Blog:Sonic Heroes (CGW Version)

Sonic Heroes is a platform video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, developed by Sega Studio USA (the former US division of Sonic Team) and published by Sega. It was released in December 2003 in Japan and early 2004 in North America and Europe for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox video game consoles and in November 2004 worldwide for PC, making this the first entry in the series to be released on multiple platforms.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The game's quality is extremely inconsistent between the consoles because Sega had little experience making games for the sixth generation of consoles at that time, making it hard to pick which is the best one.
 * 2) * The PlayStation 2 version is the worst version because it suffers from downgraded graphics,longer loading times, a lower (and often unstable) frame rate, and collision detection problems due to Sonic Team not using RenderWare correctly. But it, along with the Xbox version, has the option to select the English and Japanese character voices.
 * 3) **Sometimes where a lot of rendering is required or particularly in 2P mode the framerate drops.
 * 4) **Body Press + Umbrella and Hammer Down + Bubble in mid-air doesn't give you as much momentum than in the other versions.
 * 5) **The game does not use soft shadowing unlike the other versions, all of the characters' shadows are circular and so are many of the objects and enemies.
 * 6) **Missing most if not all of the shaders. For example the path in Grand Metropolis or water in Seaside Hill. Most shaders were replaced by animated textures.
 * 7) **There's no option for deleting files individually in-game.
 * 8) **The draw distance of robot despawning and respawning is much shorter compared to the other versions.
 * 9) * The Xbox version is extremely mixed in-terms of upgrades and downgrades. It features better quality FMVs and music but is missing some level animations and the framerate dips occasionally due to Sonic Team not using RenderWare correctly, once again.
 * 10) * The PC version is hard to run and loses the option to select the Japanese character voices but it allows you to enter "Charmy_Shutup 1" into the configurations to disable the character's attack clips, includes higher-resolutions and slightly better quality HUD textures and supports modding.
 * 11) * The PS2 classics and Xbox 360 compatibility versions have several graphical and performance issues.
 * 12) The character design, while faithful to the original designs, looks like plastic dolls, which looks rare, and in several areas they have exaggerated lighting that can damage your eyes,they also lack textures compared to the Sonic Adventure series that made them look better, these designs would be reused in mh:crappygames:Shadow the Hedgehog.
 * 13) The level design is sloppy, often throwing in to the mix gimmicks that don’t work well, such as relying on rail grinding and pinball mechanics, pulling switches to open doors, and using the light dash.
 * 14) Bingo Highway and Casino Park are the worst stages in the entire game since they control poorly, rely too much on pinball mechanics, and because of the pinball tables glitch mentioned in the 9th pointer.
 * 15) * Rail Canyon sucks just as bad: it has a lazy design that consists mainly of moving on rails, which is quite awkward mainly due to the poor rail polishing, making you lose easily and it has uninteresting combat sections. Overall the level feels very flat, dull and lasts too long.
 * 16) Speaking of combat, the boss battles come along short since they are easy and can be beaten by just spamming the homing attack over and over again. The same can be said for the team battles since one can just spam the tornado attack in order to get a quick victory. The enemy rushes (other than being uncreative) can also be easily defeated as they only consist of basic enemies and most take a long time to complete; as said, Robot Carnival and Robot Storm are simply hordes of enemies treated as bosses.
 * 17) Some of the extra missions are frustrating, like Team Sonic's extra mission in Bingo Highway, which requires getting to the Goal Ring in 6 minutes. Simply put, it's next to impossible to get to the Goal Ring in time, let alone getting an A rank. In addition, Team Chaotix's mission-based gameplay causes some levels to last for too long, like the mission of Grand Metropolis in which you have to destroy every enemy.
 * 18) The controls are inconsistent: the homing attack and light dash are unresponsive, jumping carries little momentum, the fly and power characters are absurdly slow and the characters reach top speed in 2 seconds.
 * 19) * The movement controls are also sensitive and it’s often difficult to keep a straight trajectory when running fast.
 * 20) Team Chaotix’s team blast is overpowered as you get a big load of rings every time you use it which makes it an easily spammable move.
 * 21) The collision detection is faulty: enemy projectiles can go through the edges of walls, the light dash won’t work unless you’re perfectly lined up with the trail of rings, the switches are pretty difficult to pull since you must stand in an exact spot and in Bingo Highway it’s sometimes possible to clip through the pinball tables.
 * 22) Rail grinding is just as awkward as it was in SA2. While it is nice to have that extra move to pick up speed, switching is still unresponsive and it can be the cause of many cheap deaths.
 * 23) The special stages are tedious to unlock on their own: first you need to head into a stage, then you need to grab a key inside a cage and then you need to carry it with you throughout the whole entire level without taking a SINGLE hit. Lose the key and you'll need to restart from scratch. But is it worth?
 * No, the special stages are not well designed: the control sucks, it is too rough and slippery being that the controls of the speed characters are much worse than in the regular levels, the camera doesn't always help you, some of these phases are full of bombs, causing you to drastically lose your speed and consequently lose.
 * 1) To unlock the last story, you have to play through the game four times (one as each team) and collect the Chaos Emeralds (luckily, you only have to collect them once). Since every team goes through the same levels in the same order with very few differences, this artificially extends the game's length through forced repetition. It’s not at all like in SA2 where there are two main stories with exclusive levels, it just makes the task tedious because you're essentially forced to play the game four times.
 * 2) There are few checkpoints and dying could result in you losing a lot of progress in particularly long stages.
 * 3) The camera has a tendency to do anything but offer the right perspective, leading to lots of mistakes, and it usually gets stuck on walls and other times struggles to keep up with the characters.
 * 4) * This is made worse by the fact that you still have to use the left and right triggers to rotate the camera when the action could have been assigned to the right analog stick.
 * 5) While most voices aren't terrible in this game, there are some issues with them.
 * 6) * Tails' voice actor in this game, William Corkery, doesn't do a very good job (but at least he tries); he sounds whiny and girly and his acting leaves a lot to be desired.
 * 7) * The characters constantly repeat their same action lines over and over again, which is beyond annoying. However, as mentioned, you can disable the voices in the PC version.
 * 8) People who have played Sonic Adventure 2 and finished the last story will get confused as to why Shadow is alive and has amnesia. The game nor the other characters explain his past to him until the next game.

Good Qualities

 * Despite its flaws, Sonic Heroes it still has enough redemptive qualities to have a page on Awesome Games Wiki.