Milk Bowl 54: Sonic Heroes: What Goes Up Must Come Down

SONIC HEROES

Sonic Heroes is the latest Sonic the Hedgehog video game from SEGA and Sonic Team. Even though it takes place after Sonic's last two Adventures, SH is a completely new look on the series. The follow-up to the Gamecube ports (Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle) tries to lend itself back to its roots of Sonic the Hedgehog from the SEGA Genesis or the SEGA CD while implementing the new Team aspect where you can switch between a Power, Speed and Fly character to get through the level using teamwork. 4 teams of 3 (making 12 playable characters) plus a Last story, a harder mode and plenty of extra missions and multiplayer games to occupy you for a while(especially if you want all the Emblems and A Ranks). So far, this is SEGA's closest thing to a 128-bit version of the old Sonics, but still not all the way there. Now for the review.

THE REVIEW (*Possible Spoilers*)

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{Tuesday, January 27, 2004}

*Graphics:
The graphics of Sonic Heroes are not too much of an advancement over those of the Sonic Adventure titles, which is pretty sad. Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast is a little over 4 years old and this game's graphics are pretty much equivalent to that with upgrades... which is basically what they did with Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut to Sonic and slightly on Tails, Amy and Knuckles. As far as graphical advancements in characters, the biggest jump is Big the Cat. Comparing his SA model with that of SH is a big difference. Otherwise, they are pretty much the same type of graphics and a little outdated. If anything, they are just really smooth and pretty shiny.

The CGs on this game look really cool. Not a technological achievement, but cool looking nonetheless. The CGs containing Team Rose have an over-abundance of what I call "Amy's Panty Shots". Yes. Hedgehog underskirt for the kids! The vocals and mouths move together too. Actually, the mouth movements and vocal are a LOT better in this game when compared to the SA games (where their mouth didn't even fit the Japanese vocals). The models in the CGs are really nice... The Metal versions of characters are pretty neat looking too. I don't know.

*Acting/Vocal
The voices in this game are decent. Also, a positive note, music scarcely obliviates the ability to hear what the characters say in this game. It happens, but only a little in a few of the normal scenes (never the CG's). The lines that the characters say throughout the levels are kind of stupid and become repetitive, but it is easy to ignore them (for me anyway). The lines are sometimes a bit cheesy, but the vocalists for this game are pretty good. Personally, I think that Shadow, Knuckles and Espio all have cool voices. There are, however, voices that will annoy you at some point (possibly). Charmy can get annoying a lot. Even Vector gets annoyed by him. Cream can be annoying because of her high-pitched voice sometimes. e-123 OMEGA can be an annoyance too, constantly saying "ANNHIALATION!" and his mecha crap. I sometimes wish he'd say "DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!" instead of "THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR ROUGE". Some people might argue that Tails is annoying. Well... he is, but atleast he's no longer Linus from the PEANUTSï¿½ cartoon. Otherwise, the voices actually fit the characters' personalities and that's what really matters (save for Metal Sonic, who seems weird with the ability to speak). Sonic got his attitude back! Hooblah!

*Music/Sound
Very good. The opening Sonic Heroes theme is played by Crush 40 (who are they...?) and each Team has their own individual theme that all sound pretty awesome. "This Machine..."(Team Dark theme) and "Team Chaotix"(Team Chaotix) are my favorites. Team Rose's "Follow Me" and Team Sonic's/Team Super Sonic's themes "We Can" and "What I'm Made Of" are good too. This doesn't include the Stage and Boss themes. Personally, I think a lot of the levels have more Sonic-style music to them than the Adventure games (no more rap music or vocal songs during levels) and the classic diddy from finishing a level returns. Boss fights have neat music too.
As far as sound, nothing new here. The sounds are pretty true to the last two 3D Sonic games and there are some old-school sounds as well (like bouncing off of mushrooms from MUSHROOM HILL ZONE of Sonic & Knuckles returning for the Frog Forest levels). Overall, the sound is good and the music is good.

*Framerate/Camera
I have had only a few problems with the camera and framerate. There are very subtle slowdowns (that are atleast consistant) sometimes when grinding and the camera has sploodged on me a few times. Otherwise there has been little problem.

*Platforms
To Be Updated...
The Gamecube version was released earlier in the month with the PlayStation2 and Xbox versions following soon after (might even be out by the time you read this). I'll just base info on bias and how games preformed on multiple systems in the past:
GAMECUBE:
- No connectivity (SEGA didn't want to make the game too different for each console)
- Decent loading times
- Decent graphics
- First version made
PLAYSTATION2
- No connectivity (nothing to connect to anyway...yet...)
- Slower loading times
- Not as clean graphics and slower framerate.
- Port of the Gamecube version, thus handicapped.
XBOX
- No connectivity or XBOX LIVE
- Faster loading times
- Probably slightly more polished graphics and equal or slightly better framerate.
- Port of the Gamecube version, but Bill Gates believes no handicap.

