Sonic Adventure was a really good gaming experience when played as Sonic, Knuckles was a bit strange as he could haphazardly glide, and spent all of his time digging in the dirt for shards of chaos emerald, the Big the Cat stuff was oddly enjoyable when in the mood to waste your time completely and commit to a nihilistic escape from all activity or reality (it was bizarrely hard too, to catch a big fish) and left you feeling strangely depressed or at least numbed by the all consuming stupidity of the character design and level mechanics. Strangely playing as Amy was one of the more interesting experiences as she had a weapon and some novel gaming mechanics. E-102 was a very pleasurable, immersive run and gun experience which was pleasantly kinetic considering the soul wearying doldrum of Big The Cat's entire presence in the game. The timed levels, the lock on and multiplier was a good touch, and the music for E-102 was excellent like most of the SA soundtrack. Where the came really came alive; thankfully, was in the blisteringly fast Sonic levels. Hurtling across beaches, temples and other exotic and well designed levels was a deeply satisfying experience with many tremendously designed levels. Added to this was an excellent aerial combat experience with some of the best and most outlandish weapons effects I've ever seen (up to that point in my life, though it fairs well in retrospect). This aerial comabt aped the Sonic 2 biplane battle towards the end of the game and that said, trounced it with a brilliant experience of explosions and a really pleasurable lylat wars reminiscent mechanic.

The end battle was well done, at least in conception, with a huge scale of devestation never seen previous in a Sonic Game (except perhaps when Angel Island was bombed in Sonic and Knuckles, but that was nothing compared to what the Dreamcast could show). With a fun appearance by super sonic and good mechanics for the fight.

What let the game down wasn't the bolted on secondary, tertiary and redundant characters but the lack of a consistant pace, or world in which to explore. The between level maps were little more than ornate corridors providing some enjoyment such as hunting for upgrades but not inherently valuable experiences. And the cities were filled with humans. That got on my nerves. Talking blue hedgehogs (etc) and the cities are filled with late 20th century humans in suits. Okay. And the chao, I hated the chao.

Overall the flaws can be overlooked as experiments on a new console whilst its successes can be lauded, such as the kinetic 3D pace of sonic's level and the quality of the level construction, game art, some of the rpg elements but SEGA never consolidated it into a new core dynamic for its game play favouring a portfolio of sonic-ish stuff involving outlandish concept mechanics such as warehogs and the like. SA was a good starting point for 21st century gaming which was underused.