Sonic Rise Again by Crush 40
A tribute video for Sonic the Hedgehog, set to the song "Rise Again" by Crush 40, which would be the game's main theme.
Sonic Adventure X would be a 3D platforming/adventure game and a part of the long-running Sonic the Hedgehog series. It would also be the first since Sonic '06 to utilize Sonic Adventure-style physics and game mechanics.
My intention is also to bring back the edgy attitude you see in games like Sonic Adventure 2. The animations would be very detailed and interesting in themselves, and the level design would be solid, but it would have the same wildly energetic structure as the original Adventure games.
My rationale for creating this idea is that, like many other Sonic fanboys, one of my most desired games is the sequel to Sonic Adventure 2. It was my favorite game in the entire series, and ever since the failure of Sonic ’06, we’ve never actually seen another game in the full-fledged Adventure style. I found this to be quite disappointing, but since an SA3 page already exists on this wiki, I decided to make X my own unique version.
Story and Ending[]
Through this game, I'm attempting to bring back the depth of story we saw from games like '06 and SA2. However, I don't want to simply rip off either of them, so I decided to do something to break the mold a bit.
It will act as a sort of cross between the story from SA1 and SA2. The story will progress in much the same way as SA2, but the story will be told in a way more akin to SA1, because instead of having a Dark and Hero story division, the story will be told more from the perspective of each character.
Chapter 1: The Devourer of Chaos[]
Anyone familiar with the Sonic series is aware that the classic Sonic plot is Sonic and his friends on a quest to stop Dr. Robotnik/Eggman from obtaining the power of the Chaos Emeralds. In this game, though, the story takes a wildly different turn.
Instead of trying once again to harness the raw power of Chaos, Eggman reconsiders his options for world domination. He reminisces on all his painful failures in the past, all of them resulting from the actions of Sonic the Hedgehog.
It is then that he realizes that Sonic and his friends have only become stronger and stronger over the years, and an important reason for this is because they have been obtaining more rings, and gaining more power from Chaos. He reasons further that every one of his plots has been foiled in one form or another by the Chaos Emeralds themselves, be it by malfunction, or simply by Sonic using their power to defeat him.
And so, he comes up with a scheme unlike any he has thought of before: eliminate all Chaos energy from the world!
To carry out this dastardly deed, Eggman constructs a new robot warrior similar in appearance to the embodiment of Chaos, but more streamlined and plated in cold steel. It is called Project Hush, and its sole aim is to consume chaos. It requires chaotic energy to function. However, as it consumes chaos, it becomes progressively stronger.
Eggman boots up Hush using the power of 10,000 rings, and once he verifies that it is as powerful as he wants it to be, he links its A.I. with the A.I. of his latest army of robotic minions, making him their unquestioned general. Eggman is confident that through this plan, he will finally destroy Sonic, Shadow, and all those who have defied him in the past.
But, when he releases Hush upon the world, things go wrong. Eggman had programmed Hush too well, such that he sought to destroy chaos in all its forms. When he finally witnesses the human condition for the first time, he turns on Eggman and decides to destroy him and all the world's inhabitants to purify it of its folly. He immediately begins to attack Skyline City along with Eggman's minions, which he now controls.
It is then that Sonic and Tails arrive on the scene after hearing about an attack by an unknown mechanical entity. After a short fight, Sonic and Tails drive away Hush, and Eggman goes into hiding. They decide to track him down, and find him after meeting up with Shadow and Rouge along the way, who both witnessed the battle and decided to follow Eggman themselves. The four interrogate Eggman, demanding to know what the robot who attacked the city was, and how it could be stopped. Eggman reluctantly tells them how he constructed Hush and what went wrong in the first place.
Chapter 2: The Race for the Controller[]
When asked if Hush had any weaknesses, Eggman tells them that since Hush is driven by chaos energy, the Master Emerald can be used to curtail his power. With this information, they plan to go and see Knuckles the Echidna, guardian of the Emerald, on the floating Angel Island and have him use it to reign in Hush's rampage. However, Tails then notices that Hush has already sent a robotic spy to follow them, and finds that it has already recorded their conversation! The spy manages to make it outside, and it flies off to return to Hush before they can catch it.
