feels like i played this alongside my six year old self. we did it lil' buddy, we finally beat the one game we had no chance in hell of finishing without a gamecube memory card

as with sa1, there's really no point in arguing about this series since the detractors have long made up their shitty minds. sa2's an interesting beast though because it manages to excel just as much as its predecessor... in very different ways!

the speed stages are great, albeit nothing like sa1's. maybe you prefer these more linearly driven, setpiece-focused levels, but i might be partial to having a spindash that can blaze me across entire courses in a matter of seconds. i like going places i shouldn't and being rewarded for it. there's some of that here, but it's not nearly the same. that said, there's no city escape or final rush in sa1 so we'll call it a draw

treasure hunting is improved tenfold. i definitely prefer the newly limited radar system (it makes finding shards early super satisfying) and the overall increased difficulty. especially after knuckles' previous story was an absolute cakewalk. rouge is basically knuckles on hard mode and i generally prefer her side more for that. love her music too, though i wish it was more lyrically driven to better contrast knuckles

shooting's a more mixed bag. tails reps one of the best stages but also most of the worst. eggman on the other hand for the most part lives up to gamma's gameplay well enough - especially once he gets his booster. there's def a sense of flow to these that i feel a solid chunk of people don't give deserved credit because they just wanna go fast and grind rails

...which is a sentiment i don't completely identify with because i feel sa2 is more than the sum of its parts. the narrative is genuinely great and actively shifts moods and gameplay styles accordingly. you're always listening to a banger, you're never on the same sort of stage for more than a few minutes at a time - and you're always pushing closer to one of the greatest fuckin' finales you'll ever find in video games. the quality of direction really skyrocketed here. the last episode's preview alone completely solos every single scene in sa1

one strange oddity though: there's a surprising lack of shadow gameplay here. maybe the devs weren't so confident in him as a newcomer and didn't expect him to be such a hit?

if they knew what was good for them, sonic team would've just made a whole ass game where you play as shadow the hedgehog...

EDIT: after careful deliberation (replaying the shit out of everything) i've decided that i have 0 significant issues with this game. i'm not even standing by what i said about the speed stages before. they're all fuckin' fantastic and i think i might actually prefer these to sa1's (granted i need to spend some more time with that game too for confirmation)

on top of all of what i've said - i've still barely scratched the surface of the chao world content and that on its own is pretty impressive for being in an already tightly-packed game to begin with. how the fuck did this get made in two years?

i also learned last night via the extra video that city escape was inspired by sonic team constantly receiving parking tickets while living in san francisco. that's worthy of some merit on its own

and maybe this is cheating to mention since it's largely battle rerelease content, but i don't care: the multiplayer is some of the most fun i've ever had with a 2-player game

you know what - fuck it, 10/10

EDIT 2: got all 180 emblems. basically a perfect game

So…I’ve been putting off this review for a while, it’s mainly because I’ve been afraid, afraid that I’m gonna fuck this review up somehow. But it’s time I face my fears and finally returned to review this game and finish the 90’s sonic games. When it comes to Sonic Adventure 2, I’ve always preferred the original, however I’ve had a slight soft spot for this game and that’s why it has a similar score to SA1. So let’s get into it and see what I can say about a very loved sonic game.

We have quite a few new characters, mainly shadow and rouge. The story is split into the hero and dark sides though they all culminate with the same end. Basically eggman finds that his grandad left him a secret weapon named shadow, who is a hedgehog just like sonic. So him and eggman decide to find all the chaos emerald to conquer the world, with rouge joining later as she secretly works for the government. Later it all culminates in the ark where we find out shadow was doing all this naughty shit because of a girl he used to know, named Maria, told him to help mankind yet he interpreted it differently. Basically getting it completely confused and almost completely obliterating Maria’s wishes. So him and sonic defeat the finalhazard and that’s the end of that for now. And there was a lot of piss on the moon.

In terms of gameplay, it’s similar-ish to sonic adventure 1 with a few very clear differences. The structure is much more linear and follows a straight path. Instead of getting to choose characters, you’ll simply go from one level where you play as someone like sonic and then move onto another with playing as knuckles or someone. After every level as well you are forced to be into the chao garden which I’ll talk about a little bit later. The level types as well are mainly inspired by sa1 or at least the better level types. The sonic levels and knuckle levels made it over and the gamma levels somehow made it through though a little modified to make it fit with tails and eggman’s levels.