As far as the fanbase, it is assumed that the game will be owned by more Gamecube owners than the other two because PlayStation2 owners that want SH will most likely have a Gamecube in the first place (so they can add it to their collection of SADXDC/SA2B and maybe Sonic Mega Collection) and want a better looking version. Xbox owners are generally into games like Halo or Sports games (the biggest Xbox fanbase, according to statistics is Sports gamers) and it would look weird to have Sonic among Panzer Dragoon Orta, GTA 3/Vice City Double Pack, STAR WARS: Knights of the Old Republic and Halo. Not "cool" to their Ramen buddies I guess... But this is just an assumption.

*Story
As far as Sonic games are concerned, this is almost brilliant. As far as overall, the story is decent. A nice follow-up to SA2's ending, although it leaves open a lot of questions as to what the real deal is with Shadow, the supposed Ultimate Life-Form. The basic story is that Eggman is going to try to take over the world in 3 days and everyone has to stop him (no this isn't like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask; the 3 days are purely story element and have nothing to do with gameplay). The story is, actually, much deeper than that (and in some parts, cheesier). So here's an overview of each story.

WARNING: The following information will ruin the story for you completely.

TEAM SONIC
Sonic is running along when Tails and Knuckles finally catch up to him. They got a letter from Eggman, where he states that he's going to take over the world in 3 days. Sonic sees this as an invitation to a party, so he, Tails and Knuckles head out to stop Eggman. Team Sonic meets up with Amy, with Cream and Big tagging along. Amt threatens to marry Sonic (I guess its a threat...?) and a battle rages on. Sonic and co. walk off and continue on their quest to find Eggman and battle hoards of robots. They soon come across Eggman in his Eggalbatross and find out its a fake Eggman! Seems he was stalling for time. They run off and head to his secret flying base where they confront him in the Egg Emperor. Finding it to be another fake, Team Sonic is disappointed, but the 3 heroes kick back until Amy comes running after Sonic...

TEAM DARK
Rouge comes to Eggman's land base to look for some new secret treasure and comes across what appears to be Shadow (who supposedly died at the end of Sonic Adventure 2) and e-123 OMEGA, a robot in the e-100 series (e-102 GAMMA from SA1 was of the same series. e-100 style robots were mass produced in SA2 I believe). Omega was locked away in this room (possibly to guard Shadow) and now wants to destroy Eggman and all of his robots. Shadow has no memory of anything. Rouge sees this as an oppurtunity to start a "team" against Eggman (so she can get his treasure). They go off on their quest and find the fake Eggmans as well. One tells Shadow that he is missing no such memory... and they find what appears to be a Shadow-bot. When Team Dark comes to Eggman's flying base and defeat the maniac, they find nothing but another fake. Rouge goes off to find the treasure and finds a room filled with Shadow-bots/clones. Before getting a chance to give her assumption, Omega explains that the real Shadow exists somewhere. The crew walks off as Rouge goes to pursue another treasure hunt.

TEAM ROSE
Amy, Big and Cream (and her Chao, Cheese) are sitting around looking at their only clue to where all their friends have gone (which Amy almost loses). Amy's hoping to find Sonic, while Big lost Froggy again and Cream's Chao's brother, Chocola, is missing. Together, they run off to find their friends, thinking Eggman has them. Even though they find Sonic and his friends, Froggy and Chocola are still at large, so Team Rose continues their search which leads them to Eggman's sky base. After defeating a fake Eggman, Froggy and Chocola emerge from his remains. Amy then runs after Sonic.

TEAM CHAOTIX
The Chaotix Detective Agency, put together after KNUCKLES CHAOTIX (which left people like Mighty, Vector and Espio out of business), consists of Espio, Vector, and Charmy. They finally get a big break and get a job, which leaves Espio a little suspicious, but agrees anyway (it puts the bread on the table...). Team Chaotix gets mixed up with Team Dark, thinking they were bad guys AND Team Rose, who thought THEY were bad guys. Their new client has something against Eggman. For that matter, they know an awful lot about him... So anyway, Chaotix finds their way to Eggman's ship to try to save their client who was locked up, so they battle Eggman too...finding (GUESS!!) another fake. Vector leads the team to the client's cell to find the true identity of their client, Eggman himself! When asked for pay, Eggman claims he'll have the money when he takes over the world...

