Sonic Heroes

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Sonic Heroes
Windows
Release
December 30, 2003
  • PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube
    • JP: December 30, 2003
    • NA: January 6, 2004 (GCN)
    • NA: January 27, 2004 (Xbox, PS2)
    • EU: February 2, 2004
    Windows
    • NA: November 16, 2004
    • EU: November 26, 2004
    • JP: December 9, 2004
    PlayStation Network
    • EU: February 22, 2012
    • JP: September 27, 2014
Single-player, multiplayer

Sonic Heroes

exploration-based gameplay of its predecessors Sonic Adventure (1998) and Sonic Adventure 2 (2001) in favor of returning to the linear style of Sega Genesis
-era Sonic games.

Heroes was the first

Chaotix
characters.

Sega released Sonic Heroes in Japan in December 2003 and worldwide in early 2004. It was a commercial success, with 3.41 million copies sold by 2007, but received mixed reviews. Critics praised the focus on fast gameplay and similarities to the series' original 2D entries, a choice that some considered an improvement from the Sonic Adventure games. Reviewers also highlighted its graphic design and detailed environments and textures. However, they felt it did not address the problems of previous Sonic games, such as the camera and voice acting.

Gameplay

Gameplay screenshot from Sonic Heroes. In it, the cartoonish animals Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles run on top of a building in the Grand Metropolis level; there are gold rings and red hovering robots in front of them. The background depicts high-tech buildings and more of the level's geometry. The score, time, and rings collected are in the upper left corner.
Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles in the Grand Metropolis stage

Sonic Heroes is a

difficulty. Amy's team, for example, is designed for beginners, while Shadow's is aimed at more experienced players.[4]

The game begins with a tutorial

mission-based, requiring players to fulfill a specific objective, like collecting items, to clear a level.[8]

Teams contain three character types: Speed (such as Sonic), Flight (such as Tails), and Power (such as Knuckles), which the player toggles between.

level up, becoming more efficient when fighting enemies, though these level up items are lost if the player loses a life.[6]

By collecting keys hidden within levels and reaching the end of a level without getting hit, players can enter

Chaos Emerald before it disappears.[6]

If players collect all seven Emeralds and clear each story, an additional Last Story is unlocked. The Last Story reveals the plot was orchestrated by

split screen multiplayer mode, in which two players can race or battle.[4] Challenges in the multiplayer mode include kart racing and collecting as many rings as possible.[9]

Plot

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles receive a letter from Doctor Eggman, telling them that in three days, he will launch his Egg Fleet in an attempt to take over the world, challenging them to stop him. Rouge infiltrates one of Eggman's bases, where she is surprised to discover Shadow, last seen falling from the Space Colony ARK, asleep in a pod. When she awakens him and one of Eggman's robots, E-123 Omega, from their stasis, the three reluctantly agree to work together, with Omega wanting revenge for being locked up and Shadow, who has amnesia, wanting answers regarding who he is. Amy helps Big and Cream track down Big's pet, Froggy, and Cheese's brother, Chocola Chao, who were both reportedly kidnapped by Sonic. The Chaotix Detective Agency (Vector, Espio and Charmy) receive a job offer from a mysterious client, where they execute a series of tasks to prove themselves.

The four teams chase down Eggman through various zones, crossing paths with each other at several points, until they all end up on the Egg Fleet. There, Rouge discovers an armada of Shadow Androids, wondering if their Shadow is just one of them too. The Chaotix end up rescuing their mystery client, revealed to be Eggman. He explains that he was locked up and betrayed by Metal Sonic, now going by "Neo Metal Sonic", who had adopted the guise of Eggman and taken control of the Egg Fleet to prove himself superior to Sonic. Using the data he collected from observing all the teams in action and the power of

Chaos
copied from Froggy and Chocola, he transforms into his ultimate state, the "Metal Overlord". Using the power of the Chaos Emeralds all the teams had collected, they work together to take down Metal, with Sonic turning Super (accompanied by Tails and Knuckles) to defeat him. After Metal Sonic is defeated and reverts to his original form, Sonic and everyone go their separate ways, while the Chaotix chase after Eggman, demanding payment from him.