Sonic and Shadow decide to pursue the spy robot through the jungle and try to intercept it while Tails and Rouge take Tails's plane, the Tornado, to tell Knuckles what's happening. Sonic and Shadow pursue the spy with all their power, but before they can catch it, Hush arrives and absorbs its data, thus learning that his one weakness is the Master Emerald. Sonic and Shadow immediately attack him, but after a fight, Hush manages to bring them to their knees. He prepares to finish them off, but then Silver the Hedgehog intervenes and damages Hush enough to make him abandon the fight and fly off to retrieve the Master Emerald.
Sonic radios in and tells Tails that Hush is already on his way to take the Emerald. Tails and Rouge arrive at Angel Island, but the Tornado is shot down just as the Island comes into sight. They're forced to crash land, and Hush lands right next to the Emerald as Knuckles goes to check on the stunned duo. However, Knuckles reacts with lightning quick reflexes and drives Hush away from the Emerald. Eventually, Hush knocks Knuckles down, but before he can try to finish him off, Tails stuns him from behind with one of the Tornado's detachable guns. Knuckles then has just enough time to shatter the Master Emerald with the last of his strength. Hush decides not to waste any more of his time, and returns to his headquarters to determine how he can obtain the pieces of the Emerald.
All the heroes then rally, and they take the chance to ask Silver why he came and saved them. His answer is vague - he says that he was in his future home, where he normally was, until one night, he was woken up by an intense, violent dream in which the world was destroyed by a war between two similar-looking, giant beings; one looked like a force of nature, while one looked like a giant machination. In the dream, he also saw an unconscious figure who looked like Sonic or Shadow, so he decided to find a Chaos Emerald located in his time to travel back into the past and see if things were alright there. From there, they already knew what happened when he found them.
Made even more concerned by Silver's dream, the team formulates a plan of action: Rouge and Knuckles are given the task of working together to find the Master Emerald pieces, and Sonic, Shadow, and Silver plan to go and locate the Chaos Emeralds, so that Hush can't exploit them behind their back. Tails, meanwhile, reluctantly takes the job of pairing up with Eggman to monitor the movements of Hush and his army.
Amy is seen wandering through the jungle where Silver had only just had his showdown with Hush, and she randomly finds a piece of the Master Emerald that had only just been shattered by Knuckles. She guesses from this that something bad has happened, and decides to try and find Sonic to bring him the piece.
During their search, both Sonic and Shadow have dreams similar to the one Silver described, but they saw past the situation Silver described, and both their dreams together showed a battle that led to the destruction of all life on the planet. The three figure that there must be a reason for them to be having these dreams, and probably a bad one at that. Just then, Tails radios in and tells them that Hush is personally supervising his army in an attack on the Mobian capital. They head there immediately to try to combat the threat.
Chapter 3: The Battle of the Egg Carrier[]
After everyone converges on the scene, Knuckles and Rouge land on top of the Egg Carrier and destroy the proper pylons to deactivate its shields. Eventually, Sonic, Shadow, and Silver maneuver their way up to Hush's ship while the others hold off his army. They make their way through to the ship's helm, where a clearly more powerful Hush continues to absorb chaotic energy. They attempt to attack him, but Hush has already anticipated their arrival and traps all three of them in an unbreakable chamber, connected to some apparatus in the ceiling that then electrocutes them and forces the Chaos Emeralds away from them. They can only watch in fear as Hush harnesses the ultimate power of the Emeralds, but then some invisible force freezes time and sucks them into some alternate, completely still dimension.
After a few seconds, the environment starts moving very slowly, and they start to see the gigantic figures from their dream fighting in the distance. They approach the battle, and they see other versions of themselves lying unconscious on the ground nearby. Clearly they had been defeated in this dimension, and they didn't know what they could do to fix things.
But then, time stood still again, and to their utter astonishment, the embodiment of Chaos itself appears floating in front of them. Chaos explains that he was the one who caused them to have their peculiar dreams, and it was to let them know the consequences of failure to stop Hush. However, since they didn't manage to change the course of time themselves due to Hush's trap, he himself had to interfere at the last second before Hush finally gained too much power to be stoppable by normal means. He stresses that in order for their collective nightmare to be prevented, they would have to work together with their friends to stop Hush themselves, and before sending them back to the real world, he tells them that their task will be possible no matter how impossible it may seem at first.
