is a 2003 platform game developed by Sonic Team USA and published by Sega for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Windows. The player controls teams of three Sonic characters and navigates levels while collecting rings, defeating robots, and avoiding obstacles. They swap between characters, who each have unique abilities, to overcome obstacles. Sonic Heroes downplays the action-adventure and exploration-based gameplay of previous 3D Sonic games in favor of linear gameplay similar to the Sega Genesis Sonic games.
Sonic Team began working on Heroes following the completion of Sonic Adventure 2 (2001); Takashi Iizuka and Yuji Naka reprised their roles as director and producer. Heroes was the first multi-platform Sonic game, developed following Sega's discontinuation of the Dreamcast and transition to third-party development. Iizuka opted to design Heroes as a standalone game rather than a sequel to Adventure 2 to appeal to a broader audience. Sonic Team revived elements not seen since the Genesis Sonic games, such as special stages and the Chaotix characters.
Sega released Sonic Heroes in Japan in December 2003 and worldwide in early 2004. It received mixed reviews; critics praised the visuals, sound, fast gameplay, and similarities to the Genesis games, but were divided over the team-based gameplay and criticized the camera and voice acting. Some deemed it an improvement over the previous 3D Sonic games, but others felt it failed to address their problems. Heroes was a commercial success; it sold 3.41 million copies worldwide, and was the bestselling 3D Sonic game until Sonic Frontiers (2022).
Gameplay
Sonic Heroes is a 3D platformer. While the preceding Sonic Adventure games for the Dreamcast featured elements of action-adventure and exploration, Sonic Heroes focuses on linear platforming and action, similar to the Sonic the Hedgehog games for the Sega Genesis. The story is also simpler than those of the Sonic Adventure games. In it, series antagonist Doctor Eggman threatens to use a weapon to destroy the world and sends out legions of robots. Four groups of three characters from the franchise's history separately team up to put a stop to Eggman's plans. The player navigates using one of the teams, who serve as the player characters. The teams include Team Sonic, which consists of series regulars Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, and Knuckles the Echidna; Team Dark, which includes Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat from Sonic Adventure 2, and new character E-123 Omega (considered a spiritual successor to E-102 Gamma from Sonic Adventure); Team Rose, which has Amy Rose, Cream the Rabbit and Cheese from Sonic Advance 2 (2002), and Big the Cat from Sonic Adventure; and Team Chaotix, consisting of Espio the Chameleon, Charmy Bee, and Vector the Crocodile from Knuckles' Chaotix (1995). Each team has its own campaign, called a story. Each also represents a different difficulty. Amy's team, for example, is designed for beginners, while Shadow's is aimed at more experienced players.
The game begins with a tutorial followed by fourteen normal levels and seven boss fights. Gameplay is generally similar in each story: the player must race through levels to advance the story and collect rings for protection and lives. Level themes vary from beaches to casinos. When the player reaches the end of a level, they are graded based on their performance; an "A" rank is highest, while an "E" is lowest. Enemy robots are scattered around levels and must be defeated by jumping on them or other means of attack. The level designs differ slightly between each story. Espio, Charmy, and Vector's levels are distinguished from the other teams' because they are mission-based, requiring players to fulfill a specific objective, like collecting items, to clear a level.
Teams contain three character types: Speed (such as Sonic), Flight (such as Tails), and Power (such as Knuckles), which the player toggles between. Speed characters can perform attacks that allow them to lock onto enemies and objects, triangle jump between adjacent walls, dash across trails of rings, and can form whirlwinds to climb up poles. Flight characters can temporarily fly and attack airborne enemies, while Power characters can break through objects and glide on gusts of air. By acquiring power cores or reaching checkpoints, characters can level up, becoming more efficient when fighting enemies, though these level up items are lost if the player loses a life.
By collecting keys hidden within levels and reaching the end of a level without getting hit, players can enter special stages. In special stages, players dash across a tube, collecting spheres containing boost power while avoiding obstacles. There are two types of special stages: Bonus Challenge and Emerald Challenge. Bonus Challenges are optional and award the player with extra lives. Emerald Challenges task the player with catching a Chaos Emerald before it disappears.
If players collect all seven Emeralds and clear each story, an additional Last Story is unlocked. The Last Story reveals the plot was orchestrated by Metal Sonic, Eggman's top enforcer and a robotic copy of Sonic, in an effort to destroy his namesake. Outside the main game, players can unlock promotional trailers to view and music to listen to. The game also features a split screen multiplayer mode, in which two players can race or battle. Challenges in the multiplayer mode include kart racing and collecting as many rings as possible.
