Sonic Adventure is a truly advanced game that I have ever played. It's simply... fun! SonicTeam really deserved a very cool award from me if I have one, they had spent all of their five years on it and the results are worth it, producing a cool game like this! I won't give any game a score of 10 unless it impress me very much.

Graphics – 10
Sonic Adventure really deserves Best Dreamcast Game Graphics Award, if there is such award. The graphics are highly detailed in perfect 3D and you can roam about everywhere and enjoy the amazing graphics. Of course, the most beautiful graphics I found in the game is the FMV in the beginning. There are some graphics look really real, the sunlight in Emerald Coast. Another good thing about this game, you can see morning, evening and night and the graphics are pretty realistic! The time changes according how the adventure goes, though. There are also hidden graphics that are very hard to notice. If you look around carefully in certain Action Stages like Windy Valley, IceCap and Speed Highway, you’ll see the dandelions blowing off its seeds, character’s breath and many more to see! I think SonicTeam has gone through every single Adventure Field and Action Stage to make super-graphics game like this!

Music – 10
One of the features that I like about this game is, the character's voice. Rarely there are games that actually features voice for characters. The voices really match each characters’. The background music are really enjoyable. You can just start an Action Stage, turn on the volume a bit and then sleep while hearing it! Sound effects from Sonic spinning, Tails flying, the rustle of the leaves when you walk through it and more real-life sound effects throughout this big world.

Gameplay – 10
The controls are pretty easy and you can remember it, I can tell you. The game is pretty fast but you'll soon get used to it, within an hour. If you’re a person who had motion sickness, don’t play it! You’ll be blurred and stunned by it! Some stages are a bit hard while some are easy. Emerald Coast is the stage that I liked the most. It reminds me of the older Sonic games. Every character has its own mission so you can test out your controls on it. Sonic’s mission is to get to the end, Tails is to race with Sonic or Eggman, Knuckles must find three Master Emerald’s shards and Amy must get to the end of the stage while avoiding the crazy robot. Big is to fish out Froggy and E-102 is to reach his goal under a certain amount of time. Amazing, isn’t it? How this game can fit just into a Gigabyte Disc, I don’t know!

You can also hook through the Internet and download files from the official Sonic Adventure website or other websites to change the appearance or features into the game (make sure you have a bit of free space in your faithful memory card!). Example, downloading the Tremble Park file will change the appearance of Twinkle Park into a ghostly place. Christmas download will make Christmas trees appear almost everywhere in the Adventure Fields and there’s a bit of snow! Totally awesome! Also, you can exchange your Chao over the ‘Net or post your best times there when they have a contest!

Story – 10
This time, the story takes place in the planet Earth instead of Mobius. Dr. Robotnik (or Eggman as the characters call him) is back and works on his disastrous plans. He woke up the mysterious, liquid creature, Chaos and planned to give him the most powerful essence, the 7 Chaos Emeralds. Once he got all of them, he will ‘turn Station Square into rubble’ to build his so-called ‘Robotnikland’ (sounds more like an amusement park!). That’s where Sonic must try and make his plans fail by getting the Chaos Emeralds first!

Also, there is a mysterious connection between Chaos and the other echidna girl? What could it be? In every character’s adventure, there will a short story about them and it could be quite confusing if you don’t pay attention properly and as you progress, you’ll begin to understand more. So, find out yourself. You can take control of the available six characters with their own storylines and you’ll get to know their missions.

Controls – 10
The controls are really simple to do and perform and they respond real fast too. You will get used to the 3D environment quickly (if you are very used to 2D graphics like me). Simple two clicks of buttons and you can hit an enemy immediately. It’s that simple!

Replay Value – 10
You can replay Sonic Adventure all over again and I guarantee you, you won't get bored. I have even started a new game and completed it for over five times already! The best feature on this game is the virtual-pet like creature, Chao (also known as A-Life). You can take care of it, play with it, make sure it don't get sad, race with other Chao and etc. Depending on how you raise it, this Chao can transform into all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours making it more fun to see its results. This unique creature has its own secrets deep inside too, to keep you occupied forever! Also, there are 130 Emblems to collect which you can obtained by completing the Action Stages’ and Mini-Games’ goals and in Adventure Fields. Some are really hard and you’ll need practice. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect! If you can get all of them, you're a Sonic Adventure master!

Overall – 10
Sonic Adventure is very addictive. Once you play, you'll always want more. The only bad thing I found about this game was camera problems. These problems are minor and not as serious as you thought. If you want my opinion, which first game you should buy, choose Sonic Adventure! You won’t want to miss this awesome game! It is worth every single cent you spend on it and get it quick, before it ran out of stock! You can thank me later. Also, no words can describe the total coolness of this game.

Back to Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast)
Back to The Games
Back to Sonic Era