even completed the entire Sonic Adventure story; I was majorly turned-off by Amy's and Big's gameplay segments, but I pulled through.

 

SA1 was an interesting run through Sonic's world, I found it miles more interesting than any other game in 1999 and it occupies it's own niche today. There hasn't been another game like it.

Plot elements like ancient/modern Mystic Ruins and the Chaos Story made Sonic much more than he was in the Green Hill Zone days. SA made you think about how futile the things people do are; wage war, greed etc. Or at least that's what 8-year-old me thought about.

 

I was playing this the other day while my wife, who is not a gamer, watched. I had already pointed out to her that while this is a very buggy game, it is not the main reason I love Sonic. I was playing Sky Deck, and I was at the part near the beginning where you have the option to bounce off a chain of Badniks to a small platform, where for some reason the last Badnik rarely gives you enough air to actually make it. After watching me try it and fail repeatedly, despite my doing everything correctly, my wife said, "Is this just a terrible game?"

I stopped myself from responding immediately, thought a second, and then said, "Yes. It is a terrible game. It's a game that I and many other people have very fond memories of, but it is a terrible game."

Which is not to say I didn't have fun playing it for the first time in eleven years. I even got 125 of the emblems, and the only ones I lack are for Chao racing. It's just that now, with its sheen of newness so many years gone, it's easy to see this game's multitude of issues.

 

This makes me sad.