Post by Ninmast on Mar 31, 2009 23:01:53 GMT -5
The scheming Dr. Eggman is at it again, this time in the island nation of Soleanna. When he abducts the nation's crowned princess, a 17-year-old girl named Elise, with the intention of stealing from her the secrets to the Flames of Disaster, it's up to Sonic, Shadow and a psychokinetic hedgehog from the future to stop him. The race is on once more to collect the all-powerful Chaos Emeralds across the past, present and future to prevent a transcendent god from engulfing all of time.
Storyline: 7/10
An excellent take on the world of Sonic the Hedgehog, the storyline is both rich and detailed, intertwining three different time periods and individual stories into one epic that develops steadily in the background of all three. With plenty of awesome scenes for fans of characters to enjoy, from Sonic's typical approach to a swarm of swat bots (completed smartly by tapping the last one with his toe) to Shadow soundly showing the young upstart Silver why you don't mess with the big boys, the favorites are well catered to. Even Amy gets a bit of screen time, and shows her regular penchant for pulling anyone and everyone she encounters into her relentless search for Sonic.
Unfortunately, Sonic's story holds a feeling of being strongly inspired, and perhaps even an attempted revisitation, of his adventures in and around Station Square in Sonic Adventure. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but more creativity could have been good. I mean, they even brought back the whale! Even so, however, his story, as well as Shadow's, is detailed and without any hugely blatant plot holes, which is more than can be said for Silver's. Between suggestive but never addressed character musings, most notably from Blaze, and the lack of a conclusive ending for the character, as well as all the unanswered details surrounding Mephiles, who played a pivotal role in the stories of both Silver and Shadow, Silver's story felt largely unfulfilling and unfinished. As the new character, Silver of all people needed more fleshing out than the others, but instead, he didn't even get as much as they did, or even any really memorable action scenes. At least, none where he wasn't getting beat on by some other character.
Graphics: 8/10
Beautifully done, particularly in cutscenes, though sometimes, the quality shifts between clips and it's noticeably jarring, usually because it's faded into poorer quality, more like in game play, then suddenly jumps back up to cinematic quality. Also, while the characters are well colored and animated, the people of Soleanna are largely uninspiring, generic duplicates copied and pasted all over the city with only a couple of unique ones that really still could have used more detail. Also, an occasional close-up of a character's face will show rough polygons. They also skimped on action level design by including large amounts of water, lava or pits when they could have fleshed it out. This is minor in comparison, however, and at least said lava and water is well done.
Sound: 8/10
With original songs, including a remix of Shadow's All Hail Shadow theme from his own game, and a techno soft rock style of theme for the slower, futuristic Silver, the themes are delicious. Act music is just a bit dated and sounds a bit too much like the last-gen Sonic Adventure 2 music without any lively, real songs like City Escape. The music for White Acropolis Base, in fact, sounds almost identical to the music from Eggman's base in that title. Fortunately, the early Gamecube, almost Nintendo 64 quality music that serves as the background for most of the game goes largely unnoticed until you start listening to them individually because of how well-placed and suited they are to each individual level, and much of the boss music is truly epic work, as well as breaking the last-gen mold that most of the background music suffers from.
Control & Interface: 3/10
Playing Sonic will be very natural to anyone who has played one of his previous 3D adventure games. His moves are almost entirely the same, as well as some returning classics, such as the magnetic shield, through the use of special gems he can purchase from the store for rings. Knuckles, as well, is easily adapted to. Everyone else has a learning curve, varying from a mild one with Shadow to a nearly incapacitating one with Tails and everyone else falling in different degrees in between.
While Shadow has been changed to be less of a Sonic clone and given moves to reflect the more martial arts style of combat he displayed in the cutscenes of his own game, this change requires a subtly different approach to playing him from Sonic, and anyone who attempts to play him like his blue counterpart will immediately have a much more challenging time with his levels. Once one stops playing him like Sonic and adapts to his own personal style, he becomes one of the coolest and most useful characters in the game to play as.
Tails on the other hand has been tied down and stripped of all of his abilities by rabid "Tails Adventure" fans and given only extremely lame Dummy Ring Bombs in their place as a throwback to his two Game Gear games. His dummy rings may have served him fine against roasted ducks and candy-obsessed witches, but their nigh-uselessness against armored swat bots armed with missiles and automatic rifles will quickly have you begging for the spin attack he learned in Sonic 2 or at least his lame but infinitely more useful tail spin attack from Sonic Heroes. Instead, all Sonic's long-time sidekick brought to the show was a short fly time and the ability to inaccurately drop fake rings on his enemies' heads, which invariably get in the way when you're trying to pick your own rings back up after the enemies hit you with their real attacks.
Following closely behind is Rouge the Bat, who has given up her Tornado Kick and Hip Drop for explosive grenade-like bombs in her favorite shade of pink. While infinitely more usable than Tails' ring bombs, including being more accurate, carrying a decisively greater punch and the ability to peg them on walls as she climbs across them to turn them into timed mines, the lack of any melee moves means you'll be taking a more evasive, sneaky approach with her, utilizing her glide and climb abilities extensively, though this is still pulled off leagues better than with Tails. Also, in a tribute to her break-in on Eggman's base in Adventure 2, she is charged with tracking down three keys to the door ahead in Kingdom Valley, which becomes more of a chore with her lack of that handy little treasure sensor that would beep according to how close you were to it.
