shadowhedgehog's Full Review: Sonic Heroes for GameCube
I'm going to be blunt. I did not enjoy the 2-D Sonic games as much as I did the 3-D ones. As a matter of fact I think the 3-D ones were tremendously better than their Mega Drive counter-parts! There- I said it- flame me all you want, but that's what I think. I disliked the 2-D Sonic's namely because A) It was typically slow, because if you EVER went fast you were doomed to die either by pit of enemy B) You couldn't see in front of you to predict your next move and C) I HATED the chaos emerald levels from all the 2-D games- ESPECIALLY Sonic Advance 1 & 2.
There- I've ranted, so now I can get underway. First off, I apparently am the only human being to actually enjoy the 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games. Back on the DreamCast, I was probably the only one to give "Sonic Shuffle" a decent review. But that was then and this is now. First things first-
GamePlay- The core of every game. Okay the good first. I love the new team play mechanic. It seemed rather inevitable that the three heroes (Sonic, Tails and Knuckles-the namesake of the game) were to team up and fight Eggman together. Basically- A Jumps, B executes the character-specific command, X & Y shift through the three members of any team to take the lead, L & R move the camera (Which is STILL poorly controlled), Z executes a full-screen technique called the "Team Blast", and the C-stick does a useless first-person view. I must be the only person to also think that a Sonic game need not revolve around Sonic alone, because I like the diversity. Sonic-and all the other speed-class characters- moves the team at its greatest speed by lining up into a row so that Sonic, or whoever, creates a wake so that his friends can keep up. With flight formation, the three stack up on top of each other. In this formation, using the "B" button, the flight character will launch his two buddies (or her buddies) at near-by enemies, even if they're overhead, this is called "Thunder Shoot". With a power character in formation, the speed and flight characters take the back row seats and form a triangle, with the power character in the front. In this mode, you can call your buddies to your mits and use them for power-packed punches to break walls or leap into the air and hurl them at the enemies as fireballs! Certain characters have certain restrictions or limitations, but this is the general idea. I was, however, seriously frustrated by the camera, which has never been a forte of Sonic Team's. I was also saddened by the serious lack of chao options. The most you see are in cinemas and one of Team Chaotix's missions, or Cheese, tagging along with Team Rose.
The Teams-
Team Sonic- You know them, you love them, they were the hero side of Sonic Adventure 2. This is the fastest team and this story emphasizes how the three work together to overcome problems. Their theme song is "We Can" which reiterates the importance of the team work this game permits. This is a moderately difficult course, but if you played the Adventure games beforehand, it should prove a minor course.
Team Dark- the hardest path in the game, hands down. A more angry team, all out for revenge against the Eggman. Shadow returns, he survived the ending of SA2-this is, in my theory, because he was in super form! (Sonic did it about 3 times in the same manor), Rouge returns as a sleak spy (I still don't like her) and a new member joins as the last of the E-series robots: E-123 Omega. All three are after Eggman for answers and Shadow has seemed to have lost his memory. Their theme song is "This Machine" which is much darker than the game itself, but carries Shadow's perspective well.
Team Rose- the easiest path through the game. Amy Rose the Hedgehog, Cream the Rabbit (Sonic Advance 2), and Big the Cat all return for this path. Cream is the only character I have a problem with because of her overly high-pitched voice. The other characters I don't mind... much. This team only allows you to travel half (about) of the stage to get the general idea of the game. Their bosses are way easier than any other team's and the story is seen in a very light perspective. Their theme is "Follow Me" which is the first Amy Rose-based theme that did not make my ear drums bleed.
Team Chaotix- Rather easy, but this sure isn't any Team Rose! These guys apparently formed a detective agency after the 32X game, with the obvious lacking of one member-Mighty the Armadillo. Espio the Ninja-Chameleon, Vector the crocodile, and Charmy the Bee make up the team. These three are being guided by a "mysterious" voice from a communicator to do a series of things that leads them right into the danger zone. Their theme is named after their Team and has a real catchy and addictive beat. It's a sad day when I'm sitting in math class chanting "Team-Cha-o-tix!"
Onto the bad. The pinball levels, which are actually fun, prove to have severe flaws. You move in a very strange way, and can even be thrown right out the side! For some reason, some parts of certain platforms don't ACT like platforms! It seems rather rushed. Sometimes the game takes control and throws you around in circles, but this is mostly for eye candy. The difficulty doesn't seem too extreme anywhere (except Team Dark-which can get quite frustrating). The movement is also rather odd, I expected to be handling similairly to a faster version of SAB:2 type of movement but it seemed to regress to the simpler SA:DX movement-quite a let-down.
Music/Voices/SFX- If it's not the lip sync, it's the voices. Why do people keep complaining about the voices?! The only one I dislike is Cream, and even then she was (somewhat) tolerable. Tails just sounds nasal and Charmy I can over-look (something about them flight characters...) The music, however, for the teams is incredibly addictive and very catchy. The levels' music is appropriate, but doesn't really stick out. The sound effects seem rather natural, but some of the jumps just aren't obvious with their low-pitch "whoooooo" noise. Thankfully, the ring "ping" isn't so loud this game! The sound is pretty good, over all.
Graphics- True masterpiece! The light angles seem wonderfully aimed everywhere, and the shadows and lights don't become a bother like some other games have had. The characters are smooth, and beautiful! (Not like that- I still don't like Rouge). The ground looks great and flat-perfect for running- and the water is shiney and brilliant! The bosses are well detailed and extremely entertaining! A+!
Replay- I really wish they hadn't bothered with the Emerald Mini-games. I never liked them, who has?! I'll go ahead and give you a tip-use your power character to catch that speedy jewel! Not worth the effort, honestly. Also, the emblem thing is getting just a tad old. I miss the days when you just cleared one path of the story and you got a whole slew of neat options! That's more incentive to enjoy the story and less to replay one level over and over. Getting the little add-ons really isn't worth it. Really, if you liked the Adventure games, you'll probably enjoy this, but if not, you'll probably be just as turned off.
Misc. Stuff- Just recently I finally got the oppertunity to try this game's 2-player and PS2 counterparts. I confess I expected better, because the camera angles in the 2-P mode are just plain bad, and the frame rate drops to about half so everything looks choppy and something tells me that Sega could've done something about that, but just didn't. As for the PS2? While the gameplay handled the same (including the nasty side-effects of 2-P mode) the only real difference is that the loading time was noticably longer. Other than the load, the games handled identically.
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