Friday night's Sonic Adventure presentation in Tokyo (actually, mid-day Saturday in Japan) started out with a review of Dreamcast from the beginning - starting with what we all saw first - the Irimajiri demo. Immediately following that short retrospective, Iri-san came out on stage and introduced the Dreamcast and all of its features, followed by a short video on the system's features.

　　But the real fun began when Sega of Japan president Shoichiro Irimajiri introduced Sonic Adventure - described as a "high speed action RPG." The game actually takes place in areas of Earth, thus the name "Adventure." The game has six playable characters, each which will have their own storylines. Characters returning from previous Sonic titles include Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, and Amy Rose (if you remember, she showed up in Sonic CD). Other characters include E-102 Gan, a robot; and a character named Big. Dr. Robotnik is definitely back, wreaking more havoc, this time on Earth. Video of the water creature (known as Perfect Chaos) was shown, but exactly what its involvement will be is unknown at this time.

　　Sonic isn't the only character to get a redesign - Tails and Knuckles both have new looks as well. The art style is a departure from previous Sonic games, but it still has that "attitude" that Sonic was known for during the first few 16-Bit titles.

　　Collecting Master Emeralds will once again be one of the objectives in this game. It's not known exactly how this will be done, but it'd be safe to say that it will probably follow the same pattern as previous Sonics - in Bonus Levels.

　　Following that, they showed a short video showing Sonic Team traveling to various locations, capturing the look and feel to create levels for Sonic Adventure. While it takes place all over the world, the video program which followed Sonic Team around to these places focused mainly on the team's trip to South America. During this short montage, clips from the game based on these locations would be shown.

　　Yuji Naka and another member of Sonic Team played selected areas of Sonic Adventure to demonstrate the power of the system, and WOW - did it look good. Areas in the game include: Ice Cap, which is the level that the snowboarding screenshot came from earlier this week. Not much of this level was shown being played, unfortunately. Red Mountain, which seems to be a desert-type level (Knuckles was shown playing this particular level). Lost World (hmmm... you think they're going to have to change the name of this one?) seems to take place in a dense jungle area. There's also a Lava world (speaks for itself), Inca (with some super-detailed Inca ruins), and a 3D shooting level where you jump in a plane with Tails. The fights in this particular level seem to be from all directions in a pseudo-Panzer Dragoon style.

　　But the most impressive level by far was Speed Highway, where you run down a small roadway, collecting rings, etc. and being bounced around. It's very much in the style of Sonic's previous games - taking a 2D concept that made Sonic so different (speed), and bringing it into 3D. Now if this can be done in 60 frames per second (we couldn't tell from the RealVideo presentation), it's going to be very, very impressive.

　　One thing they showed a lot of towards the end of the show were cutscenes from the game. It looks like there are plenty of them, too. Maybe that's why the original name for the game was Sonic RPG - it seems to have a very complex story (and each character has a different one).

　　There were a couple of other events during the presentation, including a live performance of the game's opening theme, during which they played clips from the game. Needless to say, everything looked really good.

　　We'll have more detailed impressions of Sonic Adventure tomorrow morning (including a better look at the game!).