Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut

 GameCube
  • Publisher: Sega
  • Release Date: Jun 18, 2003
User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 333 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 225 out of 333
  2. Mixed: 84 out of 333
  3. Negative: 24 out of 333
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  1. A.O.
    Apr 4, 2004
    0
    This game sucks arse. Sonic 1 on Master System is a LOT more playable and entertaining.
  2. SoulCalibur2
    Sep 6, 2003
    4
    Good sound, graphics, and music, but the hairy idiots who rated this a ten should stay away from whatever they ate that morning. This is a sad, repetitve game, and it would do little more than collect dust at the bottom of your trash can. Terrible camera angles. Personaly, I would leave this game to rot in the fiery pits of hell...o, but that's just me...
  3. UnhappySonicFan
    Apr 17, 2005
    0
    What were they thinking when they made this awful excuse for an 'adventure!' Go back to the Mega Drive sonic, much better!
  4. TehBwitzie
    Feb 8, 2014
    4
    The dreamcast version sucks... The xbox and ps3 version sucks... And this one sucks the most. Screw this game. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  5. edave
    Aug 10, 2015
    4
    This game is pretty bad. The story is fairly standard, but builds on the lore of the earlier Sonic games quite nicely. It does this mostly through horrible cut scenes that are entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Terrible mouth animations with terrible voice acting and terrible directing. Objects appearing and disappearing out of nowhere, (How did that bird hide a chaos emerald that isThis game is pretty bad. The story is fairly standard, but builds on the lore of the earlier Sonic games quite nicely. It does this mostly through horrible cut scenes that are entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Terrible mouth animations with terrible voice acting and terrible directing. Objects appearing and disappearing out of nowhere, (How did that bird hide a chaos emerald that is bigger than itself?) plain weird character animations, (What is gamma even supposed to be doing?) and the most anticlimactic action ever. (was a plain crash?)

    The game has 6 different characters and tells the story from their perspective. Each of them have their own play style:

    Sonic runs fast, has his spin dash and a homing attack. He is pretty hard to control at the beginning. You get used to it, but by then you will have run against a lot of walls. And often through them.

    Tails has to race against other characters in his stages. He can fly and use shortcuts through the levels. It is quite fun to see a level you already ran through, but using different paths.

    In Knuckles levels, you have to find the pieces of the master emerald. You have a radar that tells you how close you are to every piece.

    Amy has to run away from a robot called Zero while solving brain dead puzzles.

    E-102 Gamma, one of Eggman's robots, walks slowly and shoots his way through the level. This gets boring really quickly as it mostly consists of holding down B and release it after everything is targeted. Also, this targeting system, which you have to constantly activate, makes a very annoying cheeping noise the hole time.

    Big the cat fishes for his frog. That is about as related to everything else as it sounds. I was very annoyed by these stages because I couldn't get the damn frog to bite. Either the game didn't tell my to press into his direction when he is nibbling the bait, or I just didn't find it.

    Sounds like decent variation, right? Sadly, these characters don't alternate. You rather play through the whole game one character at a time. Technically, you unlock the other stories before completing Sonic's story, but the game does not exactly make it easy and fast to switch characters, as you have to quit the game to do it.

    There are three kinds of boss battles in the game: The battles between the main characters are simply: Attack them, wait until they stop blinking, then attack again. Just do this and they will never hit you.
    The second kind is: Evade the attacks until the boss stupidly reveals his weak spot and hit it.
    The third is kind is against Perfect Chaos, which is actually a good battle.

    Amy's last battle is technically one of the second variety, but you have to actively get the boss to expose his weak spot which makes it in my opinion the only other decent one.

    I appreciate that the dialog and cut scenes play out a little differently every story, making it really seem that the characters are remembering/retelling these events differently. I just assume that was the intention, because it would have been much easier just to show the same cut scene from different camera angles.

    The game pulls of the multiple separate but simultaneous story lines quite well, with a few continuity errors, like when Knuckles follows Gamma to the egg carrier, even though Gamma only gets to this place where knuckles saw him after the carrier already crashed.

    The graphics are dated and not up to the standard of other gamecube titles. The music is good, as you would expect from a sonic game.

    One other factor that ruins this game is the camera. It sometimes it just really wants to show you the wall of the room next to you. While you can move the camera left and right with the shoulder buttons, but not up or down. This is because the Dreamcast didn't have a c-stick and they were to lazy to fix this. Instead, it is bound to the "free camera"-mode, where you can look around, but not move. You can sometimes miss camera triggers and sometimes the camera just does not let you rotate, most frustratingly when fishing.

