Memory Card: Sonic Heroes (2003)

Although I don’t quite remember my very first experience with the series, Sonic The Hedgehog has always held a special place in my heart. From playing the classic 2D games on my family’s old SEGA Genesis to watching YouTube AMVs and Newgrounds animations for hours as a kid, I had always been engrossed in anything Sonic-related I could get my hands on. But Sonic Heroes is the game that I’ve always had the fondest memories of, and the one I hold closest to my heart.

The game is an absolute blast from the moment you boot it up, hitting you with a colourfully animated opening that I can just never bring myself to skip. It’s 90 seconds of pure action that let you know exactly what you’re in for, accompanied by the most unapologetically early 2000s rock song you’ll ever hear.

Following up on Sonic Adventure 2, in which the player would switch between different characters on a level-by-level basis – an idea which intended to improve on Adventure 1’s idea of giving each character their own story – Heroes condenses this concept down even further by introducing character switching within levels. It boasts a robust cast of twelve heroes, broken down into four teams of three, each with a Speed, Flight and Power type.

With the simple press of a button, the player can seamlessly swap from one teammate to another, letting them utilise the right ability for the situation they’re in. Speed characters like Sonic are best for quick traversal and chaining homing attacks on enemies; flight types like Tails form a totem-pole structure with their teammates to carry them across pits and chasms, and power types are the big hitters of the team, such as Knuckles, who wears Sonic and Tails as boxing gloves on his fists and throws them at enemies to deal damage .The core gameplay is centred around using all three characters effectively to traverse the levels, and learning to do so can be very rewarding. When combined, the types provide a wealthy range of options in both movement and combat, and reaching that flow state by using your trio in perfect harmony can feel amazing.

In contrast to the more intense plots of the Adventure games, Heroes is much more lighthearted, consisting of four stories that all converge for a final showdown at the end. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are on a mission to stop Eggman’s latest world-conquering weapon, while Amy helps Big and Cream search for their friends, chasing Sonic in the process. Treasure-hunter Rouge is reunited with an amnesic Shadow, who sets out on a mission to recover his memory accompanied by her and Omega, an ex-Eggman robot hellbent on killing his creator. Finally, Espio, Vector and Charmy return to the series as Team Chaotix, accepting a job from a mysterious contractor in an attempt to collect some cash.

Heroes consists of seven different locations, each with two levels and a boss battle to cap off the zone. Every single area is brimming with life and colour, giving every location a distinct vibe and atmosphere. From the bright greens and blues of Grand Metropolis, to the dark browns and oranges of Rail Canyon, to the multicoloured neon maze of Casino Park, Heroes provides players with a rainbow of playgrounds to dash their way through.

Every location also comes with its own variety of gimmicks that are in equal parts ridiculous and awesome. For example, Frog Forest features giant frogs that can cause rain when interacted with, which can have a variety of effects on the stage - from blossoming giant fruit for you to bounce on; to growing giant vines for you to grind down; to sprouting trees that can be climbed.  Hang Castle is another favourite of mine, which features a gravity switching mechanic, allowing you to explore the underside of sections you’ve already visited, reach inaccessible areas, and even run down the side of a tower in the stage’s finale. The stages also feature some incredible set-pieces, like blowing up Eggman’s airships in Egg Fleet; climbing to the top of a tank of rising magma in Power Plant, and being shot out of giant cannons in Bullet Station. These not only add some high-octane excitement to break up the stages, but all contribute to the theme of their respective levels.

The game’s biggest weakpoint, in my opinion, is it’s bossfights. The Egg Hawk, Albatross and Emperor get increasingly cheap with each one you fight, featuring some ridiculous attack hitboxes and infrequent damage phases that make the battles drag on far too long. The encounters against the other playable characters suffer from the opposite issues, being far too easy to defeat and making them feel incredibly half-baked. The only bosses that I felt worked personally were the robot gauntlets, in which you fight waves of Eggman robots in an arena. These encounters make the most of the game’s fast-paced combat system and encourage frequent character switching, and as a result are far more fun to play. And, of course, the secret Super Sonic showdown is a superb finale, complemented by Crush 40’s "What I’m Made Of", one of my favourite vocal themes in the franchise.

Every time I boot up Sonic Heroes I can’t help but smile. Some of my fondest memories as a kid come from playing video games with my little brothers, and this game gave me so many of them, like the moment we finally beat Final Fortress on Sonic’s story, or the countless battles and races we had in the game’s multiplayer mode. To this day I still find myself returning to this game for more. I’ve played through Team Sonic’s story more times than I can count, and I don’t think I’ll be stopping any time soon.