Sonic Heroes E3 preview

My expectations of Sonic Heroes were very high before E3. Together with Half-Life 2 and Final Fantasy X-2, this was one of the games I was really looking forward to see. The concept of the game sounded brilliant, and I couldn’t wait to see it in action. Now I have, and I’m definitely not disappointed.

Sonic teams

In Sonic Heroes, you assume the role of one of four teams, each consisting of three characters from the Sonic universe. In the early beta-version I tried, you control Sonic, Tails and Knuckles – all at once. The speedy heroic trio zooms around in blissful harmony. You have different formations at your disposal, with one of the heroes leading the pack, each hero changing the team’s abilities.

If you put Sonic in front, speed is the keyword. Sonic has his good old targeted attack, which hasn’t become weaker indeed with the other two to assist. If you put Knuckles in front, you can use his powers to punch through different objects. Knuckles can also use Sonic and Tails as ‘firebombs’ in an attack that’ll really make life hard for the bad guys. Last but not least, Tails has the ability to fly, carrying the team to places normally out of reach. He can also fling Sonic and Knuckles at the enemies, using them as living projectiles.

Definite improvement

These strategic formations simply work like a charm. They add a great deal of variation to the Sonic formula. The new depth in the gameplay suits the overall experience well.

The Sonic Adventure games were good and their fast pace worked, but in my opinion they lacked some of the magic of the 2D era of Sonic games. Sonic Heroes does not. It seems that the Sonic Team has finally got the hang of 3D environments, and the game already seems well balanced, even though it’s in the early stages of development. You have the feeling of being in total control, whereas it could be hard to get Sonic to do as he was told in the previous games.

Graphical splendours at full speed

Sonic Adventure impressed with its large environments, which really allowed Sonic to sprint around. In Sonic Heroes these have become even bigger. It’s hard to avoid the adrenaline rush when your team blazes down a hill, through a triple loop and flies over an edge. As far as I could see, the camera problems from the earlier games have almost been eliminated.

Sonic Adventure DX for GameCube was on display right next to Heroes at Sega’s booth, and the differences between the two were obvious. The new game delivers better framerates, huge levels, sharper graphics and a well-balanced gameplay. Impressive for a game that, according to Sega, is only 20% done.

The joy of expectation

Sonic Heroes will be available for PS2, GameCube and Xbox and all three versions were playable at E3. The PS2-version was definitely the least pretty pick of the litter, but it remains one of the best looking games I’ve seen for the system nevertheless. The Xbox-version was almost identical with the GameCube-version, but it seemed to me that Nintendo’s machine produced the sharpest colours. It must be said though, that no matter which version you’re going for, you’ll be able to impress your friends with it.

The game will launch in Japan this Christmas while we have to wait a few more months here in Europe. I am however convinced that it will be worth the wait.

Translated by Jonas Rasmussen.