Sonic Adventure, released in 1999 in North America, and was the first Sonic game to be featured on the Dreamcast and brought a welcome and highly anticipated change to the Sonic series.  It has sold over one million copies making it one of the highest selling Dreamcast games ever.  It was successful enough to warrant a sequel which was released in 2001.

     The driving story behind this Sonic is the same as others, Dr. Eggman causing havoc and being a royal pain.  This time he is going after Chaos and the Master Emerald to control all of their power for himself. You will use Sonic and his friends to defeat Chaos and Dr. Eggman.  Each character has a specialized storyline that they follow, which really changes up the gameplay. The game is split up into eleven action stages and three adventure fields, which are mainly used to advance the storyline. Even with the storyline being along the same as every other Sonic game, it throws enough items into the mix to make it fresh and new and not feel like a stale warm over from a previous games.

     The control scheme for this game feels very similar to the original Sonic games, while adding the functionality needed for the game to operate in a more open environment, which is a departure from Sonic’s sidescrolling days.  The controls are intuitive and easy to pickup.  There is no learning curve on how to control Sonic and pals. I do have a slight problem with hw the camera can get in the way of gameplay sometimes, but it is not a big enough problem to cause gameplay issues. The overall feel of the Dreamcast controller isn’t the best, but that cannot be held against the Sonic game itself, it just wasn’t the best designed controller in history. 

     I have replayed through this game on numerous occasions.  It really does have an infinite replay value and really makes you cringe at some of the newer Sonic games brought out on the current generation systems.  Sonic Adventure really brings you into the world of Sonic once again.  Sega has rarely gone wrong with a straightforward Sonic game on any of their own consoles. The story and controls are familiar and put you into a comfort zone from the first action stage.  This game is a must have for any Dreamcast owner.