[Rolken]

I read this while forumsurfing and it piqued my interest.

Sonic Adventure, when originally released, was very well received amongst both fans and press as I recall, and sold well also.

The "Sonic Adventure sucked" sentiment didn't seem to pop up until around SA2 onwards. This is probably due to the flaws of the following Sonic games mostly being extrapolations of elements first introduced in Sonic Adventure.

Sonic games are too realistic looking - began with Sonic Adventure. There are too many characters - began with Sonic Adventure. The stages are too linear - began with Sonic Adventure. The controls are fiddly - began with Sonic Adventure. And so on.

It's not that these things were necessarily big problems in Sonic Adventure (though they did leave room for improvement), but in the following games these elements were taken to the extreme.

In the sequels, instead of fixing the things that didn't quite work in SA, they made them into even bigger problems.

So the original Sonic Adventure receives a lot of unfair retroactive contempt.

I never was the biggest fan of Sonic Adventure, but having never owned a Dreamcast, I played SA2B before SADX, and so it never really felt like anything but a less polished, buggy SA2. Those of you who played it back in 99, what were your impressions?

[F-Man]

That it was simply a masterpiece of beautifulness and speed. And that SA2 was a disgrace to it.

I recall SA still seemed way more popular when the sequel came out. It's when they ported them to gamecube that the people who played SA2 first (and for that reason somehow liked it better) started to outweight the rest.

[Crowbar]

I won't deny I enjoyed it at the time (and SA2), and still like some aspects of it in retrospect, but mostly I hold it in contempt for the shocking physics engine and poor level design.

I actually think I enjoyed SA2 more, not because it was a better game by design (I'm not sure it was, even though there are some parts that are just outright better, like the character's movements and lipsync in cutscenes), but because the goals for the emblems were much more enjoyably challenging than those in SA1 (catch a big fish LULZ).

[Bilan]

I thought it owned.

And when I got SA2 on release day, I thought that owned more.

X)

And I still do think they own.

[magnum12]

Although my first Sonic game was SA2 (played SA later), I always thought that SA was the better game and that SA2 was overrated. To me, part of the problem I have with SA2 was that only 1/3 of the game was cool, while 1/3 was above average (the shooter stages are slower, more clunky versions of the Gamma stages), and 1/3 was utter garbage (it should be clear which part I'm talking about). What's worse is that not only did the treasure hunting segments get more weight in terms of level ratio (from 1/6 to 1/3), but these stages were even less fun to play than the SA versions. While its true that the camera in both games is terrible, the one in SA2 outright refused to cooperate. (Try to adjust it and it snaps back to the undesireable angle you were trying to avoid, especially in shooter stages.) I thought the Sonic/Tails stages in SA were cooler than the ones in SA2 (although Final Rush and Radical Highway were cool).

[PsyBorg]

My first 3D Sonic was actually SA2:B, so I'll talk about my impressions.


When I played SA2:B, I was addicted.

When I played SADX a while afterward, I realized what a piece of shit SA2:B was compared to SADX, regardless of the fact that I liked SA2:B anyway.

When I played Heroes, I actually liked it, but realized how boring it was right after I beat the game.

When I played Shadow, I realized that the majority of things I didn't like in SA2:B were either gone or compromised by an underrated feature that, in my opinion, was kickass.



And that is my opinion on the SAs.

[BrazNomar]

Hiya there...

Well, considering the last Sonic games I've bought were SA and SA2 (yeah, Dreamcast hasn't stop working since then)...

First time I played SA was madness. The most perfect game I ever had up to that time. Maybe because my best videogame before it was SNES? If it's only about games, then it'd be PC...

Anyway, my mouth was on the floor while my hands sticked at the controller for, let's say, "several" hours. I simply loved it. Better than Sonic 3D Blast (last "3D" Sonic game before) in all aspects. I really can't explain it all, it was an intense experience. But I can say that I spent like 5/6 of game time in the adventure fields...

2 or 3 years later, SA2. They did manage to make the graphics better... much better. It seemed that the stages were shorter, though. Yeah, I actually missed the adventure fields!... More than that, when I ended SA2, it left something void in this self of mine. I then concluded: SA had a better story than this. Seemed contraditory because there was Shadow, a somewhat deeper theme (controversial) and a turnover I didn't expect near the end. But I simply didn't feel like the stages were connected. Part of it ruined for me.

Funny is, nowadays, SA2 is the only Sonic game I keep going back, now for competing; but I haven't played all missions (it got around 90 emblems if I'm not wrong), and everytime I try playing SA again, I can't. The graphics won't allow me.

SA, though, sticks to my memories as the best Sonic game I have ever played. Or better, I'd say it ties with S3&K. Both made me spend a reasonable amount of life time.

The legend never die, just Dreamcast did. For some. \o/

[Illuminated]

I know I'll get hurt for saying this, but the reason I liked the SA games is because of the music. (Well, Sonic's mostly).

[Marth]

When I first played SA, it was only for a few minutes, so I can't say I really had an opinion.

I'll move forward to when I saw (and later played) SADX:

I didn't see much glitchy stuff, but I remember the load times seeming too slow and frequent.
(Mainly because the Egg Hornet battle was part of what I saw.)
When I got the game, it seemed okay, but a bit frustrating.
Of course, Big's A missions had something to do with it.
So did certain new missions, such as the Tails Icecap one (with flags).

Of course, I got past that and loved the glitches.

SA2 seemed to be kind of better in some ways (way longer),
but like Crazy Penguin said, many problems were just ones that
SEGA wrecked more instead of fixing. (See his post and also magnum12's.)
The camera, lack of Adventure Fields, and worse glitches* discouraged
me from looking for cool glitches and shortcuts.
(*SA's glitches don't get in the way as much. There are a lot, but most of them
are just wall and corner problems, at least for casual players.)
Oh, and there's the problem of the rankings and missions.
(It mostly just rewards high scores, and not fast times.
It wasn't too fun to play 3 nearly-identical missions for scores.)

SH was just sloppy. I think I might start to like it almost as much as SA2 soon,
but it didn't seem like a full Sonic game. The story wasn't just simple...
it was bad. It copied bits of other games (mostly SA) and resulted in
a mess of old stuff I had seen before and other dumb problems.
("It could be YOU-KNOW-WHO!"...    yeah, really well-written!)
The gameplay is too slow and fighting-based, and the control is worse than ever.
(what it has for a spin dash randomly fails, which is really bad with Team Rose)

One more thing: The Adventure Fields added to the realism, and I kind of liked them
(and not just for the glitches). Unfortunately, SEGA did a bad job of connecting areas.
(If I get the PC version of SADX, and if it's possible, I want to edit the fields and
add new objects to the backgrounds. It would be really cool to see the game
with one of the major flaws in the graphics and realism gone.)

[DJ Koopa]

what it has for a spin dash randomly fails, which is really bad with Team Rose

[snapback]10874[/snapback]

You noticed the major problem with Team Rose's Rocket Boost as well?

[buddychaos0415]

Both SADX and SA2B are very good games. :o