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Sonic Heroes

Score: 72%
ESRB: Everyone
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team
Media: DVD/1
Players: 1 - 2
Genre: Platformer

Graphics & Sound:

The Sonic legacy began as a series of 2D platformers on the Genesis. Once the series moved into 3D, it took a decidedly different turn in terms of gameplay with more emphasis on adventure elements, though still containing some of the classic 'speed' action of the original. Sonic Heroes is an attempt at a total return to the classic style of gameplay. Foregoing the adventure and shoot'em up elements introduced in the more recent titles, Sonic Heroes contains only the fast paced 'speed' elements, with every stage focusing on fast paced action zipping through various 3D environments. While the concept is solid, we've seen it work in the past two games. Team play adds an interesting dynamic to the gameplay, but Sonic Heroes suffers from severe bugs and mechanical problems that destroy much of the potential in the title.

While the rest of the game is of a questionable quality, there is one thing Sonic Heroes does manage to get right. The quality of the graphics, sound, and music is top notch as always. While the graphical quality is a bit lower in the PlayStation 2 version than what you'll see on the other two systems, it still more than meets the usual Sega standards. There are some frame rate issues, especially in multiplayer, but it generally serves just as a visual eyesore and doesn't impede the gameplay in any significant way. The environments, while utterly nonsensical in classic Sonic style, are gorgeous. The characters are expressive and well animated. There is also a healthy offering of FMV's that are excellent.

The classic ring chime is there, as well as all the other classic sound effects from the Sonic games. The music is usual Sonic fare - that specific mix of techno and pop that works great for Sonic games, though it's certainly not stuff you'd listen too in the car, well, most people anyway. The voice acting seems the same high caliber as the Sonic Adventure titles, though I will say the Robochao's voice is ridiculously irritating. For purists there is an option to have the original Japanese voices; always a big plus for certain people.


Gameplay:

The basic concept of a Sonic game is pretty simple. Sonic is a blue hedgehog who runs really, REALLY fast. While they've kept the speed aspect since the series went 3D, they've always also had various other types of gameplay included, such as treasure hunting and even fishing. Sonic Heroes does away with all these and, for better or worse, focuses purely on the speed. The story is always exactly the same as well. Dr. Robotnik makes a bunch of robots and tries to take over Mobius. While he's always the villain, Robotnik hasn't been the 'final' bad guy in awhile. There's usually a least one little extra villain with a twist at the end. It was Chaos in Sonic Adventure and Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2. There's a similar little twist in Sonic Heroes. It's not hard to figure out just from the opening FMV, but I won't spoil it here.

The big gameplay twist for Sonic Heroes is that you now play in teams of three. Each member of the team is color coded, with the colors based off Team Sonic. The blue character's focus is speed with some moderate attack power, the red character's focus is attack power, and the yellow character has low speed but has the ability to fly around with the others. There are four teams to choose from and each plays through the same stage though with some differences, mainly in terms of difficulty. You can also build up a power meter to perform a team up attack, which pretty much annihilates everything on the screen.

Team Sonic has Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and is the normal difficulty. Team Dark consists of Shadow, Rouge, and E-123 (the robot from Sonic Adventure 2), and is the hard difficulty. Team Rose has Rose, Big the Cat, and Cream the Rabbit, and is the easy difficulty. There is also team Chaotix, from a lesser known 32X 'Sonic' title called Knuckles Chaotix, which has Epsio the Chameleon, Vector the Crocodile, and Charmy Bee. Team Chaotix is a little different from the others. Rather than just getting through the level, you have to achieve some sort of goal. Some of the levels are easier than they were with Team Rose, and some are harder than they were with Team Dark. As usual you'll have to play through with all of the teams in order to get to the true end of the game.

Despite it's solid foundation, the game has some issues. For starters the levels just feel too long. I don't mean any one team specifically either (the levels tend to be a bit shorter with team Rose). I just frequently felt very tired of a level by the time I got to the end. Also, while the Robotnik boss fights are pretty fun, the fights against the other teams usually end up just being a button mash fest. Too much is going on to try to use any 'intelligent' battle plan.

One thing that really aggravated me was the end of some of the 'auto' sequences. You see, frequently you'll go through a series of loops or turns or jumps that the game pretty much controls on it's own. The problem arises at the end of these sequences. Sometimes they will end with you landing safely, and other times you'll have to manually control the group to avoid falling to your death. The problem is you never know which is which. I would frequently die from moving my group when I should have just let them go automatically, and sometimes I would die from not moving them to safety. How am I supposed to know when to do what?

Another small issue is that your partners can get hurt and temporarily incapacitated. Well, much of the time, your moves and attacks require the presence of at least one of your partners. Basically, the stupid AI can get you killed. It's not a huge issue, but it's there and mildly annoying. I'm going to end by saying that the casino levels are very cool.


Difficulty:

Sonic Heroes is hard, in the bad way. For those of you who don't know what I mean, the game isn't hard in the fun, challenging way. It's hard in the 'Jeez I'm tired of fighting the controls and buggy mechanics to get through this level' way. I'll get to that a bit later, but mechanics issues aside, some moments of the game are downright cheap. As an example, there is one part of the game when you're riding on rails through a canyon. One of your teammates warns you that there's a train coming behind you and to look out. It doesn't matter, however, because the train comes and smacks you a few milliseconds after they warn you. Nowhere near enough time to react. Simply put, you have to die once. You can't get through that segment of the game unless you've played it before and know exactly what's coming. I hate that in games. It's not an isolated incident either; there are many more parts just like it. The game is hard, in that buggy, cheap way.

Game Mechanics:

Now we get to the heart of the problem. Many games can be hard or cheap and still be fun to play, but the neverending string of bugs and blunders the game imposes on you will kill the fun on countless occasions. We'll start with something only mildly irritating. There is an extremely long pause whenever you finish a level.

The single biggest issue was that parts of the game just didn't work. For example, there are parts of levels where you can use Sonic's homing attack on enemies to cross over pits. More often than not he would just spiral somewhere randomly and die. I had similar issues with the 'Light Dash' move. You press the square button near a ring with Sonic and he will ZOOM down the path of rings, sometimes across a pit. All too often he would get one or two rings, then just inexplicably fall to his death.

Another example of inexplicable death is buggy level terrain. Aside from the simple case of falling through the world, which happened, though only once, there was also the case of what I call 'the death loop'. There was a part where you go through a loop and head straight down for a short distance before hitting some bumpers and bouncing forward. I ran right through the bumpers, 5 times in a row. It was not a pleasant experience.

Sometimes it just feels like there is some unstated rule set for controlling the game during certain semi-automatic sequences that I was never told. That, or it's just a buggy mess. The game is filled with 'what the hell?!?' moments that will leave you feeling frequently frustrated and rarely challenged. If you're a hardcore, or even moderate, Sonic fan you'll probably get some enjoyment out of this game. Be warned though, you have your work cut out for you. Anyone else should probably stay away.


-Alucard, GameVortex Communications
AKA Stephen Triche

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