Sonic Heroes
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| Sonic Heroes | |
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| Developer(s) | Sonic Team USA |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Designer(s) | Takashi Iizuka Eitaro Toyoda Kazuyuki Hoshino |
| Engine | RenderWare |
| Platform(s) | GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC |
| Release date | JP December 30, 2003 NA January 6, 2004 (GC) NA January 27, 2004 (PS2/Xbox) PAL February 6, 2004 PC: |
| Genre(s) | Adventure Platformer |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: E (Everyone) PEGI: 3+ |
| Media | DVD, CD-ROM (x2), GameCube Optical Disc |
| System requirements | PC: Pentium III 866 MHz CPU, 16 MB Direct3D-compatible graphics card, DirectX-compatible sound card, 12x CD-ROM drive, 0.8 GB hard disk space, Microsoft Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP, DirectX 9.0b |
| Input methods | PC: Mouse and keyboard, or analog joypad Console: Game controller |
Sonic Heroes is a video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It is the first multiplatform game in the Sonic series, and is the second game developed by Sonic Team USA. It is also the direct sequel to Sonic Adventure 2. Development was done with the RenderWare engine in order for the game to be programmed for the Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, and PC CD-ROM. The title's phrase "Sonic Heroes" refers to the uniting of the protagonists of the Sonic the Hedgehog series.
The game introduces several new gameplay elements. Unlike past Sonic games, which have all had a player controlling one character, players are able to control three characters at a time, switching the party's leader from speed, power and flight. The player must use these abilities to get through two "stages" before fighting a boss. This is the first Sonic game where normal enemies have a health bar.
This game also marked the return of many characters from the Sonic universe: Chaotix, a group last seen in Knuckles' Chaotix on the Sega 32X; Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat from Sonic Adventure 2; Cream the Rabbit from Sonic Advance 2; Big the Cat from Sonic Adventure; Metal Sonic, who, prior to this game, had not played a major role in the series for years, last having one in Knuckles' Chaotix in 1995. The game also introduces a new character, E-123 Omega, who seems to represent Eggman's infamous E-Series.
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[edit] Teams
Unlike the past Sonic the Hedgehog games, Sonic Heroes is the first Sonic game that allows the player to control 3 characters at once (although the player only controls the selected character, the computer takes control of the remaining 2 characters). The player selects one of the 4 teams to use at the beginning. The 4 teams all have their own strengths and weaknesses as do each of the individual characters.
Each team is made up of 3 characters, each suited for a specific task. The 3 roles in each team are speed, flight, and power. Speed-type characters have the ability to move at a faster rate than the other 2 members of the team. Flight-type characters are able to ascend short distances with other party members in tow. Power-type characters are the physically strongest of the 3, with the ability to smash objects, cause more damage on a target, and penetrate certain armor.
[edit] Team Sonic
- Sonic the Hedgehog - Speed - Leader
- Tails - Flight
- Knuckles - Power
Team Sonic is the title team of Sonic Heroes. One day, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles receive a letter from Doctor Eggman. He tells them of a new ultimate weapon that will be ready within three days, challenging them to stop him. The three band together to foil Eggman's plans.[1]
Team Sonic's levels are considered to be the medium difficulty, as they have longer levels and more enemies than Team Rose but less enemies than Team Dark.
Their "Team Blast" called Sonic Overdrive consists of Knuckles throwing Tails, who spins to gain momentum, and throws Sonic, who does a "Light Attack" on surrounding enemies. For a limited time afterward, Sonic may initiate the attack again while the Team Blast gauge is still decreasing. Notably, this Team Blast is the most dynamic, as it contains multiple camera angles, and each character performing some sort of action. While the team blast gague is quickly going down, Sonic can do the light speed attack from Sonic Adventure instead of the blue tornado if there are any enemies nearby.
Team Sonic is the only team in the game who may use Super Transformation, and only in the final boss, Metal Overlord. The characters stay at level three with enhanced attacks, and die if all Rings are lost. The Team Blast is changed to a simultaneous "Light Attack" by all three members. Super Sonic may also use a smaller Light Attack at any given time at the cost of five Rings.
[edit] Team Dark
- Shadow the Hedgehog - Speed
- Rouge the Bat - Flight - Leader
- E-123 Omega- Power
Rouge sneaks into one of Eggman's after hearing that Doctor Eggman is accumalating valuble treasures. Instead, she finds Shadow the Hedgehog, encased in a capsule and without memory of who he is, and comes across a robot, E-123 Omega bent on destroying Eggman's robots. After realising that all their problems lead to Eggman, the three anti-heroes team up.[2]
Team Dark is considered to have the hardest difficulty of the game, as they have the most enemies. Their "Team Blast", Chaos Inferno, shows Rouge lifting Omega above Shadow, as Shadow performs Chaos Control, and Omega fires large lasers while rotating the top half of his body. This destroys all surrounding enemies, and for 6 seconds stops time,and freezes all action in the level.In 2P play,when "Chaos Inferno" is used,it only stops time(which could be told by seeing the picture turn negative)without damaging opponents,as in 1P it not only stops time,but destroys all enemies in a short range,so it is actually only "Chaos Control" that is performed in 2P by Shadow in the team blast.
