Sonic Adventure - Re-release Review

WARNING! NOSTALGIA GOGGLES MUST BE WORN ALL TIMES DURING THIS REVIEW. BE ADVISED HOWEVER: THE GOGGLES, THEY DO NOTHING.


My First full game review, and we go back to something old. Sonic Adventure re-released this week for PSN (and a week earlier on XBLA, good ol' M$. still buying advance timing I see.) and I figured I'd see if it still holds up to my memories of it. those being it being one of the last decent sonic games.


Graphics 10%


Wow... just wow. did SA really look this bad? I know the game is dated but I do not remember the game, especially the body models of the townsfolk, being this bad. however for the rest of the game it doesn't look "too" terrible considering the game's age. Still it is slightly annoying that given releases like Banjo-Kazooie for XBLA, that tried to update where they could, that Sega would not even bother to polish it even a little bit.


Sound 20%


No real complaints here, the sound track for SA was always good, tracks fit the area that it played in, and all sound effects play with no emulation garble in this emulated port. and of course the classic vocal song "Open your heart".


Controls and Game Play 15%


SA shows clearly the looseness sonic plays that they improved upon in SA2. during loops or "rail" sequences he can still be effected by your movements quite easily, often screwing you over. early example is the boost pad race to escape the whale in sonic's first stage, twice the game pulled me off the track entirely, killing me outright. However aside from the odd glitch the game play is as solid as it always was.

Length & Replayability 20%

The game is decent length on its own, as long as any $60 release they try to shove down our throats these days. And if you like the pet raising Chao, prepare to not see the sun for a few weeks as chao raising will consume your life. they are like tiny little bundles of Everquest in each egg. and for the completionist there are plenty of missions to accomplish and A rankings to achieve.

What I paid 15%

The base game is $9.99 and the dlc? $5. not all that bad when wrapped up in a little bow for $15. however more on this in a minute.

Base Score: 80% out of 100%

Now here comes the "modern fail" as all games have today.

The DLC it touts? is simply the content from the gamecube version which was sold pack in. so they take a game from two gens back, go up one gen they add content and repackage, come to current gen they cut that same content BACK OUT and sell it separately. very rarely has "withheld content" been more clearly obvious than this.



- Published by major publisher (-5%)
- Contains DLC (Disc Locked Content) (-20%)
- Contains Withheld content (-10%)

Adjusted score: 55% out of 100%
Final words: sometimes the past really is better.