Dreamcast Hot Take, Sonic Heroes IS One Of The Best 3D Sonic Games

[MemeAlert]

(I grew up playing the Gamecube version and I understand why people who grew up with the PS2 version would hate this game like spending 10 minutes just trying to get to the exit of the first pinball section in Casino Park is hell.) Love this game like literally one of my favorite games period. Yes this game has glitches and sometimes uncomfortable to play but lets be real if Sonic Heroes had the broken spindash from Sonic Adventure 1 that lets you skip over the janky parts you wouldn't be complaining about Sonic Heroes. Sonic Heroes is essentially if you played Sonic/Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2 and was like "god I wish there was more of this" with a team mechanic. Knuckles Chaotix was kinda the first to do this (I'm not counting the Genesis version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles because you had to use a second controller to use Tails flying to get Sonic to unreachable places) and I bring it up because for some reason people think the team mechanic was "half-baked" in Sonic Heroes (even tho its the first time they implemented the team mechanic in a 3D Sonic game, like the Light Speed Dash wasn't that great in Sonic Adventure 1 so get over yourself) but I feel like people don't know how Sonic Heroes works they just assume how it suppose to work and if they messed up they just blame the game.

 

[DrunkOcelot]

Sonic Adventure is the greatest sonic game ever made, and my proof is solely based on personal feelings.

 

[SkoomaCatJesus]

Sonic Heroes is one of those games that I would see on the screens as I walked by in the stores and always wanted to play. I never got the chance to own a copy. I took it hard when SEGA went under (read about it in the NEXT issue with the FF8 cover). All the games ->I WANTED TO PLAY<- at the time went to the GameCube. It was the "ugly duckling" period where I felt that a lot of the PS2 releases from SEGA in North America were bugged or suffered from "awkward controls." I wish we could go back to the time when SEGA was flush with cash and loved to experiment with games. So many great titles came from that time (a lot of crap too, but beside the point).

 

[MemeAlert]

View attachment 12548
Sonic Adventure is the greatest sonic game ever made, and my proof is solely based on personal feelings.

When you said "personal feelings" you mean nostalgia. "Greatest Sonic Game Ever Made"? No its janky, especially when Sonic gets caught on something while going fast.

 

[moonbits]

It's a piece of crap that forces you to play the same campaign over and over just to get shit ending. Thanks Sonic Team

 

[MemeAlert]

It's a piece of crap that forces you to play the same campaign over and over just to get shit ending. Thanks Sonic Team

You mean like Sonic Advance 1? Also its not the exact same campaign.

 

[Sayo]

That's undeniably a hot take if I ever saw one. I have many grievances with Heroes but the main one stems from the level design which often borders on abysmal, particularly Egg Fleet, Frog Forest and others come to mind as just plain unfun. Which is a shame because the concept and the general presentation are all rather solid.

 

[tempest2k]

heroes on gamecube is one of the very first games i have conscious memory of playing, and even i don't revisit it very often because the jank is ROUGH. has a lot going for it aesthetically but it feels even more inconsistent than SA2 (a game that i love and have basically mastered, but admittedly feels pretty clunky until you've played it for 50 hours and have the mechanics completely memorized)

 

[Sayo]

heroes on gamecube is one of the very first games i have conscious memory of playing, and even i don't revisit it very often because the jank is ROUGH. has a lot going for it aesthetically but it feels even more inconsistent than SA2 (a game that i love and have basically mastered, but admittedly feels pretty clunky until you've played it for 50 hours and have the mechanics completely memorized)

How do you feel about Shadow the Hedgehog then? Now that's some serious jank

 

[tempest2k]

How do you feel about Shadow the Hedgehog then? Now that's some serious jank

ALSO one of the very first games i remember playing. i revisited it with reloaded in the past couple of months and honestly it wasn't nearly as rough. the problems with that game are mostly in the level and mission design, but a lot of the time it didn't push too hard against me in this recent playthrough. i absolutely love the westopolis music.

 

[Sayo]

ALSO one of the very first games i remember playing. i revisited it with reloaded in the past couple of months and honestly it wasn't nearly as rough. the problems with that game are mostly in the level and mission design, but a lot of the time it didn't push too hard against me in this recent playthrough. i absolutely love the westopolis music.

I feel like it has a lot of missed potential, my main grievances are the same ones you just voiced but I would also argue that the "gunplay" is a joke that could have used some modicum of work. It's a fun game if you can look past all of its shortcomings though, and something very unique that I doubt Sonic Team will ever try to replicate.

Spoiler

...I also need to try Reloaded.

 

[Toppis]

i did beat this sonic heroes today

 

[Sayo]

i did beat this sonic heroes today

What did you think of it?

 

[Toppis]

What did you think of it?

It has a lot of problems that I didn't like, such as being unfair with the rails. When jumping from one rail to another, it goes past the rail and you die. Additionally, the controls are slippery, and I died because of that. Also, when collecting keys to get the emerald, I need to complete the stage without being hit, and it was very hard

Post automatically merged: Jan 21, 2025

But I like some of the music, and the story was pretty good. I wish YouTubers would beat that game instead of giving up.

 

[Sayo]

It has a lot of problems that I didn't like, such as being unfair with the rails. When jumping from one rail to another, it goes past the rail and you die. Additionally, the controls are slippery, and I died because of that. Also, when collecting keys to get the emerald, I need to complete the stage without being hit, and it was very hard

Post automatically merged: Jan 21, 2025

But I like some of the music, and the story was pretty good. I wish YouTubers would beat that game instead of giving up.