[edit] Team Rose
- Amy Rose - Speed - Leader
- Cream the Rabbit with Cheese the Chao - Flight
- Big the Cat - Power
The characters of Team Rose are each trying to find someone important to them. Amy searches for Sonic and hopes that defeating Eggman herself will impress him. Big is searching for his amphibian friend, Froggy again, and Cream is seeking out Cheese's lost brother, Chocola. With a picture in the newspaper (of Froggy and Chocola being carried off by who they believe to be Sonic) as their only clue, the three join up to find their lost companions.[3]
Team Rose is considered to have the easiest difficulty, as they have the shortest levels, and have the fewest enemies.
Their "Team Blast," 'Flower Festival,' consists of Big bouncing Amy and Cream on top of his umbrella with a shower of flowers raining down on them while Cheese quickly flies around Team Rose, killing all surrounding enemies. The effect of this, levels all three members up by one and grants them invincibility, high running speed, and a shield.
[edit] Team Chaotix
- Espio the Chameleon - Speed
- Charmy Bee - Flight
- Vector the Crocodile - Power - Leader
Team Chaotix is composed of quiet, ninja-like, and disciplined Espio the Chameleon; their headstrong music-loving leader Vector the Crocodile; and the air-headed flying ace Charmy Bee. Notably missing is Mighty the Armadillo, who appeared in Knuckles' Chaotix.
Team Chaotix is a detective agency. One day, they receive a mysterious package with a walkie talkie in it. A stranger gives the team instructions through this device and claims that if the job he has for them is completed, the Chaotix will be "rewarded handsomely". Espio is wary of the job, but Vector, with dollar signs in his eyes, reminds him of the Chaotix number one policy, "We never turn down work that pays!"[4]
Team Chaotix's levels are special, in that there is no goal ring in most, but a special mission, and thus the levels are more distinctive, being much more puzzle or exploration related, such as finding crabs, destroying a certain amount of enemies or getting through the stage without being seen.
[edit] Reception
Reviews of Sonic Heroes were usually positive. Game Rankings gave the game 69.2% for the Playstation 2, 74.1% for the Gamecube, 74.4% for the Xbox, and 60% for the PC. Most professional reviewers cited the enjoyable sense of visual style the game had (which harkens back to the classic Sonic games of the early-1990s), although have noted its shortcomings as well, including:
- The control scheme is either too precise or not precise enough depending on the speed of the character's movement. This is what most of the complaints stem from. The most notable complaint from the control scheme comes from the Special Stages.
- The game's control scheme, combined with the common "bottomless pits" obstacles in the game, have resulted in many players backlash for what many deem to be named "unfair deaths."
- Unlike the Sonic Adventure games, Sonic Heroes does not have nearly as many unlockable bonuses as any other Sonic games and most of the extras the game did have were only for the two-player mode.Though as a secret, if X and Triangle button are held on the PlayStation 2 after selecting a level in two-player mode,the corespondive team shall turn metal (robotosized)and be robots,not much diffrences can be seen except Shadow's and Sonic's spikes being longer, the noses of all characters being longer and spikier, character's faces appear angry. Also, the GameCube version of Sonic Heroes did not contain the Japanese voice language option.
- The PlayStation 2 version has clipping and graphic faults during gameplay, barely able to run 30 frames per second, making it the worst of all three releases; it consistently rated much less than the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube versions in both professional reviews, fans and interviewers' ratings. It also has a menu bug where if you press what's regularly the jump button/confirm buttom on almost all of the menu screens, it will reset the game. (In other words, pressing X will exit menus while ∆ and O selects menus.)
