Sonic Adventure 1 has the best story of the "green eyed" games and the best characterization. Honestly, I'd say it has the best story out of every Sonic game.
It's honestly a really good story. Every character gets to shine in their own regard so no one is really second banana, the characterization is really on point with the personalities and you get ample time to get invested into each characters motivations, and Amy actually does something for a reason outside of merely chasing after Sonic all the time. Sonic himself has some really great moments as well. One moment in particular is when he states that pretty much you can seal Chaos, and everything would be fine, but you'd just be locking him up for eternity and not solving the real issue, his hatred. He chose morals over doing the logical thing which I thought was a pretty damn cool moment for him.
Sonic Adventure is not a masterpiece but it's certainly the most interesting one for me from the 3D games. It feels serious and "Sonic-like" at the same time since it expands on elements from Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I "like" SA2 story but because it's so dumb. Seeing Sonic, Tails and Eggman interacting with the "president" is something that will never fail to amuse me. Same thing with Shadow and all his angst and edge on his own game. "This is like taking candy from a baby, which is fine by me!"
Yeah, while the execution may be really off in some places, I respect what Sonic Team were doing with Sonic Adventure's story. Lots of good character moments. Characters getting actual development. A good mix of seriousness and fun. If the voice acting and animations weren't so laughable. The stories in Adventure 2, Shadow, and some of Sonic 06 (most of that game's cutscenes are just dull) are really enjoyable but not for the reasons Sonic Team thought they'd be.
Honestly, Adventure's story is a Saturday morning cartoon, but it's pretty inoffensive from a narrative standpoint. Awaken ancient evil, sad times, clique adventure tropes, special power Deus ex Machina, the end.
all this adventure talk keeps remind me that i own it on steam and it makes me almost barely wanna play it stop, you heathens!
just make sure to download a mod that pretty much entirely replaces every single file in the steam version to make it playable
Sonic Adventure's plot was standard fare but yeah the character stuff was pretty good, compared to most other Sonics anyway
SA1 gets brownie points if for no other reason than that it actually managed to succeed at weaving together six individual plots into a single narrative whole. Pulling off shit like that is hard at the best of times.
It was no Final Fantasy or anything obviously but yeah Adventure had the best story out of any of the games so far. Really sucks that all the rest range from okay-but-lacking to outright awful. Except maybe Unleashed, I'd put that up there with SA1 too if I found Chip less of a pain in the ass.
The best story is obviously Lost World because CYBORG TAILS, which lasts for all of one scene and he's basically wearing a cardboard helmet. Fuckin' hell. Now if you support SA1's wacky echidna shenanigans, I can only assume you must also love Sonic Chronicles (or not), a story of which I can't remember except something about echidnas and Shade.
It was a real missed opportunity, I know we bring up the music a lot but the game itself doesn't get much coverage. Really average stuff that almost had something going on, that EBA style battle system deserved better. But at least you could make Sonic respond like a dick to everything, vintage Bioware
My fun with Lost World's storyline is similar to the one I have with Shadow: the EDGE. The game is very "safe" in its presentation but some of the diologues choices here in this game are amazingly edgy such as: "You're going home in a box!" " I long for death’s cold embrace" "I'll get fat from eating your black hearts, you Eggman wannabes" And my favorite: "As long as I can still strangle a Zeti, my hands are fine"
I say this without a hint of sarcasm or jest, but Chronicles had the best writing in a Sonic game period. And since someone brought it up!
I almost wish the Advance games had more in the way of purposeful plots because I still think they did an exceptional job in nailing the cast through the spritework and what few cutscenes there were. It saddens me that that style is more or less lost to time. That being said Rush was a hilarious next game because of how odd the regular cast of characters acted for the sake of making Blaze always seem like the only normal person in the room. And then Rush Adventure made everyone but Marine be the straight-man for the sake of making sure Marine never showed up again afterwards.
Sonic Adventure 1 also has a robot finding itself that ends up having to kill its 'family' essentially to save captured animals and ends up dying fighting its own brother that entirely outclassed it, but still won the battle in the end despite that and ends with the birds living in peace. Another moment I really like is when Eggman tries to get revenge on Perfect Chaos with a whole fucking other Egg Carrier, like this guy was just really prepared this time it seems. And I mean yeah, he gets fucked by Chaos, but it was still hype seeing him not go out without a fight. And Big the Cat fishing out Froggy from Chaos is hilarious and awesome at the same time.
