Sonic Adventure: The Fitting Finale

This blog is about Sonic Adventure as the last Sonic title to release. Why would I do this? For a few reasons. First is the decline of Sonic that came after, and many attribute this game as the start. Second is the story that came from it. The story is the main thing I'd like to talk about. If the Sonic games made a television series, this game would be the series finale. It did everything right to end the series and let Sonic fade away on an extremely high note. Let's analyze that for a bit. Keep in mind this will be a spoiler of the entire story so if you haven't crawled out from under that rock and played this amazing game I suggest you do so. Despite its age it plays pretty good compared to the newer games we have. This was originally posted on the Project AXSX forums and may reference other topics from there.

The Master Emerald was introduced in Sonic 3 as the main objective of Eggman. Being more powerful than the Chaos Emeralds, he could power an entire space station with it alone. Angel Island was held in the sky by the power of this emerald, and it was guarded by the echidna named Knuckles. Where Sonic 3 ends, though, is a huge load of mysteries for players to solve. Why was the Master Emerald on Angel Island, why was Knuckles the only one there to protect it, and what is an echidna (Goodle it, they're real)? Here's what I got out of it.

Sonic Adventure gave us the backstory of Knuckles and the Master Emerald. Apparently, he is the last of his kind and the Master Emerald turns out to not only be the most potent power source on the planet but also the prison of an ancient, vengeful creature. When the Echidnas of ancient times got greedy and seized the Master Emerald from the Chao and their guardian, Chaos, they were wiped out. Chaos became untrusting and vengeful of the echidnas and likely the world, so to stop his rage he was sealed inside the Master Emerald. Eggman learns this (to an extent) and breaks Chaos out. Angel island falls, Knuckles has failed to protect it, and the ancient evil is once again running loose.

Eggman's end of this story is also something to note. He is launching his biggest campaign (at the time) in this game. He has a mobile flying fortress called the Egg Carrier, the start of a robotic E-Series Army, an extremely angry and powerful being working for him (he believes), and multiple backup plans to try and ensure his victory. Egg Carrier crashes? He has a base on standby. Chaos is defeated? He has a nuke on standby to wipe out the town and make a clean getaway. Chaos defies him? He has a specially armed Egg Carrier on standby to take him out. Sure, none of these backups actually work, but that's a big step ahead of his norm up to this point. He actually shows real evil when he plans on nuking an entire city. Eggman was at his finest during the Adventure era.

So with Knuckles and Eggman taken care of, let's talk about how this wraps up the Sonic series (pretending it were the last game). Knuckles redeems himself by restoring the Master Emerald to its full form and returns Angel Island to the sky. He didn't need Sonic's help like he did in Sonic 3, proving he is good enough to get the job done on his own. Where his story goes from past this game is irrelevant (seriously, his contributions continue to minimize every game). The Master Emerald may still have all the power it had before when Chaos was still sealed, but he no longer had to worry about Chaos. The purpose behind him guarding it was completely gone and replaced with just taking up the mantle Chaos and the Echidna had left him as the Emerald's guardian.

Tails is broken away from Sonic for a while and finds himself in it alone. He deals with the separation anxiety and stress of having to rely on himself to save an entire city. Sonic isn't there to help or guide him, and Tails goes off on his own knowing that he has to be the hero. The gameplay of Tails further demonstrates this as the entire game long beating his levels means getting to the end BEFORE SONIC. Tails in the end manages to save the city of Station Square from Eggman without the assistance of Sonic.

In the end, Sonic is forced to transform using the positive energy of the emeralds (corny, cheesy, sappy, etc.) which is something only he can do (he seems to be the only one not influenced by negativity). He chooses to take the challenging road to fight Chaos and try to show him that there are still some left with a good heart. Chaos ultimately loses and sees that the Chao are still alive (the victims of the echidnas trying to steal the Master Emerald). Tikal, the one who sealed him, makes peace and they leave together. The ending of the game sees Sonic following Eggman out of the city.

So here it is in a nutshell. Tails overcame the fear of being a lone hero and made a name for himself. Eggman finally put his trust in a creature that was not of his own design and, when pulling out all the stops, still couldn't stop Sonic and friends. Knuckles discovered the roots to his culture and duties and also left the comfort of Angel Island on a successful mission to restore the Master Emerald and vindicate himself. Sonic settled a dispute between two ancient beings using his positive influence and brought them together as friends in the end. Yes it means we would have no Sonic games to play anymore or the less story-driven games we have today would have come sooner and characters like Shadow wouldn't exist, but from a story perspective it would have ended the series on a high note. Eggman wouldn't become a repeat offender of putting his faith in things he can't control and characters would stop showing up as one-offs.