LAST STORY(Team Super Sonic)
Throughout all the stories, you notice a liquidy thing under all the fake Eggmans in the CG movies. In TEAM SONIC it becomes what looks like Metal Sonic and says "ALL LIFE FORM DATA HAS BEEN COPIED" while in T.DARK it says "ULTIMATE LIFE FORM DATA HAS BEEN COPIED" and in T.ROSE's story (at the end) it stays a liquid and says "CHAOS DATA HAS BEEN COPIED". So what has this variation of Metal Sonic been doing? Collecting data from Chaos (Froggy/Chocola Chao), the Ultimate Life Form (Shadow) and Sonic? Hmmm....
Team Chaotix asks Eggman who locked him up and then we go to the other three teams standing in front of a huge... thing with a figure standing on top. Metal Sonic! He laughs and says stuff about how he is now unstoppable and fuses with the ship's deck and becomes Metal Madness. Eggman complains that there is no way it can be stopped without the Chaos Emeralds (oh yeah, you can only unlock this story if you finsih all 4 Team stories and collect all 7 Chaos Emeralds to summon the Eternal Dragon...er..I mean..). The characters all pull out Chaos Emeralds (all of them) and then Shadow announces that they should fend off Metal Madness until Sonic can harness the power of the Emeralds, so that's what happens. Team Rose and Team Chaotix both fight the legs (sort of) and Team Dark attacks his front. Once they've all angered him enough, Metal Madness grows wings and flies away, becoming Metal Overlord and Sonic absorbs the power of the Emeralds and becomes Super Sonic (which wraps Tails and Knuckles in his aura lending them a bit of power, not to be confused with them being Super...). The battle rages on and Sonic becomes victorious and Metal Overlord reverts back to the Metal Sonic we know and love from Sonic CD and the SA ports on GCN (which had Metal Sonic as playable in certain modes). When asked how come Sonic was unable to be beaten, Sonic commented "Because we're Sonic Heroes!" and they go off on their seperate ways. Amy chases Sonic, Chaotix chases Eggman for their pay, Knuckles chases Rouge (who's after the Master Emerald again) while Shadow and Omega stand by Metal Sonic and look away.

THE END

Yeah, so that's the story. It's pretty good... but it has to be seen in order to fully understand and like it.

*Gameplay
The switching of characters seems awkward at first but after a while it becomes a second nature. The game is really easy to pick up and play if you've atleast played a 3D Sonic before. Beginners can play a Tutorial mode as well (and Team Rose has it as the first level) in order to learn about the different moves and different combos and when to know what formation to use. There are some moments in the game (especially Team Chaotix) where you might be left dumbfounded with what to do. That is one of the setbacks.

*Multiplayer
2P mode in this game is a mixed bag. Some modes are horrid and some are fun. There are levels where you race to the finish, race for the Chaos Emeralds, battles stages and who can get the most Rings. Battle is kind of hard to get used to because it is one screen and is like a completely butchered Smash Bros. style "Knock them off". The Chaos Emerald races are unfair because an experienced player can get the Emerald in like 5 seconds. Really, the multiplayer could be much better.

*Replay/Lastability
In order to unlock some things you have to go back and get Emblems and each level has an Extra Mission (except boss levels) to get another Emblem for that level. There are 120 in all (which will keep you coming back for more) and the really hard mode you can unlock by getting all A Ranks on the levels, allowing you to take the game to the next level. So there's plenty to do in the 14 or so levels as each team. The only thing that would make it even MORE replayable would be if it was purely standard SPEED levels like the old Sonic games. As much as I love this game, I could pick up Sonic 2 and be more determined to play it through because I don't have to switch and can just keep running. The NEED FOR SPEED dwells within Sonic fans, and we need that back (although this is damn near close).

*Recap
GRAPHICS: The graphics are good, but they are outdated. [7/10]
ACTING/VOCAL: Great, fitting voices. Some are annoying. [8/10]
MUSIC/SOUND: Cool music; stage music reflects old Sonic games. Classic sounds. [8/10]
FRAME/CAMERA: Decent. Better than SA games, but not too great. [6/10]
PLATFORMS: Assumption = Xbox > GCN >>>> PS2
STORY: Pretty neat. Nice follow up to SA2. [7/10]
GAMEPLAY: Great. Times of confusion. [7/10]
MULTIPLAYER: Mixed bag. Some fun, some not. [5/10]
REPLAY: Lots of Emblems and little things to unlock. [7/10]
TIME: It took me around 20 Hours (about 4hr. per Team plus menus, Last Story, a few extra missions and 2P mode). [6.5/10]
PRICE: $49.99
RELEASE: 1-5-04 [About] (GCN); 1-27-04 [About] (PS2/XBX)
OVERALL: The game is the best 3D Sonic so far and pretty damn fun.[8/10]
BEST THING: 4 3-person Teams, with 12 characters. Music and throwback to the old days of speedy Sonic games.
WORST THING: The camera is still pretty bad and the 2P mode could've been better. Emerald Races are scary.
SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Big saying "This feels great!" when grinding his privates in Rail Canyon/Bullet Station.