Sonic Adventure DX

Total Chaos!

After the enhanced port of Sonic Adventure 2 to GameCube, Sega went back to bring his original Adventure game to Nintendo’s console, with this new Director’s Cut of Sonic Adventure. It brings new missions, new control options and updated models and textures, while also fixing some bugs and issues. This was the first successful attempt at bringing Sonic in 3D after the Saturn failed to do so, as you could just play small parts in Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams and Sonic Jam. This was the big Dreamcast Sonic game, now enhanced.

Sonic Adventure is a collection of levels that are all connected by a hub world called “Adventure Fields”. These let you explore and find hidden objects and solve a few puzzles, as well as take part in a few boss battles. They do feel somewhat empty, but DX adds a mission mode that adds a load of missions to these adventure areas, but sadly it’s not integrated into the main game, you have to complete it first. It would have been nicer to have these activities accessible between levels. Still, these Adventure Fields help make the world feel more connected and not a string of random levels. They also work even better with the new free camera option, although you annoyingly have to turn this on after every transition to a new area.

The levels themselves are a lot of fun. The controls aren’t the smoothest, but are still very much playable to this day, and the levels in Sonic Adventure seem to hold up even better with time. There’s a good mixture of platforming and set-pieces, and fewer moments of the game just taking control away from the player (an issue with more modern Sonic games). However, once you finish Sonic’s story, you can’t play the end of the game until you’ve played as the other characters.

Tails’ story is pretty bland, you race Sonic through shorter versions of his levels. There are some rings to fly though for shortcuts, but it just feels like a retread. Amy’s missions are the best of the non-Sonic stuff, as Amy has to flee a menacing robot, adding a unique spin to her levels. Sadly, she has the fewest levels.

Knuckles and Omega both feel like prototypes of treasure hunt and shooting stages in Sonic Adventure 2, with the gameplay not yet finalised. The treasure hunting is more like a game of hot and cold, with clues pointing in a direction rather than hints, and the shooting feels like it doesn’t belong. Big the Cat has unique fishing mechanics and they’re horrible. The end of the game is spectacular, so it’s a shame you have to do all of this before you can see it. That said, most of it is still decent, it should definitely be in the game, it just should have been more optional.

Earning emblems in the game also unlocks Game Gear games to play. These are a little big laggy and it’s the start of something really annoying that Sega does with their 8-bit games. Most of these have superior Master System versions, with a better field of view, yet for the sake of consistency, only the Game Gear version is included. One big thing about these Game Gear games was that some of these were previously Japanese-only games and this was their first official release outside of Japan.

Sonic the Hedgehog (8-bit)

A solid little platformer. Has some levels based on the original, and a few of its own. Shows that Sonic can be

Sonic Drift

A very basic, and quite boring, racing game

Sonic Chaos

It’s an average Sonic platformer. It doesn’t do anything that bad, but there’s nothing too exciting. Fine if you just want to play a different Sonic platformer.

Sonic Spinball (8-Bit)

The original is a fun 2D platformer with some pinball elements, this version barely works.

Sonic Labyrinth

Sonic has “slow shoes” and must navigate frustrating isometric levels to collect keys. Feels like an early version of Sonic 3D Blast.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit)

The Master System version has far too many blind jumps, and this is made even worse on the Game Gear version.

Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine (8-bit)

I found the colours easier to see than the Mega Drive version, and it features a mission mode that the nicer looking version lacked. A really fun version of Puyo Puyo.

Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble

This one was created just for the Game Gear, and it works with the screen size so much better. A really fun game, which now has a great fan remake.

Sonic Drift 2

So much better than the first game, with far more interesting levels.

Tails Skypatrol

An immensely difficult side-scrolling shoot-em-up that feels like it was created as a new franchise with Tails put in at the last moment.

Sonic Blast

An attempt at Donkey Kong Country style graphics on the Game Gear. It doesn’t work well and the sprites take up far too much of the screen as a result. It’s also horrible to control and has horrendous level design. The worst Sonic platformer.

Tails Adventure

A fun adventure game with some Metroid-like elements. It’s annoying having access to only a few bits of equipment at once, as you’ll encounter dead ends and have to return to Tails’ house to swap.

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Sonic Adventure DX is a great version of a game which is often shunned, yet still shines brightly. A blast to play through and still a solid platformer.

Great

Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut, then. Lord knows how it qualifies as such. For starts, you might expect the Dreamcast visuals to have been given a good old Cubie spit and polish, but you’d be wrong. It looks rubbish. Glitchy as hell with not a trace of lovely GameCube effects, but instead with an unhealthy proportion of pop-up.

Jim McCauley

Remake or remaster?

A high-quality port to modern consoles is needed, without selling the GameCube extras as DLC. It should also try to integrate the missions into the main game and let you activate the Dreamcast DLC packs.

Official Ways to get the game

Sonic Adventure HD (with the mission mode from DX sold separately) is available on Xbox and Steam.

GameCube Games by Date

2001: Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2007: Mar, Jun, Aug

3D platformer gamecube platformer sega sonic sonic team