Plot Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles receive a letter from Doctor Eggman, telling them that in three days, he will launch his Egg Fleet in an attempt to take over the world, challenging them to stop him. Rouge infiltrates one of Eggman's bases, where she is surprised to discover Shadow, last seen falling from the Space Colony ARK, asleep in a pod. When she awakens him and one of Eggman's robots, E-123 Omega, from their stasis, the three reluctantly agree to work together, with Omega wanting revenge for being locked up and Shadow, who has amnesia, wanting answers regarding who he is. Amy helps Big and Cream track down Big's pet, Froggy, and Cheese's brother, Chocola Chao, who were both reportedly kidnapped by Sonic. The Chaotix Detective Agency (Vector, Espio, and Charmy) receive a job offer from a mysterious client, where they execute a series of tasks to prove themselves.
The four teams chase down Eggman through various zones, crossing paths with each other at several points, until they all end up on the Egg Fleet. There, Rouge discovers an armada of Shadow Androids, wondering if their Shadow is just one of them too. The Chaotix end up rescuing their mystery client, revealed to be Eggman. He explains that he was locked up and betrayed by Metal Sonic, now going by "Neo Metal Sonic", who had adopted the guise of Eggman and taken control of the Egg Fleet to prove himself superior to Sonic. Using the data he collected from observing all the teams in action, as well as the power of Chaos copied from Froggy and Chocola, he transforms into his ultimate state, the "Metal Overlord". Using the power of the Chaos Emeralds all the teams had collected, they work together to take down Metal, with Sonic turning Super (accompanied by Tails and Knuckles) to defeat him. After Metal Sonic is defeated and reverts to his original form, everyone goes their separate ways, while the Chaotix chase after Eggman, demanding payment from him.
Development
Sonic Heroes was developed by the 19-member Sonic Team USA in San Francisco to commemorate the Sonic series' 12th anniversary. Development was led by producer Yuji Naka and director/lead designer Takashi Iizuka, and lasted 20 months. The majority of the development team had worked on previous Sonic games. Iizuka did not want to make a sequel to Sonic Adventure 2 (2001), as he worried it would only appeal to Sonic fans. Interested in returning to gameplay similar to the Genesis games, Sonic Team decided to design Sonic Heroes so casual players not familiar with Sonic could adapt. Iizuka said the development period of Sonic Heroes was the most stressful of his career because of deadlines and Sega management. A fellow designer became ill, so he worked relentlessly, lost , and suffered from insomnia. The deadline became so severe that programmers were ordered to only fix bugs that affected progression in the game. Any bugs that had little to no effect on progression were to be considered "not bugs".
Sonic Heroes was the first multi-platform Sonic game: it was developed for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 (PS2), and Xbox.Interview section. Unlike the Sonic Adventure games, made using proprietary software, Sonic Team partnered with Criterion Software to use the RenderWare game engine so the game could be programmed and ported with ease to each platform. Though Sonic Team was able to transfer some textures and models from the Sonic Adventure games into Sonic Heroes, most of their work started from scratch. Sonic Team found challenges in working with the Xbox and PS2, platforms with which they had little experience. The content in all versions is the same, but the PS2 version runs at 30 frames per second (FPS) in contrast to the other versions running at 60 FPS. Sega's Noah Musler explained that running the PS2 version at 60 FPS would have caused performance problems. Iizuka also noted the system is less powerful than the GameCube and Xbox. Iizuka and Naka decided against including console-exclusive content so players could have the same experience regardless of console.
Sonic Team was interested in making Sonic Heroess narrative feature characters teaming up to overcome evil, rather than Sonic Adventures approach of individual character stories. This led to the conception of the "team action" concept. Iizuka stated Sonic Team had a considerable amount of freedom in designing the game due to its new scope. The Chao-raising system—a staple of the Sonic Adventure games—was removed because Sonic Team feared it would disrupt the pace. To improve replay value, the grading system was made more difficult. The special stages from the 2D games were revived to "refresh players' minds" and change the pace. Player reactions to previous games influenced the design; for example, the team did not include modes like Big's fishing from Sonic Adventure and Tails' shooting from Sonic Adventure 2 after both were criticized.
The Chaotix, who had appeared in the 1995 spinoff game Knuckles' Chaotix, were revived for Sonic Heroes because Sonic Team thought they were unique and had never used them. Iizuka said he did not consider the Chaotix in Sonic Heroes the same team from Knuckles' Chaotix, claiming to have created new characters using the same designs from 1995. The game marks the debut of E-123 Omega in the Sonic series. Sonic Team wanted to include as many teams as possible, but time constraints and a desire to keep the gameplay balanced prevented this. The game features several animated cutscenes produced by Vision Scape Interactive, who had also developed the prototype game Sonic Extreme. Jun Senoue composed the majority of the soundtrack. His hard rock band Crush 40 performed the main theme, "Sonic Heroes", and the final boss theme, "What I'm Made Of". The theme songs for each team were performed by Ted Poley of Danger Danger, Tony Harnell, Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo, Julien-K, and Gunnar Nelson of Nelson. Iizuka said that the intention was for the music "to return to the roots of the Sonic experience" and be exciting and fast-paced.