The December 23rd release of Sonic Adventure has garnered equal parts praise and criticism from US import buyers; gamers are obviously impressed by the excellent graphics and refreshing game play, but on same token, they are disappointed with the rushed state of the game - camera glitches, pop up, collision detection errors, and other bugs give Sonic Adventure a beta feel. Gamers waiting for the US release of Sonic Adventure have in turn jammed SegaNet's mailbox with queries about the English-language port of Sonic Team's Dreamcast gem, getting the collision detection and camera glitches fixed for the US release seemed to be the concern of most of you.
My quest to find some answers begun with an e-mail from a highly reliable source:
"SoJ is aware of the problems with Sonic's camera work and collision
detection. The game is already being improved in these areas. The popup is
the lowest priority to fix, since it doesn't directly affect gameplay.
A Sonic Adventure "International Version" will be released in Japan AFTER the
US bug fixes are made. I don't know if it will coincide with the US release
or be before, just that it is planned for release."
Knowing full well that the source was more than likely correct, I approached Sega of American and Sega of Japan for some sort of confirmation. Sega of America's press team did not have any information to disclose about the US release of Sonic Adventure, luckily Sega of Japan was on top of things, take it away Yumiko Miyauchi (Part of SoJ's International Sales & Business Development):
"For Sonic Adventure, though we have not decided yet the final specification
of the English version, basically it will be the straight translation except
for fixing bugs which we are aware of. There is no "Sonic Adventure
International" as far as I know.."
There you have it, Sega of Japan is willing to confirm that known bugs will be fixed, while at the same time saying (though not explicitly) that they're not ready to comment on Sonic Adventure International.
