HOLiDAY_AETERNUS

User Score
8.2

Presentation - 9.0
Gameplay - 8.0
Value - 6.0

 It's 2005. Next Generation consoles are underway, and much attention have shifted into what's to be the future of gaming. As with every shift from generation, anticipation for the current gen stars' debuts is made. And Sonic, being an icon, receives the hype for his debut into the Seventh Generation.

And so it's the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2005. And what do we have?

Thousands have had collapsed at the simple awesomeness of the game's revelation. What is this game? Those graphics? Could this be... it? What is "it"? Well, Sonic Heroes, Shadow The Hedgehog, and Sonic Riders weren't the most accepted with a lot of people (I am not included), so many went to this game to put the franchise back on track. But what was this game? Nobody knew. All we knew was that the graphics were amazing and later at the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) 2005, we saw blazing speed and an interesting day/night system. This game simply looked cutting edge.

And now, what did I think of this game? Of course, I thought it looked awesome. I wasn't exactly the "HOMINA HOMINA" surprised, mainly because I was wondering at the time whether I would be able to buy the upcoming consoles based on how expensive they would cost. I was still excited for this game, and I was hoping to receive this game. I also thought this would be a remake of the original Sonic The Hedgehog for the SEGA GENESIS. Why else would it be simply called "Sonic The Hedgehog"? The original Sonic was an eternal classic and still is, but as far as remakes go, they aren't the most appealing.

Then it's the E3 2006. Such godly information is revealed about the game. THIS was where I really, really got uber hyped for this game. Turns out this would be a new game of new material. It reminded of something that would always be special to me: the SEGA DREAMCAST. I had such great memories playing it, receiving the package and SoulCalibur on Christmas 1999. It really defined me as a videogame player. The game on that incredible system that will always be my favorite (and favorite game of all time) was Sonic Adventure 1. I had so many great memories playing it and this game just seemed so similar to it. The running pose, the return of hubworlds, the speed, the music, a new hedgehog character, an appealing story, EVERYTHING about it. So, maybe this game would be special for me. I was excited.

 

The months pass, and the hype is increasing. More levels, another Hedgehog type character, and more. For me, I was completely hyped. Nothing made me skeptical. Then, I saw something... questionable at the Tokyo Game Show 2006. A trailer of fantastic footage and... Sonic and a Princess. It was very confusing. Why was Sonic and that person showing such a relationship? The thing was... that princess was a human. Sonic is a hedgehog. What are they doing? Still, while that made a tensy bit skeptical, I still hyped for this game. In November 2006, the game is released.

There was also a demo released. While I had a MICROSOFT XBOX 360, I didn't have XBOX LIVE at the time so I wasn't able to download it. I was noticing how some were complaining about it. Apparently there was bugs and framerate problems. This didn't really bother me. Why? Because hey, it was an early demo. SURELY this would be fixed for the final product. Nonetheless, my hype for this was increasing.

But I'll say, I should not have been given so much control on what kind of games I wanted at the time. Thing is, a day like CHRISTMAS is the time to buy games that you want to have a special impact on you. I got this game before that was to happen. For games like Sonic Adventure 1 and Sonic Adventure 2, I was either still awaiting the game to truly define me as a videogame player (Sonic Adventure 1) or just didn't really know about the release dates or anytime I was going to get a game other than a holiday (Sonic Adventure 2). Now, I had so much control on when I was going to get this game that would have an effect on whether this game would be a special game for me.

Nothing I heard about this game bothered me. There was still much praise and excitement for it anyway at the time. I wanted to play this game so much. This was to kill for! And so, my dad went to GameStop to buy it. That was a great memory finally getting to play the game. I remember first playing the Multiplayer Mode with my brother and then zipping to the Singleplayer and then my TV broke (haha). These were good memories, but not as special as it could have been... because I should have got a game that I was so hyped for on Christmas. The warm and fuzzy feelings generated on day like that are just memorable.

The fact that this was new and fresh at the time had an effect on what I thought of the game. And I enjoyed playing it. It was fun. It was really fun. As I was playing the game, though, I would notice more and more of its flaws. As I was playing the game, more negative reviews about it would slip by. This is significantly sad, considering how it was much good this was believed to do for Sonic.

I think its safe to say that this game had a change in development of some sort after Yuji Naka left SONICTEAM. That man was a genius. He was one of Sonic's original creators. And now, he left. Things would not be the same at SEGA/SONICTEAM following this game. Gone would be the ideas he had, like some of the main speed features and the nifty day/night system (which never came to be in the final product).  Still, after he left, though, I would have really gotten excited for this game. There would be the annoucements of the return of hubworlds, a new and appealing Hedgehog Character, and a seemingly delighting storyline. There was many other things mentioned that would get me excited. But the storyline seemed so awesome because not much was known about the game. The story in this game is not what it could have been.