    All in all, there are just to many flaws bringing this game down. But there seem to be a lot of people out there who enjoyed it a lot, so you might want to check it out. It is quite short and easy.    … Expand
  6. Linkfan
    Jul 15, 2017
    1
    This game sucks a lot. The sonic stages are fun, but the rest isn't even worth mentioning. I will mention however that the chao gardens suck as well, you have to spend far too much time on these to fully level up your stupid chao. The lip-syncing and animations are just plain awful, even for that time. Don't play this game, simply don't.
  7. Midmmmf
    May 22, 2018
    0
    This game sucks. The game looks hideous, the cutscenes are horrible, and the voice acting is the worst in the series(which is saying something). The controls are terrible and the camera only works when it wants to. When you beat a stage you have no idea where to go. And of course Amy and Big the Cat are the main reasons this game sucks. Don’t play.
  8. XISMZERO
    Jul 10, 2003
    4
    I think you are all idiots. This game's nothing but a horrible port with framerate problems and a $40 price tag... try renting it first before foolishly rating it...
  9. Daze072401
    Apr 1, 2018
    4
    Unlike SA2B before it, SADX seems to actively ruin the original. Noticeably worse controls, inexcusable amount of added glitches, and a botched attempt to improve the graphics, achieving the opposite. You're better off with buying the Dreamcast original.
  10. nonostalgia
    Dec 10, 2016
    2
    This game is great...if you're not nostalgia-blind. I went into this game pretty much blind, and I heard how good it was from both sides. So here is my analysis of how much of this game I was actually able to sit through.
    -The dubbing and animation of this game is god awful. You could say it's because it's dubbed to Japanese, but this is a remake. There is no excuse.
    -The voice acting is    This game is great...if you're not nostalgia-blind. I went into this game pretty much blind, and I heard how good it was from both sides. So here is my analysis of how much of this game I was actually able to sit through.
    -The dubbing and animation of this game is god awful. You could say it's because it's dubbed to Japanese, but this is a remake. There is no excuse.
    -The voice acting is even worse. There was no effort put into it, and it is cringey at best. (Fun fact: Sega mailed the voice actors their lines with absolutely no context, so yes, it is not just an opinion that the voice acting is bad)
    -The controls are so weird. If you want to interact with something in any game ever, what do you press? You press A. In Sonic Adventure, you press X. Why. Not to mention, if you try to interact with something, and you're not brushing up against it, X will also make you do an impossible to control spindash, that can't be canceled, and will put you 30 miles away.
    -The camera is so horrible. If you are fighting a boss (which are also boring and incredibly tedious in this game), the game might decide to lock you in a camera angle that cant be changed and is impossible to see with. Also, the triggers change the camera. That's okay, right? Wrong. The camera controls are inverted, and can't be changed.
    -The levels are mediocre at best. The action stages are apparently the good part of this game, but unfortunately, that's only 1/6th of this game. Also, in those stages, sonic is impossible to control, he magnetizes to the walls, and there are countless glitches that will do nothing but make you lose lives. In the remake. And I'm not even gonna start with Big the Cat...
    -All in all, don't buy this game. I mean, I emulated this game (on Dolphin, probably the most fluent, functional emulator in existence), and I'm still disappointing.    … Expand
  11. UltraMeme64
    Feb 14, 2017
    4
    To think some people say this is the only good 3D Sonic and it's "s00 muck bettr then sopnic adventure 2"!!1111!1?! what **** Oh, wait I'm on? oh um *ahem*, this game is pants

    Okay that's a bit too harsh. This game does have its good parts (Sonic, Tails, E-102) and its horrible parts (BIG TEH CAT). Considering this was initially a dreamcast game, it doesn't look half bad, though some    To think some people say this is the only good 3D Sonic and it's "s00 muck bettr then sopnic adventure 2"!!1111!1?! what **** Oh, wait I'm on? oh um *ahem*, this game is pants

    Okay that's a bit too harsh. This game does have its good parts (Sonic, Tails, E-102) and its horrible parts (BIG TEH CAT). Considering this was initially a dreamcast game, it doesn't look half bad, though some setpieces could a have used a BIT touching up. The soundtrack, as per usual, is great. The Sonic, Tails, and E-102 missions aren't half bad. And that's where the good parts end. I found the level design to be a mixed bag, as it was used over and over and OVER again in this game. Knuckles is okay, if a bit flawed, but Amy and Big are just a mess. The bosses are A) pathetic B) easy or C) frustrating. I only reccomend this to those hardcore Sonic fans and those who really enjoy 3D platformers. everyone else, run    … Expand
  12. lidwang
    Mar 1, 2019
    4
    Just a worse version of sonic adventure 1 in most of ways. I am surprised this games has more bugs than the original version.
  13. GMB2
    Apr 12, 2023
    3
    3/10 Too much water, too many re-modelled faces and made Sonic Forces into a thing

Awards & Rankings

98
#98 Best GameCube Game of 2003
3
#3 Most Discussed GameCube Game of 2003
7
#7 Most Shared GameCube Game of 2003

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
57

Mixed or average reviews - based on 27 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 20 out of 27
  3. Negative: 6 out of 27
  1. Village Voice
    70
    Thrilling and refreshingly buoyant, Sonic Adventure DX-Director's Cut actually justifies '90s nostalgia.
    Read full review
  2. GMR Magazine
    70
    The game alone is worth the price of admission, but this version features an all-new Mission mode that, while fluff, is nonetheless fun, plus 12 entirely cool Sonic games taken wars and all from the Sega Game Gear. [June 2003, p.72]
  3. Eurogamer
    50
    It's a straight port, with a few minor alterations, and in this day and age it just can't stand up to the competition.
    Read full review
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