Battle City may refer to:

• Battle City (video game), a 1985 multi-directional shooter arcade and video game by Namco
• Battle City (Yu-Gi-Oh!), a story arc in Yu-Gi-Oh!

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Sonic Adventure (ソニックアドベンチャー^?) is a 1998 platform video game developed by Sonic Team and released on December 23, 1998, in Japan by Sega for the Dreamcast. The final updated edition, known as Sonic Adventure International, was released as a launch title on September 9, 1999, in North America and on October 14, 1999, in Europe. It has sold over 2.5 million copies, making it the best-selling Dreamcast game.

An enhanced port was released in 2003 as Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut for the Nintendo GameCube and in 2004 for Microsoft Windows. The game was ported to Xbox Live Arcade on September 15, 2010 and PlayStation Network on September 20, 2010. The game was featured on Dreamcast Collection, a four-game bundle released in 2011.

Gameplay[link]

This game is the first in Sonic series to feature free-roaming 3D gameplay. The game is divided into three types of stages: Action Stages, Adventure Fields and Subgames. The division of Action Stages and Adventure Fields was a serious departure from previous Sonic games. In addition, unlike the previous game in the series, Sonic Adventure has six different characters to choose from: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big and E-102 Gamma; each with their own style of gameplay. Only Sonic is playable at first, but other characters are made available after encountering them in his story. When all stories have been completed, a final story is unlocked.

Sonic's stages involve high speed gameplay, whilst Tails' stages require him to reach the end of the level before Sonic (and in one case, Robotnik) does and Knuckles' stages see him searching the area for shards of the Master Emerald. All three of these returning characters retain a lot of their trademark moves from previous Sonic games. Amy's stages require her to escape from the E-100 Zero robot chasing after her, Gamma's stages involve shooting through levels to reach a target and Big's stages involve fishing for his friend, Froggy.

Action Stages are the main playable levels for each character, where the player must face various enemies in order to complete their respective goals. Adventure Fields split up the action, where players can explore the surroundings to advance the plot, discover new levels or search for items which enhance a character's ability (for example, the Light Speed Shoes allow Sonic to run across a path of rings). Subgames deviate from the main gameplay of the character, which include minigames such as kart racing and snowboarding. Players may also find hidden Chao Gardens, which allow them to raise Chao, a sort of virtual pet. Chao can be taken with the player by downloading the minigame Chao Adventure to their VMU, or in the GameCube version, a Game Boy Advance with Sonic Advance or various other Game Boy Advance Sonic games. The player can also raise their stats by giving them small animals that they found by defeating the robots, which improves their performance in Chao Races. There are also eggs hidden throughout the Adventure Fields which can produce special types of Chao.

By playing through Action Stages and Subgames, searching through the Adventure Fields or winning Chao Races, players can earn Emblems. In the case of Action Stages, each one has three Emblems, which can be earned by replaying the stages and fulfilling certain objectives, such as beating the level within a time limit. In Sonic Adventure DX, these can unlock hidden extras such as Game Gear games.

Synopsis[link]

Characters[link]

Much of Sonic Adventure centers on Sonic, a hedgehog who has the ability to run at supersonic speeds, and Miles "Tails" Prower, a two-tailed fox who often accompanies Sonic on his adventures; they are the main characters of the game who are in pursuit of Eggman. Supporting characters include Knuckles, an echidna who guards the Master Emerald on Angel Island, Amy Rose, a pink hedgehog who has a crush on Sonic, and newcomers Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma. Big is a purple, noticeably overweight cat who must rescue his best friend Froggy who became possessed by Chaos' tail, and swallows Big's "lucky charm", a Chaos Emerald, which causes him to mutate. Gamma is one among a series of robots designed by Eggman to take orders without question. After an encounter with Amy, he suffers a malfunction and gains a "conscience". He then turns his aim to destroying his robotic brothers and freeing the animals trapped inside them.

The main antagonist of the game is Eggman, who has formulated a new plan to conquer the planet, this time not relying on his robots alone, but employing a strange liquid creature known only as Chaos. Chaos also serves an antagonistic role in the game, and is the guardian of the Chao. He is apparently water or a plasma-like material and changes form after consuming a Chaos Emerald. After consuming all seven Chaos Emeralds, he turns into Perfect Chaos, which Eggman aims to use in order to conquer the planet. The main antagonist of Amy's story is E-100 Alpha (better known as Zero), the first E-100 series robot who is a large green robot and is considered the prototype.^[5] Zero is one of Dr. Eggman's Robots sent to find Amy's friend Birdie. He follows Amy wherever she goes hoping to capture her and the bird. At one point he succeeds but Amy is rescued by E-102 Gamma. Eventually Zero is defeated by Amy on the Egg Carrier.

