In terms of gameplay, is Sonic Adventure DX substantially different from the Dreamcast version?

The controls felt smoother on the Dreamcast version to me. It didn't feel like Sonic could turn or run around in circles quite as easily in the Gamecube port. It also added some bugs and glitches that were kept in subsequent rereleases. This one glitch in Emerald Coast always stood out to me:

It exists on the Dreamcast version, too, but you have to go out of your way more to activate it.

 

There are definitely gameplay changes.
The bump to an unstable 60 FPS compared to a stable 30 definitely broke some things, most famously the Leon badnik's appearing and disappearing too fast. And if I recall it was either level collision meshes getting changed, or the actual player collision bodies that causes instabilities such as clipping through a lot of walls that you can't usually on DC.

 

SADX is like if the only version of Half-life readily available to to consumers today was Half-life source. Like sure it's the same game with the same gameplay fundamentally but it's just shittier looking and buggier in pretty much every way you could imagine.

 

Half-Life: Source is a lot more broken than Sonic Adventure DX is, to the point of being unbeatable because of various bugs and glitches that require you to enter console commands such as cheats to sometimes progress where the original version doesn't have that problem. I don't recall any version of Sonic Adventure DX being that broken. Also Half-Life: Source runs on a different engine where Sonic Adventure DX runs on the same engine as the Dreamcast version.

 

Sonic Adventure DX is kind of a bad port but, at the end of the day, it ultimately still is Sonic Adventure. It's not really going to change anyone's opinion of the game if they've already played the Dreamcast version, whether you liked it or not. A lot of the downgrades fans like to rail on (the character models being uglier, that one enemy whose behavior is messed up, the lighting being less impressive, the game being slightly buggier) are the type of thing that someone who's never played the game before isn't going to notice or mind.

It's worth remembering that Adventure was never considered some shining beacon of perfection. It was notorious for being buggy long before the GameCube port came out in 2003; a lot of contemporary reviewers pointed this out, but simply felt it did not detract from the experience enough. I think GamesRadar+ put it best when they wrote about it in 2011:

 

Really? I've always found SADX more responsive thanks to the higher FPS. In fact I find it hard to go back to the DC version after experiencing the game in 60 FPS.

 

This is exactly right.

While I don't doubt there are differences, SA1 was considered a buggy mess during the dreamcast days and SA2 was considered a massive improvement as far as game engines go. My views of this were always shaped by my dreamcast experiences, never the subsequent ports.

And I say that as someone who did 100% in both the originals and their GCN ports. People like SSNTails were notorious within the fandom for pointing out the major issues with SA1 and modern sonic designs in general right as it released, and many of those bugs and design choices were nitpicked almost immediately. In fact, if I recall, they were even worse in the 1998 JPN version.

 

The Gamecube port's framerate was unstable, fluctuating between less than 30 to 60 frames per second. That wasn't necessarily why I felt the controls were more sluggish, though. I felt the same way about Sonic Adventure 2's Gamecube port, which ran at a constant 60 frames per second without any lag unlike the Dreamcast version.

The 2010 remaster of Sonic Adventure DX was at a constant 60 frames per second and from what I remember, the controls were smoother than on the Gamecube port. I didn't play much of the 2012 remaster of Sonic Adventure 2, though.

 

I grew up with the Gamecube version but when I played the Dreamcast version for the first time I really felt like there was a genuine level of polish that was completely absent in the DX version. I don't think Adventure was ever a perfect game and always had some level of jank to it, but DX only amplified it's worst qualities while doing nothing to highlight its best ones. A lot of the quirks that Dunkey nitpicks in his video just straight up do not exist in the Dreamcast version.

 

The difference between the versions gameplay-wise is often overstated but I do think the Emerald Coast clip happening so easily in DX has done non-insignificant damage to the game's reputation because it's a thing almost everyone who tries the game is going to encounter.

 

The discussion in that thread was prompted by someone saying that graphical changes don't make much difference on impressions but I'd disagree. First impressions are important, and that is always going to come from the visuals and sound departments. Adventure on the Dreamcast has a more vibrant and cohesive artstyle than DX does and it can be argued that the former has more appeal because of it.

DX took away the lantern system which used vertex shading with tremendous results and gave the player models and geometry more volume. Compare that with DX which went a step further with texture changes and you got a more monotone color scheme (at least in Station Square). Radical Highway likewise has a lot more blues, purples, and reds that are just washed out without the vertex lighting in DX. Character models, while more on-model, look more stiff and plastic-y especially since the fur texture was smoothed out and there's an unnatural sheen to the models.

When coupled with the various bugs that arguably got worse with the port, players are going to get the impression that the game did not have a lot of heart or soul put into it and it's going to really dampen their experience because players will feel it. The slightly better polish on bugs and the massively improved visual presentation (and I'd argue audio presentation as well since that off-pitch ring sound really grates on me) go a long way to improve a player's impressions of the game.

Now gameplay-wise, I don't really see too much different, but I think it's unfair to use that to say the port is better than we think it is or that the Dreamcast original is worse than we think it is.

 

Some bugs are added, some bugsgot fixed, and countless other bugs remained the same. In terms of presentation it's pretty poor (I maintain that the original version had garish color choices at times, though) but the differences between it and the original are vastly overstated.

 

I think it plays just as fine as the Dreamcast version. If I'm being honest, I may prefer SADX since that's the version of the game I played first. I agree that some people point out bugs, glitches, the model swap, inconsistencies in graphics and gameplay, etc., but is that a huge difference to the point that any version of SADX is unplayable? If you want to play the Dreamcast version without the extra hassle, you can MOD the PC version of SADX, to the point of making it indistinguishable from the original game.

