Difference between revisions of "Sonic Heroes"

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Sonic Heroes

System(s): Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox, PC
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team
Genre: 3D Platform

For the eponymous song, see Sonic Heroes (song).

Sonic Heroes is the third 3D game to hit the Nintendo GameCube. Sonic Heroes is also the first game to go multiplatform for all systems. The phrase "Sonic Heroes" refers to the uniting of the protagonists of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. This game also marked the return of the Chaotix, a group last seen in Knuckles' Chaotix on the Sega 32X (except for Espio the Chameleon, who became playable in Sonic the Fighters).

The level design and graphics were given a more cartoon-ish quality which is reminscent of the old-school Sonic games.

The game was developed on a RenderWare engine so that the game could be programmed and ported easily for the multi-platform release. This made for fairly consistant ports, quality wise, between all the systems. The Playstation 2 version did suffer from clipping and graphic faults, not to mention a lower frame rate, making it the least well recieved of the ports. Primary development was done on the Nintendo GameCube, and then ported to the Xbox and Playstation 2.

Story

Robotnik has come back to challenge Sonic and crew again to defeat his new scheme. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles gladly accept and race off to tackle the doc's latest plan. Meanwhile, Rouge the Bat swings in on one of Robotnik's old fortresses and discovers Shadow in capsule. After an odd encounter, Rouge, Shadow, and E-123 Omega join up to find out what happened to Shadow and to get revenge on Robotnik. At a resort, Amy looks at an add that shows Sonic in it with a chao and a frog. After getting over boredom, Amy, Cream, and Big decide to find Sonic and get what they want back. Elsewhere, in a run down building, the Chaotix get a package that contains a walkie talkie. Tempting them, Vector, Charmy, and Espio decide to work for this mysterious person, so they can earn some money.

Gameplay

The game introduces several new gameplay elements. Unlike past Sonic games, which have only one character playable at a time, the player is able to control three characters and switch between them freely, whilst the other two follow. Each character has a unique ability which it contributes to the team. There are three types of characters that are used in gameplay. One party member is a "fly" type, able to ascend short distances with the other party members. The second type is "speed." This character can move faster than the other two and has a homing attack. The final brand of hero is "power," the character whom has the most strength. Each ability is also represented in the interface by color; blue for speed, yellow for flight, and red for power.

These groups of three characters are called "Teams" and the selection of characters in each team is pre-determined. It is not possible to mix and match characters between teams. Each team also has a Team Blast skill, which can be performed when the Team Blast meter becomes full. This can be achieved by performing such actions as destroying enemies or collecting rings. Each team follows a different, yet intertwined, storyline.

Teams

Below are the four available teams in the game:

Team Sonic

This team and associated levels are designed to be of medium difficulty, and contain high-speed sections. Their Team Blast consists of Knuckles throwing Tails, who spins to gain momentum, and throws Sonic, who attacks surrounding enemies multiple times. During the final boss, each team member, under Super Transformation, performs the same attack as Sonic.

Team Dark

This team and associated levels are designed to be of hard difficulty, requiring skill and concentration to endure heavy battle. Their Team Blast consists of Shadow performing Chaos Control, whilst Omega, lifted up by Rouge, fires large lasers whilst rotating the top half of his body. It also freezes time momentarily once complete, so that all enemies are frozen in place.

Team Rose

This team and associated levels are designed for younger players, with shorter missions. Their Team Blast sees Big bouncing Amy and Cream on top of his umbrella with a shower of flowers raining down on them. All three members level up by one and grants them temporary invincibility, high running speed, and a shield.

Speed: Amy Rose
Flight: Cream the Rabbit and Cheese the Chao
Power: Big the Cat

Team Chaotix

This team and associated levels provide a different experience, as most are mission-based, and are only complete when the mission target is met. Their Team Blast sees Espio, Charmy, and Vector singing and playing instruments badly, causing all of the surrounding enemies to explode, whilst ring bonuses are received for each enemy destroyed. Collecting rings also refills the gauge, potentially allowing the player to perform another Blast immediately after the first is complete.

Bosses

Trivia

Cream the Rabbit was originally designed to first appear in Sonic Heroes, however, when 2002's Sonic Advance 2 was announced, Sonic Team decided that it would be a good idea to introduce her there first, as to make Sonic Advance 2 feel fresher.
This is the first game Chaotix has appeared in since 1995. Takashi Iizuka has been quoted saying he considers this new, re-designed Chaotix his creation, as the original Chaotix from 1995 was created by a different artist at Sega of America.
Sonic Heroes was combined with Super Monkey Ball Deluxe for Xbox as a Platinum Family Hit.
Although the plot for Sonic Heroes is somewhat sparse, a large portion of it is a set-up for 2005's Shadow the Hedgehog, especially Team Dark's story.
In the opening scene of Team Chaotix's story, there are pinned papers on a notice board behind Vector, showing concept drawings of the robots used in the original Sonic game.
The stage "Frog Forest" is very similar to the Sonic & Knuckles stage, Mushroom Hill Zone. Knuckles points out one of the similarities; during flight with the flower on that stage, he mentions that there are also large mushrooms on Angel Island, but that they are smaller than those of Frog Forest.

