Sonic Heroes (2003 Video Game) User Reviews

Sonic Heroes, the Game That Brought Me Into the Series!

[mephiles_fan2007 · 8/10 · 24 April 2009]

Sonic Heroes is a fast action-adventure platform game. The game is underrated, in my opinion it one of the best 3D Sonic games to date. This game brought me into the Sonic franchise. I'm not just saying its great just because it was the first Sonic game I got into. I love it because of level design, characters, music, and gameplay. The game is designed like the 2D iterations of Sonic. You play through 2 acts of a level, have a boss after each act, then move on to the next one. You play as 3 characters all in one team which is an interesting choice.

You play as 1 of 4 teams; Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose, and Team Chaotix. As Team Sonic you play as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles trying to stop Dr. Eggman. As Team Dark you play as Shadow, Rouge, and newcomer Omega each with different goals. Shadow lost his memory and want to know who he is, Rouge wants a supposed treasure belonging to Eggman, and Omega wants revenge on Eggman. As Team Rose you play as Amy, Cream, and Big who are trying to find Sonic. The last team is Team Chaotix who are comprised of Espio, Charmy, and Vector.

The game is fun on the Gamecube, yeah I hate the PS2 version. It controls well except for some issues, the Team system works, and gameplay is fun. Also there are not a lot of cutscenes which add to the fun of the gameplay. The game feels like the classic 2D games and is overall great. I give it an 8 out of 10.

Sonic games are about speed.

[Jason_VoorheesIMDb · 8/10 · 10 December 2013]

This is a really good game but the problem is this: Sonic games are about speed. Some Sonic fans say it's about platforming & exploring rather than speed. I don't like to insult people but to the Sonic fans who say the games aren't about speed. Are you complete f***ing morons? If they focus on platforming & exploring speed needs to be removed or else you get Sonic Heroes as a result. Sonic Heroes is designed for you to gain your speed very easily and to be able to keep it but the levels aren't designed for that. Sega & Sonic Team just don't know how to please Sonic fans anymore because some say they're about platforming & exploring while some other say they're about speed. How are Sonic Team & Sega suppose to know which style to choose? Even if they give the ones who say it's about platforming & exploring they'll complain that it's not a Sonic game cause it was too slow. Pick a side and stick with it you jackasses. If you think Sonic games are about platforming & exploring play Sonic Heroes. If platforms give you a boner you'll be hard as a brick wall very quickly.

Should get more praise

[fsimpson-23439 · 8/10 · 26 February 2017]

After SEGA discontinued the Dreamcast, the Sonic Advance trilogy was amazing in its own right. What we were missing was a 3D Sonic game. Enter Sonic Heroes.

The levels and bosses aren't the best in the series (especially Robot Carnival and Robot Storm and Egg Emperor) but they are not the worst either. Special mention to Metal Madness/Metal Overlord.

So at the beginning of the game you pick a team with 3 characters and 3 abilities: speed/power/flight and all the teams have a different story. Team Sonic find a letter saying they have 72 hours before Eggman unleashes a Metal Sonic device on the world. Team Dark have their own goals. Shadow (He is back somehow) wants to know what happened to him, Rouge wants to find Eggman's treasure and E-123 Omega wants to kill Eggman for locking him up in a room. Team Rose consist of Big, Cream and Amy and they are looking for Froggy and Chocoloa, Cheese's twin brother. Team Chaotix go looking to solve a mystery and get money doing so. Metal Sonic interferes sometimes, being Eggman's imposter.

So overall while the story, levels and bosses in this game aren't the best, the team mechanic and gameplay are amazing. One idea is to bring back the team mechanic back and make it flow better. Still a underrated gem from the 2000's

Not Too Bad!

