Sonic Adventure (1998)

Played the original Dreamcast version

• 1st Playthrough: Finished Sonic's Story
• 2nd Playthrough: Finished all other characters' and Super Sonic's story

Final thoughts: Wow I remember when I blown back by this game when I first saw it on the Dreamcast.

I've only just completed it now, and my god this game has aged poorly with terrible camera controls, jank physics, and terrible-to-the-point-it's-meme-tier cutscenes and voice acting. Really good songs though.

Overall, the game plays like a 2/5 stars, but I've boost it to 3 because of good music for its era and meme-able early voice acting charm

Giving this like my dozenth or so replay, and yeah it's good fun. But here's what I'm really taking note of this time around: the NPCs. I hardly ever bothered with them before, but this time I'm trying to talk to them between each level. Absolute riot. These subplots may have drawn me in more than the actual Sonic Adventure story.

• girl standing in front of the train station, waiting for her father to come home from work... the entire game
• owner of the building that leads to Speed Highway, who really loves his giant skyscraper and telling you all the time that he owns it
• a mother who is hopelessly addicted to gambling at the casino -- she is oblivious to this, but her son is fully aware
• train station employee who really hates his job... and at some point the workers actually go on strike
• random businessman who always has something negative to say -- at some point he's jealous of a happy couple... and later notices the man has a new girlfriend the next day
• stalker lady who won't stop staring at the burger shop guy

But at the end of the game I have to wonder how many of them even survive the whole city getting destroyed and flooded by Perfect Chaos? Now the ending of this game is depressing for me...

So yeah, I bought a Dreamcast. I don't know how it happened. One minute I am browsing Gumtree for cheap treats, and then all of a sudden I am in my car driving an hour across the city to meet a stranger in his home where he had a room overflowing with boxes of games for every console imaginable. I came home with a Dreamcast, a copy of this game and Re-Volt (which is not the children's racing game I imagined it to be - so damn difficult). I thought Sonic would help me get used to the behemoth of a controller.

It wasn't necessary. The controller is oddly comfortable and the VMU is delightful and adorable. This game so far has been a mixed bag. The camera is awful. Really really awful. It hurts my soul trying to maneuver it about. And yet, when this game clicks it is a whole lot of fun. Zipping through loop-de-loops is as exhilarating as the 2D originals. I haven't had to play as other characters yet, which is something I am dreading. I can't think of a protagonist better suited to a Sonic game then Sonic himself.