Past References

As characters interact, they sometimes make references to past Sonic games:

Amy: "This weather reminds me of our last attack on the Egg Carrier!" (allusion to Sonic Adventure) in Final Fortress.
Amy: "This place reminds me of Casinopolis!" (allusion to Sonic Adventure) in Casino Park, even though in Sonic Adventure she never actually entered the Casinopolis level during the course of Sonic Adventure.
Knuckles: "We have jungle mushrooms on my island too, but not this huge!" (allusion to Mushroom Hill Zone from Sonic & Knuckles) in Frog Forest.
Shadow: "Space? Did you say SPACE?" when replying to Rouge who said, "We might even be at the edge of space." (allusion to Shadow's "fatal fall" from space in Sonic Adventure 2) in Egg Fleet.
Shadow: "Some things never change, do they?" as a response to Rouge mentioning going after the Master Emerald at the end of Team Dark's story (allusion to Sonic Adventure 2).
Metal Sonic: "I was created for the sole purpose of destroying you," when addressing Sonic (allusion to Sonic CD) in Metal Overlord.
Knuckles: "The Egg Carrier is nothing compared to this!" (allusion to Sonic Adventure) in Final Fortress.
Big: Big's quest for Froggy is reminiscent of his story in Sonic Adventure. In addition, the giant frogs in Frog Forest and Lost Jungle appear to be the same as Froggy.
Rouge: "I haven't heard from The President lately." (allusion to Sonic Adventure 2) while the player stands still for a while on any stage.

Manuals

Voice actors

This is one of the final Sonic games in which the voice actors from the Sonic Adventure games recorded their voices. Newer games in the series, from Shadow the Hedgehog on, are recorded by the cast of Sonic X. Many Sonic fans were angered by the change and have sent demands to Sega to rehire the original voice cast from this game and the Sonic Adventure series. Some people say this, however, is unlikely to happen, especially considering the passing of Deem Bristow who voiced Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik in this and all previous 3D Sonic games.

Sonic and Metal Sonic are voiced by the same actors in both the English and Japanese versions.

Role	English Voice Actor	Japanese Voice Actor
Sonic the Hedgehog	Ryan Drummond	Junichi Kanemaru
Doctor Eggman	Deem Bristow	Chikao Ohtsuka
Miles "Tails" Prower	William Corkery	Ryo Hirohashi
Knuckles the Echidna	Scott Dreier	Nobutoshi Canna
Shadow the Hedgehog	David Humphrey	Kōji Yusa
Rouge the Bat	Lani Minella	Rumi Ochiai
E-123 Omega	Jon St. John	Taiten Kusunoki
Amy Rose	Jennifer Douillard	Taeko Kawata
Cream the Rabbit	Sarah Wulfeck	Sayaka Aoki
Big the Cat	Jon St. John	Takashi Nagasako
Espio the Chameleon	Bill Corkery	Yuuki Masuda
Vector the Crocodile	Marc Biagi	Kenta Miyake
Charmy Bee	Emily Corkery	Yōkō Teppōzuka
Metal Sonic	Ryan Drummond	Junichi Kanemaru