[soroielijah · 7/10 · 24 July 2016]

So, let's start out with what the game does wrong. It's kind of unfamiliar. Certain aspects of the game go unexplained and are kind of dumb, such as the weird Power Type move where all three of the team members glide by holding hands in a triangle. Also, Team Dark has that edgy feel that Shadow The Hedgehog holds throughout all of it. It doesn't effect the game play, but the team's beginning and end cut scenes are so edgy that you could cut yourself on it. Like, tone it down, Sega. Also, The special moves are so all over the place that you can barely tell what's going on. In fact, the entire game is rather extravagant. Aside from that, it's a pretty solid game. Every character has something specifically made for them, so it actually makes a difference which team you choose. While the levels seem to be random and all over the place, you can appreciate them for the variety they can have. The game controls pretty decently, and I like the little tweaks to make the game more interesting. Level ups to power a character, and giving the characters extra moves in case their teammates are gone are pretty cool aspects. Graphics are decent, considering it had improved from its last game, Sonic Adventure 2. Overall, I'd call it a pretty good game.

Not as great as the other sonic games but still fun.

[moviepyro · 19 September 2005]

Sonic adventure 1 and 2 are two of my favorite games. amazing sets with literally lighting fast game-play with an interesting story made for a great game. Sonic Heroes, I have to admit, is a step in the wrong direction when they really just should of made another sonic adventure, but its still pretty fun. In the the other games where you could go so fast that you could finish the level in just a few minutes, the levels weren't short, you just went really really fast. Here you don't go as fast and with the constant switching of the cast you usually take about 10 minutes or more with a level and the game-play at points isn't always fun as it should be.

The Team game-play is still pretty cool and fun even though at times a little slow, and the levels are consistently detailed and vibrant. The system of four teams to fit the gamer is a good idea, though just a single gamer probably won't want to beat four teams, but is required for the last stage. And all the levels being the same for all four teams with mild variations is just ridiculous and lazy on behalf of the creators. And the mostly cheesy comments from all the characters don't help. AND, it doesn't have a chao garden.

The songs in this game aren't nearly up to par with the other games, with the exception of the last song. This game does have a great array of cgi movie cut-scenes. But what really saves the game is Last Stage, even though you have to beat all four teams and get all chaos emeralds to unlock it, but by the end it's more then worth it. I'll try not to spoil it entirely but I will say it has a cool twist, the return of Super Sonic (but it would've been cool to have Tails and Knuckles go Super too) an awesome movie scene, a great song, "What I'm Made Of", which is up there with "Live and Learn" from Sonic 2, REALLY COOL and fun game-play that'll make you want to play again which overall makes up mostly for the rest of the games mistakes. My only complaint about the last stage is they shouldn't make you go through all four teams to unlock it.

Overall it's still a fun game but they really should've just made another sonic adventure. 8/10

Welp, it's OK

[diegolightyear · 7/10 · 24 June 2022]

This game is up and down for me. It taked me a lot of time to accept this game. The history is meh, playable characters are OK but there are a lot of bugs and bad physics.

A One-Of-A-Kind Sonic Game

[roocadillac85 · 10/10 · 6 February 2016]

When the Dreamcast was discontinued in 2001, I wasn't much into video games or consoles like I was years earlier. This was until I read game articles in Wikipedia, and later bought an Xbox 360. Because the Sonic Heroes game is created for an original Xbox, my Xbox 360 needed a special hard drive to play it.

When I began playing the game, one thing unique about it is that, I get to control a team of three characters instead of a single character. I find this a little unusual at first but I still enjoy the game. Like good Sonic games, it has nice graphics and music.

Although various other Sonic games have been available when I got Sonic Heroes, I prefer this one for a reason. Sonic Heroes is the last Sonic game where Tails is voiced by a boy (William Corkery). In games released after this, Tails would be voiced by three whatever they are which is kinda sad. So here is perhaps the last game of the series where things are done the appropriate way.