The chao garden also makes a return. We have 3 gardens actually: the neutral garden, the hero garden, and the dark garden with the latter two being unlocked after raising a hero and dark chao. you basically just raise the chao like you did in the last game. Raise the insufferable, puny, disgusting, cute, adorable, funny, little guys.

The music is also absolutely brilliant. Crush 40 return to do their work on the game and this is probably the only part of the game which I believe completely outshines the last. The music is phenomenal in every single way. I did like how sa1’s ost did have neat callbacks to the older sonic games, especially sonic cd, but this soundtrack is just absolutely exceptional. If anyone hates city escape then you clearly are just hating for the sake of it.

Unfortunately, after sonic adventure 2 released, it was soon announced that the Dreamcast would be discontinued and Sega would end up becoming a third party publisher. So sonic adventure 2 ended up being the end of an era, one full of lots and lots of creativity and experimentation. Even though later games would also experiment I felt that it was a lot more grounded through the Sega genesis (mega drive) era to the Dreamcast era. So with that, it ends my talk on some of the main sonic games for now. But who knows, maybe I will talk about 06…nah.

Great story, decent characters, excellent music, chao return, how do you like that Obama?

Sonic adventure 2 is everything a sequel should aspire to be. The levels, bosses, writing, characters, and story are all greatly improved upon in this game. For a start, the levels in this game are all really great. Each one has its own charm to it and city escape is probably one of the best opening levels of all time. My one complaint is the grind railing in the last level, it's often clunky and very difficult to platform on. I liked that Sega cut down the stories from 7 to 2, I think it makes for a nicer game to play and not feeling like it's starting to drag. Another thing that makes the game a bit nicer is the lack of the hub world, in sa1 it was fun at the start but by the time you played the 7 stories it was just a burden to get through. I liked the knuckles/rouge stages more in this game than sa1, not sure why though. One thing I will say is there are TOO many fucking eggman/tails levels, like am I playing a sonic game or am I playing armoured core. I really think they could have cut down on these and put more sonic/shadow levels in. There's only 4 shadow levels in this game which sucks because Shadow's my favourite character (if you couldn't tell already from my previous reviews). This game is also a great introduction to shadow, it shows the kind of character he is, and his backstory and motives with maria which makes for a touching story. Whilst being stupidly easy like the first game the bosses in sa2 are still all really good, it's clear that a lot of thought was put into each and every one of the fights. The music is absolutely superb which is no suprise for a sonic game, each track is extremely iconic and memorable. One complaint I have is that sometimes it was like I was watching a fucking christopher Nolan movie with how atrocious the audio mixing is, half the time the only reason I know what they are saying is because I'm reading the subtitles. Overall, despite some minor flaws sonic adventure 2 is still one of the greatest games ever made and extremely worthy of 5 stars.

this is both the best and the worst videogame of all times, constantly alternating itself into a newton's cradle, always in movement, stopping only when you turn off the game -- either because your controller doesnt have charge and is too late -- but you want to play more -- or because you just can't bare this any longer.

i could elaborate about how i think that tails' levels are way too long or how knuckles' levels can be very bad like pumpkin hill and how dark mode in general is way better. however, this game shows such peaks of geniality and has such enganging story that, even being, uh, modern sonic narrative, is very cool!

you see, i've been watching boku no hero these days and i have a LOT of problems with it. however, at the end of the day, still is a show where i like the characters enough to just watch, even if some arcs are really bad. we can like things that we found a lot of problems. videogames are relantioships and no one is perfect in a relationship. sonic adventure 2 is a problematic one but, in my heart, i still love him.

live and learn!
hanging on the edge of tomorrow,
live and learn!
from the works of yesterday.
live and learn!
if you beg or if you borrow,
live and learn!
you may never find your way.

I like Sonic, as a corporate, business and cultural icon, what it represents, and the base designs of its characters seem adorable (it depends on the artist) and how urban and natural can be presented at the same time.
Now, for me, Sonic is a metaphor, and it is from the moment that it combines nature and technology, speed and restriction, capitalism and humanity, passion and obligation.

