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Subjective Review:
Overall Rating:
Why a degrading two out of five emeralds you ask? Well, certainly Sonic Heroes has it's strong points in graphics and computer generated movies, but the crisp viewing of Sonic Heroes is about the best this game is going to offer you. Let me explain before you assume I've grown bias against our blue friend. I mean, really. look around. I've been a fan enough of Sonic to create this whole site for him, if anything, I'd be bias FOR the game rather than against. My love of Sonic, and still the horrible rating just goes to show you that this game really really didn't match expectations.
Audio
Starting out, the weakness of most Sonic games is the cross-over of voices from Japanese to English speakers. Sonic's voice I thought was acceptable, his usually is fine. Tails' voice is yet again, very squeaky - and not to say that's anything bad. Tails hasn't hit puberty following the Sonic timeline, and that's to be expected. Some say, however, that sega's done a wonderful job at making him sound to be a 5-year old girl. I guess you can overdo anything. Knuckle's voice is, like Sonic's, very acceptable, much like his voice in Sonic Adventure 2. I believe the way the characters appear visually in team Chaotix match their new voices quite well. Team Dark and Team Rose is mainly where you start getting audio problems concerning voiceovers. Rouge attains her very feminine voice that tries to seduce any male that falls under it, which is very much her character, and one can't argue this. Shadow is still somewhat quiet, and his voice is still dark and mysterious as his character prompts. Omega, now. His character is fine other than the stereotypical robot voice that Sega had given him. With all the technology Eggman has at his fingertips - literally - you'd think this voice may be a bit more advanced, but that's not my main problem with it. It's the fact that every time he attacks with any move, he screams "Annihilate" and "Charge" but with the way it's set up, the attacks come too fast and he blurts out "AnnihilCharge" After fighting armies of robots, this saying tends to annoy the crap out of you. Team Rose, Amy's voice is as it should be, and Creams seemed to work for me as well. For everything good that has happened with these voices, you can create a counter-evil in Big's voice. Hearing his voice for the amount of time it takes to beat the game, you'll be ripping off your ears and stabbing them repeatedly with any sharp object.
Moving past the sound effects of voices, we take a look at the much more respectable background and theme songs. I must admit they are most definitely not Jun's best work, but still enjoyable. The background songs aren't exactly catchy, and they don't often get stuck in your head, however the theme songs to the teams can be worth listening to. The theme to the game itself has some good lyrics at first, but the overall sound and feel of the song gets aggravating hearing it more than once. The repetition of "Sonic Heroes" in the chorus is what drops the quality of the song for me.
Game play
Okay, it takes some skill and experience with the other 3D Sonic games to really know how to work this game play. That in itself is a detriment. The smoothness of the characters running is somewhat workable if you're just going straight. There in lies the problem though. There is rarely ever a time when the team is moving solely straightforward. Controlling the team in speed formation is very hard to do, and if you don't know how to use the camera (..basically leave it alone, and you'll be fine) ..then you're gonna fall off a cliff every single turn. See, it's not that there's just skill involved, it takes a lot of luck to do these levels, and get an A in them. Luck shouldn't be a factor. Concerning the overall way the game is set up, Sonic games have always used "levels" to signify progress in the game. I believe that worked miracles in the "old school" 2D games. Now, moving into more complicated and advanced movements and graphics, I don't think it has the same magic as before. My personal opinion is that a new Sonic game should be made as an rpg. Rpg - as in "role play game", this type of game lets the character move around the entire field of play and experience how and where everything is without any abrupt scene changes into different "levels" This would dramatically have decreased with number of potholes in this game (which I will get to shortly). I own this game for Gamecube, and the controls are not overly complicated, but at times, you just want to throw your controller -hard- against anything that could break it.
Story
As you've read in the summary, you know the basic story, this review is dealing more to do with how it unfolded. Now, the largest problem with Sonic Heroes was not the uncontrollable motion of the characters, not the inexplicable annoyance of Big's voice, but the fact that the much anticipated sequel to Sonic Adventure 2 had left out some of the most important information that everyone was looking forward to knowing. One thing everyone was anticipating very much was how Shadow had survived. How the ultimate lifeform had made it out of his self-sacrifice without a scratch. Instead of filling us in on that matter, Sega decides to thicken the plot leaving us even more clueless: Shadow is apparently some type of robot or clone, or mixture of the two. There are thousands of copies of Shadow in Eggman's aerial base, but no one knows why. On this same matter, when Sonic Adventure 2 ended, Sonic and Shadow had grown closer as friends, and in fact fought together in the final battle. When Sonic and Shadow meet this time in Sonic heroes, all they seem to be able to do is stare at each other, and then start fighting - as if they'd completely forgotten their friendship. Even if Shadow had lost his memory and Sonic was just [for some unexplainable reason] angry, there still should have been no reason at all for these "teams" to fight. I say this because near the end of Sonic Adventure 2, Rouge and Knuckles had seemed to be growing fonder of each other as well, more so than friends even. Team Rose has no basis for the composition of the team itself. Big, Cream, and Amy have virtually no contact as a whole before this game, and all of a sudden they're absolutely best friends? I suppose introducing a new character, Chocola Chao, into the story was necessary to even have Cream's existence in this team, but the entire plot for Team Rose's storyline revolves around lost items that each character once (or never [aka Amy wanting Sonic]) had. Team Chaotix storyline is the only one that makes sense or isn't monotonous with the use of the same plot over and over (Team Sonic... Save the world...)
Replay factor
...replay factor? No such thing in this game. To beat it fully, you must defeat Super Hard mode. But if you want to know a secret, the only thing super hard, is unlocking super hard mode. By the time you finish every level perfectly with an A, you're never going to want to play it again. there's no special thing you get at the end, like being able to transform into Super Sonic at any moment you wish (like in old school games) or anything at least to make you want to replay this game. Concluding, if you're an experienced gamer and a more experienced Sonic fan, then you're gonna want this game. I'm a diehard Sonic fan, and I know I'd want to get it even if I read a horrible review. Just can't pass it up, because... he's Sonic.