To me, I think it's just nostalgia and personal preferences getting in the way. I feel like I have to have to repeat this, but if you want to play the game like the original, just mod SADX on Steam with the Dreamcast Conversion mod and some extras if you feel like it instead of buying the game and a Dreamcast (if you didn't own one).

 

A game's reputation is shaped by more than just its gameplay: a game could have fantastic gameplay, but if it had dreadful presentation then the game will be dragged through the dirt over it. Just look at the Grand Theft Auto Definitive Trilogy: the gameplay is mostly unchanged, but the presentation was completely destroyed, and so the collection is considered nothing more than a joke. Presentation matters to many, many people, and so the dreadful presentation of SADX undoubtedly influenced the game's perception.

Inversely, there are games with mediocre gameplay that ride on their presentation and immersion - would anybody care about Life is Strange if it had the presentation of Hoodwinked? Criticize Adventure's gameplay all you want, but, if it had the presentation of Super Mario Galaxy, then there isn't a doubt in my mind that people would be singing its praises far more than they are now.

It's all well and good to say 'I played the Dreamcast version and it felt no different to me', but you're missing out on one important thing: first impressions. Playing the Dreamcast version now will never change the fact that your first experience of the game was the awful port. I could not disagree more with ArcanaLuna over this: it was never about "minor technical issues"; it is about the entire experience being tainted by an onslaught of issues: how can you enjoy, say, the cutscenes when the game is practically full-bright; when the environments use bland, boring textures; when the character models look goofy and do not fit the game's art style; when the facial animations are so laughable that they become one of the most mocked parts of the game; when so much of the style and quality is gone? The cutscenes, which make up so much of the game's experience, have gone from at least being passible to being comically bad. Even if you do not feel that the change was quite that drastic, 1) other people do, and 2) you might have thought so too if you had played the Dreamcast version first. And that's just the cutscenes; if all of the above were enough to ruin the cutscenes, imagine what those problems and more can do to your perception of the gameplay or the game as a whole.

There is a line to be crossed somewhere: a game could have the best gameplay to ever grace the earth, but there is a line somewhere where the experience can still be ruined. Is the line drawn at a few bugs? Is it drawn at the graphics and audio being awful? Is the line drawn at the console opening up and shooting poisoned darts at you while insulting your mother? Sonic Adventure DX illustrates where the line might be, by pairing good-to-mediocre gameplay with mediocre-to-terrible presentation. Whether it crosses that line depends on the person you're asking.

My point is that making this about gameplay is missing the point.

 

Notice how the people insisting that SA1's reputation was "ruined" by SADX are always the same ones who claim that Sonic X was an Emmy-worthy masterpiece until 4Kids butchered it beyond recognition?

"Play the Dreamcast version"
"Watch the Japanese dub"
"Check out Windii's translations"

Almost as if people who are fond of this era of Sonic, which is universally considered one of the biggest franchise downfalls in video game history, are extremely insecure in their tastes, as well as very eager to deflect blame whenever they get a chance to move goalposts.

 

I'm not sure this argument holds water. Sure, first impressions are important, but what about other games? Jet Set Radio, Mega Man Legends, and PaRappa the Rapper are all heralded as having some of the most unique, innovative, and timeless presentations around, and all of them have been re-released on more modern platforms with no visual or gameplay compromises to speak of. And yet, many of their newer reviews from new players are scathing, because their gameplay simply doesn't stand the test of time. Sonic Adventure is no different in this regard, yet while the franchises I mentioned have fans who are willing to say "yeah, the gameplay sucks but I love it anyway", SA1's fans refuse to acknowledge its flaws and assert that anyone who has a problem with it is simply wrong.

Furthermore, the main point OP is making is that most fans make it about gameplay, even if you say it's not. They perceive the game not only looking but playing far worse in DX, that it has bugs and collision issues and control changes and the whole nine yards. If you think the Dreamcast version's visuals make it a better game, then fine, but the people defending SA1 from the "haters" who point out its flaws are not saying that, they're saying that anyone who criticizes the gameplay is blinded by a worse-playing port. I haven't played the Dreamcast original, only the PC version with conversion mods, but even in that scenario, with all of its bugfixes and polish, I'd rather play any post-06 Sonic game than play SA1 again.

And how valuable is SA1's presentation anyway, if you yourself say that the cutscenes are only "passable"? Half the game is plot. So if that plot doesn't deliver, then what do you have? It can't be the visuals. How come every other game from 1999 with realistic-looking textures and environments gets called outdated, yet when SA1 does it, it somehow "still holds up"?

 

I said 'at least passable' - I'm not describing my perspective, hence the 'Even if you do not feel that the change was quite that drastic, 1) other people do' bit.

Attacking a straw man will get you nowhere.

 

Nobody here is saying anybody who criticizes SA1 is "blinded by DX" or whatever, just that it's issues do make a difference. Being able to easily clip through the floor in the first level would obviously be an issue for newbies. It's certainly made the game look bad in plenty of Youtube lets plays.
Though on the other hand pretty much everyone I knew in real life who grew up with a Gamecube and DX (usually without ever playing SADC) enjoyed it anyway. So either way I don't like framing DX's "minor" differences with DC as some objective indication that "yeah the gameplay's bad" since obviously even some casual players enjoy the buggier version's gameplay. Feels like some of you are overly projecting not just your own tastes but also all the Sonic Twitter arguments you've had or something. I don't like Sonic X and I think I've even talked about my distaste for it here.