-a rugged metaphor of progress (any kind) of our own reality:
The contradiction of seeking harmony with our environment but filling everything with unnecessary technological devices (propellants perhaps?) that offer easy and condescending solutions instead of trying to re-educate ourselves with new ways of approaching our relationships with that environment.
//If Shadow and Sonic's speed levels were planned in a totally new way, favoring speed streaks and momentum in a greener way (architecturally speaking) with width and fewer obstacles, thrusters would not be necessary nor most of the paraphernalia that plague the game. I understand that in purely diegetic reasons, everything makes a certain sense, but the design of these phases drags archaic values ​​from the 90s into the new century with the excuse "Sonic was always like this". Consequence of our reality: tradition and hierarchical conventionalism weighs down

It's a metaphor for preadolescence. The need to act on your own, free. To get everywhere quickly and for everything to come fast (uhh) and with style... but then the world itself stops you dead (with spikes) hindering your progress and development, giving you some candy, some loop, so that you feel that there is a certain freedom, that something better will come. But no, it's a lie, the freedom to move in the world is a lie, and sooner or later you'll realize it.

Sonic may not be Cervantes' Tableau of Wonders, but just like that tale, shoots into our modern reality by accident.
Through some natural layer scenarios that we navigate with a speed that is inappropriate for the appropriate rhythms (that Rogue speed?) Plagued by technological devices that facilitate or dictate the path, but that trample on the harmony of the places, a diegetic picture is created. full of contradictions that are used as an excuse. Nature vs machines, but Sonic uses devices to move and fight.

It's a hedgehog, but anthropomorphic. Wear sneakers, gloves and drink cocktails on a lounger.
Is it a contradiction, or a consequence?

We live in a society that is constantly striving for progress, but we are still reluctant to change. We advance on a natural land full of devices that steal a certain meaning and coherence from our world, with speed and pleasure, also with suffering. even the protagonists seem to be crossed by some contradictions with a Sonic who is confident and sure of identity and his freedoms as usual, until he meets Shadow, someone who rivals those skills in a cruder way, more anti heroic and less romantic.
__
It would be easy to say that Sonic Adventure 2 doesn't work as it should, at least in a purely mechanical sense, and that's no lie. I've spent more than 25 hours divided into 3 versions (played on original hardware) and in all of them I've had absurd collision problems - Cannon's Core is one of the worst in the game, with that Eggman sequence, it's incredible that the cube itself that it's supposed to lifting you up can permanently cut off your booster, dropping you into the void with no chance of recovery, something that is otherwise common in a number of ways throughout the game.
and enemy positioning - I am against positioning obstacles in a clear and absolutely understandable way, but there is a fine line between randomness and disdain for the player to the poorest construction, and here a poor construction of the playing space is offered through of the enemies-
Question: Are the rings a form of real recovery, or a condescending way to relieve the frustration of the inevitable impacts?
Because I can accept losing 67 rings in a single impact -something that on the other hand is a design decision resulting from bad planning carried over from the first Sonic, you know, from when Sonic was going to be a rabbit that grabbed things, another conflict of conception- but I do not accept that there is not a precise calibration in the chains of enemies.


-Adventure comes out in the same year as Super Monkey Ball, which for me takes the concept of physical exploitation of inertia and collision to a level that Sonic never reached. A year later, from the hand of Oshima, Blinx arrives, which takes the concept of disintegrated and impossible platform spaces to another level, offering the possibility of controlling its elements through time management, and also in that same year Sly Cooper appears , which would later offer drama and furry adventurous action with constant shifts in its core playable in an elegant way, and with real combat tools.
It is not about an empty comparison, it is the "Sonic effect", something invisible that opened up possibilities on several fronts in a few decades where corporate mascots and furries saw themselves with different eyes, and who had, more or less clearly, what they wanted. they wanted to be, in concept and operability. Sonic seems clear on concept, but has a hard time finding an operational aesthetic that evolves or is even cohesive.
In any case, Adventure 2 has opened my eyes to many issues and, as I said before, it shoots reality in a very strange way for what it is, I admire that, even if it's coincidence.

Lets dive in Sonic Robo Blast 2.

The period leading up to Sonic Adventure 2's launch was one colored by excitement and confusion. I remember pouring over magazine articles covering the game and being both in awe and a bit concerned about the direction Sonic Team was going. It was set in a city that looked decidedly like San Fransisco, Sonic was trading out his traditional sneakers for SOAP shoes, and uh... that bat has boob physics. These were certainly choices!

Nevertheless, I was hyped for the game and took a small weekend job to scrape together enough money to buy a copy. I unfortunately came up a bit short, but thankfully had a friend who was nice enough to invite me over to play the game with him on launch night. We went through the entire game in a single sitting, and by the time the credits for the final story were rolling, I decided I didn't want to buy Sonic Adventure 2 anymore.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't really like this game. I never liked this game. I also love this game. I am a man of contradictions, an embodiment of id and ego. No super ego, though. Otherwise I'd be self-critical enough to not do this shit.

