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Sonic Adventure DX: Director's
Cut
By Simon
Sega has decided to
release both Sonic Adventure games to the Gamecube. The unusual thing about this
is that it was released after the port of Sonic Adventure 2 was released. Sega
does boast improvements in graphics and some extras to keep you playing, but is
it actually better than the Dreamcast version?
Sonic Adventure DX’s story and levels are pretty much exactly the same as the
Dreamcast counterpart, so don’t expect anything new story-wise. Added levels
would have been nice (very nice actually), but the game is still fun
nonetheless.
Like Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, you get to play as a number of different
characters. Those characters are Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy Rose, Big the Cat,
and E-102 Gamma. Sonic’s levels are an extremely accurate 3D translation from
the old 2D games. I found that Sonic’s levels were by far the best. Tails’
levels are like Sonic’s levels, except the point of his levels is to get to the
end of the stage before Sonic does. I never really understood why Tails had to
beat Sonic, but I didn’t care that much. Knuckles levels are treasure-hunting
stages. In SA2, Knuckles’ levels were vast and even a little bit tedious. In
SA1, however, his levels are much smaller and easier. That could be a good
thing, and considering that I never actually enjoyed treasure-hunting levels
that much, the shorter the better. Amy’s levels are very boring. All you do is
run away from this big robot. If Sega decided to add strategy and speed to this
level, then it would have been fun. Big the Cat’s levels are just as bad as
Amy’s levels. Big’s main objective is to find his friend, Froggy, that swallowed
a chaos emerald. All Big does is use his fishing pole and try to catch Froggy.
E-102 Gamma’s levels are similar to Tails’ levels in SA2 (just a robot shooting
other robots), but with a time limit. When you shoot an enemy, you get extra
time. I found that the levels of Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails were fun. The levels
of E-102 Gamma’s were OK. And the levels of Amy and Big were pretty bad. The
good news is that there are only a few levels that force you to play as Amy and
Big.
The
real flaw of this game was directly from the original SA1. The game was too
short and easy. I remember beating each level in less than 7 minutes (and that
was just the first time I played the level). I got about a good 7 hours out of
this game. Sega did add extra stages to each level like in SA2, but I didn’t
really feel obligated to play them (unlike SA2: B). Once you get a number of
Sonic Emblems (pretty much the Sonic version of stars in the Mario games), you
could unlock some old Sonic games (most were old Game Gear games). I didn’t
actually bother playing these extra games, but some people would I suppose.
As
far as the graphics go, it is pretty much unchanged (other than better character
models). This is the same thing for the audio. This is somewhat of a bummer
considering that the Gamecube has much better hardware than the Dreamcast.
While the port barely adds anything worthwhile into this game, I still say its
fun. The 7 hours I got from this game were all fun, though I felt that the
overall level of excitement could have been increased. Sega could have done that
by adding new levels, improving the old ones, and improve the graphics as well
as the audio. This game is intended for the people who missed out on SA1 for the
DC, not for the people who want more out of the game. If you never played SA1
for the DC, I suggest you rent your copy today. If you never played SA2, I
suggest you play it right after you beat SA1.
7/10
Review by Simon |