Production Credits

Sonic Team

Executive Producer: Hisao Oguchi
Producer: Yuji Naka
Director: Takashi Iizuka
Art Director: Kazuyuki Hoshino
Main Programmer: Tetsu Katano
Main Game Designer: Shiro Maekawa
Sound Director: Jun Senoue
Player Designer: Nobuhiko Honda
Player Motion Designer: Atsushi Saito
Player Programmer: Tetsu Katano
Level Designers: Takashi Iizuka, Eitaro Toyoda
Stage Programmers: Takeshi Sakakibara, Makiko Nishimura, Tomoyuki Naito
Field Art Director: Hiroshi Nishiyama
Field Artists: Yoshitaka Miura, Takahiro Kudo, Michikazu Tamamura, Daizo Kinoshita
Enemy Game Designers: Shiro Maekawa
Enemy Designer: Kazuyuki Hoshino
Enemy Programmers: Masato Nakazawa, Makiko Nishimura, Makoto Suzuki, Tetsu Katano
Speical Stage Game Designer: Kenjiro Morimoto
Speical Stage Artists: Kaori Hitsuda, Michio Abe
Speical Stage Programmers: Shinya Matsunami, Hiroshi Iwasaki, Masatoshi Shitara
Scenario Writer: Shiro Maekawa
Event Scene Artist: Nobuhiko Honda
Story Event Programmer: Takeshi Sakakibara
Menu Screen Programmer: Makoto Suzuki
Menu Screen Artists: Yuji Uekawa, Takeshi Ichimura, Ryutaro Ishihara, MEDAL co. ltd.
Multi Platform Programmer: Makoto Suzuki
Multi Platform Artist: Ryutaro Ishihara
Development Support: Yoshitaka Kawabata, Shinya Matsunami, Tomonori Fukazawa, Shun Nakamura, Soosa Kim
CG Movie Producer: Keith Palmer
CG Movie Director: Takashi Iizuka
Story Board Designers: Shiro Maekawa, Kazuyuki Hoshino
CG Movie Art Supports: Nobuhiko Honda, Hiroshi Nishiyama
CG Movie Production: Vision Scape Inc., Clayt Ratzlaff, Tammy McDonald, JS Lennox, Michael J. Sherak, Dave Riewald, Andrew Wilson, John Giordano, Ryan Benjamin, Bryan Pritchard, Steve Lennox, Paul Anderson
Sound Designed by: Wave Master Inc., Dolby Digital Pro Logic 2
Executive Sound Coordinator: Tatsuya Kousaki
Lead Music Composer: Jun Senoue
Music Composers: Naofumi Hataya, Yutaka Minobe, Tomoya Ohtani, Keiichi Sugiyama, Hideaki Kobayashi, Mariko Nanba, Teruhiko Nakagawa, Fumie Kumatani
Sound Effects: Jun Senoue, Takashi Endoh, Tomonori Sawada, Tatsuyuki Maeda
Technical Supervisor: Shigeharu Isoda
Theme Songs

SONIC HEROES: Crush 40
WE CAN: Ted Poley, Tony Harnell
THIS MACHINE: Julien-K
FOLLOW ME: Kay Hanley
TEAM CHAOTIX: Gunnar Nelson (from the NELSONS)
WHAT I'M MADE OF: Crush 40

Coordination Supervisor: Kazuo Koizumi
Recording Coordinators: Jun Senoue, Atsushi Kosugi (Beat on Beat inc.), Akinori Nishiyama, Keith Palmer
Recording Engineers: Stan Katayama, Masahiro Fukuhara, Hirokazu Akashi, Yoshitada Miya
Surround Mixed at: Wave Master Studio
Japanese Voices: Jun'ichi Kanemaru, Ryo Hirohashi, Nobutoshi Kanna, Kouji Yusa, Rumi Ochiai, Taiten Kusunoki, Taeko Kawata, Sayaka Aoki, Takashi Nagasako, Kenta Miyake, Yuki Masuda, Youko Teppouzuka, Etsuko Kozakura, Chikao Otsuka
Voice Recording Producer: Hiroyuki Inage (TOHOKUSHINSHA)
Voice Recording Director: Eriko Kimura (TOHOKUSHINSHA), Lani Minella
Recording: STUDIO UNI
English Voices: Ryan Drummond, William Corkery, Scott Dreier, David Humphrey, Lani Minella, Jon St. John, Jenny Douillard, Sarah Wulfeck, Marc Biagi, Bill Corkery, Emily Corkery, Deem Bristow
Voice Recording Editors: Rick Bowman, Lethal Sounds
Voice Files Operation: Attic Arcade Inc.
Assistant Producers: Takao Miyoshi, Kenjiro Morimoto
Product Support: Akinori Nishiyama, Yuji Uekawa, Masanobu Yamamoto
Multi Platform Library: Criterion Software Ltd., Render Ware
Middleware Support: CRI Middleware Co. Ltd., Masao Oshimi, Katsumi Yabuno, ADX, Sofdec

Sega Corporation

President: Hisao Oguchi
Consumer Division: Hideki Okamura, Masanao Maeda
Development Division: Toshihiro Nagoshi, Toshiro Nakayama, Yusuke Asano
Marketing: Naoko Ooka, Mariko Takeda, Hideki Youkaichiya
Public Relations: Yasushi Nagumo, Yoko Nagasawa
International Business: Tatsuyuki Miyazaki, Yusuke Suai
Creative Center: Takashi Ando, Kazuyoshi Hara, Ryo Suenaga, Tooru Sasaki, Yuki Kobayashi, Noriyuki Tarumi
Customer Relationship: Yutaka Shoji, Nobuyuki Inoue
TEST Department: Junichi Shimizu, Akira Nishikawa, Akira Terasawa, Satoshi Kuwano
QC Department: Kazuhiko Morii, Yuji Nakamura

Sega of America, Inc.