I'm not hating on any Sonic games in this blog (I did plenty of that on gamefaqs when Generations came out) because the different games appeal to different people. I found Generations to be enjoyable to a point (much better than anything released since Heroes) and like I said before, I'm basing this off story elements.

Mixing up Pokemon's Formula

Oh the rage I could expect for this. Yes, I think Pokemon needs some changes. I'm sick of the same game. The best changes in Pokemon were made within the first 3 generations, now it's all the same stale experience to me. I don't speak for every Pokemon fan, hell I don't speak for a large portion of them. I just think there are quite a few fronts that Pokemon could improve on.

Improving Pokemon? That's blasphemy. It's Perfect!!!

No. It's not perfect in any way to be quite honest. Yes everyone's favorite Rock-Paper-Scissors RPG that instills amazing values, such as forcing pets to fight, sending 10-year olds into the world alone, and speaking to every stranger in sight to the children of today doesn't really need to change for the sake of sales. It will sell, that's the best part of being called "Pokemon". The name alone sells, much like Mario. But really think about it, has much changed to make the games more worth buying than before?

New Pokemon, better graphics, touch screen compatibility, wireless multiplayer, new continents, etc.

Cool, ya got me. There's a lot to each new game. But is it really new? New Pokemon? They're new in name and appearance, but their types and moves don't really have as big of a variation as you might want to think. Every generation you start with a Fire, Grass, or Water type. Every time (sans Yellow). From said 3 potential starters, you venture to find a small Normal-type animal (the Rattata of each gen), a small Normal/Flying-Type bird (the Pidgey), the Early-game Bug Pokemon (Weedle/Caterpie), etc. Tell me which main title game didn't feature this? Choosing the Grass starter usually feels underwhelming as grass Pokemon are also typically the first starter type you come across in the wild.

But they do have different moves, stats, characteristics, abilities, and appearances.

Different moves? Forgive me for not seeing much of a difference between generic normal moves or generic fire moves. Fact is, the differences in attacks are extremely minor when considering the levels the Pokemon learn them at. There's nothing special about them. Stats? Those can hardly play any real difference between generations unless considering tiers. There's a small combination of strong points and weaknesses in Pokemon and, unless you're playing against other competitive players, they're scarcely even noteworthy in the game. Characteristics and appearances are the biggest difference between generations, but offer no difference to gameplay. Lastly, abilities are most alike between generations but even the newer ones provide a minimal difference to the game.
The legendaries are different between generations, though.

They are, but if you take ANY Pokemon type, buff it up and give it a catchy name, it can be a legendary Pokemon. I admit that type differences between generations for legendary Pokemon can be refreshing, but they will run out of new combinations and continue to recycle the old ones.

The Gym Leaders and Elite 4 are different each game...

Yes, but about as different as the Pokemon. They use a different combination of the same thing. They all specialize into a type and usually those types are very abusable before the fight. The difficulty comes from unbalanced level differences (assuming no level grinding took place) and forced back-to-back battles without the use of a Pokemon Center. The difference in Gyms and the League really are just small variation. Gym Leader 1 will use low leveled X-type Pokemon and will have between 1 to 3 trainers to battle beforehand. Gym Leader 8 will use high levels X-Type Pokemon and will have a more puzzling gym with more trainers.

Okay so you're saying NOTHING good has come from newer generations?

No. Some additions were actually good. The held items in generation 2 were something that worked very well. The abilities and double battles were extremely well done in generation 3. From there on all they've done was improve graphics and try to use more features of the console they were from (touch screen for DS, wireless battles and trades, etc). But beyond generation 3 I can't find any good contributions that weren't directly linked to the features of the consoles. So why do people continue to buy them? Well for the name of the brand. Even if the features and Pokemon added aren't truly new, there's still a fresh feel to most of the players with each game. Team BadGuys are always going to be there, you will always have your rivals, your Professors are always going to be the start of your adventure, and you will still have these types of Pokemon that use these types of attack variants. The fact that they can still be as successful as they are while making these minimal changes is a credit to their procedures.
So if they don't need to change, why do you say they should?

