January 6th 2004 was the day that Sonic Heroes released in the US. Seven days after it's Japanese release. I thought this was ground breaking in its day, and sixteen year old me could not get enough of this game. But little did I know, the majority of gamers had a different opinion. I wasn't aware of how much of a commercial failure this game actually was, or how many people disliked it.

In the early 2000's the Internet wasn't as mainstream or accessible as it is now. Wifi wasn't even a thing yet. Internet still ran off broadband, and video games were still reviewed and revealed in magazines. Now a days, a game will have a reputation and reviews two weeks before it's even released, so you will be told how to feel about a game long before you even get your hands on it. This was a blessing at the time.

I had no idea about all the negative feedback Sonic Heroes was receiving, and I loved every minute of the game. Back during this time Sonic games had a progressing story arch that continued from one title to the next, as characters grew and plots developed. It almost felt like each game was a season of an ongoing show that you played yourself. In this instance, Sonic Heroes was a sequel to Sonic Adventure 2. Shadow had lost his memory after the events of SA2 and was recovered by Eggman while being kept in suspended sleep, recovering from the battle with the Bio Lizard.

We find out in the Shadow game following Heroes, that Eggman was cloning shadow, and was also working on building Eggman Land. Which is later finished and seen in Sonic Colors. But that's just some of the story progression and foreshadowing these games told. Getting back on track, Sonic Heroes has four individual and unique story modes that developed the games story. Team Sonic with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Team Rose with Amy, Big, and Cream. Team Dark with Shadow, Rouge, and Omega. And(the real selling point) Team Chaotix with Espeo, Vector, and Charmy Bee. This makes 12 playable characters with their own developing story lines.

The object is to(obviously) clear the stages and progress to the end of each teams campaign where all of the cutscenes climatically come together at the end of each scenario. But to access the games fifth and final story mode players have to acquire all seven chaos emeralds within each teams story mode. This makes for a ton of replayability. Or as others like to call it, backtracking

The story this time is that Eggman has sent out invitations to each of the four teams as a challenge to face his newest "Ultimate Creation". So the teams set off to stop him. Well, except team Dark. Shadow just wants answers about why he exists, and he thinks Eggman created him as an android. Subsequently, this also becomes Shadows primary gimmick for about three games. About halfway through each campaign you start realizing that the games real plot is becoming more and more about something else, and less about Eggman.

Apon collecting all emeralds for each campaign(28 in total), and finishing each story's final boss you unlock the true ending. This is when everything hits the fan as you realize a vengeful Metal Sonic was pulling the strings the entire time, as Eggman never actually sent out any invitations to the heroes. And in turn bringing all of the world's strongest fighters, and all the chaos emeralds right to him. In which Eggman temporarily aligns himself with the freedom fighters to stop Metal. But as Metal Sonic absorbs the power from the emeralds he transforms into the Metal Overlord.

This turns into a five stage boss fight where each team has to fight the overpowered metal monstrosity. And lastly being taken down in a final fight with the team of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. But in this battle Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles have harnessed the power of the chaos emeralds together to ultimately stop the Metal Overlord. This captivated me almost more than any Sonic game before it. Plus the music in this game is phenomenal. The final boss fight music is on par with SA2's. I couldn't wait to start the next teams story to find out what happened next. To top it off, this game was hard. Alot of the deaths felt cheap due to bad camera angles and overly sensitive controls, but also some outright brutal bosses and levels as well.

Each of the four teams of three consist of a speed character, a flyer, and a power character. Some characters had unique abilities to boot, such as Espio turning invisible and Omega shooting lasers. Characters could be seamlessly swapped out on the fly. There is also a power meter that gradually fills when collecting rings, which allows the use of a unique ultimate attack for each team. It basically whipes out all enemies on screen, with an added effect afterwards. The best of which is Team Rose, which showers rings depending on the amount of enemies are destroyed, allowing you to fill your meter quickly for another attack.

More times than not I found myself losing lives to blindly pit falling off camera, or from the slippery controls I mentioned before. But this didn't tarnish my experience. It was something I had grown accustom to up unto this point in Sonic games. It was basically just a learning curve that I had came to master by now. There are a wide variety of worlds this time around. Varying between a beach, a haunted house, a jungle, the typical casino land, and even cyber space. Occasionally you will run into one of the other team's and be forced to battle it out. This is also part of what ties the games storylines together.

To this day I still do not see why this game has had such a bad reputation. I sometimes think that this was ahead of it's time. This was a generation where we were stubborn gamers that wanted either next level FPS games, or the next open world GTA experience. I feel that if this game was to get a remaster today or even a simple ROM port, it would do incredibly well. Most of the world just wasn't ready for it then. I certainly was though, and I'm happy I was there for it. As far as 3d Sonic games go, this is amongst the best of the best for me. 

I'm sure one day this will get a second chance. It could be sooner than later, seeing as SEGA is starting to remaster some of their other past titles. Colors & Panzer Dragoon just to name a couple. And I really hope that they do. Along with this game in particular and not to mention nearly every game in their Dreamcast library, there are so many IP's deserving to see the lime light one more time.