The first and most apparent thing about Sonic Adventure 2 is how structurally different it is from the first Adventure game. People really didn't like stuff like the adventure fields or Big the Cat, so those were tossed out in favor of a more streamlined story mode and easter eggs of Big in various states of distress. I'm sorry they're treating you like this, King. I am not one to shirk tradition, so I'm going to stick with what works and start by breaking down the various gameplay modes much like I did in my review for Sonic Adventure. Ok, let's begin: I wish Shadow the Hedgehog was my dad, maybe my parents would still be together

____________________________________

Sonic/Shadow: Sonic's repertoire is expanded upon greatly, including a new roll, bounce attack, modified lightspeed dash, and rail grinding. Unfortunately, not all of the changes Sonic Team made were for the better.

The lightspeed dash can now be initiated by tapping the B button when approaching a trail of rings, which at face value is an improvement as you no longer have to come to a dead stop to use the move, but it's incredibly finicky and often doesn't work properly. Similarly, rail grinding is more involved than it is in subsequent games, requiring you to lean into turns to maintain and build speed. I get what Sonic Team was going for, but the way Sonic wobbles around when he's stuck on a rail feels unnatural and wonky, and sometimes causes you to hitch up and lose your momentum. It just feels awkward and somewhat counter-intuitive. And really, that's my problem with Sonic and Shadow's levels. All these new techniques are ostensibly designed to allow the player to perform more acrobatic stunts as Sonic without breaking their flow through the level, but due to poor implementation, a handful of these moves create the exact problem their inclusion is meant to rectify. Even things like the homing attack don't quite feel right, with the timing between attacks often being inconsistent. This was a bit of an issue in the first game too, but Sonic Adventure 2 requires you to use it far more often to cover large gaps over bottomless pits, and there's nothing worse than having Sonic lock on to the wrong enemy or botch the attack entirely by having a lock fail to form.

On the bright side, that sick sense of satisfaction I get from breaking Sonic Adventure's levels is alive and well here. Well timed spin dashes against inclines and corners makes you feel like you're in control of SA2's screwy physics, and much like the skip in Emerald Coast, it has become tradition (or perhaps habit) to launch myself off the rails near the start of Final Rush and carefully navigate my way through free fall towards rails far below. Sonic and Shadow's stages are a nightmare to get A ranks on, yet they're also the most fun, because the absurd requirements almost force you to become intimate enough with each level that you learn how to bust them wide open. It's for that reason that, despite all their faults, I find Sonic and Shadow's levels to be the most enjoyable part of Sonic Adventure 2, and the main reason why I return to it so often despite generally disliking the game.

Knuckles/Rouge: I'm on record saying I never cared for Knuckles' treasure hunting levels, so the fact that there's just more of them here isn't a positive. I'm convinced the only reason anyone bears any fondness for them is because of the goofyass rap music that plays throughout each stage.

Sonic, what are you doin' here?
I heard you were on a quest for the Master Emerald
You know me and you don't get along
I don't think that's the point right now, Knuckles
I know how much the Emerald means to you, and I wanna help get it back
Stop being stubborn and think!
Well, I guess you're right
You're damn right, Knuckles!

That's why Hunnid-P gets paid the big bucks.

Personally, I always like Rouge's jazzier tracks way more. One of Sonic Adventure 2's greatest strengths is how varied and distinct each character's music is. Sonic of course has very upbeat rock music, which acts as a great contrast to Shadow's more dirty, grungy, and industrial themes. Tails' music has a very hopeful feel, whereas Eggman's is more sinister. Sonic Adventure 2, you see, is all about contrasts.

Uhh, anyway the treasure hunting is bad. The clues you're given are often just vague enough as to be unhelpful unless you've already untangled what they mean, to the point which you need only one small hint to know precisely where to go. Otherwise, much of these stages involve you bumbling around trying to follow your fairly inaccurate radar through stages that feels clumsy and painful to navigate. Death Chamber can eat me, but so can Aquatic Mine, and Meteor Herd, and Egg Quarters and Mad Space.

Tails/Eggman: Gamma's action stages worked because they were short and had a good arcadey hook. Drag those out into levels that approach or exceed 8 minutes, have genuinely unpleasant platforming, and which ditch the time limit gimmick entirely, and you have something I just don't care to play.

By my count, there are nine of these levels total, in addition to nine treasure hunting stages, versus ten speed stages. If you want to break it all down mathematically (and clearly I do) then nearly 2/3's of this game is Shit George Doesn't Like™.