It's a personal preference really. I, as a fan of single-player games, would like to see more done in these games to make them more challenging and add to the replay value. Let's assume that all Gym Leaders and Elite 4 were treated like their counterparts from the first Pokemon Stadium? By this I mean they automatically match your Party's highest level and it is given to all of their Pokemon. This dynamic could create different fights with different evolutions of Pokemon, and they could be taught different moves than if you'd faced them after level grinding. Adding a level minimum for each gym leader will give players incentive to face other trainers and wild Pokemon along the way.

What if they played closer to their counterparts in the television show (assuming they still do what they did in the first saga)? Let's say the gym leader says you can only use a specific number of your Pokemon? Instead of making you pre-select them, you can choose in the battle. Say your limit is 3, that means your first Pokemon and 2 others, but you can choose those 2 others when the time arises. Once you've sent out 3 active Pokemon, the rest of your party will lock out of the battle.
These two changes could change the entire flow of the game, changing the difficulty of the gyms and Elite 4. I find the concept of battling 4 people without a healing center in reach to be garbage since beating any one of them should prove you're "better" than that one, and the champion saying you need to beat the rest then beat the champ too just to be better than 1 trainer is garbage. They could also have difficulty modifiers in-game, with harder difficulties making the gym leaders have a fixed level ABOVE your party or limiting the usage of your party more.

Simple changes like this would give me reason to jump back into this series, but the fact of the matter is Nintendo and Game Freak are making their money without the need of implementing these changes and for that they're only losing 1 consumer. The changes I suggest could drive people away but unless they tried it we will never know. I'm not saying it's a bad series and that you shouldn't play it, I'm just saying that it isn't for me anymore because the difficulty just isn't there and without new changes I feel I could just play gen 3 and get the same feeling...

So my fellow g1s I ask you, what would YOU prefer in Pokemon? Should they add or take away anything? Should they change the concept entirely? Should they play it safe and keep everything the same? What's next for this franchise?

Why we needed Sonic 06

The title may have you a bit stumbled. Seeing as this is my first blog (though I've gone into a LOT of detail on the Project AXSX boards) I figured I'd bring to your attention the things Sonic got away with up until Sonic 06. Everyone remembers Sonic 06, though I'm sure most wish they didn't. It was an abomination of code that was meant to revive Sonic as a franchise and bring him back as a mainstay title. Irony is cruel when a game that had A LOT of potential got rushed to a release to end up being the worst in the series. Forgive me if I seem to ramble a lot in this article as it really is my first blog on the topic.

So, again, why the title? What do you mean "Why we needed Sonic 06"?

I'm referring to a series of rushed games and shortcuts taken by SEGA and Sonic Team to meet deadlines. Sonic 06 wasn't the first, just the most known due to how obvious of a rush job it was. If I named other titles that lost a lot of content over a rushed release date you might be surprised. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (aka the best selling Genesis/Mega Drive game), Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and even Sonic Adventure all had content cuts.

But those games were GOOD. What could possibly have been added to make them better?

Yes, a good point. Those games were all known for their good quality (yes that includes Adventure). That doesn't mean that they were what they were MEANT to be. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 suffered the loss of levels and even some story concepts. Concepts for the story ended up being used in Sonic CD (time travel) but the levels never saw the light of day with an official release. The most famous of the levels among the more knowledgeable fans is obviously Hidden Palace Zone.

Hidden Palace was in....

Is this the Hidden Palace you remember?

No. Not Sonic 3's version. And yes I'll get to that statement before you bite my head off with S&K. Hidden Palace Zone was actually more akin to Ice Cap Zone in appearance, being the first to feature the glowing bridges and the bright textures. The level looked a lot more like a ruin, and was shown off in magazine pictures and was one of the most anticipated levels to be played due to it's aesthetic appeal as well as dinosaur themed badniks. That level never made the final cut because of time constraints. Thanks to some of the prototypes that made their way onto the internet, it's possible to actually play this level to an extent. The level ends abruptly in the builds with an impossible hill leading to what might possibly have been the end of the level. What's interesting is the speculation that could be made from here. The hill was actually very similar to the hills you scale in Marble Garden Zone in Sonic 3, meaning it might have had a mountain climbing gimmick. Otherwise it would have likely had a moving platform. At the top was a water slide similar to Labyrinth Zone. I digress.

