[Score: Strong 6/10].
Sonic’s Campaign:
Sonic’s campaign is absolutely beautiful. Emerald Coast, Twinkle Park, Windy Valley, Speed Highway and Red Mountain are bundles of joy to go through. So many different ways of engaging with these levels to try and get the fastest time you possibly can, with beautiful art direction to boot. The spin-dash here is…essentially a functional infinite boost with how much you can spam it, which leads to some amazing moves on terrain that you wouldn’t expect from a boost game. Judging by how much I love every single 3D Sonic Unleashed Stage and 3D Sonic Generations Stage, rating them 8s to absolute 10s in level design, I’d give Sonic Adventure’s levels a Strong 7. They’re not nearly as complex nor as fun as future entries, hell, I wouldn’t even say they’re as fun or complex as SA2’s stages, which is why they don’t go to that legendary ranking.
Knuckles’ Campaign
I even love Knuckles’ stages. The lack of a ranking system in Knuckles’ stages makes me feel like I’m playing an exploration Spyro game. I get to just enjoy some fun movement and amazing setpieces while I do so. It’s really relaxing. Not that I can’t do that in SA2, but when I do I’m met with an E-rank, which gives me time pressure to find the emeralds quickly. Nothing wrong with that, but I’m just less inclined to want to relax in those levels and more inclined to put my foot to the gas pedal.
The Problem Campaigns
If we were talking about Sonic and Knuckles stages ONLY, this game would be a Strong 7, maybe a Light 8…so why the fuck is Sonic Adventure a 6. WELL, IT’S BECAUSE WE’VE GOT AMY’S CAMPAIGN, TAILS’S CAMPAIGN, BIG’S CAMPAIGN. Bro, the main thing that is preventing me from finishing this game is the fact I gotta do Big the Cat’s campaign. Tails’s campaign is…boring. Not because his movement doesn’t feel fluid, but he’s not interacting with the terrain in as interesting ways as his blue counterpart. He feels like easy mode, which is why I couldn’t really get into his playstyle in the classic games either. Amy’s campaign is horrible with slow top speed, forgettable tasks and levels, and a generally boring storyline. If this game removed her story, it’d be x10 better. Maybe an extra point better. I’m not going to speak on Big The Cat, because I haven’t played his mode, but I don’t want to play a fishing minigame even if it is under half an hour. Omega’s playthrough might be fun, but it looks like SA2’s mech sections which can be fun in their own right, but I don’t actually want to play an entire mode like that. Those sections felt like breaks from the speed stages and treasure hunt stages.
FUCK IT! FUCK IT! THERE IS LIKE AN HOUR OR TWO BETWEEN OMEGA AND BIG THE CAT. AND I’M A SONIC FAN GODDAMMIT. HOW CAN I BE A SONIC FAN AS AN ADULT WHEN I HAVEN’T FINISHED “the best Sonic game there is”. Fucking bullshit by the way. My ass, this is the best Sonic game. That title belongs to either Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Generations, or Sonic Mania. Anybody who says ANYTHING ELSE has rose-tinted motherfucking goggles that make you succumb to the seduction of nostalgia’s dick. Cause the majority of these Adventure games PALE in comparison to the future games we got. These YouTubers are propaganda I tell you. FUCKING PROPAGANDA. Okay…anyways. Let me finish SA1 for the first time completely today, okay gang. I’ll finish this review later.
Gamma’s Campaign
Okay, I finished it. Gamma’s playthrough is really fun actually. It made me look at the game much more positively. It’s actually…BETTER than the SA2 mech levels. Gamma controls much better as he’s faster and his rotational motion is SO MUCH more smooth. It’s genuinely amazing. Now in SA2 I know the lack of rotational motion is purposeful, maybe to make the game harder to play, but it…just doesn’t feel as fluid man. I WANT FLUIDITY! I WANT GOOD FEELING GAMES! I even like Gamma’s take on the system in terms of the aim of the level. Instead of trying to get a high rank, your goal is to try and quickly manoeuvre through the level, but killing the enemies, especially in a chained manner, will earn you more time to complete the level. THAT’S RIGHT, the time COUNTS DOWN. It’s really engaging and in the last stage it really added some tension, really had me on the ropes. I prefer this mech system to SA2’s due to the mounting tension and more fluid movement system. It’s great actually.
ADDITIONALLY, and I can’t believe I’m saying this…but goddamn I AM MOVED. The fact that Amy’s kindness causes Gamma to realise that he’s a slave to Eggman…and the best way to save his comrades is to kill their robot shell, as the animals are having their energy harnessed and drained to power the robots themselves. In fact, Gamma gets KILLED at the end by the last robot, and is also “set free”. It’s ultimately the best thing for them, but the consciousness of the robots is completely lost. All of them…essentially die, and in a weird way are reborn into these birds to live the rest of their lives happily. That’s his idea of “saving his friends”. I definitely gotta mull this over more, because it’s really insightful. I can’t believe a Sonic story is making me look this deep because of its themes.
Big the Cat & Super Sonic’s Campaigns
Big The Cat’s Campaign…just as bad as I thought it would be. Never want to play that again. I don’t really have anything to say about it. It’s just boring as fuck. Super Sonic’s campaign, I finally finished it. It’s cool. The music is legendary. The cutscenes are poorly paced to the point of parody. But…it’s cool. That’s it. It’s cool.
Final Verdict
Ultimately if anyone wants to play SA1, just play Sonic’s GREAT playthrough, maybe play Knuckles’, maybe play Gamma’s, but that’s it. There is genuinely no need for the other 3 and the ending does not have enough bite for the work you put in to get to it. Ultimately, the strongest 6/10 I could ever play in my life. (Side note: there’s 26 hours to this game because I played Sonic’s campaign 3+ times)
Playthrough Details: 26 Hours, All Characters Played
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