Next up would probably be Amy, who seems to have picked up a few tricks from Espio, including a double jump and the ability to temporarily render herself invisible. As a drawback, however, she lost any capacity whatsoever to strike while jumping, and her Pico Pico Hammer has such short range that you have to be right up next to the enemy to hit them, something that is difficult to judge while she's hidden from sight. After her would be Blaze, who has cool moves but is overly difficult to control dependably, and Omega, who tends to quickly lose altitude without any notable forward momentum if you attempt to do a hover jump without getting a running start and, despite having gatling cannons for arms, has a zero-range normal attack that's really only good for breaking crates. Finally, Silver's complete lack of physical moves leaves him feeling overly fragile, particularly for a main character, and even when catching enemy projectiles, some will often inexplicably pass right through and hit without being caught, and since most of his adversaries use missiles to provide him something to throw back, they have a nasty habit of sending his rings flying to all corners of the map when they hit. Add to this that sometimes, the psychokinesis fails to engage at all and you end up with a very unique moveset that is wonderful from the standpoint that it's a hedgehog that doesn't move at high speeds and attack with a homing spin for a change, but still will leave you frustrated when getting swarmed.
Replay: 6/10
With three different stories, plus the traditional unlockable Last Story, you'll have to play through the game a minimum of three times just to get the entire story. Sadly, all levels are almost identical throughout the three stories and even get revisited in the Last Story one last time, resulting in some droll, repetitive times. There are plenty of quests from the people of Soleanna, though, as well as gold medals and two difficulty levels for every mission and silver medals scattered throughout Soleanna and all levels that serve no recognizable purpose outside of collection. For two players, there's a battle mode for racing through the levels, as well as a co-op "story" mode. Unfortunately, navigating through layout of the city will frequently have you jumping to the rooftops just to get your bearings and the game is infected with long loading times, two equally long ones before and after every mission, even little minute-long town quests. If you have a hard drive and NXE, this can be eased by installing the game to your hard drive, and upon doing so, most load times will be cut in half while some will be reduced even further. If you don't have those, though, I recommend having something on hand to distract yourself while waiting.
Overall: 7/10
Despite suffering from an overkill of load times and some poorly designed move sets, those who can overlook these things will find a classic Sonic adventure that will stir their imaginations and give them the sense of unparalleled speed that the self-ascribed "fastest thing alive" has made himself famous for. The question is, will we now be seeing a Silver the Hedgehog title a year or two down the road?
Storyline: 7/10
An excellent take on the world of Sonic the Hedgehog, the storyline is both rich and detailed, intertwining three different time periods and individual stories into one epic that develops steadily in the background of all three. With plenty of awesome scenes for fans of characters to enjoy, from Sonic's typical approach to a swarm of swat bots (completed smartly by tapping the last one with his toe) to Shadow soundly showing the young upstart Silver why you don't mess with the big boys, the favorites are well catered to. Even Amy gets a bit of screen time, and shows her regular penchant for pulling anyone and everyone she encounters into her relentless search for Sonic.
Unfortunately, Sonic's story holds a feeling of being strongly inspired, and perhaps even an attempted revisitation, of his adventures in and around Station Square in Sonic Adventure. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but more creativity could have been good. I mean, they even brought back the whale! Even so, however, his story, as well as Shadow's, is detailed and without any hugely blatant plot holes, which is more than can be said for Silver's. Between suggestive but never addressed character musings, most notably from Blaze, and the lack of a conclusive ending for the character, as well as all the unanswered details surrounding Mephiles, who played a pivotal role in the stories of both Silver and Shadow, Silver's story felt largely unfulfilling and unfinished. As the new character, Silver of all people needed more fleshing out than the others, but instead, he didn't even get as much as they did, or even any really memorable action scenes. At least, none where he wasn't getting beat on by some other character.
Graphics: 8/10
Beautifully done, particularly in cutscenes, though sometimes, the quality shifts between clips and it's noticeably jarring, usually because it's faded into poorer quality, more like in game play, then suddenly jumps back up to cinematic quality. Also, while the characters are well colored and animated, the people of Soleanna are largely uninspiring, generic duplicates copied and pasted all over the city with only a couple of unique ones that really still could have used more detail. Also, an occasional close-up of a character's face will show rough polygons. They also skimped on action level design by including large amounts of water, lava or pits when they could have fleshed it out. This is minor in comparison, however, and at least said lava and water is well done.
