This is a game that unlike any 3D Sonic from the early-mid 2000's (Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Shadow the Hedgehog, Riders, 06, Secret Rings), feels like a classic Sonic game. You have the game filled to the brim with colors and Genesis looking locations. Clear blue skies, checker-board textures, and character models reflecting the Dreamcast style but also having a Genesis touch.
I love this about the game and one thing that makes it hold up great today visually. The soundtrack is great too, with iconic themes that still are memorable today.
Seaside Hill
Grand Metropolis
Hang Castle (Version 1 and 2)
Bullet Station
Casino Park
Egg Fleet
Final Fortress
What I'm Made Of
This soundtrack is hands down one of my favorite from this era of Sonic (with only SA1 and 2 beating it). The character themes are great too, like Team Sonic's and Team Chatoix's being my personal favorites.
The gameplay is very smart on Sonic Team's part. This was released right around a good year or so after Sega ending making consoles and going third party. Nintendo was enjoying a few exclusive Sonic games on the GameCube and GBA but the series didn't hit Xbox and PlayStation yet. So, with Heroes, they scrapped the engine they used for the Adventure games and made a new one, with the intent for it supporting every major platform on the market. Meaning, it would support a Sonic game on PS2, Xbox and GameCube.
Edit: This post clarifies that the new engine used was Renderware:
Fast forward to January 2004 and Heroes is released in US and EU (came out in 2003 in JP). What makes Heroes different is that in may respects, its a soft reboot for the Sonic series.
It still remembers events in the Adventure and Genesis games but in a lot of ways, its a re-introduction to the Sonic series. You have everyone having colorful looks, the world being a 3D Genesis Sonic style wise, and the best elements from the 2D & 3D games coming back. What this means, is that the series got reintroduced to many through Heroes.
Heroes plays different from the Adventure games as instead of having Sonic being the 'core' game and his friends having unique gameplay styles to pad out the game, we have a team system that controls the same across all the four playable teams. You can swap between three members for each team (Team Sonic: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles/Team Dark: Shadow, Rouge, Omega/Team Rose: Amy, Cream, Big/Team Chaotix: Espio, Victor, Charmy) and each member falls within three styles (Speed, Flight, Power).
Speed: Sonic-style gameplay with you going fast
Flight: Can fly in the air and shoot your partners as weapons
Power: Can attack with great strength and throw your teammates in different ways (Omega Shoots them, Knuckles uses them as boxing gloves & throws them, Vector shoots them out of his mouth, Big his his like baseballs using his fishing poll).
This allows the game to feel like Sonic but also have the large cast built up since the Adventure games. So, no gimmicks to pad out the game, no annoying fishing or treasure hunting stages to get in the way of the core speed gameplay and the game feeling the most focused out of any 3D sonic game for a very long while (not until Unleashed in my opinion).
I love this, as thanks to everyone playing the same, the levels can be constructed with a core focus allowing them to be tight and full of hidden paths to take. Its like you are playing Sonic from the Adventure games but have two buddies following you around and can swap to them at any point.
The game uses its level themes really well, as you have the iconic tropes from the Genesis games (Hill, Casino, Chemical Plant, Forest/Jungle, Eggman Base) but some new locations that haven't been in the Sonic series for a while (Haunted house). It creates some really imaginative places and opens up level design in cool ways.
You are a pinball in one stage but the next you are exploring a castle upside down. Sometimes this presents issues with too many stage gimmicks being thrown at once (Frog Forest comes to mind with the rapid vine swinging) but its not enough to become a problem.
My original thoughts on Heroes was that it was a great game with three problems: control is slippery, special stages suck, and camera gets in the way. Revisiting the game now, the control still is slippery but not nearly as bad as I remember it. It could be better but its not horrid like as bad as I thought before.
The camera can be an issue but its good enough. The special stages are fun to me now, as I had little issue getting three of the Chaos Emeralds so far. Oh, forgot to talk about that XD!
The special stages are molded after the Sonic 2 stages with you collecting orbs instead of rings and you can boost in these stages as you collect orbs. You have to get the emerald before it hits the goal ring at the end and they can be very hard.
Not better then Colors or Generations but a solid 8/10 game for me. Better then the Adventure games (which I consider good but held back by too many gimmick stages with Sonic's friends) and a LOT better then Shadow and 06.
.
.
. Sonic games always have great themes, so it was nice seeing this one balance the melodies from the Genesis era with the rock-heavy tracks the adventure games had.