Doctor Julian Ivo Robotnik aka Kintobor or EGGMAN hs traveled to Soleanna, the City Of Water, for the secret of the Flames Of Disaster. This sounded very similar to that of Chaos, the new villain in Sonic Adventure 1 (my favorite game of all time). Chaos was so awesome, the Biolizard was so awesome, I thought these Flames Of Disasters would follow. And they did, Iblis/Mephiles The Dark/Solaris are cool characters. But then, there was another part in the story.

 

Robotnik had come for the Princess Of Soleanna, Elise. Sonic The Hedgehog would appear and rescue her, beginning a hero saving damsel-in-distress kind of story. It seemed original for Sonic rescuing a Princess but it went WRONG. What were the developers THINKING when they decided to make Sonic and Elise have such a strong relationship for each other. The disgust reached its peak at the game's last story, when something happens between them.

 What is this? A Princess character was fine. But bringing the speculation of possible lovers between Sonic... and a HUMAN? Nuh-uh. It should have been like this. Robotnik should have just stole the Chaos Emerald or a device that would have had the potential of world destruction and it would be up to Sonic to stop him. Elise should have just been somebody that would assist Sonic throughout his quest. Somebody that Sonic would report back to after the developments. Some would say that would be interferring with the game's story but the thing is, the story should have been a bit different for this to happen.

 I could go on and on about how disappointing this story was, but I won't. There are some great things about it though. Silver The Hedgehog is very cool character. His story was awesome; a character coming to the past to create a better future is always cool. His story is very excellent. Shadow The Hedgehog's story is cool as well, bringing the character Mephiles The Dark, who may be considered nothing more than a recolour... but that stuff happens MANY times in comics and all sorts of media. Mephiles was still cool.

But there are still problems with these stories. Sonic is made too weak in this game. Silver is implied to have beaten him effortlessly and something does happen to Sonic in the game... which doesn't do any justice for the character. That, combined with the other ways Sonic has been made so WEAK in the game, is just RIDICULOUS.

Now, onto the gameplay. Let's get this straight. This game has a lot of glitches. It will take a little at least or a lot at most to play this game and keep the fun of it. And when you do that, the game will be fun. It can take a short while, it can take a long while. The glitches did not have much effect on my enjoyment of the game. I also have not much problem with the loadtimes. They are quite long and appear a bit often. Still, that shows how work was put on them... at least. This does give you time to prepare for the game and for me, the game's worth waiting for.

 Also speaking of what's in the game, there are a notable amount of misprints in the manual aand also mentionings of things that do not happen inn the game. While the game's flaws can be looked past, there is no reason for all that to be in the manual itself. Still, it's fun to look through. There really should have been more work on the instruction manuals. Well, at least the boxart is nice.

 The graphics here are pretty good, particularly for the character models. Characters are redesigned to look more realistic (a core aspect of the game) and it blends well. These designs will hopefully appear very frequently, because Sonic games are way cooler cartoony. The robots also lookreally awesome. I'd like to see more of those designs. As for the humans, they look good. I don't think they out of place with Sonic, since the characters are made to look more realistic for this game. The environments look good, but could have been better. It just lacks the lighting and detail most games of its generation had.

There are 3 main playable characters in the game: Sonic, Shadow, and newcomer Silver. They're all hedgehogs and begin with the letter S. For me, this is really cool. Sonic and Shadow's gameplay are similar to each other. Both focus a lot on the main objective of all Sonic games: get to the goal as fast as possible. Sonic plays more traditionally, as do his abilities in the game and given some newer skills. Shadow focuses more on combat, using enhanced attacks and jumping onto vehicles of many sorts.

Their gameplay is fun in this game. The Spin Homing Jump Dash Attack works very fluid for both characters. Sonic has that skill, the Spin Dash, and new kinds of Melee Attacks. His gameplay is the traditional formula for the most part with a new mode known as the Super Speed Sections, where Sonic is set to auto-run and displays his hypersonic speed. This is awesome and it's a lot like the "Goin' Down" segment from Sonic Adventure's Speed Highway. So, I think Sonic's gameplay is pretty cool with nice concepts involved. There are some Princess Stages and even though the game could have really done without, are almost as fun to play. Sometimes, though, the game will play by itself, which happens so often in his beginning stages. Fortunately, the following stages pick up. It would also be REALLY nice if the Homing Attacks had better animation (as shown in early builds of the game. Without that, the game just looks not as cool).

Shadow's gameplay is more combat focused. His abilities like the Homing Attack are enhanced from Sonic's, such as a new Chaos Attack and Tornado Kick. His Melee Attacks can execute a powerful tornado, which adds to his emphasis on combat. The most notable addition here is his usage of vehicles, similar to that of his title game. The Glider is fun to use, but the Buggy, Hover Craft, and Bike just lack in overall polish.. They are all fun in their own ways.

