Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast)

Sonic Adventure is the first true 3D Sonic game, with people either saying this killed the series or resurrected it. It's still considered a good game despite it leading towards bad ones like Sonic '06.

Character Select Screen
An early character select, urging the player to "Choose a Buddy!" Select a character by highlighting their graphic and pressing A.

Loading Screen
A leftover from the AutoDemo.

Chao Emotes
Other Chao emotions, left out for unknown reasons.

Unused Item
A stopwatch that would have likely frozen the timer and/or enemies, or add time back to the clock in E-102's stages.

Tornado2 Health Bar
The red "Tornado" life gauge is used in both acts of Sky Chase, despite the fact that Act 2 uses the Tornado 2. As such, the blue "Tornado2" gauge is never used.

Realistic Blue Hedgehog
A painting of a blue hedgehog, probably as a joke.

Unused Spring Model
A spring model which resembles the spring from Sonic Jam. Neither the model or its ill-fitting texture are used anywhere in the game. Oddly enough, if you apply the Sonic Jam texture to this model, it fits perfectly.

Tokyo Game Show Leftovers
Within all versions of Sonic Adventure remain the menus from the Tokyo Game Show version of the game. To access these menus in the 2004 US PC version, replace the seven bytes at in  with seven  bytes, or install the "TGS Menus" mod from this page. The menus can be viewed in action in this YouTube video.

Title Screen
The title screen is a simple static image, which for some reason is flipped horizontally. After 10 frames (a third of a second in the Dreamcast version, a sixth of a second in the PC version) it plays Tikal's theme music. After 150 frames (5 seconds in Dreamcast, 2.5 seconds in PC) it displays the unused "Now Loading..." graphic and then plays a demo. Pressing the X and Y buttons together in the Dreamcast version brings you to the level select described under the "Developer Tools" section, but in the PC version it causes the game to abruptly exit. Pressing the Start button brings you to the character select screen described below.

Character Select
The character select screen is also rather simple, pressing Left, Right, L or R will switch the screen between six static images. After 600 frames (20 seconds on Dreamcast, 10 seconds on PC) the game will return to the title screen, although the character select music will continue playing. Pressing the Start button will display the two "How To Play" images and then begin the character's story from the beginning.

How To Play
How to Play pictures from the TGS version of the game. There are no English versions of these files.

Debug Menus
These menus are in the same section of code as the TGS menus, but there does not seem to be any way to activate them other than hacking. The "TGS Menus" mod for the PC version changes the X+Y combination that normally causes the game to exit to enable these menus instead.

Pressing the L and R buttons switches between the three menus and Up and Down changes the current selection within the menu.

The "CHARACTER" menu changes the character you play as.

The "STAGE SELECT" menu allows you to pick a stage to start from, using the same text as the other level select menu. "PRACTICE 1" leads to Hedgehog Hammer, and "PRACTICE 2" and "PRACTICE 3" lead to empty levels. Left and Right can be held to scroll the list faster. In the PC version, the text for the level names was removed, but the "TGS Menus" mod restores the text from the Dreamcast version.

The "ADV SEQUENCE" menu seems to allow you to select a story, but it has no effect on anything.

Pressing the Start button begins gameplay in the specified stage with the specified character. Since none of the proper story events have happened, picking any Adventure Field level will likely leave you stuck with no option but to return to the title screen, and due to an oversight, the game puts you in "Adventure" mode in the Action Stages without setting an Adventure Field to return to, so selecting the "Quit" option from the pause menu simply puts you in Hedgehog Hammer (level 0).

Unused Voices
Several unused Tikal voiceovers are on the disc.

Transforming into Super Sonic, which you can't do outside of the final boss battle. It appears that a system similar to Sonic 2 and 3 was planned at some point.

A warning about the Leon badnik.

A warning about Gohla, likely referring to the badnik formerly known as Sol.

There are also several clips that discuss the Chao Gardens, some of which include information inconsistent with how the final game works ("Don't put more than six Chao in a garden." and its variations, for example).

Level Select
In both the initial Japanese release and the US release, a level select menu can be accessed. Change the byte at 0x8C7694D0 to 02 in the Japanese release, and change the byte at 0x8C7649F0 to 02 in the US release to use it. X and B will change your character.

Japanese Level List
In each version of the game, there is a Japanese level list in the main executable (pointer table at in US Dreamcast 1ST_READ.BIN,  in US PC sonic.exe), which is not referenced by any code. Notable items include (translations in parentheses):


 * Hedgehog Hammer listed as プラクティス (Practice)
 * Three empty level slots listed as きのこ (Mushroom), ジャングル (Jungle), and 砂漠 (Desert)
 * Adventure Fields and Twinkle Circuit listed as empty strings

Unused Text
What is this!? I'm so disappointed, you useless machine! All right then, back to practice! Go on, get going!
 * The line "Now, you can play with SONIC!" and translations can be found near the other character unlock strings, at in US sonic.exe. It's never used since Sonic is the only character available at the start, though at one point it may have been possible to choose any character's story from the beginning, as they occur concurrently.
 * Within the cutscene data is an unused cutscene whose text implies it would have been played after failing to complete Final Egg as E-102 Gamma:

Eggman and Tikal
The Dr. Eggman and Tikal objects used in cutscenes are actually programmed the same way as the playable characters, and can be played via hacking. They both have only the most basic movement functions, walking and jumping. They can't hurt or get hurt by enemies and obstacles, and cannot run on wind paths and some loops. Pressing the Action button activates free movement mode, which is normally only active when debug is on.

Dying before hitting a checkpoint or changing segments in an Action Stage causes the game to crash, as they do not have starting position lists.
 * Eggman in Tails' Windy Valley
 * Tikal in Knuckles' Speed Highway

Spring in Emerald Coast


Through certain glitches, other characters can access the Sonic segment of Emerald Coast. Completing the first part of the stage dumps the character in a void below the playable level on a single spring, an area not visible normally anywhere. This is actually the default starting point for characters other than Sonic (geometrical coordinates 0,0,0), but the presence of the spring evokes questions.

With a well-timed spindash and some "inaccessible" ledge trickery, it's possible to jump so far that you can actually see the spring.

Hidden Blocks in Mystic Ruins


Underneath the ground near the waterfall in Mystic Ruins is a row of 15 blocks which are normally never seen.

Regional Differences
Many glitches were fixed during the overseas transition, one of them including being able to stand on top of the statue in the burger shop in Station Square.

The original 1998 Japanese version has a neon cowgirl sign in the Casinopolis action stage, which moaned when you jumped into it and was replaced by a Casinopolis sign in all other versions, including the Japanese "International Version", which also contained the bug fixes.