Our only official look at Dust Hill Zone

Other levels missing include Wood Zone, Genocide City Zone (yes, that's real), Dust Hill Zone, Winter Zone, and Rock Zone. Some names more original (and in Genocide City's case, disturbing) than others. Wood Zone was simple enough, a jungle themed level with some conveyors and hollowed out trees as well as some of its own unique enemies. Dust Hill was to be the first desert themed level in the main titles. Winter Zone was to be a palette swap of Dust Hill to make it, you guessed it, covered in snow. Rock Zone was meant to be mountainous and to be quite honest I have no idea what Genocide City was going to be. Now think about what it would have been like to have played those levels in the game, extending the difficulty and replayability? Fine, maybe you can't but I sure as hell could. 6 extra stages to an already nice and lengthy game would have been outstanding but the game still managed to be a huge hit. Thankfully some of the clever Sonic hacking community members have made their own versions of these levels, which can be found at Sonic Retro.

Flying Battery, Mushroom Valley,
and Sandopolis in Level Select

Sonic 3 wasn't as severe due to the fact that they eventually did release the game in its entirety.... kind of. Sonic 3 was originally supposed to be the combined game of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Due to, you guess it, time constraints, half the game was cut to meet deadlines. This made it a bit obvious in segments like Angel Island and Ice Cap where players can see pathways that can only be taken with debug mode. These were made for Knuckles, a character who wasn't playable. Accessing the sound test gave players access to music not used in the game (stage music from Sonic & Knuckles that never was taken out of the game) and even let them see the names of stages not in the game. The game was rushed for a Holiday release and ultimately they had to cut out half the intended game. They were then going to release a "Collector's Edition" but instead ended up with Sonic & Knuckles with its Lock-On technology.

The Dragon boss that was meant to
Appear in Sky Chase

Sonic Adventure saw some content withheld as well, but not nearly as well known as the above items due to the fact that a good bit of it was discovered after the game's release. 3 stages named didn't appear in the game at all, and many stages were so heavily edited that they almost didn't resemble what video montages from Sonic Team put out. Due to some nice glitches, you can find sections of levels that characters shouldn't have been able to reach. This is very apparent when Knuckles can access Sonic's portion of Lost World and find that some of the enemy spawns are different. There was even a two headed dragon boss that never made it into the final release, but was left in the coding to be found by the Sonic hacking community.It was also originally going to give players the option to manually transform into Super Sonic during stages. All in all, a highly successful game with features left out that would likely have added soooo much to the game.

The shield in the Instruction Booklet

Now that brings us to Sonic 06. While I don't excuse the lack of hit detection in some areas, a completely botched physics engine, the automated segments literally throwing you to your death, and the fact that Sonic runs at roughly half the speed of the DEMO of the game. Hell, did you know that if you read the booklet it talks about the typical Shield that appears in every game as a power up? Now think about that when you notice that there are NO shields in the game. Yes Sonic 06 had content left out (a LOT of it) and people like to complain about that at times, but what made this game truly horrid was the huge list of glitches and loading screens.

Now what does this have to do with the other games? We all know Sonic 06 was bad for how it played.

Well this is what brings us full circle to the title of my blog today. Sonic 06 was the game that got caught. SEGA was notorious for their reputation at rushing development. They even fully cancelled a Sonic game because it couldn't meet deadlines (Sonic X-Treme, and there's a huge story behind that too).They've made it more and more apparent that deadlines were more important than content and quality and because of that it finally reached a point where the consumers had to draw a line. Sure, the newer Sonic games haven't exactly been what many wanted (I don't like holding the Boost button and scarcely platforming), but they are refined and completed games. The only issues that appear these days for Sonic are in design and not through a rushed release date.

So, despite this being a huge rambling of thoughts bunched loosely under a single idea, Sonic 06 was a game necessary for the improvement of the franchise. Without the release and utter failure of this game, we'd still be seeing incomplete Sonic titles being released today. Fact is with each new title they're getting closer to pleasing the fanbase with a Sonic game that feels a little closer to home. I, for one, enjoyed a good bit of Sonic Generations for its progress with Modern Sonic gameplay (though I could rant at the horrid "Classic Sonic" gameplay). Sonic 06 was a painful, enduring, long loading screen experience but one that was necessary for the franchise. I'd like you all to remember this next time you decide to talk about it with your friends.