Sonic Heroes Review

Hello and welcome back to the Sonic Marathon, where I review every mainline Sonic game ever made. This time, we will be talking about Sonic Heroes; a highly controversial game in the Sonic fanbase. Some say it's good, others think it's absolute trash. Let's find out how this game holds up.

The story is much different this time, as their are 4 different campaigns with three characters each that you all switch between to accomplish various tasks. The first stories to start chronologically are Team Heroes’ Story (Sonic Tails and Knuckles) and Team Dark's Story soon after. (Rouge, the new E-05 Omega, and ???)

Well it ends up that surprise surprise, Metal Sonic was behind the whole adventure. The Eggman they have been chasing was just a robot fake, and that the real Eggman was imprisoned by his own creation, metal sonic. This only happened because Eggman gave Metal Sonic an advanced artificial intelligence along with a stronger body which can upgrade by siphoning chaos energy from other beings.
The gameplay is completely different to every sonic game before and after.

After that Team Rose’s Story takes place (Amy, Cream, and BIG THE FREAKING CAT) and ends soon after Team Heroes’ Story ends. Team Chaotix Story starts at the same time as Team Rose’s Story, and ends around the time when Team Dark’s Story ends. Let's start with Team Heroes.

The story is pretty simple. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are racing when the hear Eggman has returned. They set out to stop him, and after 10 levels Team Heroes gets captured by a shadowy figure who doesn't look like Eggman...

The next story to take place is Team Dark's story: which starts and ends around the same time as Team Heroes’ Story takes place. The story starts with one of Rouge's GUN missions. She is now working with her partner, E-05 Omega: a revived E-03 Gamma from SA1 in a stronger body. In the mission, they find a pod containing... SHADOW? Didn't he die in the last game?

Anyways, he seems to not remember much and has amnesia, but believes finding Eggman will restore his memories after hearing from Rouge that Eggman's grandfather created him. They search for Eggman, eventually leading them to his secret flying fortress, where a dark secret is revealed. Shadow really did die at the end of SA2, and this Shadow is simply an android!

Now to move on the shortest story and easiest team: Team Rose. Cream the Rabbit (a new character introduced in the handheld game Sonic Advance 2) is hanging out with Amy Rose, who finds out that Sonic is missing and sets out with cream and BIG THE FREAKING CAT  for some reason to try to find Sonic and convince him to marry her. These events take place after the Heroes Story ends but probably before the Dark Story ends.

Amy, Cream, and Big for some reason find and rescue a captured Sonic, who tells them to get out of there because "It's" coming. Then, a shadowy figure emerges and says "It's been a long time Sonic..." in a metallic voice.

Finally, there is Team Chaotix: a group of detectives and mercenaries including the obscure characters from the non-canon game Knuckles’ Chaotix Vector and Espio as well as the new character Charmy Bee.

They are extremely bored (well, except Charmy, who I think had a few too many Mountain Dews #notsponsored) until they get a phone call from what is presumed to be Dr. Eggman (they don't know that because they are stupid) who leads them to the same sky base that Team Dark, Team Heroes, and Team Rose were on. and they find out this was all a trap by a familiar foe...

Like SA1 and SA2, there is a final story. However, beating each story simply isn't enough. You need to 100% all four stories, meaning getting A Rank on all stages, completing all 'optional" objectives, and getting all 7 chaos emeralds in the special stages for all four teams.

You might think "Oh, that isn't too bad..." but you are highly mistaken. Do you remember Sonic 2's special stages? How they were entirely based on memorization? Well, what if it was the same as Sonic 2, except that the levels were randomized. Along with that, instead of having easy to dodge spikes that lower your ring count and needing to collect enough rings to get the chaos emerald, you have 4 different colors of orbs scattered across the stage in random patterns and touching one that doesn't align with your team's color makes you lose 1 point while hitting the one colored orb that you need only raises it by 1.

