Wow, what a month it has been! Settling into a new job, helping the husband also settle into a new job, and rekindling my obsession with coffee has left me with few opportunities to blog. Our poor gaming systems have as of late sat unused most of this past month, but finally I looked over to Felix last Tuesday evening and went, “Hey, wanna play Sonic Adventure?”
My intentions were actually to have Felix begin playing Banjo Kazooie before any of my other childhood games, but I fear I may have to purchase a new N64 to play it, as my old one flickers out every 5 or so minutes these days. D;
Regardless, I was able to convince Felix to start playing Sonic Adventure this week, and I’ve therefore made some observations about what’s to come for Felix and the gauntlet of Sonic Adventure/childhood games ahead. Here are just a few.
Felix will probably have issues with the controls from some of my childhood games.
I played a variety of game titles growing up. I played well-known classics like Ape Escape, which was fun and super easy for me to get into as a kid. I also played well-known irritations like Tomb Raider, which were nearly impossible to play at times because of the tank controls. For child me, Sonic Adventure was a comfy in-between in regard to control difficulty. Sonic is supposed to feel fast, but while I watched Felix play through the different levels in Sonic’s campaign, I noticed how much of a challenge running in a straight line was for him.
Little does he know, however, that moving on to the different character campaigns in this game will bend, sometimes even reverse what he knows about controlling the characters. Sorry, Felix!
Felix has been frequently flabbergasted with the quirks in this game.
I have to admit, the GameCube remastering for this game wasn’t much of a “remastering.” I feel it was more of a new skin and an attempt to boost Sonic’s popularity in the States. I said this before in my previous blog post, but the English dub syncing was…pretty cringe-worthy. Watching it being played again has not only confirmed my opinions (watching Felix stare at the screen with jaw agape is quite humorous), but has also reminded me of the super lame jokes that served as the dialogue sometimes. I often wonder how the voice actors didn’t just walk out of the studio sometimes when they read some of their lines.
I still have love for the strange characters in this game, however, dime-turning movements, dated 80’s puns and all. Plus, watching Felix pause the game sometimes to rest a forehead in his palm makes my day. ❤
Felix will hate the Big the Cat campaign.
I don’t say this in regard to the bandwagon of hate for Big’s campaign that emerged after the Game Grumps played this game. I say it because Felix is very scrutinizing of fishing segments in games. Legend of Zelda? Yakuza? Animal Crossing? He’s talked about them all. Since this whole campaign is fishing, I do fear for Felix’s sanity, because for me, the campaign was a chore, sometimes tedious and hard on the eyes. If I didn’t like it, even as a diehard Sonic Adventure fan, I’m willing to bet that he won’t.
He also probably won’t like how suddenly slow Big is in comparison to literally every other character you can play as in this game, but that’s a subject for another time, I suppose.
Felix, I’m sorry if I spoiled anything for you, and good luck on the Amy campaign!
– C
The Immigrating Otaku 