Kart Racing: Honorable mention to the two cart racing stages, which genuinely feel like someone's very first attempt to program a video game. Atari Karts feels better than this, and I'm really not sure how you can fuck up that bad.

Chao Gardening: At the risk of digging my own grave even deeper (up to my chest now, spitting and screaming about Eggman levels), I don't understand what people love so much about the Chao gardens. Thankfully, you don't have to interact with these whatsoever. Well, if you don't want to unlock Green Hill Zone, anyway...

My first time going through Sonic Adventure 2, I messed around in the Chao gardens a little bit. It's neat how there's three different gardens now and how Chao can grow into light, dark, or centrist Chao, but the racing is still bad, and the grind of feeding them animals and chaos drives is beyond tedious. I bounced off of it and moved on with my life... that is, until I pulled open the back of a magazine and found out you actually unlock something for getting all the emblems in Sonic Adventure 2. That something is, of course, Green Hill Zone, rendered in 3D long before that became it's own tired trope. I immediately went back and got to Chao gardening.

Despite how much I don't like Sonic Adventure 2, there is still something compelling about it that keeps drawing me back in. So much so that I've gotten all the emblems three times over: once in the original Sonic Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast, once in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for the Gamecube, and once via emulation when doing my bucket list. Sadly, my VMUs have died, but I can at least provide photographic evidence of the other two times I did this! If anything, I hope this at least validates that you'll never succeed in making me feel any different about this game than I do, because I have spent more time with it than I have my own family.

Anyway, the Chao garden is a grind. You pick up animals from defeated badniks in action stages just like in Sonic Adventure to take back with you to the Chao garden. These animals will buff certain stats and change physical attributes on the Chaos, allowing you to guide their growth. However, more often than not you'll be dragging your carcass back to the Chao garden with pockets full of chaos drives, which are the primary fuel source used in GUN's military robots, SA2's most common enemies. GUN robots are boring, generic, and plentiful, with Sonic Adventure 2 marking the series first step away from bespoke robots themed around specific levels. You'll need to cancel all your plans and probably end a few friendships to free up enough time to train your Chao and finish every race, though you can expedite this process through an exploit where you drop the animal or drive just far enough for the Chao to benefit from while causing it to fall out of their hands, allowing you to use it a second time. While this may cut the amount of time you need to grind in half, we're talking like, 8 hours instead of 16. I think. I've never actually timed it but boy it sure feels like it takes just as long to wrap up Chao racing as it does getting every other emblem in the rest of the game. It's a drag.

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Ok, I lied a little about how I was going to structure this review. Just like Sonic Adventure 2, it ended up being one long, continuous, messy stream of content.

I know for a lot of people Sonic Adventure 2 was their first Sonic game, and therefor formed a baseline in the same way Sonic the Hedgehog 2 did for me. I can't begrudge anyone for thinking it's the best in the series, even if I find myself utterly incapable of viewing it as such after (at least) a hundred hours of trying. Of course, I wouldn't keep coming back to it if there wasn't something to like. Sonic's (and by extension, Shadow's) gameplay is still compelling, if a bit janky, and finally gaining mastery over SA2's bullshit is extremely satisfying even if I might find said bullshit to be the consequence of poor design. Perhaps it's all masochistic. Maybe I like this pain.

I guess that's why it's a 2.5/5, even if the blackest parts of my heart want to slap a 1 on this thing, go "ya'll crazy" and leave it at that. I've never put so much time time into a game I don't like, and that's because its good qualities have such a magnetic pull that I keep coming back, dragged by my feet, nails digging at the floor... It's good vs evil. Hero vs dark.

From this point on, Sonic games began to lack stylistic, mechanical, and narrative continuity, sending the series down a path that would largely be defined by its failures rather than successes. It also marked the first time I sat down and really questioned what specific qualities drew me to Sonic in the first place. It's also Sonic's swan song on Sega consoles, and it honestly seems like Sonic Team was ready to move on from the series as well. If only they were allowed to. Just let them make Billy Hatcher games, god damnit, we'd probably all be better off for it!

I could probably write another couple paragraphs on how tonally weird this game is, or talk about the online features that you can no longer access, but I just realized that the Wii can't read physical memory cards when playing games off the hard drive, and that means I have an ISO of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle without a 100% complete save! Oh no!! I guess that means I'll probably be writing a mountain of words about that too, so thank you for reading PART ONE of my two part Sonic Adventure 2 review, please tune in next time for the Dark Story where I play too much Sonic Adventure 2 and lose my fucking mind and blow up half o fthe moon up !