Development

Yuji Naka, a Japanese man in glasses, a black suit, and a red tie, in 2015. He is the co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog and producer of Sonic Heroes.
Yuji Naka, the producer of Sonic Heroes, in 2015

Sonic Heroes was developed by the 19-member

Sonic Team USA in San Francisco[10] to commemorate the Sonic series' 12th anniversary.[11] Development was led by producer Yuji Naka and director/lead designer Takashi Iizuka,[11][12] and lasted 20 months. The majority of the development team had worked on previous Sonic games.[10] Iizuka did not want to make a sequel to Sonic Adventure 2 (2001), as he worried it would only appeal to Sonic fans. Interested in returning to gameplay similar to the Genesis games, Sonic Team decided to design Sonic Heroes so casual players not familiar with Sonic could adapt.[10] Iizuka said the development period of Sonic Heroes was the most stressful of his career because of deadlines and Sega management. A fellow designer became ill, so he worked relentlessly, lost 22 pounds (10 kg), and suffered from insomnia.[13]

Sonic Heroes was the first

frames per second (FPS) in contrast to the other versions running at 60 FPS. Sega's Noah Musler explained that running the PS2 version at 60 FPS would have caused performance problems.[9] Iizuka also noted the system is less powerful than the GameCube and Xbox. Iizuka and Naka decided against including console-exclusive content so players could have the same experience regardless of console.[3]

Sonic Team was interested in making Sonic Heroes's narrative feature characters teaming up to overcome evil, rather than Sonic Adventure's approach of individual character stories. This led to the conception of the "team action" concept.

Chao-raising system—a staple of the Sonic Adventure games—was removed because Sonic Team feared it would disrupt the pace. To improve replay value, the grading system was made more difficult. The special stages from the 2D games were revived to "refresh players' minds" and change the pace.[3] Player reactions to previous games influenced the design; for example, the team did not include modes like Big's fishing from Sonic Adventure and Tails' shooting from Sonic Adventure 2 after both were criticized.[9]

The

Gunnar Nelson.[18] Iizuka said that the intention was for the music "to return to the roots of the Sonic experience" and be exciting and fast-paced.[3]

Naka believed that Sonic Heroes, a Sonic-themed

PS2 Classics line for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) on February 22, 2012.[26]

Reception

Sonic Heroes received generally "mixed or average" reviews, according to the review aggregator Metacritic.[27][28][29][30] Some reviewers felt the game was better than the previous 3D Sonic games but still below the quality of the 2D games.[2][4][31] The PS2 and PC's version's reviews were considerably worse than others;[30] reviewers noted clipping, graphic faults, and its lower frame rate.[35][36]

The aesthetics and sound were generally well received.

Dolby Pro Logic II.[4]

Multiple reviewers found the gameplay similar to that of the Genesis Sonic games.

1UP.com and GameSpy agreed that the game was a step in the right direction for the series.[2][31] Levi Buchanan of the Chicago Tribune wrote that "when Sonic is in charge, Sonic Heroes is a pure action game. It's an enjoyable throwback to the Genesis era, when Sonic was all about speed, running circles around Mario, collecting rings while Nintendo's plumber searched high and low for his shape-altering mushrooms. And for gamers who have been numb in the thumb long enough to remember those heady days, the return to form is most welcome. (Especially after those underwhelming Dreamcast Sonic Adventure games that Sega ported to the GameCube.)"[37] Reviewers called the casino level, Bingo Highway, a highlight.[4][5][7]

