Up, Down, And All Around: My Wild Relationship With Sonic Adventure

12/24/2024

I'm not sure if I can really call myself a “90s kid”. I was born early in that decade but I mostly grew up in the 2000s. I can barely remember anything from the time before that honestly. All I really knew was that I was obsessed with Batman the Animated Series, and that video games were neat. Though at the time my only real exposure to the latter was through the original black and white, brick shithouse Gameboy, and a top loader NES that my mom's boyfriend bought at a yard sale. He forgot to take it with him when he split a few months later so she told me I could have it. It came with a bunch of unlicensed knockoff games as well as a copy of the original Mike Tyson's Punch Out. All that for $20? Talk about a deal.

One thing I do remember though is when I was in second grade, I used to go over to my friends house after school to do my homework and kill time until mom came home from work. We both went to the same school, were in the same year, AND lived in the same apartment complex so it all worked out really well. Normally when we'd finish our homework we'd watch cartoons, or he would boot up his SNES and I'd watch him play either Mario Kart or Donkey Kong Country.

Out of nowhere one day though this guy decides that he didn't feel like playing Nintendo and decides to whip out a Sega Genesis along with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I didn't even know what this thing was, and he never told me he had one. This was around '97 bordering on '98, and depending on who you ask, either the Genesis was on its way out the door, or already out the door in favor of the Sega Saturn which was also thrown out through that same door (In the US at least, the Saturn still held strong in Japan). I didn't know that though, and I obviously didn't care. All I could think about was that game, Sonic 2. The sharpness, the colors, the sense of speed, THE MUSIC?? HELLO?!! I couldn't really articulate what I was feeling at the time, but somewhere inside me it felt like a bar had been raised, and I HAD to experience that again!

I DID NOT experience that again as my mom refused to buy me a Genesis, and that friend moved away shortly after. But fast forward a bit to Christmas of 1999 and now I get the opportunity to get my own console! One that's not a hand me down from a guy who's name I don't remember but I'm sure was only nice to me because he was trying to court my mother! Anywho I convinced my mom to get me a Dreamcast and alongside the demo disc it came with, as well as a copy of Fighting Force 2 that I totally didn't throw in the back of my closet because that game was terrible, sat a copy of Sonic Adventure.

“Sonic? I remember Sonic! Wow he looks cool…” I unwrapped the game and popped in the disc. I was welcomed by a neat little Sonic Team splash screen that I really wish they used for more than once and then I got to the title screen (yes I skipped the opening). When I heard the intro riff to Crush 40's “Open Your Heart” for the first time I was floored. Suddenly it hit me all over again, that same feeling from before. Except this time there was no time limit, it was entirely mine to experience. I didn't know what hit me, but by that point I was hooked, I had become a fan for life.

Personal context aside, Sonic Adventure is a game that doesn't really need much of an introduction. It was a pretty important release for the Sega Dreamcast, Sega's final outing in the console market Releasing on December 23rd, 1998 in Japan, and September 9th, 1999 as a launch title in the United States, and October 14th of that same year in the EU. It was Sonic's big breakout into the world of 3D gaming after a failed attempt the generation prior. Sonic's rocky transition into 3D is one of the memes of all time, but X-Treme's developmental turmoil and subsequent cancellation really dealt a huge blow to the staying power of the Sega Saturn on the global stage, which tanked outside of Japan due in no small part to lacking such a crucial release. Needless to say this game needed to knock it out of the park, and it did. With over 2.5 million copies sold throughout the console's entire lifespan, Sonic Adventure was indeed that smash hit Sega needed at the time, remaining the overall best selling title for the Dreamcast to this very day.

At the time I thought it was unbelievable, I mean six playable characters? You had Sonic of course. Followed by Tails, Knuckles, Girl Sonic, a literal robot, and the benevolent god of the universe. Each of them had their own unique gameplay styles, there was this epic sweeping narrative that diverges and converges throughout each of their respective campaigns, settings that simply OOZED style and atmosphere, and a banging soundtrack to boot?! What's not to like?!

I remember playing this game for hours and hours on end. I'd get lost in the hub worlds, and dying over and over because I was too busy gawking at how cool the action stages were. Speed Highway gets a lot of the credit for being the breakout stage for this game, and rightfully so. But I remember the first time I got the ancient light and made it to Red Mountain, the entire time I was in awe. That stage was so sprawling and beautiful, accompanied by one of the most breathtaking songs in the entire soundtrack. An incredible stage that absolutely deserves to be in the conversation for standout stages for the game.

