Sonic Adventure spins onto the ‘Cube with new missions and mini-games

by Louis Bedigian

Product Manager Cord Smith tells us all about Sonic Adventure DX Director’s Cut’s new features and spills the Dr. Robotnik Beans on Sonic’s future – including his first multi-platform outing, Sonic Heroes.

With Sonic's birthday just around the corner (June 19th), and the release of Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut even closer (June 17th), the GameZone staff couldn't stop thinking about speed.

We saw 2 Fast 2 Furious a few times, but that wasn't enough.  We went to Footlocker and bought some Nike running shoes, but all that shoe-shopping made us tired.  We went to a jewelry store and bought a few chaotic-looking gems, as well as 100 gold-painted rings.  Strangely, they didn't increase our energy, or help us save the world.  As a last resort, I pulled out my old Semisonic CD and listened to "Closing Time."  It didn't help...

Nothing it would seem could contain our need for more speed.  Luckily, Sega held a conference call to fill us in on all the juicy details of the first Director's Cut edition of a Sonic game.

The conference call started off with Product Manager Cord Smith giving us an overview of the game's new and existing features.  As you can imagine, Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut is the same game you know and love from the Dreamcast's launch in 1999.  The "DX" basically stands for "deluxe," since this version includes a ton of bonuses that make the game worth playing even if you've already beaten it on the Dreamcast.

Among the new content is a must-have feature that'll make every Sonic fan happy: all 12 of the Game Gear Sonic games are included in Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut!  Each game can be played in windowed mode or full-screen (with some slight pixelation).

There's also a new Mission Mode that adds extra gameplay and depth to the existing Sonic Adventure environments.  Cord Smith told us that there are 60 missions in all.  "In the Adventure Field you can find Mission Cards that allow you to access the different missions," he said.  "The majority of them are for Sonic -- about 25.  The rest of them are split up among the other characters pretty evenly."

The "Director's Cut" aspect of the title represents the game's new story elements and other new content that you haven't seen before.  The additions to the story do not appear to be anything major, but for Sonic fans, it's a treat that is definitely worth checking out.

Regarding hardware problems and possible limitations, Cord assures that the issues that arose were due to the game's coding, and not the GameCube machine itself.  "Obviously GameCube is a more powerful machine then Dreamcast.  I think when performing a basic port of the source code in addition to what enhancements were made you sometimes fall into traps of how things have been coded for a particular machine.  Coming from Dreamcast to GameCube, whenever you're trying to take source code [you'll encounter problems].  Sonic Team had certain performance issues and they were working through it to polish up.  Obviously Sonic Team is very familiar with GameCube.  With Sonic Adventure 2 Battle they were up to speed on how to take Dreamcast source code and port it.  In terms of earlier hurdles they were working out with the game, it wasn't due to hardware limitations, it was more due to the code itself."

Regarding the game's greatest technical upgrade, Cord said:

"I was surprised (going back and playing it on Dreamcast) by just how impressive the graphics were.  And seeing it on GameCube it's not that there's a vast difference in draw distance or texture quality because they were really high originally.  You can see it on the character models if you're really staring at it.

"But I think more so than improvements of the overall game aesthetics, it was more about adding content, rather than going back and remaking the graphics.  It's not a remake, it is a director's cut.  There's content that you may not have seen, content that wasn't there before.

"To me the most impressive enhancement is the inclusion of the Game Gear games, the inclusion of the Mission Mode, and then beyond that, some of the extras being fleshed out a little further.  There is some added gameplay, obviously a little more content as you go through the story.  That is a good point, and it is nice for people who have played through it before, but it does not compare to the additional content."

A lot of people have been wondering why Sega has yet to re-release Sonic CD in some shape or form.  Cord provides some insight:

"We pushed to have Sonic CD on Mega Collection, and there were some issues that I can't really get into.  It ultimately boils down to...at this point I'm not sure if they're political, legal, license, something, it was kind of a mess.  I think it can be worked out, and obviously I'd like to see Sonic CD on an upcoming Sonic game to be sure.