The trio is sent back to the moment at which they were taken away, and this time around, they are able to evade Hush's trap, destroy it, and fight him fair and square. The three destroy the helm in the battle and cause Hush's ship to plummet to the ground. They manage to get clear of the ship before it crashes, and they go to investigate the wreckage.
Chapter 4: The Fate of Chaos[]
Somehow, they find that Hush has survived the crash, and he attacks them with a desperate electric discharge. He knocks the pieces of the Master Emerald off of Knuckles and Rouge and absorbs them into the energy core in his chest. Fueled by the power of the pieces, he begins to grow huge, and the heroes start to lose hope, since the Master Emerald is more powerful than all the Chaos Emeralds combined. But then, Amy arrives on the scene, still carrying the final piece of the Master Emerald she found back in the jungle. Tails and Eggman then both realize that if Sonic, Shadow, Silver, and Knuckles combine their powers, they can destroy Hush once and for all since the Master Emerald is still incomplete.
A titanic battle ensues between the four heroes and Master Hush, but Sonic finishes him off by charging into his energy core at full supersonic speed after the others weaken him. Hush overloads with chaotic energy, and his energy core collapses, destroying Hush's AI brain in a massive explosion. The four heroes touch back down on the ground, and soon afterwards, Knuckles starts searching around nearby for the emerald pieces, closely followed by Rouge (who wants them for herself).
Time stops once again, and Sonic, Shadow, and Silver are revisited by Chaos. He thanks them for their perseverance and for stopping Hush before he had to. It is ironic, he says, how Hush's own desire to eliminate chaos from the world and establish total order under an iron fist led to his own downfall. He had consumed more power than he could possibly imagine, and its burden ended up making him weak.
Finally, he says that he would help Sonic make Dr. Eggman pay for his actions if Sonic wished it. Time resumes once more after Chaos thanks them one last time, and Eggman immediately tries to flee the scene after commending them for their victory. However, as he tries to fly off in his egg mobile, it mysteriously malfunctions and crashes to the ground. Eggman is terrified and starts running away on foot. Shadow and Silver start after him, but Sonic stops both of them and decides to let Eggman go. For, he says, other villains will think twice about making trouble with Eggman out there to serve as an example.
Sonic thanks Shadow and Silver for their help, and then tells Tails to catch up with him whenever he wants. He runs off into the sunset, closely followed by Amy, and Tails takes off after him. Silver turns to ask Shadow to help him find a Chaos Emerald so he can get back to his own time, but Shadow is already gone. A downcast Silver walks away from the scene, and the game's credits roll.
Gameplay[]
As I mentioned, this game would be based on the original Sonic Adventure games, and the gameplay would definitely reflect that. However, it would fix the issues those games had with glitched movements and unpleasant floaty control. It would have the slightly slower pace of the original games, but its controls would have the responsive feel of the newer Sonic: Lost World.
The spin dash would be brought back in full force, and it can be used continuously as in Lost World, but the homing attack would have the same physics as in Adventure 2, making it a better tool for gaining ground and speed. Some parkour elements from Lost World would also be brought back, making it easier to cope with the complex level design through maneuvering along walls and climbing ledges.
I also said at the beginning of the page that the game's story would be told in a similar manner to SA1, and by this, I mean that the story mode would be played through from the perspectives of the seven main characters: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Silver, and Rouge. However, the game would contain no overworlds, and unlocked levels would be selected from a map layout as they were in SA2.
In terms of gameplay styles for the different character, they are decently straightforward. Sonic and Shadow would be doing the same things as in SA2, simply running through the level to the end at high speeds; Knuckles and Rouge would both do the scavenger hunting that they did in the original Adventure games, but the detector would work in the same way it did in SA1. Tails would have levels where he himself flies to the end, as well as levels where he flies the Tornado (essentially, he would have the same gameplay as in SA1). Amy's style would be a cross between platforming and fighting enemies. Finally, Silver's gameplay would be a fixed, faster, more responsive take on what he did in Sonic '06; he would run through the level (faster this time) and battle enemies with his psychokinetic abilities.