Sonic Adventure 2 isn't just a game. It's hard for me to convey in words how important this game is both to me personally and to an amount of people I interact with. It's like a cultural cornerstone made into a video game. You didn't just play Sonic Adventure 2, you experienced it. lived it, I guess. There is nothing about this game that I would change. If this game didn't exist society as we know it would be totally different. From the incredible soundtrack, the anime as hell plot, the 3 different character playstyles, and the chao garden, everything in this game goes hard. You owe it to yourself to play this one, especially if you like other sonic the hedgehog games. Shadow the hedgehog is the coolest character to ever be designed by mankind. This isn't like a joke review, I'm deadass serious about all of this.

there's something to be said about the heavy air of finality revolving around sonic adventure 2 in retrospect. by 2001 i imagine sonic team was looking down the barrel pretty clearly, likely a sinking feeling of defeat as the playstation 2 and gamecube began their respective dynasties, realizing that this project by and large was likely to serve as their last opportunity to say something unless a miracle came about. maybe sonic as a franchise never achieved the epic status of overarching story that this game bolstered in presentation, but this time around, after years of shitting on this game, i finally felt it a little bit. i got what the deal was with sonic adventure 2.

i don't even necessarily know if it's a 'better' game than adventure 1; i'd say it's more likely that it has less widely-spread problems, but those that exist are arguably more egregious. knuckles and rouge's downgrade to their playstyle in this game is frankly fucking inexcusable and rouge's stages in specific are some of the most time-consuming wastes of energy the game has to offer. tails' inclusion borders on irrelevant thanks to his entire playstyle being neutered just to serve as an eggman mechanical partner a-la waluigi's debut in mario tennis - and even then, the actual mecha gameplay is so clearly aping on gamma's from adventure 1 while managing to strip most of the fun of his mode that it's baffling. sonic's moveset received some bizarre changes in between titles (the spindash???) that feel blatantly unnecessary.

with that said, why does this game rank a little higher for me?

look, i'm at a point in my life where objective quality isn't exactly my paradigm with art. i'm not interested in dissolving into "this is better than that objectively because of x y and z." it's lame talk. it's plastic. let's talk about cool, let's talk about expression, let's talk about the obvious passion that went into this fucking janky bizarre mess of a game - a fitting finale with a heart on its sleeves and a love for all things precisely 2001 that likely would've (and should've) seen sonic off at this point in his tenure with sega.

is sonic adventure 2 a good game? well, not really, no. i do think overall thanks to level design, storyline and pacing it's at least a small step over sonic adventure 1 at this point - this being the first time in my life i can actually say i feel that way. but god help me, if something didn't click while sonic and shadow run around the endless stretch of highway and duke it out with pseudo nine inch nails club mixes in the background while shounen-ing up the fuck out of sonic's already attitude-centric aesthetic and storyline. i'm an adventure-era fan now. i love this game now. i'm glad to be on board.

oh yeah, and the scene where eggman pulls a fucking gat on amy rose is peak sonic.

I played this shit so much. Like getting invested in the plot playing it. This game also introduced me to drum and bass and a friendship to last a lifetime was born.

Only stages I'm really not fond of are Tails's stages, they are too long and total crap, I genuinely like Eggman's stages though.

There's been so much discussion and arbitration on Sonic Adventure 2 that I won't even bother throwing my hat in the ring. I just wanted to raise its overall score muahaha >:) let's get sonic adventure 2 a 4.0 average.

An intensely frictional experience that sometimes becomes too much to deal with (it is difficult to overstate just how much two of Rouge the Bat's levels in particular are frustrating) but ultimately ends up being an experience far more than the sum of the parts.

This game has such an infectious energy to it, such a cheeky sense of flair and personality, that its impossible to stay mad at it, even after Sonic falls through the level architecture on Final Rush for the third time in a row. Say what you will about the Knuckles/Tails levels, the Sonic and Shadow levels are fantastic fun: a unique platforming experience where you genuinely feel like you are struggling to control your character, just barely leashing their immense power. It makes for some annoyances, to be sure, but when you pull off a stylish run through a level, all those annoyances become worth it because suddenly, you are soaring, a high you can only appreciate because of the lows that contrast it.