Of course it wasn't just Sonic that hooked me. Knuckles was cool as I treated him and Tails both as “Sonic lite” but one of the fondest memories for me and probably a lot of other people was playing through E-102 Gamma's story and feeling so caught off guard that the literal robots side of the story was so melancholic and personal. Totally out of left field for a mascot platformer where a 3 foot tall woodland creature continually beats up an egg shaped man. This is something the series would become known for moving forward and WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE DIED??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT EGGMAN BUILT A NEW SERIES OF ROBOTS IN HIS LIKENESS THE VERY NEXT GAME?? DOES HIS CRUELTY KNOW NO BOUNDS???

Anyway the Dreamcast came and went. It had a pretty solid launch in the States, but that didn't really do much to move the needle in Sega's favor and the console was another yet another financial bomb they suffered, putting them ever closer to deaths door. While it has a unique and interesting library of games, a majority of them were just ports of various arcade games. They were great ports to be fair, but that didn't change the fact that most of them had very little staying power, which for the western gaming zeitgeist at the time (key phrase here), was the last thing people wanted. By the time the PlayStation 2 hit store shelves it was a wrap.

Moving forward a couple more years, we're now knee deep into the 6th generation of consoles now. Sega got absolutely trounced in the console gaming market as stated earlier, shifting exclusively to software publishing for the then current generation platforms, the PS2, GameCube, and Xbox respectively. That era of publishing began first with the Dreamcast's swan song; Sonic Adventure 2, ported to Nintendo Gamecube as Sonic Adventure 2: Battle.

I could gush about that game until I collapse, but that's a different conversation not entirely relevant to this with the exception of a key detail I'll save for later. I was around 10 to 11 years old at this time and suffice to say, I thought Battle was great. It played great, expanded Chao Garden, fixed that godforsaken treasure radar for Knuckles and Rouge, and I'll never not get emotional at the ending. Overall I really liked it, and it did pretty well for itself too, being one of the best selling games for the GameCube.

So, naturally, it would stand to reason that Sega would port the original game onto the same platform. Released under the title of Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut, this is where my relationship with Sonic would start to change. I played a lot of both of these games as a kid, them along with the Mega Collection, were in constant rotation on my GameCube. While I had loads of fun with SA2 Battle, DX was… well let's just say it was weird. I played it a lot, and I had fun with it for sure, but even back then as uncurious and naive as I was, I could tell something was off. With a big trigger for me being the Egg Viper boss fight at the end of Sonic's story, more specifically how the laser sound effects changed from something very loud and punchy to a more subdued and at times barely audible chime. Now this wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it did flip a switch in my head and after that I just couldn't stop asking questions.

It's 2010 now, and I'm 17 years old. I had just graduated highschool and like most kids that age, was filled with that terrifying post school existential dread with regards to my future. College was out of the question, I had no interest in joining the military whatsoever, and while I did find a new hobby and friends by getting into fighting games competitively, I was kind of just… existing on cruise control, all while marinating in this existential terror. The fear, turmoil, self loathing and OH WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut HD for the PS3 and Xbox 360! Are you serious?! This was one of my favorite games! I haven't played Sonic in ages and it's looks pretty affordable! Let's dig into some nostalgia and see if this game holds up, eh? Except… When I booted up the game, I felt something familiar yet uncomfortable. Everything looked so shiny and cheap… The controls were slippery, and I'm dying in places I shouldn't be. Did it always play like this? I couldn't even make it through Windy Valley before shutting off the console to do something else. This was terrible… No wait, I'm sorry…

THIS WAS SHIT!

Time marches on, and opinions change as we grow older, develop more perspective, you know, all that good and necessary stuff. Sonic Adventure may have seemed like a standout game for its time, but with the power of hindsight it's clear to see it was far from perfect. That “ambitious” story was actually really clumsy with hilariously goofy acting and some weird leaps in logic. The character models are totally memeworthy, the boss battles can be made into an absolute joke (an admittedly regular issue for this series), and depending on who you ask, only half of the game was truly worth playing anyway. I mean, Sonic's gameplay is pretty good, but everybody else? Ehhh I mean I'll play some Gamma or Knuckles from time to time, but I often only find myself replaying those Sonic stages as those were just the most fun and well designed compared to everything else.

