Sonic Adventures has hit Xbox Live Arcade but can this Dreamcast title that met mixed reception make a mark on today’s market?
Sonic Adventure is a direct port of its Dreamcast counterpart and sadly that includes all the bugs it suffered from in the first case. The gameplay doesn’t feel smooth or enjoyable, instead it feels clunky and fiddly making it more frustrating than enjoyable and from the off the issue of the camera effects the gameplay. For a franchise that uses speed as its main selling points its bizarre that the camera has trouble keeping up with the pace of the game, even more so that after all this time the issue still remains. When the gameplay works there is fun to be had and at times a genuine feel of speed is experienced but unfortunately these points to not occur nearly enough.
As mentioned the gameplay is a mess with pacing being broken up as you wrestle with the camera or you find yourself encountering a bug which in this day and age is quite unforgivable even more so with a ‘updated’ version of a game. Platforming is still just as fiddly as Sonic seems to glide across many surfaces as well as moving in an over sensitive manner which creates many a frustrating moment.
While playing Sonic Adventure a number of bugs become so very clear to see and insultingly the bugs seem so obvious that they are screaming out to be fixed for example colliding into a wall or a object sometimes results in the player finding themselves falling through the map to meet a cheap death, at this point the feeling of regret sets in to anyone who’s paid the 800msp asking price.
Gameplay and bugs aside Sonic Adventure also offers some of the worst animation and voice acting on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN store. During cut scenes character models move like stiff boards and lip sync is way off, add that to the awful and overpoweringly annoying voice acting which also manages to sound awkward. With cut scenes popping up a number of times during Sonic Adventure you will often find yourself either button mashing to skip the cut scene or muting the TV.
That being said the story does offer a decent amount of game time and different ways to play as you unlock a cast of characters from Tails and Knuckles to Rose and E102. If you can bare the issues of the overall game you will find yourself investing decent amount of time into Sonic Adventure’s levels and to its credit it never manages to become repetitive and at times you can see some decent set pieces that made the game worth a look at when it initially launched on the Dreamcast.
Sonic Adventure is a direct port of its Dreamcast counterpart and sadly that includes all the bugs it suffered from in the first case.
The visuals are exactly the same as its Dreamcast counterpart which looked dated even back then so in modern times they come off as a ugly mess, even more so when you take into account the poor aspect ratio that allows the game to be played in post box with the sides of the screen being filled with blue.
This of course isn’t a huge issue but does feel awfully lazy on the developers side and begs the question did they merely throw this onto Xbox Live and PSN in order to make a quick buck, the lack of any sort of update or fix suggests they put zero effort into this port.
Sadly the lack of effort put into the port of Sonic Adventure destroys any hope of the game making a mark on the market and instead is pushed out of the way by quality platformers that have already made their mark. What Sonic Adventure needed was a port handled with love and care that addressed the issues it suffered from its first release in 1999 but instead it comes off as a effortless port stuck on the market to capitalise on the hype surrounding Sonic 4. It’s a shame no effort was put into the port as at time fun can be had but the overbearing issues result in a game not worth investing your time in.
A shameless port with zero effort put into filled with bugs and gameplay issues which make the game a chore to play which leaves Sonic Adventure at the bottom of the pile on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN.
