A very good spin off for SONIC, with most of the problems of the Adventure games solved
The graphics being the first and foremost important change, the realistic art style of the adventure games was abandoned for the style of the 2D Sonic games with the Green Hill styled levels and the Casino levels being the highlights to this style.
Because of this art style the games looks better and more coherant than the 3 year younger Sonic The Hedgehog.
Gameplay wise the game is tighter and more focussed than Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic The Hedgehog with the 3 man team mechanic working very well and a far better camera than both of them, but with Sonic’s team you are better off playing as knuckles than you are as Sonic as he runs at a similar speed, but his attacks are far more powerful.
This creates an unbalanced nature to this and the rest of the teams as the Power characters are better to play as than the speed and airborne characters.
The longevity of the game is very good with the 4 teams’ stories to play through in a similar structure to the recent Sonic Rivals, with each team progressing through the same levels in the same order and when all the teams’ stories have been completed there is a last story section.
The music is a watered down version of the rock music in Sonic Adventure’s 1 and 2 and is also closer to the original music from the 2D Sonic games of old.
The PS2 version of the game is far inferior to the Xbox and Game Cube versions with more graphical glitches and camera problems.
This game overall is far better than the more recent 3D Sonic games and spin offs such as Shadow, and needs to be re-examined by the fans of the series.