Sound: 8/10
With original songs, including a remix of Shadow's All Hail Shadow theme from his own game, and a techno soft rock style of theme for the slower, futuristic Silver, the themes are delicious. Act music is just a bit dated and sounds a bit too much like the last-gen Sonic Adventure 2 music without any lively, real songs like City Escape. The music for White Acropolis Base, in fact, sounds almost identical to the music from Eggman's base in that title. Fortunately, the early Gamecube, almost Nintendo 64 quality music that serves as the background for most of the game goes largely unnoticed until you start listening to them individually because of how well-placed and suited they are to each individual level, and much of the boss music is truly epic work, as well as breaking the last-gen mold that most of the background music suffers from.
Control & Interface: 3/10
Playing Sonic will be very natural to anyone who has played one of his previous 3D adventure games. His moves are almost entirely the same, as well as some returning classics, such as the magnetic shield, through the use of special gems he can purchase from the store for rings. Knuckles, as well, is easily adapted to. Everyone else has a learning curve, varying from a mild one with Shadow to a nearly incapacitating one with Tails and everyone else falling in different degrees in between.
While Shadow has been changed to be less of a Sonic clone and given moves to reflect the more martial arts style of combat he displayed in the cutscenes of his own game, this change requires a subtly different approach to playing him from Sonic, and anyone who attempts to play him like his blue counterpart will immediately have a much more challenging time with his levels. Once one stops playing him like Sonic and adapts to his own personal style, he becomes one of the coolest and most useful characters in the game to play as.
Tails on the other hand has been tied down and stripped of all of his abilities by rabid "Tails Adventure" fans and given only extremely lame Dummy Ring Bombs in their place as a throwback to his two Game Gear games. His dummy rings may have served him fine against roasted ducks and candy-obsessed witches, but their nigh-uselessness against armored swat bots armed with missiles and automatic rifles will quickly have you begging for the spin attack he learned in Sonic 2 or at least his lame but infinitely more useful tail spin attack from Sonic Heroes. Instead, all Sonic's long-time sidekick brought to the show was a short fly time and the ability to inaccurately drop fake rings on his enemies' heads, which invariably get in the way when you're trying to pick your own rings back up after the enemies hit you with their real attacks.
Following closely behind is Rouge the Bat, who has given up her Tornado Kick and Hip Drop for explosive grenade-like bombs in her favorite shade of pink. While infinitely more usable than Tails' ring bombs, including being more accurate, carrying a decisively greater punch and the ability to peg them on walls as she climbs across them to turn them into timed mines, the lack of any melee moves means you'll be taking a more evasive, sneaky approach with her, utilizing her glide and climb abilities extensively, though this is still pulled off leagues better than with Tails. Also, in a tribute to her break-in on Eggman's base in Adventure 2, she is charged with tracking down three keys to the door ahead in Kingdom Valley, which becomes more of a chore with her lack of that handy little treasure sensor that would beep according to how close you were to it.
Next up would probably be Amy, who seems to have picked up a few tricks from Espio, including a double jump and the ability to temporarily render herself invisible. As a drawback, however, she lost any capacity whatsoever to strike while jumping, and her Pico Pico Hammer has such short range that you have to be right up next to the enemy to hit them, something that is difficult to judge while she's hidden from sight. After her would be Blaze, who has cool moves but is overly difficult to control dependably, and Omega, who tends to quickly lose altitude without any notable forward momentum if you attempt to do a hover jump without getting a running start and, despite having gatling cannons for arms, has a zero-range normal attack that's really only good for breaking crates. Finally, Silver's complete lack of physical moves leaves him feeling overly fragile, particularly for a main character, and even when catching enemy projectiles, some will often inexplicably pass right through and hit without being caught, and since most of his adversaries use missiles to provide him something to throw back, they have a nasty habit of sending his rings flying to all corners of the map when they hit. Add to this that sometimes, the psychokinesis fails to engage at all and you end up with a very unique moveset that is wonderful from the standpoint that it's a hedgehog that doesn't move at high speeds and attack with a homing spin for a change, but still will leave you frustrated when getting swarmed.
Replay: 6/10
With three different stories, plus the traditional unlockable Last Story, you'll have to play through the game a minimum of three times just to get the entire story. Sadly, all levels are almost identical throughout the three stories and even get revisited in the Last Story one last time, resulting in some droll, repetitive times. There are plenty of quests from the people of Soleanna, though, as well as gold medals and two difficulty levels for every mission and silver medals scattered throughout Soleanna and all levels that serve no recognizable purpose outside of collection. For two players, there's a battle mode for racing through the levels, as well as a co-op "story" mode. Unfortunately, navigating through layout of the city will frequently have you jumping to the rooftops just to get your bearings and the game is infected with long loading times, two equally long ones before and after every mission, even little minute-long town quests. If you have a hard drive and NXE, this can be eased by installing the game to your hard drive, and upon doing so, most load times will be cut in half while some will be reduced even further. If you don't have those, though, I recommend having something on hand to distract yourself while waiting.
Overall: 7/10
Despite suffering from an overkill of load times and some poorly designed move sets, those who can overlook these things will find a classic Sonic adventure that will stir their imaginations and give them the sense of unparalleled speed that the self-ascribed "fastest thing alive" has made himself famous for. The question is, will we now be seeing a Silver the Hedgehog title a year or two down the road?