You need 100 orbs times the emerald number you need to get the emerald, meaning that for the 7th emerald you need 700 ORBS!!! This is absolute torture. Oh, I forgot to mention, to unlock the final story you not only need to do that but you also need to complete a entire story back to back with NO saving and NO deaths.

WHAT THE HECK SEGA!? WHAT DRUGS WERE YOU SMOKING WHEN YOU MADE THIS GAME!? THIS IS LIKE FINAL FANTASY X-2 NEEDING YOU TO 100% THE ENTIRE MASSIVE JRPG GAME TO EVEN GET THE CHANCE TO GET THE BEST ENDING BUT 1000% WORSE! WHO DESIGNED THIS?

With the ridiculous collision detection in this game, as well as the broken rail sliding controls, this game is torture to 100% WHICH YOU NEED TO DO TO GET STORY CLOSURE!!!

OK, rant over. Sorry, sometimes my dragon side takes hold which always seems to happen when I get pissed now I think about it. Well, no further delays. It's time to discuss the Final Story.

Metal Sonic absorbs the Chaos Emeralds, becoming Metal Madness, a giant monster. Now, you have to play as each team except Team Heroes to each weaken Metal Madness before Sonic in his super form finishes him off. Once you defeat Metal Madness as Team Rose, Team Dark, and Team Chaotix, you play as Super Sonic and…...Tails in Knuckles in just golden bubbles? Huh? Didn’t they already have established Super Forms in the genesis games?

Eh, you probably wouldn't notice it as one of the best final boss themes ever “What I’m Made Of” plays in the background as you fight Metal Sonic’s final form, Metal Overlord who is a giant flying draconic metal sonic. He is also based slightly off the boss Super Metal Sonic from Knuckles’ Chaotix, which is a neat reference.

As I said earlier, the game is split into 4 stories. Unlike Sonic Adventure or even it’s sequel, every level as every team is exactly the same. The only difference is that Team Rose only has to do half of the levels, Team Dark has to complete each level twice, and Team Chaotix has to complete certain objectives like time trials or defeat enemy missions.

But that isn’t the biggest change to Sonic Heroes’ gameplay. You always play as three characters as once, and each character has a special skill. Speed type characters are faster and can jump high, so they are good for platforming and speeding through levels. They

include Sonic, Amy, Shadow, and Espio.

Next are power type characters. They are good at fighting, do the most damage, have a special ground pound move, and can break certain blocks. Finally, flying type characters can fly but aren't as powerful as power types or as fast as speed types. This system usually just gets in the way, and Sonic Heroes’ biggest problems become crystal clear soon after you hit a rail.

The collision in this game is absolutely awful. At many times you can just fall though the floor for no reason. This is especially prevalent on the PS2 version, in which they didn’t configure the collision for different hardware as the game was originally made for the GameCube. However, even on the superior GameCube version, rails are still a major issue. At completely random times, you will just fall straight through the rails and this happens about 80% of the time while switching rails, and it is infuriating.

Overall Sonic Heroes has it’s good moments, like the incredible soundtrack, some great levels like Seaside Hill and Casino Park, and an epic final boss fight. However, Sonic Heroes fails to be a good game due to the numerous glitches, (especially on the PS2 version) broken controls, and absolutely atrocious game design that baffled people even back then.

Overall, I cannot recommend Sonic Heroes. It has it moments, but this truly is the first bad sonic game, and strap in folks because it just gets worse from here.

5/10

Good

• Some of the levels are really fun
• The team system is a nice change of pace.
• The music, as always, is excellent.
• The game controls fine.
• The story is good.

Bad

• You have to complete the same levels 4 times!
• The unlock requirements for the final story are ridiculous.
• The collision detection is awful.
• Forcing you to play each level twice as team dark is stupid.
• The objectives for Team Chaotix are too boring.
• The final boss fight takes way too long to beat. It's like a 45 minute boss fight, in a SONIC GAME!