Silver has a new gameplay style in the game: Telekinesis. He focuses more on basic platforming and telekinetic skills, like grabbing stuff with his minds to throw at enemies or solving certain pathways. This is a fun new flavor to the game. It would be nice if he was a bit faster though.

 

And speaking of going fast, the characters do NOT go as fast as they should go, not even Sonic. Sure, there will a cool upgrade (but turns out that it has some problems to use) for that and some nice Super Speed Sections which are all fun and challenging, but for the main portion of the game, his speed is not as fast as it should be. This is a very common flaw in the game

And that brings up the Assistant Characters. You will run into some familiar friends to switch to in order for you to get pass an obstacle. This is a very cool feature. Miles "Tails" Prower The Fox and Knuckles The Echidna are Sonic's, Rouge The Bat and E123-OMEGA The Robot, and Amy Rose The Rascally Hedgehog and Blaze The Cat for Silver The Hedgehog.

HALF of these characters are really, really fun to play as. These are Tails, Omega, and Blaze. Tails throws Ring Bombs and can use his trademark Propeller Flight manuever. Tails, while slow, has his speed saved partially thanks to his flying, which is a lot of fun to use. While Tails, and pretty much any other Assistant Character could use more work, they are all fun to use.

 Omega is also a lot of fun. He has some nice abilities like his Shooting Skills, which is pretty cool. Blaze The Cat is best of the Assistant Characters, her gameplay plays very similar to Sonic and Shadow's. While it has its own flaws when it comes to controls, she still plays very nice and has a lot of polish involved.

 The other Assistant Characters just aren't as fun to use. Knuckles plays very slow and nothing to counter that here. His attacks are actuallyuseless, because you will never have to hit any enemies for the most part when using him. And it isn't all that inviting to attack, because it lacks so much polish and will probably result in getting hit. His gliding doesn't even hurt enemies (and simply Jumping doesn't hurt enemies at all in this game!) as well. Climbing has a VERY noticeable glitch, characters does not jump off of walls properly.

 Rouge plays like a combination of Tails and Knuckles, except mroe frustrating to use, as it seems to follow more of Knuckles, thus having the flaws and glitches. Her bomb throwing abilities are noticeably slower and more frustrating to use.

 Amy plays nowhere near as fun as she was in Sonic Adventure. She is way slower and her hammer attacks are just frustrating. Not even her Double Jump here works relaxing, it just plays odd. Thankfully, you will not spend much time playing as these inferior Assistant Characters.

 And now, the hubworlds. I was really looking forward to these. These could have been great in this game. But, due to all the flaws this game has, it's nowhere near as fun as in Sonic Adventure. You will notice here how slower the characters are. Prepare to see a lot of framerate drops in these sections. Getting upgrades from the store is fun, but not as fun as searching them throughout Zones like in the Adventure Games.

  It's strange how the Multiplayer Modes can play slightly better yet worse than the Singleplayer Modes. All rings are lightdashable here, which Singleplayer lacks for Sonic.  But many of the character abilities are toned down, and there are more glitches and animation flaws. Still, it's passable for Multiplayer.  

 The Multiplayer Modes here are fun. You get to play through most of the stages with or against your opponent. The Tag Mode is really cool; it's Cooperative Play. Which is awesome. Battle Mode is fun as well.

 The sound and audio is great. The music is just jamming. The character themes, minus a pointless featuring from AKON which has no place in a certain good remix, is all matching. The tunes here are near perfect, although some could use some more personality. The voice acting is nice for the most part. Jason Griffith's Sonic Portrayal is better than usual in my opinion. Others sound great to merely passable, such as Omega, who's voice sounds robotic to the extent where it isn't as cunning as he used to be. The rest of the character voices are all fine, although they continue to have some very pointless dialogue in this game. Well, at least Lacey Chabert is hot.

 The Replay Value here is just missing a notable factor of fun when it comes to unlocking stuff. Sure, there's some Guilty Pleasure for the Town Missions and playing through your favorite Action Stages is a lot fun here. Collecting the Medals will take a while, which is fun to have if you're willing to complete everything in this game.

 But what makes this game lack even more is when you combine all of its flaws with what this game could have been. The glitches, scrapped concepts (particularly those mentioned IN the game's manual), and the overall fact that this game just lacks a lot of the charm other Sonic games have had. The makes the game just not seem as well as it REALLY could have been. Because this game is the biggest disappointing thing I have ever played.

 It's a mixed bag. I think there's a great game in this unpolished and incomplete game. So much could have been done in the game. There is a lot fun to be found in this game, and by some perspective, it could actually be superb. But from a stronger point of view, it just lacks a lot. Still, this game is not the "Worst Game Of The Decade" and every Sonic Fan should give this a try. Overall, Sonic: Space And Time (which I call) is a game to bring mixed reactions, and whatever reaction to win is up to the player who's willing to enjoy this game.

 "Ah, but what it could have been..."

 gh