Other Features and Design[]
I'd like to address a particular point of my idea that plenty of classic Sonic Adventure fans will be wondering about: SAX would bring back the Chao Garden. For those who don't know, the Chao Garden is a feature exclusive to the two Adventure titles that allowed you to raise unique creatures called Chaos (pronounced "CHOWS"), feeding them, petting them, and specializing them in certain traits (such as speed, strength, flight, etc.) and have them compete with other Chaos to earn emblems (which will also make a return) to help unlock special content. The Chao Garden would work roughly the same way as in SA2, except it will not be as much of a grind to raise one or two Chaos.
The ranking system of this game will also be similar to SA2 to the extent that a picture perfect run will yield a quality ranking. However, the system of tricks would not be as finnicky, awarding points even if a maneuver is not done flawlessly. This will differ from the ranking systems in Sonic Generations (way too lenient) and Sonic Colors (not nearly lenient enough).
Levels[]
Sonic[]
- Skyline City - The first level leading up to Sonic's first confrontation with Hush. The level consists of running through a city, across streets and across rooftops during the evening.
- Desert Chase - Sonic speeds out of Skyline City and starts after Eggman, who has fled the location of his newest blunder for safety. His pursuit takes him across a desert and through a massive canyon.
- Treeline Run - After hearing Hush's weakness from Eggman, Sonic and Shadow have to pursue a mechanical flying spy drone through the jungle.
- Zeppelin Skies - Sonic jumps across a series of flying blimps at different heights to reach a Chaos Emerald on top of a massive mountain.
- Grind Park - Sonic chases down an emerald in a vast nighttime junkyard-turned skate park area full of grind rails and odd terrain.
Tails[]
- Shattered Heights - Tails' first level in the game; it takes place in the same setting as Sonic's and Shadow's first level, and consists of Tails following Sonic's progress across the rooftops and fighting airborne enemies.
- Stormy Sands - Tails' first level in the Tornado; he follows Sonic's trail toward Eggman and helps to keep Hush's new minions off his back.
- Relentless Rains - Tails takes off once again in the Tornado to make it to Knuckles and the Master Emerald before Hush does.
- Falling Bridge - Another level where Tails is outside the Tornado, platforming and flying across a big, winding, unstable bridge arching through the sky, all to get to the final Chaos Emerald.
Shadow[]
- Hectic Highway - Shadow enters the scene of Skyline City to confront the unknown force attacking it, and tears through this busy highway to the center of the city.
- Misty Valley - In the aftermath of Hush's attack on Skyline City, he takes off in pursuit of the Egg Carrier, which has been taken over by Hush. He makes his way through mountains and river banks, and meets up with Rouge there.
- Riverline Rampage - Shadow pursues the robotic spy with Sonic, but instead of running through the jungle like Sonic did he runs along a massive river lined with boats and villages.
- Polar Vortex - Shadow searches for a Chaos Emerald hidden away deep within an icy cavern.
- Regal Castle - Shadow chases down a second emerald inside a large ancient castle complex consisting of giant walls, towers, and bridges.
Silver[]
- Ruined Factory - Silver's arrival in Sonic's time places him in the middle of an old factory near an unknown residential district, where he is met with an attack by Hush's robots that he must escape.
- Meridian Harbor - After Silver escapes the factory, he makes his way across a nearby harbor to get out into the wild, where he senses the presence of the Egg Carrier.
- Tropic Showdown - Silver finally reaches the jungle and has to power his way through to make it to Hush and the others.
- Volcanic Ridge - Silver retrieves a Chaos Emerald hidden inside the belly of an active volcano.
- Cursed Spaceport - Silver makes his way to another Chaos Emerald that has touched down aboard a malfunctioning, deadly, abandoned space station. Zero-gravity also makes telekinetic combat much more interesting.
Knuckles[]
- Shady Canyon - After Hush tries to steal the Master Emerald, Knuckles was forced to break it; this is his first search for the pieces, in a deep canyon that Sonic passed through in his initial chase after Dr. Eggman.
- Downtown District - Knuckles makes a return to Skyline City and searches for emerald pieces scattered throughout the downtown financial district.
- Gusty Hangar - Knuckles looks for more emerald pieces in a large aircraft hangar park. Some of them may even be in the sky.
- Deadly Mines - Knuckles heads underground into a deep, automated mine full of hazards, machines, and tunnels.
- Majestic Forest - Knuckles' last few Emerald pieces are scattered through a dense forest full of rope bridges and tall hills.