"In my opinion, I think it is my favorite Sonic game since the original Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Genesis.  I think it is the one that I really go back to.  We had a meeting today discussing some ideas and trends of upcoming titles in the next few years of what's going to be popular.  We were just discussing platformers as a whole, and people mentioned Sonic CD right out of the bag.  You know, how come Sonic can't time-travel in 3D?  How come he can't sustain speed and do these things?

"So I think there's a lot from Sonic CD in terms of gameplay moving forward in other Sonic games.  In terms of compilation, I think Sonic CD holds up and is such a solid game, that I really hate to see it end up on a compilation where it's just one of the crowd.  In my opinion -- and of course this is just my opinion, I have no idea what's going to go on in the future -- I'd love to see that game alone be included as the bonus in a Sonic title.  There of course is some red tape that has to be cleared up before that could happen.  But like you, I am a huge fan of that game and I would like to see it included."

Following this information, GameZone Online got the chance to ask Cord Smith some questions about Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut, the upcoming Sonic television show, and the new multi-platform Sonic game, Sonic Heroes.

GameZone Online: Regarding the camera, can you just pan around Sonic or have any additions made?  How advanced is it?

Cord Smith: It's more of panning around.  It just makes it easier if you don't want to click the shoulder buttons.  It's basically a mode of select allowing the C-stick to move the camera or not.

Let's open up the topic of camera issues.  I know it's an issue for me, and I'm sure it's an issue for you guys in terms of Sonic Adventure as a whole and the series as a whole.  There's been a lot of discussion – can they improve the camera? – sometimes it really gets in the way or gets behind walls, etc.  In terms of the concept behind the game, let's think about Sonic in particular, you will notice that the camera is very dynamic in the sense that if you go into a loop-to-loop it pulls all the way back.  It tried to be environmentally friendly.

But allowing for user manipulation, sometimes there are certain limitations of how much the design is controlling the camera and how much is user-controlled.  I think at its worst moments, you're manipulating the camera one way to one way which doesn't allow it to react to the environment as it would if you left it in the default position. 

We discussed it with the team, and a lot of it came down to the sheer speed and the layout of the levels, especially the Sonic levels, and the way they're laid out very uniquely.  It's not an open flat land, a lot of it is a hybrid mix of open areas leading to very fast, sometimes tight and narrow areas that are built to give you the sensation of speed.  There were definitely some compromises of the camera.  We want to promote speed, we want to promote hyper sensation at all times, yet there are some limitations with the camera in terms of promoting that and prioritizing that above just general user controls.

You had mentioned before that there were 60 new mission stages.  Could you give us more information on those?

CS: Yeah.  It's basically a way to give replay value to areas that you're already familiar with.  The missions range from finding a balloon in a really high area to racing other enemies to discovery.  There's some destruction, there are all sorts of mission types, and it all depends on which character [you're using].  Some of the more unique ones like E-102 is in the Adventure Field and he has to find Sonic.  Metal Sonic has gotten lost and he's all alone.  There's an interesting twist where they make the missions connect to a piece of the story or an off-shoot of the story that kind of makes sense but is kind of a throwback to Sonic fans. 

Amy with her balloon, obviously she's lost her balloon, the balloon that carries her out of the end of each area.  The balloon may be missing, and it may be way up high, and Knuckles has to fly to a certain area to get high enough to grab it.  Sonic may have to race through a level to reach something before a bomb explodes, etc.  This is really a great way to use the 3D environments.

One of the problems with the original Sonic Adventure is that the Adventure Fields were huge, but there was only so much you could do within them.  A lot of it came to getting from point A to point B.  There was a lot of ground covered, but not a whole lot to do here.  So giving players motivation and a new goal is something Sonic Team really wanted to add.  And since the infrastructure were there and the levels were built, it was fairly easy for them to come up with some good ideas in terms of what could the characters do outside of getting through the action stages.

I think it adds a lot of replayability.  It adds a lot to the game, especially for those who may have played through the first one on Dreamcast and are coming to this one with that history of being familiar with the controls and familiar with the story.

