A Look Back At Sonic Heroes: One Of Sega's Most Divisive Sonic Games

 

Sonic Heroes is a 3D platformer created by Sega & Sonic Team, which was released on the Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 back in late 2003 in Japan, and early 2004 in Europe, Australia and USA. This era was a particularly difficult time for gaming. With Microsoft buying Rare, Xbox just launching and being the next big thing, and at the time I was moving out of Public School and going into High School. So during all this, Sega decide to release the next Sonic game in the series on these new platforms. Sonic Heroes.

While I was gradually disappointed that Sega decided to move away from the traditional breakout formula of the Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 games, that were both incredible achievements and helped pave the way for Sonic into the new millennium. Sega wanted a bold change of pace for the next game, to move away from the Adventure style gameplay, and create something completely new. Yes, even mumblings of a "Sonic Adventure 3" were still rumored back then. I'd be lying to say I wasn't disappointed when the next Sonic game back in 2003 wasn't Adventure 3, but a completely new experience instead. But I decided to give it a shot.

2003 was an exciting and busy new era for Sonic The Hedgehog. Developer & co-creator Yuji Naka wanted to appeal to fans who had never experienced a Sonic game before. At the same time, while promoting the game, they also released the new Sonic anime TV series, Sonic X (which was awesome, by the way), and joined forces with McDonalds to release new Sonic The Hedgehog themed Happy Meals. As well as Sonic Advance 3, being released on the Game Boy Advance too during this era. 

 

Sonic Heroes ended up being an incredibly divisive game. Some people love it, while others hate it. Known for its infamously slippery controls, terrible camera, awkward combat, long drawn out stages, and weird pacing, making most missions feel like a chore rather than a good experience to complete. There are 14 levels in the game. Every one of them has their own sections where one type of character, either Speed, Fly or Power, can get through. So there is a lot of button mashing to change between each character. The combat in this game is measly compared to previous games. The amount of robots that come down and get in your way during each stage eventually becomes more and more repetitive. Sonic Heroes also introduces a new move called "Team Blast", where if the Blast Gauge is filled all the way up, you can press the button required to destroy all enemies in your way. This may sound fun at first, but can get a bit boring and repetitive at times.

The worst thing I think about this game is the unforgiving slippery controls. Not only for Team Sonic, but the characters do end up moving too fast throughout the game, and can easily fly off the stage and fall into the abyss or smash into enemies by accident and instantly die. Sonic's famous Spin Dash move is noticeably absent and not used as much. Instead he has some sort of  'slide kick' that helps him get underneath things like lasers or whatever.

While I remember absolutely smashing the game and beating it all as a kid. I decided to go back to this many years later and try it again. It didn't really connect with me as much as other Sonic games did in the past, and after Heroes. Heck, I had a more memorable and fun time on 2005's Shadow The Hedgehog and that game itself was just as incredibly divisive as Heroes. But the thing I liked more about Shadow, was it got back to the traditional single player Sonic gameplay, of just having 1 character to use instead of 3. Sometimes you'd have cameos from other Sonic characters, but they'd follow you around automatically instead of you having to control them all at once.

 

In order to complete the main game, you must beat the same story 4 times. Each with different characters and slightly altered stages. There is Team Sonic, which is based on Speed, Team Dark which is based on Difficulty, Team Rose which is based on Newcomers, and Team Chaotix which is based on Missions. While I found Sonic Heroes a frustrating experience to get back to and enjoy, it certainly isn't my favorite Sonic game out there, I do appreciate Sega for bringing back The Chaotix, and giving them a new story for this game. They even have a killer theme song which was performed by Gunnar Nelson from the famous 90's rock band Nelson. 
As much as this game has its frustrations, the soundtrack is top notch, which seems to be an ongoing trend for modern Sonic games, the game itself is usually bad but the soundtrack is great. Sonic Heroes has a soundtrack that is composed by Sonic rock veteran Jun Senoue. It features several great artists such as Ted Poley, Tony Harnell, Kay Hanley, Gunnar Nelson, Julien K and Crush 40.

