Not sure if this is worth a thread but check out this site comparing the original Dreamcast version of Sonic Adventure with the GameCube and PC/Steam versions:
I only played this on the Gamecube (and then the PC) and a bunch of this is…mindblowing. A ton of the stuff that I thought was bad about this game was actually just a bad port! Like, look at this:
I mean, how the fuck do you look at this all-white screen and go “yep, ready to ship!”
Anyway it turns out that a bunch of the stuff I thought was bad about Sonic Adventure was actually just the port downgrading stuff, particularly in regards to color and lighting. (Oh, it turns out they basically destroyed the lighting engine when porting to GameCube and never rebuilt it for PC.) I didn’t know that I could love this game even more, but now I do.
Oh yeah also there’s a super easy mod for the Steam version that will correct most of this stuff. You can also get the DC only DLC which is pretty cool:
I’m a huge fan of SA1, it’s one of the most overreaching and sincere games ever created. I’ve probably spent more time playing it than any other Sonic game.
Also check out this christmas tree in the christmas DLC
sonic adventure 1 is really weird and wacky and busted as hell
they fucked up really bad but there were so many inspired ideas and it’s easy to forget just how unbelievable those graphics were, coming from the n64/psx era. probably impossible to explain to someone who wasn’t into games at the turn of the century? i pored over a massive cover feature preview in EGM for probably 2 hours on the bus for a church retreat. the screenshots were utterly awe-inspiring and i was actually pretty convinced the final game probably wouldn’t look that good on release (narrator: it looked that good on release).
chao’s were good. i like the chao’s.
it’s cool that big the cat just, like… fucken fishes. that’s awesome.
god was it even possible to play this game casually and not experience fistfuls of jank and busted-ass-ness? i know i got stuck in some geometry while playing an in-store demo.
Having never played the original, I can still safely assume that the very first level has a spot where it’s easier to fall through the geometry than it is to continue safely. That is the way it was in the GC and PC versions, so I assume the DC was like that too.
Playing as Sonic in Sonic Adventure is the most Sonic experience possible, once you figure out that you can slam the Spindash button repeatedly to reach unusually high speeds. At that point you’re going so fast that the game itself becomes nigh unplayable, the levels practically collapsing under the pressure and the camera failing to properly follow you. Once easy jumps become almost impossible as you fly through the sky, overshooting everything and falling repeatedly to your death. Boss stages become impossibly small, and I find myself itching to move on so I can go fast again.
This is how I imagine Sonic feels when trying to exist in the regular, slow-as-hell world. This world is not meant for his speed.
the most famous advertising moment from SA1 is you running away from that killer whale and literally every other version that isn’t the US Launch DC version, you somehow can’t run fast enough to evade it and clip through to the water EVERY TIME
there’s something about the way 3D space looked on Dreamcast games that I don’t think has really been replicated. might have something to do with how much clearer everything was compared to psx/saturn/n64 games, but looking at those pics of the ports makes me feel like there was more to it than that.
there was something to that experience, stepping out from a cave of low-res, blurry, low-frame-rate 3D into glorious blue skies 60FPS Sonic Sonic Sonic and the amazingly smooth new analog stick and triggers on that Dreamcast demo in the overlit Toys 'R Us warehouse store.
It was sight for the blind
I was 13 and not a Sega kid at all and I knew immediately the smartest thing I could do would be to buy a Dreamcast for this one game
boy they really diluted that orca over the next decade by just upping the ante with more and more fucking orcas chasing you and flipping over you and bouncing you on their noses until they were just a vague bit of overused iconography like a checkerboard pattern or whatever
i always feel like sonic adventure sort of started the secret opposite end of the “cinematic platformer” idea. like instead of slow deliberate stuff it’s just sheer wild entertainment. like if you are the exact right age speed highway is exactly as exciting a 1999 anime-styled action sequence as the lobby scene in the matrix. it sort of feels similar to kids cg movies where they are just full of wild chases and daring escapes and zillion foot falls all the time. like sensation of feeling that first twisty loop on speed highway for the first time (in 1999) is really the very closest they’ve come to matching the thrill of a sequence from the sonic cd anime stuff.
and now they are still sort of trying to make that up with wacky quicktime events and mid air tricks and i guess that’s honestly one part i still kinda like about 3d sonic games? like no one is even trying to do the level of absurd anime rollercoaster acrobatics in a platform game?
and it’s also how that butt rock balls to the wall attitude combines with all the weird slice of life NPC stuff and the chao garden and fishing and everything else. just a fascinating product
let big the cat fish. stop feisty sonic takes 2017.
also I know that everyone here practices self care and therefore doesn’t watch the game grumps, but I am around people who do and so I was frequently aware and frustrated that Arin intentionally picked the buggiest version of the game to play. He admitted to this, like, first thing, and I grind my teeth about how many bad takes were birthed in the comments once that fact became diluted among the constant screaming on camera.
I tried to communicate this to one of those friends, and what they took away was that I was complaining that they weren’t good at the game. Or something? Idk. I am unreasonably frustrated by this but the grumps have just worn me down.
Okay like I need to talk about the highly ambitious story structure of Sonic Adventure.
Sonic Adventure tells 1 story 6 times from different perspectives, and much of it seems completely random unless you play all of the pieces. Amy randomly dropping in on Sonic’s story, Knuckles getting in a fight with Sonic for no reason, etc. It only comes together once you finish all of them. This is really brave considering most games will repeat the most basic things at you until they’re absolutely sure you haven’t missed a single thing. This game will let you miss entire plot points simply because you hate fishing minigames.
And get this: There are slight differences in the cutscenes depicting the same events depending on who you are playing as, and it’s not just “who says the line is different,” it’s the actual wording of things that other characters are saying. Watch these for like 30 seconds:
Why is Robotnik’s line slightly different? Either would work in both situations, so why change it? It’s fascinating and weirdly ambitious.
Another brave move: You can stop one character’s story at any time and pick up on someone else’s, assuming you’ve at least met that character. I can only think of a handful of games that let you tackle a story from multiple angles simultaneously. (I actually can’t think of any off the top of my head. maybe Her Story??). Even games that supposedly have ambitious story structures (GTA V, Eternal Darkness come to mind) are fairly linear and will only let important plot things happen when they make perfect sense. Sonic Adventure lets you explore the story at your relative leisure.
And let’s be clear: the story is (mostly) trash. It has the emotional resonance and subtlety of getting beaned in the head by a racquetball. But the structure is interesting.
