As Sonic the Hedgehog turns 25 I take a look back at the title that introduced me to his weird and wonderful world – Sonic Heroes.

I was a late bloomer in the world of Sonic. I’d played his 2D outings at friends houses plenty of times, loved the TV shows (even the one where they formed a band, no, especially the one where they formed a band) and even had a Sonic skateboard (that I used to sit on as I couldn’t skate, I was pretty cool) but I’d never actually owned a Sonic game.

I guess that is mostly to do with the fact I was a Nintendo gamer and whilst I did come close to getting Sonic Adventure and a Dreamcast I eventually decided on a GameCube as the sight of Bowser, Mario and Yoshi pounding each other atop Peach’s Castle was something my young mind couldn’t comprehend missing.

And so, because of the immense pounding of my Melee days, it wasn’t until 2004 that I finally got a slice of Sonic action but man, was it worth the wait.

My First Time
As you fire up the game, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles come grinding into view on a rail in fully animated CG before the famous ‘Sonic Heroes’ theme by Crush 40 starts blaring out. As the saying goes ‘SEGA does what Nintendon’t’ and it wasn’t more apparent than this moment, CG graphics and voice-overs, especially vocalists in music, were pretty much unheard of from Nintendo, especially in this era before I’d got my hands on the likes of WarioWare and Donkey Konga, so it blew my young and impressionable mind.

I was just entering Year 8 at the time and had always been relatively young for my age so the corny nature of Sonic’s radical style and one-liners had me frothing at the mouth and gasping for air as oppose to scoffing at the absurdity of SEGA thinking this was the definition of ‘cool’. You can only imagine my reaction when I started breaking rocks as Knuckles to hear him shout ‘Shit!’ as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

So yes, the CG opening, followed by an intro and a bunch of cut-scenes, all with full voice-acting and pretty much the entire Sonic cast such as Shadow, Amy and Eggman, this was as good a place as any for me to dive head first into the world of Sonic.

Gameplay
Sonic Heroes carries on the foundations laid by Sonic Adventure, at least as far as levels are concerned. You must get from start to finish of full 3D levels by running, collecting rings and homing into enemies. Stripping the hub world of Sonic Adventure and simply going level to level, it made for a much faster paced experience than Adventure, despite the gameplay being somewhat slower.

You could choose between teams of three characters, Team Sonic with our usual three, Team Rose with a bunch of morons like Big the Cat, Team Chaotix with Vector or Team Dark featuring everyone’s favourite gun enthusiast Shadow.

Being new to the series I obviously went with Team Sonic most of the time, especially when going back to replay levels, but each team had slightly different levels, either longer, with more enemies or mission based.

Controlling a group of three, you run and jump as your main chosen character with the others following, in a similar way to how the secondary character would follow you in Donkey Kong Country. At any time you can switch to another character and carry on playing, with each character having their own distinct benefits such as Knuckles being able to bash enemies easier and clear certain objects, tails being able to fly and Sonic being a speedy speedster.

It was an interesting take on the series and one that was really enjoyable and well done, as it gave the levels some thought and (very slight) complexity. In fact, one of the reasons I could never really ‘get into’ the Sonic series was that it was so fast-paced so this new style that actually encouraged slightly slower gameplay as you stopped to beat up robots and fly over large hills was a welcome addition, though Sonic purists are likely to disagree.

Sonic back on it
Sonic was a huge name in the 90’s but I needn’t go into much detail as that’s about as moronic as saying “guys, did you hear Pac-Man was a big deal in the 80’s?” but what is worth noting is that unlike Mario, Sonic really struggled to enter the new millennia.

Mario entered the world of 3D as graceful as a swan, paving the way for others to follow but Sonic stumbled and flopped into the world of 3D like an obese drunk man falling into a swimming pool.

Some titles were questionable with varying opinions, such as the racing title Sonic R (which I loathe despite having one of the best soundtracks ever) and others just didn’t quite hit the mark. Whilst the games weren’t masterpieces, they weren’t inherently bad, they were just experimental and perhaps somewhat misunderstood.

The bigger problem was perhaps SEGA themselves, as they’d created a bunch of console add-ons, ceased development early for the Saturn and ultimately had to end the Dreamcast before the 128-bit era had properly kicked off.

Experimental games and less than stellar hardware sales meant that Sonic had somewhat faded. Even the fantastic Sonic Adventure 2, whilst having sold well, didn’t push Sonic quite into the public eye like the glory days of the 90’s. This is where Sonic Heroes comes in.

By taking everything that was good about the Sonic Adventure titles and releasing as a multi-platform title on the GameCube, Xbox and PS2, Sonic was not only back in an awesome 3D adventure but it was available on every major platform making it easier than ever for gamers to get their hands on the blue blur.

Games since Sonic Heroes have been hit and miss, with great and terrible titles appearing across consoles by many manufacturers in equal measure, but Sonic Heroes stands out as one of the most important as it was what solidified Sonic as a timeless character like Mario or Donkey Kong as oppose to ‘that character from the 90’s’.

Standout Moments
Bingo Highway blew me away and is still one of my favourite themes for a level ever; that pumping 90’s disco music, the neon lights and the massive pinball tables (whilst sometimes nightmarish to control) were everything I could ask for. With its usual dose of platforming, this colourful paradise also turned Sonic into a ball and had him bouncing around as you control the pinball table flippers.

The gigantic frogs and calming atmosphere of Frog Forest almost had a dream-like quality about it and the heart pumping fear of falling to your death as you hop from rail to rail, suspended high in the sky of Rail Canyon was exhilarating and frustrating for a Sonic noob such as myself.

It wasn’t just the gameplay itself that I loved but the whole Sonic world. I loved finding out about side characters such as Shadow and Espio and watching their CG stories. As a big fan of the band Busted at the time, I also couldn’t get enough of the soundtrack and whilst it’s slightly embarrassing to admit, I’d load up the game and play ‘We Can’, ‘Sonic Heroes’ and ‘Bingo Highway’ on the Jukebox and jam away whilst drawing stuff or browsing the Nintendo VIP forums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3HNuBT8Mn4

End Game

This was the first 3D Sonic title I’d ever played, and the first title I officially owned, so it will always have a special place in my heart. Whilst I can’t say gameplay-wise it stacks up to the likes of Wii’s fantastic Sonic Colours and PS360 classic Sonic Generations, it was great for the time and solidified Sonic’s position in the world of modern gaming.

As far as personality and atmosphere are concerned, this is my favourite Sonic title, with masses of great characters (apart from Big), the best theme from the entire Sonic series and a bunch of fun unlockables, I can’t think of a better introduction to this weird and wonderful universe.