Things about Sonic Heroes

 Sonic Heroes is one of my favorite Sonic games of all time. I maintain it is one of the last objectively good Sonic games before the dark ages, and that is a hill I'm willing to die on. It's the kind of game that's packed to the gills with action, fun, and a bunch of petty stuff to think about. Such as...

I like how Sonic has friends in this, foregoing the past spirit in the Genesis era where Sonic reflects many a 90s kid, wasting away in a dirty basement with no meaningful social life, and don't get me started on where Tails falls into this.

It's interesting how this is the last piece of Sonic media where Tails is voiced by a child actor, ever since the 4Kids era, SEGA put their foot down and didn't want to blow through their checkbook and hours of auditions just to keep things going. It's more convenient to have an adult female voice Tails, and it's something people can get behind.... unless you're a pedophile who gets off to hearing the voices of little boys.

In spite of not being centered on them, Team Dark has the best campaign in the entire game, best story, best dynamic, I just summed up the essentials right there. I wish Shadow the Hedgehog better explored Shadow's origin, and by that I mean have it in the spirit of Sonic Heroes, you can have the different cast, but the edge factor of Shadow the Hedgehog is burning a hole through my threshold.

The difficulty level is pretty unorganized; on the title screen, it basically goes normal, hard, easy, then normal. People are always gonna play the normal difficulty first, Team Sonic, and follow it up with Team Dark, the hard difficulty, so when they get to Team Rose, the easy mode, as in one with shorter levels and a tutorial, it's basically like whiplash. Though if anything people can consider this a nice break from harder campaigns.

Team Chaotix is technically the most expendable team in the game. Beyond establishing a twist involving Eggman, you can cut this team out and it'd only effect a minor percentage of the story at large, and no I'm not suggesting it just be Sonic the whole way, I'm a grown ass man... who likes cartoons and this game. They are essentially just an alternative version of the normal difficulty. Also during team battles you only face two teams each time so really if it was just teams Rose, Dark and Sonic it really wouldn't hamper the game's progression much.

The dialog placement can be hilarious at worst, with Knuckles commenting on the intensity of running a loop before even clearing the starting slope. Also Eggman referring to any team as "boys", even Team Rose, and well, Team Dark if you wanna get technical.

This is one of the few games where spamming attacks actually feels rewarding. If you tried natural progression you'd essentially be on boss fights longer than usual, and it's all about getting the lowest time possible.

Scott Drier sounds like Dan Green after smoking the finest green. I don't know if the Sonic series was Scott's first role, but the quality of his chops are incredibly varied, they land well most of the time, but otherwise he sounds more chill than the situation gives him any right to be. I just didn't like it much, but I don't really have a definitive favorite actor for Knuckles, though I will say I admire the range of his actor in the first Sonic Adventure, did you know he played Ken in Detective Barbie: Mystery of the Carnival Caper?

Speaking of actors, I feel like this is where the actors really began to feel comfortable in their roles. I get why they were swapped out, if anything 4Kids offered a smaller price or it was just more convenient, but they went through similar progression.

I will say this, this game sold me on David Humphrey's performance as Shadow, Lani Minella killed it as Rouge in this game, and thank goodness Omega's voice was consistent, because I hate Jon St. John with a passion. Sarah Wulfeck (whatever her last name is), really works best in small doses, but Cream the Rabbit's voice history had the most consistency all things considered. Jennifer Doulliard... she's okay, I had time to digest her at her best, but I feel like Lisa Ortiz struck the right level of spunk, Amy just sounds like a bratty teenager at worst.

Ryan Drummond and Jason Griffith are basically on the same level for their performances, both were just getting into the role and were cut off before they could carry on with the honing of their roles. Roger Craig Smith sucks ass, but not to the point I'd go beyond that statement, I lack good taste, not sense.

I give this game bonus points for using, hands down, the best sixth generation game engine RenderWare, even if most in-game cutscenes contrast heavily with its other cinematics.

But at the end of the day, this game got relatively positive reviews in its heyday, ammo for my arsenal, for my opinions that reek of arse.