I recently got a hand-me-down Steamdeck which already had a GameCube emulator installed on it, and that’s prompted me to start building a list of Gamecube games I want to revisit (or even play for the first time) a lot more given both Nintendo and the 2nd/3rd party devs they worked with seem to be very awkward when it comes to reissuing games from that period. The very first port of call that came to my mind was Sonic Heroes, a game I have a lot of fond memories of but which I’ve not actually played since, well, since it was the latest 3D Sonic game back in t'day. I've really wanted to revisit the game ever since the start of my 2nd wave of Sonic obsession some years ago because it's one I have deeply fond memories of, but which has become a bit of a forgotten entry in the recent times (the fact that there's no reissue probably contributes to it). It was already a game that divided opinions to begin with thanks to its gameplay changes and its intentional simplification compared to the preceding Adventures (I've always seen this as Sonic Team's way of bringing back the 2D Sonic experience into the new 3D world, with multiple routes and two-stage zones and all), and while it's far from the only time that I've had Hot Takes surrounding this franchise, it has honestly been too long for me to really say confidently whether my opinion would hold now.
The tl;dr is that it’s been interesting to go back to Heroes and to recognise how the issues that it had back in the day feel so much worse now that the Sonic series has evolved and I genuinely cannot remember being this frustrated at times at the game when I was younger (I had forgotten how fiddly homing attacks were prior to a clear UI lock on) - but more importantly, there's so much in this game that's legitimately great that really makes it stand out as its own Sonic experience and which barely gets a nod now and I felt like noting down my personal thoughts about it (not a review). I didn't intend to talk so much about this that I'd have to hide it all behind a cut, but as I'm flying solo instead of being helped by a team who balance my weaknesses, this wall of text is what you get.
Take the level design, for example. Not perfect from a gameplay perspective as you can very well make the argument that the levels are too long and at times very mean with the checkpoints, but the actual design of it all is absolutely top notch. Each level is an impressive set piece in its own right and so many of them feel completely unique thematically, something that's even more evident now as the series has began to embrace its own tropes more. Rail Canyon/Bullet Station are where the adventure truly ramps up and my playthrough of them with each team has given me the exact same "woah" vibes, Frog Jungle/Lost Forest really feel like a jungle coming to life rather than just the usual platforming routes with extra green on top, and the spooky puzzle-filled castle vibe of Hang Castle/Mystic Mansion genuinely stands as something one-of-a-kind in this series' level design. The levels with more familiar aesthetics also feel like they bring something new to the table, with the coastal ruins of Seaside Hill/Ocean Palace now being among my favourite 'green hill' style starter zones, Grand Metropolis/Power Plant have a less ominous feel than most urban metropolis zones (they feel almost triumphant in their hi-tech opulence) and Egg Fleet/Final Fortress are some of the most vivid, atmospheric final attacks to Eggman's base that this series has had. Each zone feels like an attempt to one-up the previous set of levels and they have the grandeur and ambition of the Adventure games even if the presentation has changed slightly. The only exception are the Casino levels, and it's telling that this is the last time the series has gone all-in on the 3D experience of the characters as balls in a giant pinball machine, because it's more often tedious than it is fun; though to their credit, that alone makes them stand out more than most of the casino/pinball-themed levels in the series.
Also, the music - I've always rated Heroes' soundtrack high but now that I've been replaying the game and have heard the score once again in its proper context, I'm willing to go hyperbolic and say that this is one of the best Sonic soundtracks. The one thing that really strikes me with them is the layers of atmosphere they carry; not only are they rock solid bangers, but each song seems to take great effort to really set the mood so vividly that it's the tone of the tracks that keeps lingering in your mind. A great example of this are the two casino levels I so berated earlier, which are made immensely more fun to play because of the music alone: the almost-wistful and strangely nostalgic tone that surrounds Casino Park and makes it a curiously enchanting experience, and the absolutely batshit ADHD insanity of BINGO Highway that as a sensory assault is far more intense than it has any right to be and which makes perfect bedfellows to the intense madness of navigating the BINGO boards. Grand Metropolis is my nominee for an obscure Sonic song that deserves a GOAT placement in my charts (boy I sure have a thing for these soaring atmospheric swoons), Rail Canyon is some of the best Senoue riffage, and the Bonus Challenge theme is one of my favourite Sonic special stage songs. The vocal songs too all slap more than they have any right to, and as cheesy as it is for all of them to directly namecheck the respective team members (apart from Team Rose's, funny enough given it's the cheesiest to start with), there's something in my stupid fan heart that gives me the biggest smile when something like "Tails keeps us flying high to staaa-aaa-aaa-aay abooooove troo-oo-ouble! pops up.
(I was browsing TV tropes and came across the sentiment that "many fans" were disappointed that Heroes' representation in Sonic Generations was Seaside Hill/Ocean Palace instead of any of the more unique/innovative levels, and having read that I do have to agree as I imagine just how wild e.g. a Hang Castle/Mystic Mansion revisit and remix would have been).