Anyone else remember the hilarious sound the lasers on the Egg Carrier made when Eggman was shooting at Perfect Chaos?
I'll never forget this. Even as a kid on my first playthrough I remember screaming USE THE DAMN GIANT LASER YOU USED ON A BIPLANE.
Eggman didn't even fire any lasers, it's like he just turned on a bunch of the hint TVs to annoy Chaos lmao
*Tails, lookin' over devastated city destroyed by Perfect Chaos* "Well, all's well that ends well, huh?" *flies off as families are separated by loved ones in the supernatural floods, refuses to help clean up afterwards*
I find the fact that Sonic just kinda runs off instead of helping with rescue efforts infinitely more fucked up than Tails' little quip there
*Tails, looking into space while Robotnik questions the decisions of his family* "I don't know! What I DO know is we all did it togetherrrrrr!"
I mean it's funny to joke about in that sense but it really is no different than super hero cartoons where buildings are being destroyed but everything is seemingly okay after the villain is stopped. Being that this is Dreamcast hardware and a lot of stuff is being rendered all at once, I'd imagine having two beams go off would cause the system to chug hence the laser sounds. I mean look at all that water, then the explosions, Chaos' laser, the low poly buildings, Chaos himself, the Egg Carrier itself, etc.
I know Tails is (was??) just a kid but he really had some fucking tone deaf lines in a game full of dumb or just bad lines, this one is the worst
Meanwhile Amy's standing right there staring at the ruins of her entire life, having learned a horribly timely lesson about relying on her own strength mere days before. real sensitive, Tails
I remember in the Sonic X adaptation of Sonic Adventure they made a pretty big point out of no one being harmed by the flood... somehow.
I feel like Sonic and the gang got the fuck outta Station Square right after Chaos got the work. "Alright y'all pick up from here"
It's how cartoonish series work, which is what people aren't seemingly understanding. Adventure's story isn't meant to be taken this serious and if we're getting into logistics per se, I could pick apart just about any cartoon. I'd say the pros of this story far outweigh any cons of a specific scene or few near the end. It's like picking fun at how Sonic doesn't just beat the crap out of Eggman and lock him up or something so he doesn't repeat the same mistakes over and over, same thing with Dr. Wily.
The entire plot of sonic adventure 2 is about folks not cleaning messes tbh Sonic charactes leaving shit unfinished and not doing things about it is their national pastime
I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just find it funny. I do think some people put too much thought into the stories of Sonic games. It's clear that the people who write them don't exactly put much effort into them, with Adventure 1, and maybe Unleashed, being somewhat of an exception.
It's one thing when a superhero gets his face dragged through a couple skyscrapers, but I can't think of anything else that absolutely devastates an entire city without some mention. That SA1 not only goes all in on the mayhem but then pans over it as the triumphant finale is well worth a few loving jabs.
Notice that Sonic didn't seem to tackle the cause of the tears, only supplied materials to indicate that the tears would never stop. The real villain of the piece. Or maybe I'm misremembering it, that Darkspine Sonic boss had my brain vacate my body after all.
In the Japanese release of the game his dialogue isn't merely "Alls well that ends well", it's meant to be more along the lines he's relieved Chaos is stopped and he tells Sonic he's glad for that reason. That said, yes, this part is somewhat weird but the alternative is them focusing on the devastation and if they do that then it makes the actions more serious and people actually die. If they nonchalantly continue with cartoon styled storytelling, it gives a clear sign that no one is actually dead and everything is okay.
I mean yeah, they are taking liberties to hype up a scene but not a single body is shown, no one is actually seen being hurt, there aren't dead bodies floating in the water. It's ridiculous that no one is hurt, and then everything goes back to normal by next game, but I mean... It's Sonic. This series has a "Death Egg" crash into the earth, and when they defeat Robotnik, Sonic just straights up gives the peace symbol despite it actually damaging the earth and animals habitats.
I really hope somebody can make a mod with a more accurate translation subtitle track - the localization kinda sucks from what I've read.
if robotnik can blow up the god damn moon with no ill effects for anything else i dunno why we'd expect any action anyone does in this series to have any consequence