So that was my take, Sonic Adventure was cool when I was 7, but nowadays (circa 2010) it was just another in a long line of old mascot platformers that aged poorly. All that hype and fluff was just the nostalgia talking, and it just wasn't all it was cracked up to be. A few more years pass, and I remember talking with a friend at a fighting game local. We both got knocked out of bracket and decided to shoot the breeze outside of the venue in an effort to dissipate those lingering salt reserves. Eventually the topic of Sonic came up, and jumped to the Adventure games. I remember telling him that I had played the HD version of SADX when it dropped and was bummed that it aged so poorly. After I said that I remember him looking me dead in the eye as he told me four words that blew my mind. “Dude, that port sucked!”

The port was bad? How does that even happen??? I mean I know game development isn't easy, but it shouldn't be that bad to port old games to stronger, much more advanced hardware right? I say as I willfully ignored the entire shitstorm of Sony phasing out backwards compatibility in the 7th gen. What can I say? I can be a bit of a bonehead sometimes. So SADX sucks?

YES! SO MUCH SO THAT THERE IS AN ENTIRE WEBSITE DOCUMENTING ALL OF THE WAYS THAT IT SUCKS!

Okay but like… why though??? What exactly did it and those subsequent ports do that was so god awful? I mean it's obvious why the HD version sucks, but the GameCube version too? On the surface it plays like the original. It's got more features like a mission mode, you can unlock the old game gear games to play, and you can even unlock a playable Metal Sonic. So what's the issue? Well after years of ignorance, I FINALLY decided to look into exactly why SADX and it's subsequent re-releases are so reviled in the more dedicated gaming spaces. The answer was actually incredibly complicated, like stupidly so. There's a lot I can dive into here, but for the sake of brevity I'm just going to start first and foremost, let's talk a little bit about lighting.

One of Sonic Adventure's greatest but most subtle strengths is in its dynamic lighting that was different for every major section of every level. Sonic Team were able to pull this off thanks to the Dreamcast's proprietary lighting engine, internally known as “lantern”. Cool name aside what it did was store the lighting information for each level in a pair of files that contain light direction and other stuff. In terms of the lighting there are two main types: Diffuse and Specular lighting respectively.

Diffuse palettes can basically be summed up as the main set of colors for any given texture. This is what makes Sonic blue for example. Specular can be summed up as the gloss or the sheen of any given texture, in illustration terms think of it like adding shading after you finish your flat coloring. Both types have anywhere between 4 to 6 separate color palettes each that can consists of 256 COLORS PER PALETTE. This is all built into the engine at a hardware level and goes a long way in creating loads of different effects and can add to the overall “mood” of any given level or character.

Sky Deck is a really great example of this system at work. Many different parts of the ship change their lighting when the ship increases/decreases it's altitude. This does't happen in subsequent ports, only changing the skybox, aka the background.

So basically every object of every level can potentially have different lighting based on loads of complicated factors to simulate a more immersive environment. Sonic for example has several different color palettes for each one of his levels thanks to this and it's a ridiculous level of detail that feels kind of nuts for the time. Although it does make sense, Shenmue also came out on this system after all.

Next up are the textures. This one is much more straightforward, just your objects and character models. Followed by transparency, which allow you to see through glass surfaces. I'm not going to get into the weeds with that stuff, just know that it's also important.

With that out of the way we can finally talk about SADX, also known as “SAD X”. So right off the bat the lighting has completely changed, it's one of, if not, the most noticeable differences between each version of the game. Despite being powerful in other aspects the GameCube doesn't have this type of system to the degree that the Dreamcast did. While certain data is still present for the characters in prototype builds, it was ultimately scrapped in favor of a much more straightforward lighting solution that relies on much fewer factors, about 5 or so, that handle all of that stuff. So that's an immediate blow to the game already. Color dynamism is one of the things that really makes Sonic settings stand out and without that extra flavor to make things pop everything looks just a little more drab and monotonous.

A lot of the texture work was also either touched up or completely redone, creating some very noticeable differences between each version of the game. Let's look at Station Square as our example. From the Asphalt, to the building work, even the cars were all completely redone and while most of this stuff is inoffensive in the grand scheme, others lead to some jarring outcomes. The area where you fight Chaos zero for the first time is supposed to be the front of the bell tower for Speed Highway.

