Goofy Moments in…Sonic Adventure

You know me: I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Sonic fan. My blood runs Sega blue and I never hesitate to use Sonic’s taunt in a game of Smash Bros. before running across the stage, away from my foes, just to do it again because YOU’RE TOO SLOW~

But I digress. Just yesterday, I was in the back of a very important law lecture and, like a studious individual, was playing computer games instead of listening. After looking at my Steam library, I saw I had not touched my copy of Sonic Adventure for a few months. “What a tragedy!” thought I, double-clicking to set this wrong aright. “I love Sonic Adventure and have since the first time I played it nine years ago!” Make no mistake, though: much as I love this game, it has some incredibly silly moments. Perhaps nothing encapsulates that more than the opening sequence of Sonic’s story.

So, quite separate and apart from the fact that Sonic mysteriously wound up in a world full of humans with zero explanation as to how or why after the prior games had never done so, or why he tends to soliloquize in very 90s diction atop tall buildings, or indeed even his magical ability to jump off said tall buildings and land on his feet without shattering every bone in his legs up through his vertebrae, what is most tickling to me about the whole intro sequence for the Blue Blur is how incredibly inept the Station Square Police Department is. Below is a video that contains this sequence. Please observe from 3:38 onward.

So, a water monster the size of a prepubescent child appears and naturally the Station Square Police Department is on the scene! Now, I don’t know what the normal rules of engagement are with the SSPD or if their chief has Jell-O for brains, but these are not simply uniformed officers. This is a SWAT team on site. I’m not really sure if Chaos 0 had been causing chaos (ha, ha) downtown prior to this moment, but no one can say the SSPD lacks heavy ammunition in times of crisis. You’d think for that much firepower that they would have shot Dr. Robotnik so full of lead that you could use his mustache as a pencil when he arrives with his Egg Walker at the end of Tails’s story, but I digress again.

So the ranking officer warns Chaos 0 that it is completely surrounded and orders it to give itself up. Chaos 0 responds by jumping down to the center of this semicircle of armed men. For all we know, that was how Chaos 0 intended to surrender. Of course, since it can’t talk, we don’t know, but given Chaos’s disposition, the way the police respond probably did nothing to sweeten its mood. The police are given the order to fire. There are so many things wrong with that. Let’s start with three:

1. Chaos is clearly made of water. Lead bullets will probably not kill it, surprisingly.
2. Town hall is right behind Chaos. I sure hope that place was already evacuated.
3. The police shoot Chaos in a continuous volley for nearly four seconds. I sure hope that is not how the SSPD handles every situation.

Then, having run out of ideas, the ranking officer orders a retreat. Great tactical foresight there, Napoleon. Enter Sonic to fix the problem by doing what he does best: bouncing off of its face until it stops being a threat. I have to wonder: if the Station Square Police Department responded to seeing Chaos 0 by wanting to shoot it, I can’t imagine what the police thought when they saw a five foot, talking, bipedal, blue hedgehog jump into their midst. That said, Sonic probably did not make things any easier for himself by jumping onto the roof of a police car. Uh, reckless much? By the way, nicely done with the police retreating so far so fast that they are not even present by the time Chaos 0 slithers into the sewers. Station Square’s finest, ladies and gentlemen!

That was but a brief look at the hilarity of Sonic Adventure. Join us next time for when we scrutinize how Aeris can be killed with no blood on the katana that went straight through her torso. Oh wait, I forgot to put a spoiler tag on that…