I agree with pretty much all of what you said, it's truly an undercooked title like most of Sonic Team's output from that era and I kind of wish that they would revisit it.

 

[Toppis]

The next Sonic game I am going to play will be Sonic Colors. It should be a much easier Sonic game than Sonic Heroes

 

[hazys]

Heroes puts its best foot forward with a very nice first stage, and the concept of three-person teams is cool, but it quickly falls apart from there. I will admit that it has a nice vibrant look reminiscent of the best of 3D Sonic. But I don't think it's good.

 

[Toppis]

I think Sonic Heroes is still a good game, even with its issues

 

[MemeAlert]

That's undeniably a hot take if I ever saw one. I have many grievances with Heroes but the main one stems from the level design which often borders on abysmal, particularly Egg Fleet, Frog Forest and others come to mind as just plain unfun. Which is a shame because the concept and the general presentation are all rather solid.

Define abysmal?

Post automatically merged: Jan 25, 2025

heroes on gamecube is one of the very first games i have conscious memory of playing, and even i don't revisit it very often because the jank is ROUGH. has a lot going for it aesthetically but it feels even more inconsistent than SA2 (a game that i love and have basically mastered, but admittedly feels pretty clunky until you've played it for 50 hours and have the mechanics completely memorized)

Eh I got used to the jank of Sonic Heroes, to be honest I don't even remember any jank from Sonic Adventure 2.

Post automatically merged: Jan 25, 2025

ALSO one of the very first games i remember playing. i revisited it with reloaded in the past couple of months and honestly it wasn't nearly as rough. the problems with that game are mostly in the level and mission design, but a lot of the time it didn't push too hard against me in this recent playthrough. i absolutely love the westopolis music.

Are you talking about the Shadow the Hedgehog Reloaded mod? How is it? I didn't bother trying it because you have to download a modded version of Nintendont.

 

[Ikagura]

I liked the more light-hearted story and ambience of this game because I felt that SA2 was a bit dangerously too serious (thankfully not crossing the line like Shadow and 2006. SA1 was fine in most of t he story because it kept some of that 90's feel) and the returns of classic elements like the Special Stages for the Chaos Emeralds and the Chaotix getting reintroduced as characters in the franchise (keep in mind that aside from the classic Sonic/Tails/Knuckles/Amy team of 4 there were basically no pre-Adventure mobians getting introduced in the franchise so rip Team Hooligans with Fang, Bean and Bark as well as Mighty and Ray which were also mentioned in Generations before Mania Plus got them back).


However: I just didn't like how it forces you to redo the game four times just to be able to tackle the Final Story was just tedious (even SA1 with Big and Tails' first half and SA2 having you to go through the Treasure Hunting and Mech Shooting levels still basically only made you redo the story twice at best) and the slipperiness is what prevented me from replaying it.

I wish it got remade with only two teams getting required and a better physics.

 

[Toppis]

I liked the more light-hearted story and ambience of this game because I felt that SA2 was a bit dangerously too serious (thankfully not crossing the line like Shadow and 2006. SA1 was fine in most of t he story because it kept some of that 90's feel) and the returns of classic elements like the Special Stages for the Chaos Emeralds and the Chaotix getting reintroduced as characters in the franchise (keep in mind that aside from the classic Sonic/Tails/Knuckles/Amy team of 4 there were basically no pre-Adventure mobians getting introduced in the franchise so rip Team Hooligans with Fang, Bean and Bark as well as Mighty and Ray which were also mentioned in Generations before Mania Plus got them back).


However: I just didn't like how it forces you to redo the game four times just to be able to tackle the Final Story was just tedious (even SA1 with Big and Tails' first half and SA2 having you to go through the Treasure Hunting and Mech Shooting levels still basically only made you redo the story twice at best) and the slipperiness is what prevented me from replaying it.

I wish it got remade with only two teams getting required and a better physics.

maybe remaster is better

 

[Ikagura]

Maybe remaster is better.

If it's Sonic x Shadow Generation-like I'd say why not.

But I wish the swapping mechanic was done better, maybe L1 and R1 or even having one button for a character so you'd basically swap fast.

Also I dislike that a character is bound to a formation so you're forced to be slow as hell as Fly.

 

[MemeAlert]

If it's Sonic x Shadow Generation-like I'd say why not.

But I wish the swapping mechanic was done better, maybe L1 and R1 or even having one button for a character so you'd basically swap fast.

Also I dislike that a character is bound to a formation so you're forced to be slow as hell as Fly.

Better than being slippery. Tails (Fly) isn't suppose to be fast, thats what the Speed characters like Sonic are there for.

 

[BulletHammer]

I think it's one of the more unique 3D entries in the franchise and they should revisit the three characters mechanic.

What I always disliked about the Adventure titles was how the game completely changes once you play as another character and slows down a lot. If they made an Adventure game where we could swap between Sonic, Knuckles and Tails on the fly it would be really awesome, imagine using Sonic to cover long distances, then swapping to Knuckles to climb walls, then to Tails so you could reach distant platforms by flying.

They would also be able to have more playable characters without having to create different story campaigns for all of them. With two different campaigns they could have 6 main characters without having to create entirely different stages for each one of them, that would save a lot of development time I think.

They should make a sequel, or atleast a spiritual sequel that takes all the good stuff from Heroes while discarding the bad stuff. Imo it would be one of the best 3D Sonic games of all time.

 

[MegaHiro91]

One word as to why Sonic Heroes ROCKS!!! This guy:

(Whom I btw hope to dear god appears in the Sonic 4 movie)