The second biggest change (or maybe the first depending on your priorities) noticeable between versions being that the characters have been completely remodeled to bring themselves more in line with their modern designs. Every character was given more detail in terms of visual fidelity and polygon count, with the best example of this being that with the exception of Knuckles, each of the characters all have actual hands now instead of mittens!

In terms of technicality and brand synergy this is an objective improvement. But for me personally I find it to be kind of a downgrade. I thought the old models were cute! And it was interesting to see how even though they were most of the way there in terms of design, they weren't quite there yet. Depending on the angle Adventure Sonic looks square in the middle of his change from the classic design to the modern look we're more familiar with today. Fun fact, in the DC version of Sky Chase uses the low poly Saturn models of Sonic and Tails!

Adding to that, while the character models have been punched up, the rest of the textures? Not so much. Some are fine, but a lot of them just look bad, creating an uncanny look when juxtaposed against these newer models. This is made even worse when you compare this game to the graphical standards of the GameCube in 2003. By this point Metroid Prime has been out, alongside other games like Viewtiful Joe, Naruto Clash of Ninja, even Skies of Arcadia, another Dreamcast title remade for the console looks in line with the standards of the time. Maybe it's not entirely fair to judge a port of this game against titles made specifically for the platform. But fact of the matter is they weren't doing themselves any favors, and when you factor in what was lost in translation it's kind of abysmal. There have been discussions and rumors circulating on the Internet about a possible remake of Sonic Adventure, but if you ask me if there was ever a time to remake game, it was then. I blame Heroes.

At least we can see Cream the Rabbit flying around town. That's cute!

Most of these issues mostly pertain to the graphical side of things, and while the GC version of DX can be a little ugly and frustrating, at the end of the day it's still more than playable. The 2004 PC release is what I find to be the most egregious as this version of the game exacerbates every possible issue while offering no positive features of its own in return! This version was also the basis for the PS3 and Xbox 360 ports, which were then ported over to Steam. Making the de facto standard as it's now the main contact point to engaging with the game at all in the modern day. So now that we're here, let's dive right in and talk about it! Let's talk about Sonic Adventure DX: Directors Cut HD.

This game just sucks. The lighting is completely broken in this version, leaving everything at full brightness, overly shiny, and even at times… nuclear?

The texture work is even worse here than in DX, leaving the game to look even uglier as a lot of these assets have been copied and pasted and nauseam by this point. Making this game really show its age circa 2010 with none of the charm points from the time when it actually released in 1998. This is a problem with a lot of HD ports, especially the ones coming out within the 2010s. Taking these old assets out of their original context to give them the high definition facelift through several layers of upscaling strips these games of a lot of their visual flair. And more often than not, just makes things look terrible.

Taking things back to Sonic Adventure though. Chaos, the game's central antagonist, is one of the best examples of the lighting issues as all modern versions of this model are actually missing their diffuse lighting, leaving him to look way too bright and out of place. That's his main color palette dude! What are you doing??

But again, this is all graphics, how does it play though?? Well to the surprise of absolutely no one… TERRIBLY! This is the most unstable and buggy version of the game BY FAR! As I stated earlier the controls are slippery, scripted sequences break all of the time. The collision detection is just completely in hell, I couldn't stop hitching on walls and falling through random platforms. Hell, I couldn't even finish my playthrough of the game, simply because it was so buggy and hard to control, leaving this version to feel not too dissimilar from Sonic 06 if I'm being honest. I actually remember playing 06 a few years later in 2014 and thought to myself that Sonic's gameplay was surprisingly accurate to the Adventure games. Completely forgetting that the HD port was my then current baseline for quality.

In an example of all of these issues converging into a big heaping pile. In an example of all of these issues converging into a big heaping pile. This section of Final Egg is a bottomless pit. Yet in all modern versions of the game the lighting is broken leaving the entire bottom section of the level visible. I shouldn't have to explain why this is a problem, should I?

Needless to say I was surprised by how complicated the whole thing was. I went in hoping to find one singular issue to point at, but was instead met with a bunch of factors and tiny issues leading to an unfortunate death by 1000 cuts approach that in my opinion really hollowed out the game. Turns out the Dreamcast actually had some pretty advanced hardware for its time that was difficult to replicate. And when removing a game that was so heavily reliant on that tech from its original context you're left with something that is less than the sum of its parts. As stated before this game released in 1998, developed entirely within a year. If you play these modern versions of the game you can really feel that rushed development time but I assure you it wasn't always like this. I don't want to cling too much to nostalgia, but as stated earlier I was fortunate enough in my childhood to own a Dreamcast as well as a copy of the original game. I remember what it played like, and it definitely wasn't this. But how could I check to make sure? I mean it's not like I have a Dreamcast lying around my apartment that I've had complete unfettered access to for years right? …What? I do? What? GDEmu's are cheap and easy to install???

