Sonic Heroes Will Feature Unique Character Abilities, Bigger Stages Than SA2

We now know what Sonic Heroes looks like, but how does it actually play? Well, it's peak E3 season right now and lots of gaming websites are sharing their opinions on the game, with a lot more information on how the three-way team system is supposed to work.

According to a preview by Kikizo, "you control Sonic, Knuckles and Tails simultaneously, with the heroes often speeding along side by side - although one character is always under 'primary' control. As far as we know, the characters never split up and leave each other."

Each character in the team has their own unique abilities, which can be combined to create even more interesting styles of attack and travel. Players can swap between Sonic, Tails and Knuckles at will by pressing the X button, but there will sometimes be scripted areas which automatically swap you out for a specific character.

Doing this is important (besides wanting to simply play as your favourite character), because some levels will have hazards and puzzles that can only be cleared using a certain hero's moves. "For example, some areas may be behind a solid rock-type surface that only Knuckles can destruct, while others are so high that only Tails can fly the three heroes up there. It is much, much better than in 16-BIT Sonic 2 , where Tails merely 'followed' Sonic pointlessly, often dying, due to massive lack of intelligence."

It sounds like even the formation of the team will change depending on the character you are playing at the time and the moves you make. Here's Kikizo on the specifics:

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Sonic's advantage is obviously speed. When he's the main player, you'll find the action is at its fastest -  miraculously, the two characters following you also pick up speed when Sonic is in control - perhaps because Knuckles and Tails fall into Sonic's slipstream, to become more aerodynamic. Or perhaps, because Sonic Team said so.

Knuckles has the ability to glide, but this time what happens is that Sonic and Tails glide with him, as the three characters join hands in a skydiving formation. Awesomely, when Knuckles is in control, he can pick up Sonic and Tails, and literally throw them both simultaneously, to form a two-speedball homing attack against enemies! He can also do this in mid-air, after jumping - which will no doubt come in useful at several stages during the game.

Tails, meanwhile, has the ability to fly once again, - and you guessed it - automatically he carries the other two with him. Tails also has a homing attack similar to Knuckles - except when he throws Sonic and Tails, it's a longer range attack, and they both come back like two boomerangs. On GameCube, the B button is used for actions such as homing attacks, and the A button is to jump.

The opening stage, which is the area Kikizo played, was apparently very fast to play through with the action being "amazingly fluent, fast and seamless... levels are many times bigger than your average Sonic Adventure 2 level. They are huge - but at the same time, quite varied." The preview mentions that some stage elements have changed to consider the three-character play, with classic loop-de-loops adapted to include three separate tracks for each hero to run around.

Overall, it sounds like Kikizo really enjoyed what they played! "Graphically, Sonic Heroes is beautiful. The game is so fast that some kind of technical compromise would have been understandable - but there are no such compromises. The 3D graphics are very solid and tangible, and the frame rate never drops below sixty even when there's loads  happening on screen... Yuji Naka and the Sonic Team will definitely be onto a winner with Sonic Heroes, but ultimately the success of the game depends on how well the subsequent levels are designed."

We'll share more on Sonic Heroes as soon as we can spot it!