The much-mocked story is one of the highlights. No parody fandub could possibly capture just how much of a riot this game's story is, it has the exact manic energy of a game made up by kids on the playground, leaping from tone to genre to plot with nonexistent restraint. It has to be experienced to be believed, and enjoyed without cynicism, without irony. Those without sincerity in their hearts will not survive contact with Sonic Adventure 2.

I love this stupid, messy, awful, brilliant game. I'll treasure my time with it. If I ever have to play Mad Space again I will snap my controller in two.

Veredito: O meu jogo mais formativo, que sempre vou amar por isso.

Tenho muita coisa pra dizer de Sonic Adventure 2, dos defeitos e qualidades, mas vou me segurar. Hoje só vou falar de um pedaço do que ele fez por mim, e este texto já vai ficar enorme só com isso. Tá avisada a dose CAVALAR de nostalgia.

Conheci Sonic Adventure 2 no final da infância/começo da adolescência. Foi paixão desde o 1º "aperte start", e até hoje amo DEMAIS este pedaço jogável da cultura humana. É muito pouco dizer que ele foi formativo pra mim, pra minha personalidade e visão de mundo. Desde a 1ª zerada ele me acerta tão em cheio, e tão fundo, que no duro: jogar ele hoje é um exercício delicioso de auto-conhecimento.

Minha adolescência, como provavelmente a da maioria de vocês, foi um divisor de águas. E este jogo foi um dos motivos.

Sonic Adventure 2 é o "aquele jogo pra mim" do Marcelo, do CDX.

(Inclusive peço desculpas se esta análise parecer que tou falando mais de mim do que dele, mas o assunto é "jogo formativo" e aí não dá pra separar Sonic Adventure 2 da formação que tive com este jogo.)

Eu gosto de muita coisa. Gosto de fazer a coisa certa não pra ser certinho, inclusive na época os adultos em volta me viam como o respondão metido a rebelde. E sim porque, cara, pra que eu vou fazer merda - ou fingir que não tou vendo a merda - se tenho outra escolha? Só pra "não parecer politicamente correto"? Pra ter orgulho de ser cuzão?

Como quase todo mundo que teve uma criação saudável, eu gosto de me divertir. Tipo, gosto PRA CARALHO de me divertir. Tenho fama de ser um moleque de 5 anos num corpo de adulto barbado. Dentre outros motivos, porque eu gosto muito de brincar. Até hoje se estiver podendo na hora e me chamam prum pique-pega, aceito FELIZÃO. Pena que quase ninguém chama adultos pra brincar de pique-pega.

Entendo a importância de respeitar a lei, não sou alérgico a regulamentos. Mas detesto regras idiotas. Especialmente regras sociais vazias. Coisas que uma turma impõe sem nem saber explicar qual o bem que essa regra supostamente deveria estar fazendo, mas tem que obrigar geral a seguir cegamente. Aquelas regras que uma galera cria e enfia goela abaixo dos outros 100% na filosofia "o certo é ser igual a mim" só porque não tem a boa vontade de sentar e conversar, não quer bater um papo franco, aberto e respeitoso pra alimentar um convívio bacana. Que é só pra se sentirem acima do resto, e ficam ofendidinhas quando não são tratadas como o alecrim dourado que nasceu no campo sem ser semeado. Tipo... Com todo o respeito, foda-se, tá ligado? Eu sigo o "viva e deixe viver". Deixa as pessoas serem felizes. Se não estiver fazendo merda, só seja livre e faz o que tu quiser, sem culpa. Toca o barco e segue o baile.

Gosto de simplicidade, mesmo que muitas vezes complique demais as coisas sem precisar. Na infância e adolescência eu fazia isso bem menos. Em parte porque não soube envelhecer, em parte porque nem sempre controlo minha empolgação e fico forçando explicações super detalhadas fora de hora, e em parte por problemas de saúde que me atrapalham nisso. Mas sempre é sem querer, e pra ser justo comigo mesmo não é o tempo todo. Quando eu não faço isso, sou muito feliz, e estou constantemente tentanto não fazer.

Também sou otimista incorrigível. Sempre dou um jeito de acreditar que as coisas podem dar certo, sempre acho que vale a pena tentar, que é só tomar cuidado e cair pra dentro. E nessas horas, de alguma forma tenho uma capacidade enorme de convencer os outros. Nem a depressão conseguiu tirar isso de mim. Sei lá, vai ver é porque sou teimoso também.