…So anyway, I took it upon myself to fix up this old Dreamcast, eager to compare the two releases for myself. Installing the Optical Drive was pretty simple, although I needed to spend a few hours tweaking the setup afterwards, I swear these things always seem to need a personal touch in order to work. Not too long after that during one of my test attempts I saw something I never thought I'd ever see again, it was that old Sonic Team splash screen with that little ring chime. And when I saw that original title screen, and heard that opening riff, my eyes widened and it all came rushing back to me. For the first time since 1999, a whopping 25 years later I had found myself face to face with one of the crowning jewels of my childhood, Sonic Adventure in its original form, I wanted to scream.

Now's as good a time as any to talk about the OG triple OG. I played Adventure 1 on its original hardware for the first time in ages. Except now it's 2024, and I'm 32 years old. I have the power of hindsight and tech on my side! So I'm spindash jumping all over the place with Sonic, discovering different paths and gaining a whole new appreciation for his level design in the process. I'm breaking the Tails levels in half by skipping huge chunks of them thanks to his busted flight. I'm shooting so much stuff on the screen with Gamma to the point where the frame rate started chugging so bad you'd swear I was playing yet another version of this game for the Nintendo Switch.

Scripted sequences worked just fine, the collision detection, while wacky in some places, was perfectly fine throughout most of the game which meant fun skips with no cheap deaths. The lighting works the way it's supposed to, the textures, while still a little dinky, weren't artifacted to hell and back. Of course it was never entirely perfect. The character models are a little primitive with the most hilariously inconsistent voice matching for their mouth flaps in English. The game only runs at 30 FPS, which can drop frames depending on how many assets are on screen at once, and you can't skip cutscenes. Even so I played the game to completion with a smile plastered on my face the entire time. While I was mixed to positive on my experience with the GC port as a kid, and horribly turned off my the PS3 port as a teenager turned young adult, this was it for me. In a lot of ways it was like playing an anti-remaster and really cemented in my mind that this game has always been sick. There were no two ways about it this time. I had a fucking blast.

So Naked DX sucks, and the original game still reigns supreme, case solved! Of course this isn't to say there aren't any perks to the GC port, nor is there an absence of solutions for the Steam version of the game. Those versions up the framerate to 60 FPS, leading to a much smoother game feel with significantly less stuttering and chugging. As well as the ability to skip cutscenes, which is a welcome addition to any game that makes subsequent playthroughs a breeze. Besides, it's not like there weren't any improvements at all in regards to textures. I mean look at this one!

The modding community has also stepped up throughout the years by supplying several mods and fixes to both this game and its sequel that help bring the modern ports up to a playable standard and then some. Helping to repair the damage done to Sonic Adventure's textures and lighting, and in the case of Sonic Adventure 2, fixing a severe bug in the controller code that greatly harms its playability. Not only are these solutions great, I'd argue they're a necessity if you're trying to play these games today on modern hardware. Applying the BetterSADX mod to restore the lantern lighting, combined with several big fixes, a stable frame rate, AND the ability to skip cutscenes, along with the extra content really goes a long way in creating what I would objectively consider the absolute definitive way to experience this game in 2024.

Even so, despite this being a fantastic solution, somewhere deep down I can't help but be a little frustrated with this answer. “No man, this game is actually great! You just need to install a bunch of mods and 3rd party software to make it work right!” Should all of that really be necessary to experience a more stable version of this game? If you're in the know, then it's not a big deal. For everyone else though? That can be a tall order...

Not everyone has sufficient tech literacy, and shouldn't be expected to jump through hoops to play a mascot platformer released in the late 90s. I consider myself pretty adept at these things, and even I had to troubleshoot to get this all to work properly. At first I tried to approximate every change individually through the SADX Mod loader, but it gave me several errors in the process. Then I remembered that Better SADX exists and downloaded that instead. Problem solved, right? Wrong, because I still had to configure all of my graphic and controller settings through the mod loader itself because the baseline config tool in the main launcher is TERRIBLE. If I didn't, then game would randomly split itself between both of my displays when it felt like it. On top of the fact that PC ports of Sonic games seem to always have issues with native controller support for Dual Shock 4, which is what I use to play all of my PC games these days.