Are the missions timed?

CS: Some of them are, it depends on the goal.  For instance, there's a Tails mission, and there are 10 balloons throughout the entire Adventure Field and you'll have to get them within the time limit.  Sometimes if you're racing someone there's a time limit.  It really varies.

With the new Sonic game, Sonic Heroes, being developed for every platform, what made Sega decide to develop Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut exclusively for the 'Cube?

CS: Sonic Adventure is really a way of us promoting Sonic and giving him to the new fans.  Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, which is our best-selling Sonic title on GameCube, it was really a no-brainer to give people the prequel.  A lot of people who have played both on the Dreamcast thought that Sonic Adventure was superior.  So the plan was really to take that fan-base and give them something that they wanted.  Sonic Mega Collection was a nice nod to the new Sonic fans on GameCube to kind of giving them the history.  But I think that Sonic Adventure DX is much more pertinent, it's much more relevant to those fans.

With Sonic Heroes, we've been planning ahead for that for quite some time and really wanted to bring Sonic to everyone.  I think with Sonic Heroes diverging from the Adventure series and bringing it into a new area with the simultaneous characters, etc., that's in the master plan of really busting out Sonic and letting him get all over the free world, and I'm hopnig that's the trend that continues.  I'm not sure in terms of the success of Sonic will hold based on installed bases.  PS2 is really successful, Xbox is really successful.  Me personally, I feel like we've generated such a strong fan-base on GameCube, I have high hopes for that [version] above all others.

Is there anything you can tell us about the story in the new Sonic television show?

CS: There's not a whole lot I can tell you because I'm a little out of the loop on the Sonic animation (there are other people here that are managing that).  But I can tell you that Sonic has a new friend.  There is also some human involvement, it's not completely set in just a Sonic world.  It's a little more realistic in the sense that there are human characters involved, there are some kind of buddy tactics.  Of course, Dr. Eggman (Dr. Robotnik) is back to conquer the world.  I've only seen snippets from the first few episodes, but there will be a lot more coming up.  You should be able to see a lot from Fox itself promoting the series.  It starts in September. 

I know that Sonic Heroes is a ways off, but is there anything at all that you can tell us about the gameplay, or the new characters, or the new direction that the game is going in?

CS: If you've seen the game before, you know that there are simultaneous, three characters at a time that are in your control that you switch between.  There are four teams total, so you'll have 12 characters, and the teams are kind of arranged to give you...some of them are throwbacks, a lot of it is based on difficulty.  Everybody has a certain level and if they want to be really challenged they can, if they don't then fine.  From Team Chaotic to Team Sonic to Team Chaos, you'll see different characters, etc.

The gameplay mechanics actually switch off and the levels are kind of built around the characters themselves.  So whenever you pick Team Sonic, you're Sonic, Knuckles and Tails, the level itself and how you traverse it will be very different from how the level works whenever you're Team Chaotic.  Each team has very different abilities.  To be honest, I haven't seen the game in motion with the alternate teams, but I do know that there are other abilities.  There are some characters that can turn invisible, there are some that can do different things in terms of jumping or what they attach to.  The thing with Team Sonic is, Tails can fly.  Whenever you're in Tails formation you can fly a lot higher and take an aerial route.  Knuckles can smash through blocks, etc., so you can sort of bash through things.  And Sonic of course is all about speed.

One of the neat ways that this affects gameplay isn't just in your abilities and how you approach obstacles, but it also involves your path once you get on certain tracks.  So let's say you go through a loop-to-loop where everyone branches off.  There are three loop-to-loops.  Depending on what lead character you are, you may end up in a different location.  If you jump into a cannon, depending on who your lead character is the cannon will shoot you in a different location.  So the path of the levels is very dynamic, and once you get the hang of which character means what thing, you have full control over how you maneuver through that level.

GameZone Online would like to thank Sega for having a wonderful conference call.  Look for a full review of Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut in the coming weeks.  And be sure to keep your browser pointed to GameZone Online for more information on Sonic Heroes, as well as Sega's other future releases.