Eggman's E-Series of robots play a large role in Gamma's story, as he is one of them, and is out to destroy or "save" the others. All of them have letters of the Greek alphabet as part of their name. E-101 Beta is a black robot with two gun arms. He is the first boss in E-102 Gamma's side of the story, and is later upgraded into E-101 Beta Mk II, who is Gamma's fifth and final boss. E-103 Delta is a blue robot who is Gamma's second boss, waiting at the end of Windy Valley. E-104 Epsilon is an orange robot who is the third boss of Gamma's side of the story and is fought at the end of Red Mountain. E-105 Zeta is a purple robot who is Gamma's fourth boss and is located at the end of Hot Shelter. While at first humanoid, Zeta is altered into a cylinder-like form with several turrets made up of a few Dreamcast machines.

Friendly characters who are non-playable include Tikal, a mysterious female echidna who appears whenever Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, E-102 Gamma and Big are sent back in time. She is trying to stop her father, Pachacamac, from stealing the Chaos Emeralds from the Master Emerald shrine. She appears mostly in the form of a pink ball of light called a Hint Orb. A major feature of the game are Chao, small creatures who can be raised in the Chao Gardens and play a supporting role in the story.

Plot[link]

3000 years in the past, the echidna empire, ruled by Pachacamac, desires the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald - mysterious emeralds with unlimited power. Pachacamac's daughter Tikal befriends the Chao in the emeralds' shrine and their guardian Chaos, a water-based creature. Tikal tries to explain to her father that attacking the shrine and killing the Chao to gain possession of the emeralds is not the way to peace, but Pachamac and his men do so anyway. He and his men, however, did not know about Chaos, the guardian of the shrine, and the enraged Chaos uses the power of the emeralds to transform into Perfect Chaos and destroy the echidna empire. Tikal survives and seals the angered Chaos and herself inside the Master Emerald for eternity.

In the present day, Knuckles the Echidna is guarding the Master Emerald on the floating Angel Island when Chaos is released from the emerald by Dr. Robotnik. The Master Emerald, now shattered, can no longer keep Angel Island afloat, and Angel Island plunges into the sea, scattering the shards of the Master Emerald and all the Chaos Emeralds. The Chaos monster later appears in Station Square, and is confronted by Sonic the Hedgehog, who defeats him in a fight. Knuckles sets off searching for the shards of the Master Emerald. The next day, Sonic rescues Miles "Tails" Prower after Tails crash-lands in the city while testing his Chaos Emerald-powered plane. They go to Tails's workshop in the Mystic Ruins, where Dr. Robotnik appears with Chaos. Dr. Eggman feeds Tails' emerald to Chaos, transforming Chaos into a stronger form; Dr. Robotnik explains that Chaos will grow stronger with each emerald he eats and will eventually become invincible and destroy Station Square for him. Upon the ruins of Station Square, Robotnik intends to build Robotnikland, where he will rule it all. Sonic and Tails set off searching for emeralds to prevent Robotnik from getting them first, but eventually lose the ones they find to Dr. Robotnik and Chaos. Dr. Robotnik escapes in his flying fortress, the Egg Carrier, which shoots down Sonic and Tails's pursuing plane.

Dr. Robotnik orders his E-Series robots, including E-102 Gamma, to search for Froggy, a frog who has eaten Chaos's tail as well as a Chaos Emerald. Gamma finds Froggy but is chased by Froggy's owner Big the Cat back to the Egg Carrier. Meanwhile, Tails finds another emerald and uses it to prepare the Tornado II plane to find Sonic. Sonic lands in Station Square, where he runs into Amy Rose, who insists on protecting a Flicky bird she found, named Birdy. One of Robotnik's robots, Zero, intends to get the bird back from Amy and continually chases her. Zero finally captures Amy and Birdy, and escapes to the Egg Carrier. Sonic and Tails board the Tornado II and manage to board the Egg Carrier. Knuckles also boards the aircraft after collecting pieces of the Master Emerald and seeing an image of the Egg Carrier in the emerald.

Onboard the Egg Carrier, Dr. Robotnik commands Gamma to go tend to Amy. Gamma wanders into the wrong room and witnesses his brother E-101 Beta being rebuilt, and leaves to go to the other room. Here, Amy convinces Gamma that Robotnik is a bad man and that Gamma shouldn't work for him. In a confusion of newly discovered emotions, Gamma allows Amy and Birdy to leave their prison; Amy goes on deck.