For me this was nothing more than a series of mild inconveniences that were solved in minutes. For anybody else though? It can be a series of frustrating extra steps that someone really shouldn't have to take. There's no excuse, the game should have just been ported properly. More attention and care should have been given to offer a more stable and consistent experience for the average player. This is what makes so many ports and HD remasters so frustrating. I think that if someone truly wishes to experience any piece of art, be it a video game, show, book, or whatever, then they should seek it out any way they can. However quality and accessibility DO matter and it's frustrating when those who hold the rights to said art drop the ball on it's accessibility so hard that it leaves you with no other choice.

So I can't help but lament the state of things, for many people looking to potentially re-explore their childhoods, or to play a game recommended by friends or family these shoddy ports are their main contact point. They're the only ones purchasable on Steam, and this experience is so drastically different from what it used to be that they might as well be playing a different game entirely. And I do feel that to an extent, how this game was preserved, combined with Sonic's joke of a reputation overall between the mid aughts through to the the 2010s undoubtedly contributed to the decline/contention with this game's reception too. Any cursory search for Sonic Adventure on Reddit will bring up loads of threads inquiring about the differences between each version of the game. Wondering why the modern versions are so hated, and even asking if they've always been like this. To which several others will respond the same way I am. The problem runs that deep.

Everyone has their own unique preferences in regards to what they value, and while a lot of my nostalgia came flooding back with this recent go around of playing Sonic Adventure on original hardware, this isn't actually what turned me around on the game, that happened a couple of years prior when I decided to stream full playthroughs of both Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 on my twitch channel. I needed something to do and I was in a much different headspace at 30 than I was at 17, so I figured why not.

I played SA2 mostly untouched out of the box, but I did use the Better SADX Mod for the original game. Seeing those old models again were charmingly nostalgic, but I didn't even pay attention to the lighting or any of that other technical stuff I laid out earlier. I skipped most of the cutscenes save for the credits, and I didn't really linger on anything other than the gameplay experience. And while yeah, it was a little rough in places, some scripted sequences still broke on me, and I clipped through the occasional wall all in all I had a good time, which surprised me. Sonic was fun, of course, so where Knuckles and Gamma. I found myself enjoying the Tails playthrough, and both Amy and Big were delightfully inoffensive. Perfect Chaos sucked though, in fact every single Chaos fight save for the first one is terrible.

Even long after that I couldn't stop thinking about that game. I've always had love for the sequel, but this is when I remembered just how much I actually loved this game too. Years ago I would've been mortified by that realization, being upset at the idea of having "terrible taste" because I disagreed with the trendy opinions of the day. And while all of the technical faults are frustrating, and definitely had a hand in hurting the games reputation. When it comes to everything else though? Every other complaint, every other passive aggressive dig, and bad joke all I can really think about is how much absolutely positively DO. NOT. CARE.

• "The graphics are goofy"

I don't care

• "Tails's campaign is bad game design"

Breaking levels is fun, I don't care.

• "Amy, and Big are terrible pace breakers that ruin the whole game"

Okay but are they really though? They only have 3 stages and one boss fight a piece and it's all super easy so it's not that bad to me? I don't care?

Simply put, I don't care. In fact, I don't think I ever really cared about that stuff. While the jank does bum me out in regards to being someone's first impression of the game it's not like there aren't any solutions. If you're a retro enthusiast then you probably already either have a model 1 Dreamcast, or know how to get one. If you're curious about playing the game on Steam then I HIGHLY advise you download Better SADX to fix the technical issues and give yourself the best of both worlds in regards to the few quality of life features it does offer, alongside the older and much more congruent aesthetic.

With Sonic having a bit of a renaissance thanks to the success of Frontiers, Sonic X Shadow Generations, and the 3rd movie which should be in theaters by the time of this writing, it feels like a great time to be a fan again. Younger fans are getting quality games and other media while the fans who grew up in my era, getting in with the Adventure titles, are starting to feel vindicated in several ways. This stuff was always cool, these games were always fun, and while Adventure 2 gets most of the love and adoration, I think it's predecessor absolutely deserves that same love. Sonic Adventure is one of my favorite games of all time, and I wouldn't be the person I am today had I not experienced it all those years ago. And that's all there is to it. It's just cool.

- Ashe