Good game, however it does not stand out as the definitive sonic game at all

[EzioMonty117 · 6/10 · 25 January 2016]

Sonic Heroes came out in 2003 and is the possible follow up to Sonic Adventure 2, the game is not bad, but not great either, the game is in the middle. The game has many design flaws and glitches but somehow keep it fresh for it's target audience: Sonic fans. Here's why this game is OK The story is OK, the story starts depending which Team you choose, let's start With the obvious one, Sonic. Sonic and his friends Tails and Knuckles gets a Message from Dr Eggman that he is gonna take over the world once again and destroy them, Sonic and the others Accept the Message and goes on a mission to destroy all his robots and take him Down, while Team Dark on the other hand, takes a Whole New route, Rouge the Bat locates Dr Eggman's Secret base and finds Shadow who somehow survived his fall in SA2, but one of Eggman's creations, E123 Omega tries to kill Shadow but somehow fails because Rouge decides to destroy Eggman With both of them, Shadow has amnesia and Omega has been locked in the base for many years and you know the rest.

Team Rose's story is bad. Amy Rose, Cream and Big the Cat need to track Down Sonic so she can marry him and receive Froggy and Chocoloa that he stole from them which isn't true, Eggman did it, and they stop him. Team Chaotix is good, BTW this team is from the Sega 32x game Knuckles Chaotix. Vector, Charmy and Espio get a walkie-talkie and starts a Journey to track Down Eggman to receive Money and get Rich, of course when they finally track him, because all the other Eggman's where robot duplicates, he is being locked inside, and he tells them that Metal Sonic did all this, and every team must stop Metal Sonic before he destroys the world.

Enough of the story, the gameplay is a 3d platformer With the formula of a 2d Sonic game, 2 stages then a Boss fight With Eggman. A New feature for this game is the Team switching mechanic, and it's pretty good, it's useful for the platforming of the game. The platforming is a lot of fun but can be frustrating due to it's tiresome design.

The Graphics are detailed and beautiful, some of the best looking Sonic games in my opinion. The Controls are good but sometimes, they can be slippery, but that's pretty rare. The Levels themselves are pretty good but some are annoying like Casino Park and Final Fortress.

The difficulty for each Team is OK, sometimes the Levels take too long especially when you're playing Team Dark and Team Sonic, but all teams are a lot of fun.

Then there's the problems. The game's special stages are horrible, as the Control in these stages are unbearable and it's Waste of time. The game is full of glitches, like characters flipping out, Moon jump and dying for no reason and the design is clunky and some of the bosses were too easy, but that's all Sonic Heroes is an OK game With great Graphics, fun gameplay and btw a pretty decent soundtrack, but the story, glitches, design, Special stages and the overall game is not that good, i Recommend it only for the die hard fans of Sonic. OK game

6/10

The Final Gem In The Sonic Series

[dragbehindskunkfu · 10/10 · 14 November 2016]

Sonic the Hedgehog made his first video game appearance in 1991. His first video game was such a success that Sega made him their mascot. The character would appear in more installments.

Although Sega quit making consoles in 2001, Sonic would continue to appear in games played on other platforms. And the game Sonic Heroes marked the beginning of the period.

Besides being the first Sonic game released in Sega's post-hardware years, Sonic Heroes is also something I would like to call the final gem in the Sonic series. In other words, it is the last game in the franchise where things are done pretty much within tradition. From Sonic Adventure to this game, the fox's speaking role was done by little lads. But in games following Sonic Heroes, old long-haired undesirables stole that role and (perhaps) to no end which kinda saddens me. If the character in a video game, TV show, or film is a young boy, it would be really nice to reflect that character by using a young boy actor to do his words. I can only hope Sega would understand that.

Anyway. everything else about the game such the music, graphics, and gameplay, their just as good as any Sonic game in Sonic's 3D era. Again, this is the final gem in the Sonic series.

Sonic the Hedgehog should stay in 2D

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 5/10 · 10 April 2005]

This game was an improvement over the awful Sonic Adventure 2, but no by much. It has the potential to be more fun but is still crippled by horrible gameplay and bad camera problems. The switching between 3 characters, who each have 3 different abilities, became very annoying and the levels were all too alike and just seemed to be vaguely recycled levels of the 2 previous games.