Here, she runs into Sonic and Tails, who confront Dr. Robotnik. Robotnik flees down the ship, Sonic and Tails fighting Gamma but sparing him at Amy's request. At this time, Gamma fully understands that Robotnik is a bad person and that he should follow the others instead. Tails, Amy, and Gamma evacuate the ship, and Sonic and Knuckles go chase Robotnik down. Here, they fight Chaos, who now has all but one of the seven Chaos Emeralds. The Egg Carrier begins to malfunction and lose altitude, and Sonic, Knuckles, Big, and Robotnik evacuate the ship as well.

Gamma decides tracks down his brother robots and destroy them to free the animals inside, and eventually confronts his elder brother E-101 Beta, in his rebuilt form, on the Egg Carrier. Gamma defeats Beta but is wounded in the process, both robots exploding, and each releasing a Flicky bird. Birdy reunites with its friends when Amy visits the ship. Sonic and Tails, meanwhile, defeat Robotnik in the Egg Viper and Egg Walker, respectively.

A day later, Knuckles restores all the shards of the Master Emerald, but Angel Island collapses into the sea again when Chaos attacks him and Dr. Robotnik. Chaos absorbs the 6 Chaos Emeralds and locates the seventh aboard the Tornado II, which crashed after Big used it to escape the Egg Carrier. With all the Chaos Emeralds, Chaos transforms into Perfect Chaos, depleting the Chaos Emeralds of their negative energy, and flooding and destroying Station Square. Tikal appears, having taken each main character into the past numerous times beforehand, demanding that Chaos must be sealed back in the Master Emerald. Sonic objects, saying that Chaos's heart would still be filled with anger and sadness if he were to be sealed inside the Master Emerald. Sonic's friends cheer him on, and Sonic uses the Chaos Emeralds' still-present positive energy to become Super Sonic. Sonic defeats Perfect Chaos, and Chaos survives in his basic form. He discovers that the Chao he once was guardian of now live in Station Square, so he leaves them on Earth to live there, while Chaos himself peacefully departs to the past with Tikal. Dr. Robotnik flees the scene, with Sonic is last seen pursuing him.

Development[link]

Development of Sonic Adventure began around April 1997 with a development team of 30 members. After several titles for the Mega Drive, Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka worked mainly on the game Nights into Dreams.... However, learning of the Dreamcast brought him a renewed interest in creating Sonic games. The development team focused on graphics and high resolution for this game, with Naka reflecting that "[w]e have pushed the Dreamcast as far as we can at present".^[6]

Naka aimed to create levels that would take the player at least five minutes to complete, yet retain similar gameplay to the Mega Drive titles. Following the creation of the basic level maps, Naka wondered "why don't we use this map for other characters?" This led to the introduction of Big and E-102. The development team conducted surveys of fans to ensure that the final product—especially the characters—would please them.^[6] Sega made it a top priority to keep the game hidden until shortly before its release. Despite these efforts, screenshots were leaked onto the Internet in mid-1998. Naka presented the game to Edge in mid-August, and official announcement fell on August 22 in Japan.^[6]

Sonic Adventure also introduced a drastic shift in the overall art style of the games that continued to be used over the next few years. The more detailed, modernized redesigns of Amy Rose and Dr. Eggman probably best reflect this. The characters resemble graffiti art in their official artwork, striking more dynamic and extreme poses. In the game, there were some unused items, such as the unused boss, Sky Dragon from the level Sky Chase.

Music[link]

Head composer Jun Senoue brought a new sound to the Sonic the Hedgehog series with this game, and as such it features many different styles of music such as jazz, rock, techno, pop and country. Each heroic player character (aside from Gamma) also has an instrumental motif that later translates into a vocal theme song that plays during the end credits of their story. The game contains vocal performances from Tony Harnell, Karen Brake, Marlon Saunders, Dread Fox, Ted Poley, Nikki Gregoroff and Johnny Gioeli, the latter of whom would later join Senoue to form the band Crush 40. The development team preferred the use of "hot, funky, and rock 'n' roll" music over the traditional techno-based music present in earlier Sonic games.^[6]

Alternate versions and releases[link]

Gamecube[link]

In 2003 an enhanced port was released for the GameCube and Windows titled Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut (ソニックアドベンチャー デラシクス, Sonikku Adobenchā Derakkusu^?). Sonic Adventure DX includes a Mission Mode, which included 60 missions to complete throughout the Adventure Fields and Action Stages. It also contains an unlockable compilation, which comprises twelve Game Gear games featuring Sonic and friends: Sonic the Hedgehog (8-bit), Sonic Drift, Sonic Chaos, Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball, Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit), Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Drift 2, Tails' Skypatrol, Sonic Blast, and Tails Adventure.

