tommy_lop's Full Review: Sonic Heroes for GameCube
While at the video rental store I found this and decided to give it a try. I have Sonic Mega Collection at home which contains the first 3 sonic games on it and there all classics. I also have Sonic Adventure 2 Battle adventure and while it’s not terrible, it’s not great either. Sonic escaped from his roots, while there where still the classic speed stages. The rest was slow paced shooters and coin collecting stage.
Sonic Hero’s is here and Sonic finally returns to his roots, but it’s not a perfect game. Sonic Team has got a way’s to go before creating a perfect 3d Sonic game. But it’s a step in the right direction.
Story.
There are 4 story’s all of them go around beating up and stopping Dr. Eggman (Robotnick) from conquering the earth. Sonic has gotten a letter telling him of his vile handy work and challenging to stop him. Shadow and Rouge are out for revenge, and Amy is out to find Sonic and reunite Cream and Big with there 2 friends. And new comer team Chotix is out to make money.
Graphics.
The graphics in this game are a step up from the Sonic Adventures series, no longer just dream cast graphics on the Gamecube. Sonic and the friends are now smooth models with out the polygon edges. Like Sonic Adventure 2 the frame rate keeps up with the characters speed and doesn’t slow down, at least on the one player mode. In the 2 player mode it gets a bit sluggish at points.
I also like the new mobius surroundings that are in the game. One of the things I kind of didn’t like was the fact on the first stage of adventure 2 is that Sonic snowboarded down the center of San Francisco. The game now takes places in environments that you expect from the sonic game.
Sound.
Sonic Heroes like most Sonic games features an excellent number of tracks. The characters all have voices, it’s basically the same cast on in Sonic 2 battle, with a new voice for tails. They all do a fairly decent jobs of voicing the characters, if you’d like the Sonic voices in the video games then you’ll like them here. They do use them a lot through the game, mainly giving you tips, running around you’ll hear them say let Sonic handle this, or Knuckles fire ball attack will work here. These are great to keep you going at top speed through the game.
Game play.
The good news is Sonic is back to his speedy roots, this is basically a classic Sonic game made in 3d. The world is no longer an Earth look a like, it is back to more of a Mobius look a like. No more Knuckles gem quest. It’s the simple go from the beginning to the end of the stage and go has fast has you can. Like the classic Sonic games there will be multiple paths through the stage, but they all met back at critical moments. Of course grabbing rings will help Sonic stay alive if he get’s hit, and collecting 100 will give him extra life’s. A new twist is that collecting rings and killing enemies will build up a team blast meter and when full your team can do a special team blast attack that will kill all enemies, and in team rose case give them a extra hit shield.
To keep the game from being to simple and to tedious Sega added in the team work aspect. Each team has a speed demon (Sonic), a flyer (Tails), and a power player (Knuckles). The speed demons can run fast and jump further then the rest of the team, they also have techniques to get around pits. The flyers are the slowest of the bunch but they can fly the gang up cliffs, and throw fire balls at enemies. And the power ones can break through walls and glide slowly down. This team work greats because Sega put nice controls on the switches, hit the X and the Y button to scroll through the characters, you can switch on the fly even when going super fast.
While each team will go through pretty much the same area there not all equal. The game is easier with team rose (that would be Amy’s team) because there stages end the earliest, and have less enemies stopping them. And team dark (that would be Shadows team) is the hardest because it’s the longer levels and harder enemies. Then there here is team Chaotix with some new characters, these guys where design for the people who missed the Knuckles jewel stages (all 3 of you). They have to find certain items in the stages in order to pass.
There’s also bonus games that can be played these take place in a half pipe tube level that is very simpler to the half pipe in Sonic 2. The difference is these don’t suck, has your cohorts don’t count against you. You run around collecting balloons to keep your time up, if you hit a spike you stop and of course it will take time to recover and get to full speed again. Changing characters is also an important asset in this game has there are a few areas where even in the bonus stage where a flyer or a strong man can reach a balloon easier then the runner. I don’t know if you can collect Chaos emeralds and go Super Sonic because I didn’t get any from the ones I completed, but in one a chaos emerald did appear and run down the field, it’s the only one I didn’t win.
Now while this is all good and everything not everything is happy in Sonic land. While Sega did all right in the change of characters, they didn’t do has well has the rest of the control set up. First off the controls on the speeders aren’t has great has they should be. I have a feeling Sega meant it that way so we wouldn’t just use the speeders on tight areas where we shoulder’s but they went to far and sometimes Sonic and the crew just fly off the corners because you can’t turn quickly enough. It’s no Sonic R but it is noticeable.
Another problem is that sometimes two buttons are used for the same thing. Consider this Sonic has a technique called light dash. This lets him run along a group of power rings, and even lets him fly over the power rings. If there in the air you have to jump with the A button and then press B to let him fly over the rings. Unfortunately A plus B equals Sonics tornado spin where he spin’s attack around an enemy and turns them over. Not a problem most of the time, even in the rare coincidence where there is an enemy close enough to get in the way it’s just a minor annoyance. But let’s say your on a sinking plat former about to fall in lava, and you need to light dash or else your goose is cooked. And when Sonic goes after the enemy he quickly becomes drenched in lava and you end up saying a 4 letter French word.
Final recommendation
The game is not perfect it’s control could be tighten up, and the mixed up controls like the example above are a bit annoying. They don’t stop what is one fun and fast ride. Similar to that of classic Sonic games, but Sonic Mega Collection is still the best game featuring the hog on the GCN.
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