New Details from Sonic Adventure XBLA Leak

More Achievements, Leaderboards and…Metal Sonic Returns?

As part of the larger disclosure of titles that emerged on Sunday came a second look at a pending XBOX Live release most were already aware of: Sonic Adventure.

The leak first happened in January, but now that it’s a widespread affair, Sega representatives on both sides of the Atlantic have been combing through YouTube, using DMCA threats to comb any mention of the leak in video form.

That’s not yet stopping Sonic researchers–including a few who have a copy of the latest leak–to let us in on what to expect.  A lot of that discussion and the release of some materials is occuring at Sonic Retro, quick on the heels of feeling the heat on its handling of the near complete video leak of Sonic 4.

One of the first things noticed by Retro techie Polygon Jim is how this latest product appears to be a mish-mash of most of SA’s previous versions:

It’s a weird mix of the PC, DC, and GC version. They left the opening.bnr which pretty much confirms it to be a GC port, which is why it’s also using .sfd and .adx when they could have used .xma audio and .wmv videos because the 360 plays those by default, but it has various things from SA1 as well, with most of the filesystem of the PC version.

It has the US SADX intro, but there is a second intro that is the SA1 intro.

It has a mix of DX and SA1 in it. There’s a folder named DC that has the SA1 menu background and such. Also it randomly has 4 models in Ninja, the DC’s native model format.

Polygon Jim also revealed the presence of Sonic Adventure branded Avatar shirts, in both black and white, for both men and women.  It’s not clear whether the shirts will be included upon final purchase of the game, or if they will need a separate buy.

Then, there are the leaderboards.  Another Retro forumer, evilhamwizard, posted images detailing some of the game’s competitions, which can be cited among friends, overall on a weekly basis and in overall all-time rankings.  They encompass score, time, and weight attacks across all six characters, and include score attacks for Sonic in Sand Hill, and Amy in the Hedgehog Hammer whack-a-mole-esque setup.  Time attacks for Sonic in Windy Valley and Emerald Coast are also planned, and if you’re big, get out that fishing rod–the biggest fish wins with weight attacks in Emerald Coast and Ice Cap.  The complete list evilhamwizard released can be found here.

Next, we have updated achievements news.  TSSZ News has learned there will be 15 achievements for a total of 250G, and that’s up from the previous release of 12 in January.  Those additional three achievements make up the added 50G and reference the deluxe edition of the game, awarding achievements for missions, finishing as Metal Sonic, and collecting all emblems again.

That leads us to DLC hopes.  It’s mostly educated speculation at this point, but general consensus points to the DX /  Director’s Cut of Sonic Adventure ending up as additional DLC for the game.  That’s where the last set of achievements–and the ability to play through again as Metal Sonic–comes in.

These are the new details coming out of this weekend’s second leak of Sonic Adventure for XBOX Live.  We still don’t have an actual release timetable for the game, but once we get word, we’ll pass it along here.