Controlling your player is quite easy. “A” is your jump, with “B” as your attack. Another attack occurs when you jump and attack at the same time. Changing your main player is as simple as pressing either “X” or “Y”, or running over a change pad in the game. “L” and “R” move the camera left or right, and the “C-Stick” manually rotates the camera. For the most part, you want to ignore the “C-Stick”, because it can give you some really strange angles. While the controls are simple, they can be also be frustrating. Many times I have plummeted to my death because it wouldn’t fly when I wanted it, or it would do a “Sonic Spin” right over a cliff.
There was one part that I couldn’t get Shadow to do a loop-de-loop, which was quite odd. These occurences are few, but they to dampen the excitement. Also, you will rarely be stuck in any section, either because it is obvious, or because one team member will ALWAYS tell you what you should do in a specific spot. This is useful in the beginning, but when you get to the last level, and your teammates tell you that, “You should do a Sonic Tornado on this pole”, it gets excessive and annoying.
Speaking of annoying, I should mention the sound, especially the voices. Some of them are well done, while others sound like a twelve year old girl with helium. At least they are crisply done. The soundtrack is typical Sonic. They have added a few new tunes, which are pretty catchy. In fact, the theme song is still stuck in my head! Free Download video games are provided to the people to enhance the experience. The downloading should not cause any charges from the people to get the desired results. The quality of the video games is required to be great to have fun and enjoyment at the platform.
The replay of this game relies solely on the other two modes I mentioned previously; Challenge Mode and Multi-Player. Once you complete a level in the story mode, it becomes unlocked in the challenge mode. Here, you will have other goals, like complete this level in under two minutes, or collect 200 coins. These are also rated, from A to E. Getting any “A” scores are very difficult. Each completion of a challenge gives you an emblem. These emblems are used to unlock the various multi-player modes. You start off with a head to head race through one of the levels. After you obtain 25 emblems, you unlock an additional multi-player mode. These games are hit and miss.
The framerate is consistent in all of them, though. If you have other gamer friends that love Sonic, you’ll play these games quite a bit, especially Race mode. Non Sonic fans, though, will fail to see the novelty. A surprising feature that is missing is Chao raising. Perhaps due to the multi-platform release, this was scrapped, but it would have been a very worthwhile feature for Gamecube fans.
Conclusion
Most Sonic fans have already gone out and bought this game. It is an excellent follow-up, and focuses solely on the gameplay that is enjoyable in previous Sonic games. However, it is not a radical departure for the series, and you will be doing some of the same things over and over. Even the stages, for the most part, won’t feel any different than previous installments. So, if you never enjoyed Sonic Adventures before, there isn’t too much here to change your mind. It is worth a rent though for fans of platform gaming. It may just make a Sonic fan out of you.