Also, if all Emblems are collected, then the player can play as Metal Sonic. Reviews were generally less positive than those of its Dreamcast predecessor.^[7]

Xbox Live and Playstation Network[link]

On June 10, 2010, Sega officially announced Sonic Adventure would be released on both the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network in Fall 2010. Sonic Adventure DX was released on Steam, as the first in a series of Dreamcast titles to be released as digital downloads. Additional features include enhanced graphics, surround sound, online leaderboards, achievement/trophy support and unlockable Avatar Awards, consisting of a Sonic Adventure T-Shirt and Sonic's "Speed Shoes".^[8]

Sonic Adventure was released on Xbox Live Arcade on September 15, 2010, while the PlayStation Network version was released on September 20, 2010.^[9] The initial release is based on the PC version of Sonic Adventure DX despite the game simply being called "Sonic Adventure".^[10] The DLC package, simply titled "Sonic Adventure DX Upgrade", has launched alongside the game on XBLA, and PSN, which upgrades the game to include all of the features from the GameCube and PC versions with the exception of the Game Gear games and Dreamcast DLC. This version also includes Metal Sonic as an unlockable character.

Reception and legacy[link]

The reception at the time of original Dreamcast version was very positive, with reviews from GameSpot and GameSpy being above 90%. The current GameRankings average ranking is 88%.^[11] It became one of the few Sega All Stars games. In Japan, it received an excellent 38 out of 40 from Famitsu.^[12] Although criticized for its camera system, framerate issues, and fishing stages with Big, the game was still highly praised for retaining the fast and enjoyable gameplay that Sonic was known for in 2D as well as the game's graphics, multiple character storylines, and soundtrack. Brandon Justice of IGN rated the game an 8.6/10, criticizing various glitches and voice acting while praising the game's visuals and gameplay.^[13] On the other hand, GamePro gave it a 5/5 saying, "Sonic is fun, fast, and a great reason to purchase a Dreamcast". The game has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling Dreamcast game.^[14] This includes one million sold in the United States.^[15]

The GameCube version received less positive reviews. IGN gave the DX version a 5/10 criticizing the game's glitches, poor framerate, and clunky camera making it less fun to play in contrast to its original Dreamcast version but praised the overall presentation of the game.

The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 ports were panned by game reviewers. While some critics viewed it as a good piece of nostalgia, many others criticized the lack of improvements and the game's more noticeable age, with IGN giving it a score of 3.5 out of 10, calling it "so fundamentally flawed that it borders on unplayable", making it the lowest scored Sonic game on the site since Sonic and the Black Knight.^[16] 1UP.com gave it a D rank, criticizing its lack of improvements and touchy controls.^[10] Retro Gamer gave the Xbox 360 port 63%.

In 2009, GamePro listed the game as the seventh best platformer of all time, asserting that while it had not aged well in certain respects, its core gameplay "is still some of the best" in the entire series, and its visuals and scope were "hip and cutting-edge" for the time.^[17]

For Sonic's 20th Anniversary, Sega released Sonic Generations, a game that remade aspects of various past games from the franchise. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version contained a remade "Speed Highway" level, and a remade battle with Perfect Chaos. The Nintendo 3DS version contained a remade version of the "Emerald Coast" level.

Promotion and tie-ins[link]

Sonic Adventure received a comic book adaptation courtesy of Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog on-going series. The story arc took place in issues #79-84 and Sonic Super Special #13, originally published from November 1999 to May 2000. This adaptation is notable for its permanent integration of characters and story-lines from the video game into the pre-existing continuity of the comic series, providing explanations for the altered character design for Amy Rose and the history of Station Square hidden beneath Sonic's planet, Mobius. Selected portions of these issues (with the exception of issue #79) were reprinted in Archie's Sonic Super Special Magazine #2 (February 2012).

Franco-American's Sonic the Hedgehog pasta featured Sonic Adventure inspired labeling for a limited time and offered consumers a chance to obtain a free Archie Sonic comic book.

In 2000, Toy Island produced multiple lines of Sonic Adventure toys, featuring 5" action figures, 10" talking figures, and 3" bendy figures. Many of these figures were later reissued as part of their Sonic X lines in 2004.

The game loosely follows the storyline of Sonic X episodes 27-32.

References[link]

External links[link]

	Sega portal
	Video games portal
	Japan portal
	1990s portal

• Sonic Retro page on this game