Reviewers were generally divided over the team-based gameplay.[4][7][8] GameSpy argued it was well-balanced and thought it greatly increased the replay value.[2] IGN offered similar praise, praising its easy-to-learn, strategic controls.[4] Game Revolution wrote the system added diversity.[5] However, IGN also thought it was not as ambitious as expected and did not change the overall experience.[4] GameSpot agreed the controls were easy, but considered the large number of teams unnecessary: "no one cares about these peripheral characters... People play Sonic games to play as Sonic the Hedgehog".[7] 1UP found the concept was more repetitive than innovative.[31] Eurogamer considered the gameplay original but "boring and obvious" and thought that the controls were clunky and unorthodox. While Eurogamer argued Sonic Heroes was not difficult,[8] Game Revolution described it as hard to a fault, exclaiming they "[died] all the time."[5] Buchanan wrote that "when you switch away from Sonic and Tails, the game itself kind of stops cold. Especially when you play as one of the other three teams that feature ancillary characters from Sonic’s stable as they play through similar levels with slightly different goals."[37] Charles Herold of The New York Times wrote that "getting stuck on the fourth level exposed one of the game's major flaws: the levels are fairly static. The old 2-D Sonic games always seemed to have several different routes through different landscapes. Jump across a chasm, and you could take a mountainside path; miss the jump, and you would run through the valley below. You could play these levels repeatedly and rarely take the exact same route. But while in Heroes you occasionally come to a fork in the road, you are likely to find yourself running basically the same trail every time you go through a level. This is disappointing, and especially surprising considering the team play element. With three characters whose different abilities let them overcome different challenges, it would make sense to have dozens of areas per level where the various characters can lead you to different paths. But the game too rarely capitalizes on this potential."[38]

The game was criticized for not addressing the problems of prior Sonic games.[4][7][31] 1UP wrote the problems with the camera and "hit-or-miss lock-on attacks that leave you plunging to your doom" that plagued the Sonic Adventure games were still present in Sonic Heroes and hurt the experience greatly.[31] GameSpot said although the camera worked well most of the time, coordination between camera position and character movement caused problems, such that pushing forward may not move the character in the same direction the camera is facing. They also wrote that the game suffered from problems with the collision detection and noted all the shortcomings were present in the Sonic Adventure games.[7] IGN agreed the camera had not been improved.[4] The voice acting was especially derided; IGN joked players should "turn down the volume during cut-scenes",[4] and GameSpy compared the voice work to the likes of Playskool.[2]

The editors of GameSpot ultimately named Sonic Heroes the best GameCube game of January 2004, and called it "the fastest and most authentic 3D Sonic experience we've seen yet."[39]

Sales

Sonic Heroes was a major commercial success. By October 2004, the game had sold over one million copies in Europe.

Player's Choice line on the GameCube, the Greatest Hits line on the PS2, and the Platinum Hits line on the Xbox.[40]

Legacy

After Sonic Heroes, Sonic Team USA was renamed Sega Studios USA.

USgamer ranked Sonic Heroes among the franchise's bottom half of games. They wrote that the system of switching between characters was unwieldy and annoying, but still interesting because it made the game feel like a puzzle video game. They also praised the design of E-123 Omega.[50]

Sonic Heroes marked the debut of recurring Sonic character E-123 Omega,[6] and reintroduced the obscure Chaotix.[3] Its concept of switching between characters as necessary was reused in Sonic Team's Sonic Forces (2017) and Sumo Digital's Team Sonic Racing (2019);[51][52] Sumo Digital cited it as inspiration for their game.[52] The Seaside Hill level reappears in the 20th anniversary game Sonic Generations for PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows,[53] while the Nintendo 3DS version includes the special stages[54] and the Egg Emperor boss fight.[55] In the game's remaster, Sonic X Shadow Generations, the Rail Canyon level and Metal Overlord boss fight return.[56] Seaside Hill has also appeared in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (2009),[57] Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (2010),[58] and its 2012 sequel.[59]

Notes

  1. ^ Japanese: ソニック ヒーローズ, Hepburn: Sonikku Hirozu

References

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