Extra Thoughts
Ah, yeah! This already was happenin'. More accurately, already happened. Already expressing some of my thoughts on the GameCube listing, I've decided to elaborate on this version as well (both versions I have played, the GameCube version being the first). Starting off being blunt, its presentation. In particular, how the cutscenes commence. Most of the cutscenes in the game have the characters barley moving around and with very little going on. It creates a faux "slow motion-esque" effect, where it almost (and I mean almost) feels like it's taking forever. It becomes particularly egregious when you get to a certain point in Knuckles, Tails and Sonic's stories where you will watch a similar series of cutscenes together. Technically different with small touches for each character, but not quite enough. They're my least favorite because it’s like watching the same thing three times. Worse is that in this version (except for every later version published), you can't skip the cutscenes. Not to mention that some of the vocal audio for the voice acting appears to have some noise in at least a good amount of the dialogue, although it unintentionally complements Gamma's voice, creating a robotic effect. My favorite cutscenes in the game is in the last story (particularly where it takes place in the city), mostly because it handles the presentation the best there, where it creates the best moments in the game. Ultimately, what I'm saying is that the aspect that hasn't "aged well" is that, at least in my opinion. Others may somewhat agree, or not agree at all. But aside from that, the game is overall very fun. Some gameplay styles aren't for everyone, but that's based on one's preference. I still prefer Sonic Adventure 2 over this, but that's not taking anything from this game. More that I prefer that game overall from this game overall. I suppose something else that (albeit technically) hasn't aged well in both this game and the sequel, is the amount of time the games expect you to take to achieve 100% with the game when one has to raise Chao without any glitches. The amount of time to do it legitimately (without glitches) is longer than/on par with RPGs/JRPGs, and rushing through it for several hours for too many consecutive sessions can really water down the overall experience. What make things worse is that there's no (or just very few) methods for speeding up the process, like how more modern games would accommodate for in some manner/be better designed around.
Reviewed by: Ryan P from Edwardsburg, Mi on 12/28/2018
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