Sonic Heroes had good sales though the PS2 and Xbox versions released after the Gamecube release, entering all three of the "best-sellers" lists: Greatest Hits (Platinum in Europe) (PS2), Platinum Hits (Xbox), and Player's Choice (GameCube). The estimated sales are 3.50 million copies from the PS2 release and 2.50 million from the GameCube release. Sonic Heroes was also released in a package with Super Monkey Ball Deluxe on Xbox. In 2004, Sonic Heroes was the sixth bestselling game in the United Kingdom overall, and a full year after its release, was still at number eight in the all-price chart.[5]
Takashi Iizuka has stated that he didn't want to make this another Sonic Adventure title due to his worry of only core gamers picking this up. He wanted to create a game for general users to adapt to easily in mind.[6]
[edit] Staff Credits
- Producer: Yuji Naka
- Director / CGI Movie Director / Level Designer: Takashi Iizuka
- Level Designer: Eitaro Toyoda
- Art Director / Enemy Design / Story Board Design: Kazuyuki Hoshino
- Character Design / Event Scene Animation: Nobuhiko Honda
- Character Motion Design: Atsushi Saito
- Game Designer / Enemy Game Designer / Scenario Writer / Story Board Design: Shiroh Maekawa
- Field Artist Director: Hiroshi Nishiyama
- Field Artists: Yoshitaka Miura, Takahiro Kudo, Michikazu Tamamura, Daizo Kinoshita
- Special Stage Concept: Kenjiro Morimoto
- Special Stage Design: Kaori Hitsuda, Michio Abe
- Special Stage Programmers: Shinya Matsunami, Hiroshi Iwasaki, Masatoshi Shitara
- Main Programmer: Tetsu Katano
- Menu Screen, Multi Platform & Enemy Programmer : Makoto Suzuki
- Enemy & Boss Programmer: Masato Nakazawa
- Enemy & Boss Programmer / Action Stage Programmer: Makiko Nishimura
- Story Event Programmer / Action Stage Programmer: Takeshi Sakakibara
- Action Stage Programmer: Tomoyuki Naito
- Menu Screen Artist / Multi Platform Artist: Ryu Ishihara
- Menu Screen Artists: Yuji Uekawa, Takeshi Ichimura, MEDAL Company, ltd.
- Development Support: Yoshitaka Kawabata, Shinya Matsunami, Tomonori Fukazawa, Shun Nakamura, Soosa Kim
- CGI Movie Producer: Keith Palmer
- CGI Movie Production: Vision Scape Inc.
- Lead Music Composer / Sound Effects / Recording Coordinator: Jun Senoue
- Music Composers: Naofumi Hataya, Yutaka Minobe, Tomoya Ohtani, Mariko Nanba, Keiichi Sugiyama, Hideaki Koboyashi, Teruhiko Nakagawa, Fumie Kumatani
- Sound Effects: Takashi Endoh, Tomonori Sawada, Tatsuyuki Maeda
- Surround Mix: Wavemaster Studio Inc.
- Recording Coordinator / Engineers: Atsushi Kosugi (Beat on Beat Inc.), Stan Katayama, Masahiro Fukuhara, Hirokazu Akashi, Yoshitada Miya
- CRI Middleware Support: Masao Oshimi, Katsumi Yabuno
[edit] Voice actors
This is one of the final Sonic games in which the English voice actors from the Sonic Adventure games recorded their voices. These English Voice Actors, along with their Japanese counterparts, are shown below:
| Role | English Voice Actor | Japanese Voice Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Sonic the Hedgehog, Metal Sonic | Ryan Drummond | Junichi Kanemaru |
| Doctor Eggman | Deem Bristow | Chikao Ohtsuka |
| Miles "Tails" Prower | William Corkery | Ryo Hirohashi |
| Knuckles the Echidna | Scott Dreier | Nobutoshi Canna |
| Shadow the Hedgehog | David Humphrey | Kōji Yusa |
| Rouge the Bat | Lani Minella | Rumi Ochiai |
| E-123 Omega | Jon St. John | Taiten Kusunoki |
| Amy Rose | Jennifer Douillard | Taeko Kawata |
| Cream the Rabbit | Sarah Wulfeck | Sayaka Aoki |
| Big the Cat | Jon St. John | Takashi Nagasako |
| Espio the Chameleon | Bill Corkery | Yuuki Masuda |
| Vector the Crocodile | Marc Biagi | Kenta Miyake |
| Charmy Bee | Emily Corkery | Yōkō Teppōzuka |
[edit] References
- ^ Sonic Heroes Instruction Booklet pg. 6-7
- ^ Sonic Heroes Instruction Booklet pg. pg. 8-9
- ^ Sonic Heroes Instruction Booklet pg. 10-11
- ^ Sonic Heroes Instruction Booklet pg. 12-13
- ^ An Unlikely Hero. Edge (February 2005). “Sonic Heroes was the sixth bestselling game in the United Kingdom overall, outperforming big hitters like Burnout 3 and Spider-Man 2. Are you very surprised? How about this: The same game, a full year after its release,it is still at number eight in this week's all-price chart.”
- ^ INTERVIEW: Nights Watchman : Next Generation - Interactive Entertainment Today, Video Game and Industry News - Home of Edge Online. Next Generation Magazine. Retrieved on 2008-04-17.
[edit] External links
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