President and COO: Hideaki Irie
Localization Producer: Yosuke Moriya
Director of PD Osamu Shibamiya
Sr. Release Manager: Andrei Belkin
Product Manager: Noah Musler
Marketing Consultant: Lori Von Rueden
Advertising Manager: Teri Higgins
Creative Services: Arianne McCarthy
Public Relations Manager: Bret Blount
Director of QA: Deborah Kirkham
Offshore Project Manager: Shawn Dobbins

Sega Europe, Ltd.

President and COO: Naoya Tsurumi
Executive Vice President: Jin Shimazaki, Mike Sherlock
Senior Producer: Matt O'Driscol
Localization Producer: Kuniyo Matsumoto
Technical Producer: Elliot Martin
Marketing Director: Matthew Woodley
Marketing Manager: Gary Knight
Product Manager: Mathew Quaeck
Translators: Giuseppe Rizzo, Brigitte Nadesan, Marta Lois González, Zuzanna Zabkova
Quality Assurance: Darius Sadeghian, David Smith, Roy Boateng, Chris Geiles
Special Thanks: Shinobu Toyoda, Yukio Aoyama, Atsushi Kanno, Masaya Amano, Mizuki Hosoyamada, Sachiko Kawamura, Yasuko Maruyama, Tomomi Siverman, Mizuki FriedMan, ESP Guitars, LINE 6

Resources

Scans

Gamecube

US cover
US disc
EU cover
EU Player's Choice cover
EU disc
Heroes gc jap.jpg

JP front cover
Sh-jp-gc-box-back.jpg

JP back cover
JP disc

PS2

US cover
Heroes ps2 us gh front cover.jpg

US 'Greatest Hits' cover
US disc
EU cover
EU disc
EU 'Platinum Hits' disc
JP front cover
Heroes ps2 jp back cover.jpg

JP back cover
JP disc
AU 'Platinum Hits' cover
French cover
German cover
Spanish cover

Xbox

US cover
US disc
US 'Platinum Hits' cover
EU cover
EU disc
JP cover
JP disc
Italian cover
German cover
Australian cover
UK demo disc Cover
UK demo disc
Heroes xbx de classics cover.jpg

German 'Classics' cover
Australian 'Classics' cover
EU 'Classics' disc

PC

US disc 1
US disc 2
EU cover
EU disc
EU 'Sold Out' cover
EU 'Mad' cover

JP front cover
JP back cover

Artwork

Rouge heroes.png

Template:SHTeams Template:SonicGamecubeGames

Sonic the Hedgehog games for the following systems

2003 Sonic Heroes 2004 Sonic Mega Collection Plus 2005 Sonic Gems Collection | Shadow the Hedgehog 2006 Sonic Riders | Sega Genesis Collection 2008 Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity | Sonic Unleashed 2009 Sega Fun Pack: Sonic Mega Collection Plus & Shadow the Hedgehog

Demos Sonic Riders Trial Version

Prototypes Sonic Mega Collection Plus (prototype; 2004-08-18) | Sonic Riders (prototype; 2005-12-08)

	2003 Sonic Heroes 2004 Sonic Mega Collection Plus 2005 Shadow the Hedgehog \| 2 in 1 Combo Pack: Sonic Heroes/Super Monkey Ball Deluxe \| 2 in 1 Combo Pack: Sonic Mega Collection Plus/Super Monkey Ball Deluxe 2006 Sonic Riders Prototypes Sonic Heroes (Xbox E3 version) Unreleased Sonic Gems Collection \| Sonic the Hedgehog Extreme

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 The game introduces several new gameplay elements. Unlike past Sonic games, which have only one character playable at a time, the player is able to control three characters and switch between them freely, whilst the other two follow. Each character has a unique ability which it contributes to the team. There are three types of characters that are used in gameplay. One party member is a "fly" type, able to ascend short distances with the other party members. The second type is "speed." This character can move faster than the other two and has a homing attack. The final brand of hero is "power," the character whom has the most strength. Each ability is also represented in the interface by color; blue for speed, yellow for flight, and red for power.
-These groups of three characters are called "Teams" and the selection of characters in each team is pre-determined. It is not possible to mix and match characters between teams. Each team also has a Team Blast skill, which can be performed when the Team Blast meter becomes full. This can be achieved by performing such actions as destroying enemies or collecting rings. Each team follows a different, yet intertwined, storyline.
+These groups of three characters are called "Teams" and the selection of characters in each team is pre-determined. It is not possible to mix and match characters between teams. Each team also has a [[Team Blast]] skill, which can be performed when the Team Blast meter becomes full. This can be achieved by performing such actions as destroying enemies or collecting rings. Each team follows a different, yet intertwined, storyline.
 ===Teams===