Sonic Heroes [GC]

Sonic Heroes was a decently hyped game 6 years ago back in late 03' and early 04'. Sonic hadn't had a new 3D game since Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast and it was ported to the Gamecube in 2002.

The past two 3D Sonic titles got mixed reviews and reactions from. Most of the complains even from hardcore Sonic fans usually dealt with camera, voice acting miscues, and Sonic going away from the original 'speed' gameplay it had in its older 2D titles.

Unfortunately, Sonic Heroes does not address those problems at all.

I'll go over what's good about the game first since it does have its positives. The graphics, in this time, were actually the best for a Sonic game. The cut-scenes were done fairly well and looks to have a bit of a CGI touch; as for the graphics during the actual gameplay, they're fine as well. There are many things moving at the same time and I've never personally sensed any type of slowdown in the frame rate. Graphics are solid for a Gamecube game.

The music is bland in some areas, and fantastic in others. Nothing is really too annoying to the ears in terms of the themes. Frog Forest is actually a favorite theme of mine in the past few years. Most of the music in the game fit their respective settings at the very least.

That's pretty much it on what I'll actually give credit to with this game. Everything else is either just downright bad or mediocre. So where exactly does this game come short?

First off, the story has its shortcomings. I guess the main reason why is probably just rushed excuses to add Team Rose and Team Chaotix to the mix. One should only really take Team Hero and Team Dark seriously, but even they lack anything new with the Sonic world. Team Hero is probably as typical of a story you'll see in 2D Sonic games. Eggman is up to no good again apparently, but you have no idea what he's exactly doing. We haven't had a story like this in years. Team Dark just feels rushed. Their motives seem so empty and lacking; but hey, again, this has probably more to do with the flaw of combining teams together after the events of Sonic Adventure 2 and they just skipped it entirely.

Not to mention when you advance from stage to stage, you just.. appear there. One moment you're at a beach and now you're in a futuristic city. You have no idea why. You haven't even spotted Eggman. You're just there. Again, it seems like that just skipped this part entirely and just focused on the team element of the game.

The voice acting is.. meh. Biggest problem is that Tails sounds like a 4-year-old. I suppose the phrases will tend to get repetitive and annoying as you go through the game. Sonic is still corny and Shadow still speaks in cliche 'mystery' lines. Team Rose is the worst team you want to hear (for obvious reasons) and Team Chaotix is probably the only team I enjoyed playing as voice acting wise simply because they have a few clever, sarcastic lines.

The gameplay for me is possibly the worst aspect of the game. If you don't know by now, Sonic Heroes gameplay places emphasis on teams. Team Hero includes Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails; Team Rose includes Amy, Cream, and Big the Cat (oh god); Team Dark includes Rouge, Shadow, and E-Gamma something; and Team Chaotix includes Espio, Charmy, and Vector. Every team has a speed character, a power character, and a flyer. It is essentially combining all of the elements in the past 3D Sonic games into a single entity. Team Chaotix is the only deviant team as it involves detection and other means of completing a stage. The other three teams are traditional 3D Sonic gameplay.

The problem arises in the team concept. Sonic games have been mostly based on speed, and with the team element the games speeds down heavily. In fact, you will never really get the chance to run through a stage extremely fast no more than 30 seconds. There are constant stops such as moving or hitting a large wall or hitting enemies that take multiple hits. The game went from speed action game to a platformer that mixes some elements in Sonic games that do not necessarily work together simultaneously.

Of course, the idea at least sounds good on paper, but I believe it just wasn't done right. The amount of bugs and glitches in this game don't help the cause. The homing attack is exceptionally worse. Attacking an enemy near any ledge is just asking for suicide. They even have the audacity to do this excessively on grinding rails.

Speaking of grinding, that's essentially the game. Grinding. You grind at least a good 40-50% of the stages. What is their random obsession with grinding? I guess I'll never understand, but it makes things far too repetitive and most of your deaths in this game are really just falling whether due to human error or game error. I'm not kidding. When you first play a stage, you may make a tiny mistake, but it is most likely due to bad camera angle, homing attack failing you, or some unexpected thing you suddenly run into. To make matters worse the rings bounce so much higher in this game so recollecting them is a bitch.

The bosses aren't exactly inspiring and extremely predictable. In each act, you essentially first face a bunch of robots, and then to complete the whole act you fight Eggman in a giant machine that is most likely identical to the last.

The stages themselves are far too long and taxing. The average stage is probably around 5 minutes if you're good and longer if you have problems at a certain area. If you run out of lives you just do the whole act over again. I never really quite understood why the stages were considerably longer. It also doesn't help with all these glaring pit problems the game seems to show.

Overall, the gameplay just suffers from too many bugs. The game essentially becomes "Do you remember what happened here last time?" You will essentially go through a stage, most likely die time and time again at a certain part, then memorize your way past through it after you go all the way. There is a lot of luck involved in some of these parts, but this is just simply not an enjoyable gaming experience to me. It is simply frustrating. Not frustrating in the way Mega Man games are, because they aren't glitchy and you are more fighting yourself than the game; but this is the exact opposite. You are literally fighting the game's own mishaps rather than yourself. Since the homing attack is less accurate, you are most likely going to suicide. Since robots now take multiple hits, you are most likely going to suicide. Since there is so much grinding, you are most likely going to suicide.

Is the team concept a failure overall? Well, I wouldn't say it's impossible to work one in. Who knows how this game would be if the gameplay just wasn't so trippy. The game is great visually and audio wise, but it just falls short with actual enjoyment. I think most Sonic fans would prefer the game sped up with less pits, glitches, and fixed camera angles.

Sonic Heroes is mostly forgotten now, and also got a lot of mixed reviews, but the fact that it didn't really make an impact is telling. It is an interesting innovative effort, but fell short for maybe reasons above.

Very good review, but scores out of 10?

Uh, oh. I usually don't bother with numbers but uh.. I have no clue. I guess whatever means mediocrity? 5 or 6 out of 10.

I'll take that as a 5 and add it to the directory.

This is a very well-written review. I myself would have given the game a bit of a higher score because there's some other good bits such as good Special Stages and innovative uses of the trio system. However, I agree that the three-group idea isn't so great.

Btw, the robot's Omega. Gamma's the weird one from Sonic Adventure.

One last thing I like is how they only created one new playable character this game when, with Sonic Team now, we'd probably have more.