Why, this game was the one that got me into Julien K in the first place, back in 2003. I am still a fan of them today. They've just recently released their 6th album, DRK/MODE,  performed a recent global live webcast concert called Ritual - Live From The Void, and continue to tour the United States and Europe. They came back and did a song for the 2005 Shadow The Hedgehog video game, "Waking Up". 

 

 

Despite its questionably finicky controls, combat and repetitive structure, there are some other factor of Heroes that I enjoy. Most specifically the way levels look , bright and colourful 3D environments, but oddly enough, the graphics look worse than Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, that were released a few years prior. 

 

I encountered a lot of physics glitches during my time revisiting the game which made the experience frustrating. For example, while rail grinding, a common glitch is if you jump to another rail, sometimes the character you play as would change position and start grinding up the rail automatically and you can't stop it. You must fall off the rail and die to break the cycle. Sometimes I got out of it but not every time. During combat, it's very common to accidentally fall off the stage. Usually in the game the platforms are not big enough in certain areas while fighting some enemies. You need to really think carefully about who to use and where. But you'd still accidentally fall off the stage regardless, even with the amount of times I was being careful, either during boss battle waves, or enemy waves. Jettisoning into the abyss off the stage is a common occurrence especially while using the homing attack to defeat enemies or if you are air spinning with any speed type character. 

 

Speaking of frustrations, you have to beat Sonic Heroes 4 times if you want to get to the final boss. The ultimate showdown with Metal Sonic. In order to beat the game you must painstakingly clear Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose and Team Chaotix stories. You don't have to A Rank them all, but as long as you 100% them. Then, you have to get all of the Chaos Emeralds for Super Sonic. To do this, you have to grab Keys that are locked in cages that your team can break. You have to hold onto the key to unlock the special stage in the entire level. Even if you get hit by an enemy you will lose your Special Stage key. You have to clear at least 7 Special Stages to get all Chaos Emeralds and unlock Super Sonic. Sounds tedious doesn't it?

 

 

Sonic Heroes is incredibly linear, moreso than Sonic Adventure 2. There are no open areas or "Adventure Fields", as Sonic Adventure used to call them. Instead the stages are long and drawn out, sometimes they take about 10 - 15 minutes to complete depending on what character you are. While I didn't mind this in games such as 2008's Sonic Unleashed, as you can use the time to your advantage to explore each level, Sonic Heroes stages feel too cut and paste and repetitive. This is also noticeable in stages like Casino Park, Mystic Mansion or Bullet Station, where you need to complete the same repetitive tasks at least three times which makes levels feel more like a chore than an enjoyable experience.

 

 

Many people know that Sonic Heroes is a very bittersweet game in the franchise. You either love it or hate it. It's really a mixed bag for me, even after going back and trying to enjoy it again 22 years later. It's just such a shame that Sega had a winning formula with the Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 games, and while people criticized the Tails & Dr. Eggman levels, at least those games had more great things to offer. But with Sonic Heroes it feels more of the same, with more frustrating glitches, bugs and performance issues. Plus, since I was on the PAL GameCube version, the 60Hz versions of the game make it run so fast that you have no choice but to encounter many bugs and problems. I did change the fps to 50hz, but after a while for some reason the game stopped asking me if i'd like to play in 50 or 60 hz at the beginning.

Maybe one day i'll try and play it again and see if my view about the game has changed after having a break from it. But so far that seems unlikely. I don't feel like going back to it any time soon.

 

It's not comically bad too, like Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, Heroes is certainly more of a grinding, frustrating and tiresome experience. It'd take them another couple of years to get Sonic the Hedgehog back to his roots. Sonic Unleashed, released in 2008 was certainly a great return to the Adventure era type gameplay with added Werehog night time exploration and combat battles with RPG elements. Sonic Team regained a lot of people's trust in 2010 with Sonic Colours, and in 2011 with Sonic Generations. Then....things fell flat again in 2013 and 2014 with Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom. It wouldn't be until 2022's smash hit Sonic Frontiers bringing Sonic and co. back to their open world Adventure era roots. 

 

The early 2000s sure was a weird time to be a Sonic fan. What are your thoughts about Sonic Heroes? Do you like the game, or do you hate it? Would you play it again? Do you still play it today? 

Feel free to let us know what you think about it, share some of your experiences with it if you like.