The team mechanic is, at the end of the day, a little underutilised and clearly imbalanced (lvl 3 Flying team member is basically the game's equivalent of a BFG instead of any of the Power characters), but I still rather like it. It allows for some nice branching in the levels based on what you are most comfortable doing, the semi-RNG'd leveling makes you switch tactics on how to handle certain encounters if your current run isn't giving the same colour orbs as the last time... and really I just like the banter. I'm a huge sucker for party members interacting with one another and whilst Heroes doesn't go quite as wild with it as e.g. certain RPGs, I do think the little pieces of dialogue sprinkled across the levels add so much atmosphere to the stages (whenever they're not telling you to press B to launch thunder shoot for the fifteenth time etc). It also makes the journey through the same levels feel different for each team maybe even more so than the minor tweaks that the levels get, simply because of the attitude each team treats their adventure with1. You can also attribute my fondness towards the Final Story for the same reason: not only do you get inter-team dialogue but now all the teams are working together, which is just piling pet favourite tropes one after another in what is certified Flint box-ticking.
I'm intentionally focusing on the big positives here to highlight just how great Sonic Heroes is in some regards, because I feel like it rarely gets acknowledged in such a way - because it's certainly not a perfect game2. Most notably the handling of the characters can be unpredictable and it's the most frequent cause of death in the game, e.g. the inability for Power characters not to slide around when just pulling their team mates together, the guesswork homing attacks, the heart-pounding tension that comes with any complex rail section. The different teams could have also done with a lot more distinction from a pure gameplay perspective, but it's my understanding that all the teams went through drastic changes throughout the development process (the fact that Team Fang apparently existed in the early drafts is really breaking my heart) and so the limited differences are partly due to time restrictions. The plot is also quite frankly a complete mess, largely in how its presented: when you read it, it makes logical sense and serves as decent, intentionally more straightforward excuse plot for adventuring, but the way it's depicted in-game it feels like a third of the dialogue was left on the cutting room floor and so the overall feel of it is a little incoherent and a little confused. The flaws aren't so large that I'd dismiss the game over it, but I am definitely feeling some of the seams of my overall experience cracking a bit more than I did back in the day, and there's probably a reason why I rarely revisited this after completion back in the day just to play some zones, in the same way I revisited SA1 and especially SA2.
But let's also be perfectly honest: whilst I think Heroes is genuinely, in its own right, a really good game, there's no escape from the fact that its release was smack-dab in the middle of my first wave of Sonic obsession, when so much of my online life was dominated by this series and I felt its presence on a daily basis. Back in those days I had a video of the opening cinematic/trailer (embedded at the end) on my hard drive and I've completely lost count of how many times I watched it just for pure pleasure and hype - seeing it again, opening the game... well, let's say I had a really cosy "welcome back home" kind of feeling. I did an image search for a good picture to act as the "banner" for this post and seeing all the era-specific promotional art and poses gave me the exact same feeling because those official poses were so prevalent all across the fandom at that time, from forum banners to fan character recolour edits. I have a heavy personal bias and surrounding context in respect of Heroes and that has such a heavy grip on me that I'm willing to forgive the fact that I died six times to the exact same spot purely because of shit character handling and focus on the good vibes the rest of it gives me. And that's valid: personal context is super important to take into account and subjectivity is what makes good art (or 3D mascot platformers) great and I am always open about embracing it. I have really enjoyed revisiting this game because it brings back some great memories, but also because it's been exciting to realise that its strengths aren't just down to that nostalgia, that there are some super solid ideas, stages and songs here that I feel deserve to be canonised more in the wider Sonic spectrum.
Heroes has also rekindled my interest in going back to some Sonic games from the early-mid 00s era that haven't been ported to modern platforms yet (seriously, Sonic Team: where's that GBA Sonic collection?) and to also finally seek out some of the entries I missed out on back in those salary-less days. My game backlog was already having a Bad Time but there's suddenly a whole new amount of entries in my spreadsheet to consider. I look forward to ticking those boxes off, and in the meanwhile I'll probably retain Heroes on my Steamdeck as one of my go-to time-killing games, going for that 100% completion I used to have (especially as SA2: Battle on Steam doesn't have Steam cloud support, which sucks).
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This is also ultimately why I think Team Amy is the worst team to play as. Intentionally or not, each of the three characters have been given a one-track mind and so regardless of the situation they're facing, all you ever hear through the levels is "MY SONIC" "LET'S FIND CHEESE" "FROGGY" over and over and over again. Thanks to this, I genuinely think that Sonic Heroes did an almost irrepairable amount of damage to Big especially as a character in people's eyes, that the series is only now starting to gently attempt to rescue him from the meme pits.
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That said, I wonder how much of the negativity comes from people who played the PS2 version which apparently is an absolute technical mess. The Gamecube version is by far the definitive version to my understanding, which only rings true because in this house we stan the Cube.