Rouge[]
- Snowy Mountain - Rouge decides to go rogue once again and search for the Master Emerald pieces to keep for herself; she begins in the highest peaks of the nearby wintry mountain range where she found Shadow.
- Subway Station - Rouge searches for emerald pieces in Skyline City's center of rail-based transportation, both under and above ground.
- Pagoda Village - Rouge tracks down three more pieces of the Master Emerald in a bustling village somewhere in Asia, filled with large pagodas to run across.
- Terrible Temple - Rouge dangers a complex Egyptian temple to find emerald pieces in its chambers.
- Glimmery Lakebed - Rouge finds her last few Master Emerald pieces suspended in a lake. Some may be in coves, others in patches of seaweed, others adrift in the water. Of course, you must keep up your supply of oxygen!
Amy[]
- Five-Alarm Avenue - Amy Rose is strolling along a sidewalk in the evening when Hush's first attack commences, and she has no goal but to fight her way through the random robots and to a safe place.
- Festival Park - After hearing that Sonic and Tails have started chasing Eggman, Amy decides to cut through a flashy amusement park and get out of the city to follow them.
- Jungle Outskirts - The next level shifts to a later time when Amy has reached the jungle where Sonic, Shadow, Tails, and Rouge have cornered Eggman and have begun to chase after the robotic spy. She is forced to fight her way through Hush's robots as well when they discover her.
- Bamboo Hill - After wandering for a long time to keep hidden, Amy spots Tails flying in his Tornado back towards Skyline City with a legion of Hush's robots in pursuit, and imagining something must be wrong, decides to follow him across a winding hillside full of bamboo shoots.
Bonus Content[]
There would be seven bonus levels in the game for each character from a previous game, and it would be obtained by getting an A-Rank on all that character's stages.
- Sonic - City Escape
- Tails - Mission Street
- Shadow - Radical Highway
- Silver - Crisis City
- Knuckles - Red Mountain
- Rouge - Mad Space
- Amy - Twinkle Park
Getting A-Ranks on a character's bonus stage unlocks a super form for that character.
Sonic's and Shadow's super forms allow them to deal more damage and move more quickly.
Tails's super form allows him to free-fly on foot levels and makes the Tornado stronger in Tornado levels.
Silver's super form allows him wider range with his attacks and faster movement.
Knuckles's and Rouge's super form make them able to move and glide faster, and provides arrows pointing to the objectives regardless of distance, for as long as it lasts.
Amy's super form makes her attacks stronger and faster.
Unlockable Songs[]
Emblems will also be collectible like they were in the other Sonic Adventure games, and obtaining a certain amount of emblems will unlock different characters for battle mode, as well as special songs that can become the applied soundtrack to any level. These songs will be:
- Honeycomb Highway
- Green Forest
- Metal Harbor
- Wave Ocean - The Inlet
- Live and Learn
- Open Your Heart
- Speed Highway
- Windmill Isle
- Starlight Carnival (Act 2)
- Sweet Mountain (Act 2)
- Get Edgy
- Hang Castle (Inverted)
- Biolizard Battle
- Egg Quarters
- Metropolis Speedway
- Icecap 1
- Unknown from M.E. (SA1)
- Blizzard Peaks
- Green Hill (Modern)
- Teknopathetic (Special track from Jet Set Radio Future)
Multiplayer[]
The multiplayer in SAX would be similar to the multiplayer in Sonic Adventure 2. The style of play would be chosen at the outset, and then characters with that playstyle will be selectable for the match.
The three main styles of play would be Speed, Flight, Brawler, and Hunter. The styles for the 7 main characters are:
- Sonic - Speed
- Tails - Flight
- Shadow - Speed
- Silver - Brawler
- Knuckles - Hunter
- Rouge - Hunter
- Amy - Brawler
Every level from the main game will also be playable in multiplayer once completed in the story. As I mentioned above, extra characters will be unlockable by obtaining emblems.