As much as I liked the original Sonic Adventure I have to say that Sonic in 3D just doesn't work and doesn't feel right. The original Sonic platformers, plus the new Sonic Advance games are what the blue hedgehog is all about and it's worth investing your time in them if you're a serious Sonic Fan. Leave stuff like this game to the kiddies.

A Classic In The Sonic Series

[jimmydragtron · 10/10 · 11 June 2016]

Over a decade ago, a played an Animaniacs video game for the SNES. The game is a side-scroller (as with most games in the early-1990s). But instead of controlling a single character, I get to play a team of three characters. And as long as the one I control does not die, the other two will be fine.

And when I started playing Sonic Heroes, I was amazed to relived that beautiful Animaniacs experience. The difference between this game and the aforementioned one is that Sonic Heroes is a 3D game, and it has more features. As with the Animaniacs game, I get to play three characters. Each character has a set of moves for certain situations, and I could switch between them during a game.

Because of its uniqueness, I would consider Sonic Heroes a classic in the Sonic series. The games' developers perhaps wanted to try something different by having the player to play a group instead of an individual character.

I think i have gone blind!

[bfp06-1 · 1/10 · 18 September 2006]

OK.... sonic was good..... 10 years ago. This is basically a tool to test whether children have epilepsy. level one of sonic hero's almost drove me to the edge of insanity as the colour brightness and speed can only be compared to a night at the sydney fireworks display mixed with an episode of pokemon.

Graphics: OK, of what you can make out apart from the blinding colours and awfully crude textures it looks rather basic, the PS2 version is crap.

Gameplay: Push forward..... thats about it.

Longevity: You might get a couple of minutes before you black out, those 2 minutes where spent on the menus.

Music: Well what where you expecting a powerful orchestral score? no way, you thought the visuals were painful? well the soundtrack is there to make the experience all worth while! ever fancied hearing patriotic garbage being spilled out by a blue hedgehog and an 8 year old squirrel?and to accompany the wonderful voice acting we have a dreadful synthesised score that will make you run out and by the soundtrack.

Overall: Sega, well done! you have obviously given up on making decent games like jet set radio, you have decided to make a half baked pile of horse crap.....

The best video game ever!

[Irishchatter · 10/10 · 31 May 2015]

I honestly don't give a toss on what people saying this is a crap game, its bloody brilliant like! The voice actors rocked as usual, the storyline was spot on and of course, the soundtrack just is completely epic! It was in fact hard near the end, whereas you had to defeat Eggman in his destructible robot form. I wish Super Sonic made that transformation at that time because I kept falling off the edges and it doesn't really whatever team you're playing as, you would still fail.

Thanks to youtube years later, I finally found out how to destroy him and managed to find out what happened in the end in each teams.

I have to say the graphics, scenery views and imagery were fantastic. I find this game is pretty much like the games after that. Like SEGA probably copied it for the other games for example:- Sonic Generations,Sonic Colours, Sonic Riders, Sonic Unleashed and Sonic:Lost World. That's why in my opinion, were successful! I just will love this game forever, it was part of my childhood, hands down! <3

Hey! No more spoilers!

[ibeepinrock · 10/10 · 10 June 2006]

Yeah, the game isn't perfect, but there's just no pleasing some people.

I've been an all time fan of Sonic, and I found this game really entertaining. The cameras are no where near as bad as people claim. The team gameplay was quite good(a change form tails getting lost all of the time on Sonic 2). The music was just all electric, now that rocks! The character voices were just perfectly fitting. This is (in my opinion) the best recent Sonic game.(okay, things do occasionally get corny)

I was totally new to the 3D Sonic world as I never owned a Dreamcast and didn't know anyone who owned one. So in my case, the new gameplay took some time to get used to(I don't know how many times I died on the first level then). After that it was way cool, computer games are about having fun. (oh, and if you pay attention, Shadow smiles. no, really!)

For young children or easily-pleased Sonic fans only.

