Sonic Adventure Story Screen Script Overview

What's a Story Screen?

'Story Screens,' as most of the instruction manuals term them (the PC ones don't give it a name), are "screens [that] provide a short story summary about the selected character," quoted from the game's manual. More accurately meaning, in Adventure mode, the selected character will provide the player their monologue in text about the recent happenings that occurred in the game, portrayed based on their personality.

The screens appear after a character is selected except when the character's story has just started or ended. Different monologues are shown to the player depending on how far the player has progressed.

Save Points and FAQ Format

For the game to remember on how far you've progressed through a character's story, the game places 'save points' throughout, meaning when the player passes through a certain point of the story and then suddenly the text "Now Saving..." appears on the top-right corner of the screen, then that means the player has just passed through a save point.

However, the player can also trigger a save point, that doesn't really involve with the game's story, by replaying an Action Stage in Adventure Mode, getting an Adventure Field emblem, or by exiting from a Chao Garden.

These save points, used to save varieties of data depending where they're triggered, can be triggered in:

• Every time after completing an Action Stage, to save scores, last location data (i.e. player completes Windy Valley, game reset, load, player is loaded in Mystic Ruins closest to Windy Valley), and for the DX version, total rings accumulated as currency used for the Chao Garden Black Market
• When you enter to another Adventure Field, (i.e. from Station Square to Mystic Ruins) the game will save the player's last entered location
• After getting an emblem for completing levels in the story or finding one in an Adventure Field
• When a character gets unlocked, by encountering or talking to a new character in the story for the first time
• When exiting a Chao Garden, game saves your Chao Garden data

The only save points that are relevant to this FAQ are the ones that will launch the newest story screen text as soon as possible, and so, this info will be provided above the story screen text in the FAQ.

This FAQ's format will go along like this:

---

This 'save point info' area will state where the save point is that's needed to be passed through, or what must be done, to show the story screen text below.

Hi! I'm this character!

This is my monologue,
a.k.a. my Story Screen text.
The game will have the text
aligned to the center like so,
and it will scroll slowly
up the screen for the player
to read until there's

no more to read.

---

Next section, same idea, and after passing through the save point noted, it will overwrite the previous Story Screen text using the new one below.

'Sup! I'm this character!

Stuff happened and this
happened and now some real
fecal matter has hit the fan!
Oh, no.

I must stop this at once!

Save Points Labeled, AutoSave and ManualSave

This guide will sometimes use the terms 'AutoSave' and 'ManualSave' in the 'save point info' areas. Most 'save point info' areas will not mention either. Assume it means AutoSave. For example, "After the cutscene that's launched after defeating Chaos 0." It means the game will AutoSave / automatically save after the cutscene seen after defeating Chaos 0 (in Sonic's story).

An AutoSave will refer to any save point that must be intentionally passed through in the story to progress. Examples are,

• a save point triggered after a cutscene
• triggered when completing a required Action Stage for the first time
• defeating a boss
• when obtaining a 'required' upgrade item
• unlocking a character through cutscene(s), which can't be avoided

A ManualSave refers to any saves that aren't required to pass through to progress through the story and usually the player has to go out of his way from the story to trigger it. Examples,

• finishing an already completed Action Stage
• obtaining an Adventure Field emblem
• exiting a Chao Garden
• obtaining an 'optional' upgrade
• unlocking a character by talking to it as an NPC in Adventure Field (i.e. Amy Rose still not unlocked, so when she appears as an NPC in Station Square sometime in Big the Cat's story, you can talk to her and she'll become unlocked). An exception to this is that when talking to Big the Cat standing around in Station Square in Sonic and Tails' story, it will not trigger its save, nor will the game say, "Now you can play with BIG!,", but the character is unlocked, so the player must find a save point afterwards.

Bizarreness in the Game's Save Point Placement

Some scripts will have the label [BIZ] above the 'save point info.' This is to indicate that the script is deemed bizarre in its method of getting the required save point or the timing in the game of triggering the script which may be either too early or too late from the events the script is speaking of. Other cases of bizarreness include one script only being accessible by resetting the game midway through a sequence of cutscene, and many cases, such as E-102 γ and Super Sonic's story, where the scripts are only accessible via the player ManualSaving / exiting a Chao Garden / replaying an Action Stage / etc., making it very unlikely for the player to ever see the script normally (without guidance from an FAQ, for example).

It's also interesting to note that, out of all the frequency of scripts appearing in the game, none of them really appear much near the end of the game or before a final story boss.