- Blaze - Speed, 20 Emblems
- Vector the Crocodile - Brawler, 25 Emblems
- Charmy Bee - Flight, 30 Emblems
- Espio the Chameleon - Hunter, 40 Emblems
- Big the Cat - Brawler, 45 Emblems
- Cream the Rabbit - Flight, 50 Emblems
- Tikal the Echidna - Hunter, 60 Emblems
- Zavok - Brawler, 65 Emblems
- Metal Sonic - Speed, 70 Emblems
- Mighty the Armadillo - Speed, 80 Emblems
- Dr. Eggman - Flight, 90 Emblems
- Hush - Speed, 100 Emblems
- Chaos - Hunter, 110 Emblems
- Sticks the Jungle Badger - Hunter, 140 Emblems
Speed multiplayer would be a simple race to the end, flight multiplayer would be the same as speed with more radical level design and complex platforming, brawling would either be a battle against waves of enemies or against other players, and hunting would be a race to find all the assigned objects in a level first.
Many characters would also have their own planes like the Tornado for free-range dogfighting matches. This way, the plane playstyle will be important to more than just the story mode.
Soundtrack[]
Sonic AX's main theme would be an existing song entitled, "Rise Again," an original song by Crush 40, a band which has been with the Sonic franchise ever since it introduced vocal soundtracks, and has performed the main themes for both original Sonic Adventure games.
Rise Again by Crush 40
Rise Again, by Crush 40. Vocals by Johnny Gioeli.
The Modern remix of "Escape from the City," originally from Sonic Adventure 2, but more recently from Sonic Generations, will be the default soundtrack for Sonic's bonus stage.
The Classic remix of "Vengeance is Mine" will be the default soundtrack for Shadow's bonus stage, Radical Highway.
A fan-made mashup of Crisis City Modern from Sonic Generations would play on Silver's bonus stage, Crisis City.
Sonic Generations "Modern City Escape" Music-1
City Escape Modern Remix, composed by Jun Senoue and performed by Ted Poley and Tony Harnell.
Vengeance Is Mine - Cash Cash Remix Radical Highway Act 1 (Classic) (Sonic Adventure 2)
Radical Highway Classic Remix, composed by Jun Senoue, remixed by Cash Cash.
Sonic Generations Mashups - Crisis City Skyscraper Modern Remix
Crisis City Mashup by DarkHyperSonic7, with music originally composed by Tomoya Ohtani.
Sonic adventure 2 "Pumpkin Hill" Music Request
Pumpkin Hill, composed by Jun Senoue.
Mission Street Modern Remix ~ by theblehedgehog
Mission Street Modern Fan Remix by theblehedgehog, originally composed by Jun Senoue.
Sonic Adventure DX Music Twinkle Park 2
Twinkle Park 2, composed by Jun Senoue
Sonic Adventure 2 "Mad Space" Music Request
Mad Space, composed by Jun Senoue.
The original level theme of Pumpkin Hill from Sonic Adventure 2 would play on Knuckles's bonus stage of the same name.
A fan-made modern remix of Mission Street would play on Tails's bonues stage of the same name.
Twinkle Park Remix 2 would play on Amy Rose's bonus stage of the same name.
Finally, the original Mad Space theme, also from Sonic Adventure 2, would play on Rouge's bonus stage of the same name.
New Songs[]
The new soundtrack, true to Adventure form, would be headed up by Sonic soundtrack veteran Jun Senoue. However, I think a partially orchestral soundtrack would be appropriate, considering how some soundtracks composed by Senoue have been criticized for being too straightforward and entirely heavy metal.
As such, my idea is to also bring in Tomoya Ohtani, the series's senior orchestral composer. His contributions, ideally, would be more punchy and action-packed in keeping with the pace of the game. Take this piece as an example:
Sonic Lost World "Desert Ruins Zone Act 2 (Honeycomb Highway)" Music
Honeycomb Highway from Sonic Lost World, composed by Tomoya Ohtani.
I also had the idea to bring well-known Jet Set Radio and Sonic Rush composer Hideki Naganuma into the project. My thought was that he could have interesting contributions to make to the songs of the other two composers, as his style can work well with theirs if arranged properly. Take this mashup of the track I just added with a number of Naganuma's mixes, compliments of BotanicSage on YouTube:
Jet Set Sonic - Running the Bassline (Tomoya Ohtani vs Hideki Naganuma)
A Honeycomb Highway VS. Hideki Naganuma Mashup!
I think we can agree that the two styles compliment each other well. However, partial contributions would be all that Naganuma would make; if he were to make his own tracks, they would probably be excellent, but they almost certainly wouldn't create the right atmosphere for the game.