[StormSworder · 6 November 2005]

Sonic the Hedgehog is arguably the game which put Sega, and consoles in general, on the road to success. The Sonic series reached its peak with games like Sonic 3/Sonic 3 and Knuckles. When I owned a Megadrive/Genesis, I was addicted to the 2-D Sonic platform games to the point of obsession. Sadly, I can't say the 3-D Sonic games have had quite the same effect on me. Sonic Adventure had some great 3-D Sonic levels, but the best parts of Sonic Adventure 2 are the mech-suit levels. Those two games have great replay value, however, and I was hoping the same would be true for Sonic Heroes. Alas. The main problem with Heroes is the fact that you're constantly switching between characters, and when you're in a race against time this becoming infuriating, especially as the characters don't always seem to switch to the one you intended. The levels range from the tedious (you spend a long time repeatedly jumping on bosses, or waiting for little spaceships to rise so you can throw one of the characters at them again) to the frustrating (constantly changing camera angles and controls, coupled with the need to change characters, make things like escaping rising flames a total impossibility). You spend a long time just watching the characters running along, or circling loops, whilst you just sit there with your finger on the forward button, and so the game soon becomes a total chore. Certainly the graphics look great, but I've seen so many games with oh-so-wonderful graphics I've become de-sensitised. Sound-wise, the music serves its purpose, and the voices are amusing. But the Sonic series is still churning out references to eggs. Alright, Dr Robotnik is fat and bald! We get the joke! For crying out loud change the record! To sum up, if you're a die-hard fan on Sonic you might get something out of this, but you'd be better off waiting and seeing if Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 are re-released.

Major design flaw in this game

[spirofantasio · 5/10 · 2 February 2008]

This is the first time I have played a Sonic game and I have not been disappointed. Well, almost not...

This is an exciting game with lots of combinations which teach the value of teamwork: for instance, get Tails to bring down a flying enemy and then get Knuckles to smash him to bits. Lovely, fast-pacing graphics accompany fast and furious situations.

My one complaint is the absence of any visible kind of Save option. There are obstacles in this game which are very difficult to overcome and it takes a lot of practice in order to do. Stage 4 of Team Sonic, for example, ends with you having to climb up a fast-flowing lava pit. If you die and wear out all available lives then you have to go through the whole Stage from the beginning, which can get repetitive and tedious.

It's not as if there is no time to save a game. There are times when the characters can get a respite so a game save is possible, and if most games such as Doom and American McGee's Alice can provide Save options for whenever a player chooses then I do not see why Sonic Heroes should be the exception.

Major design flaw here, Sega. It does not tempt me to buy more of your games.

Sonic Heroes - Awful(if you use Team Sonic)

[seananmcgoldrick · 5/10 · 7 July 2012]

Sonic Heroes was okay..... But it had some glitches and was a bit difficult.

Some of the boss levels were too hard! The Egg Hawk Boss level is difficult, as it will blow you away constantly if you get too close.

Why did PEGI rate it 3+? It's too difficult for a 3 year old, and they would start throwing a tantrum because they can't do the levels.

If you want an EASIER game, I'd pick a game from Mario. Like Super Mario Galaxy, or the sequel.

The Grinding Levels were too hard as I kept getting hit by the train. Also, I couldn't walk the level without falling off.

I didn't enjoy the Power Plant levels, because there are turrets everywhere and because of the lava rising, the game kept glitching and I kept dying.

So, in conclusion, I'll give this a 5 out of 10. I didn't really enjoy this game, it was pretty disappointing

Worst Sonic Game in Years

[LucaElliot123 · 1/10 · 15 July 2014]

Sonic Heroes is a horrible-2D-animated game made while Sonic Team was on crack they made this piece of crap seriously this game has bad graphics, horrible gameplay, bad control-accuracy and horrendously-stupid storyline and some funny cutscenes but mostly unfunny due to how awful this game is.

The game starts with Sonic running around a desert-type place, then Tails gives him a card to come and defeat Eggman. Then it's up to them to do it and defeat eggman. What a sh** load of f***. This game has a lot of plot holes, no required-possibilities.

I hate this stupidity, awfulness and unfunny game, worst sonic game in years.