Sonic Adventure 2 é tudo que eu gosto de ser. Sonic ajudou a moldar meus gostos, minha personalidade, e o meu jeito de lidar com a vida. Duvido que fosse essa a intenção de muitos dos responsáveis por criar os sonics que cresci jogando - a maioria provavelmente só tava tentando fazer jogos maneiros - mas CAGUEI, IRMÃO. E ele não fez sozinho isso tudo comigo, óbvio. Tem toda uma história de vida pra explicar minha formação, Sonic nessa história é só uma franquia que eu curto muito. Mas os jogos dela são tudo isso que falei. E na minha vida, faz mais ou menos 20 anos, o Sonic Adventure 2 em específico é tudo isso LIGADO NA POTÊNCIA MÁXIMA!!!

Tipo... Sou cheio de defeitos, como todo mundo. Gosto de acreditar que sou mais sábio hoje do que quando adolescente, e em uma porrada de áreas com certeza sou, mas também sei que desaprendi muita coisa. Crescer sem desaprender a sabedoria da infância é uma das conquistas da vida. Uma que nem sempre consigo conquistar, justo por não ser nada perfeito. Mas sei que este jogo sempre vai estar aqui pra me ensinar de novo, entende? Como ele sempre me ensinou. Pra me ajudar, do jeito mais simples e divertido que eu conheço, a ser quem eu gosto de ser.

Sonic Adventure 2 tem um milhão de motivos pra estar junto de Sonic 3 & Knuckles no pódio de ser o jogo mais importante da minha vida. Mas este com certeza é um desses motivos.

Eu te amo, Sonic Adventure 2, com todas as minhas forças. Muito obrigado por tudo.

on a different day i would write something stupid about how accomplished this game is as a work of postmodernism for a game about a cartoon hedgehog but for now maybe not.
what is admirable and remarkable about this game to me, having not played it since i was a child is how much i found every stage sans mad space really well designed. it is often criticised for the non-hedgehog levels being downgraded versions of their sa1 counterparts but i think they still work fine, the design concepts are less immediately satisfctory but the improved level design and controls make for a better overall gameplay experience.
the ambition of the game's narrative is also admirable, but really that was to still be expected from a sonic game, sonic adventure might have been the first mainstream video game to utilise the rashomon effect after all. the inspirations here are probably globetrotting military/spy thrillers which i find interesting considering the game released before the bourne identity would really propel that genre into the cultural foreground again considering bond was in a lull and mission impossible hadnt really broken through too much quite yet. except the globe being trotted is mainly just san francisco including the famous san francisco pyramind. baudrillard's analysis of los angeles comes to mind when i think of that, dont ask me to elaborate.
as a child i was utterly mesmerised by what i thought was a beautifully nuanced story beyond good and evil, and i think thats important. sonic adventure 2 is a wonderful introduction to grey morality as it can be understood by children. many playing this in its target audience would have never questioned the boundaries of morality and legality before, of the role of the state in peacekeeping, of the purpose of policing and militarism, of the responsibility of science. this game welcomes its audience to take on that discourse within themselves if they so choose, it never spoonfeeds its ultimately-basic-to-adults ideas to its intended audience. it just lets it boil and turns the stove off, waiting for the boil to be turned on again slowly and surely as they progress to other, more mature works that may have more concrete things to say about such subjects and eventually to lived experiences of our society where such subjects are unavoidable.

Sonic Adventure 2 is a game that I have given dozens of chances, all with different mindsets and understandings of how the game works. And each time I play this game, I feel underwhelmed. This feeling was no such stronger than on my most recent playthrough. Sonic Adventure 2 is a unique game, in that it feels both boring and frustrating at the exact same time. Occasionally it's fun. But overall, you just feel like you're wasting your time. Sonic Adventure 2 starts out incredibly strong. City Escape is phenomenal, and most of the levels here are actually pretty fun to play. But it very quickly goes downhill. Aquatic Base is okay, but most of the levels from there range from mediocre to flat out awful. And also not helping is the godawful playstyle that's attached to these stages. Although Sonic/Shadow have mostly remained the same, good god, what the fuck did they do to the treasure hunting and mech stages? First off, the sensitivity for controls is jacked up to the extreme. Move the joystick ever so slightly and you'll go flying off a ledge. SA1 had perfect controls. Perfect sensitivity and movement, good physics and more, but SA2 had to screw it up. Overall, the characters are just a nightmare to control, with really the only improvements being Knuckles/Rouge. Secondly, treasure hunting/mech shooting is fucking BORING. Treasure hunting is just a tedious task in it of itself; you just fly around til your radar goes off. But they made it even WORSE compared to SA1! Now you can only track one Emerald at a single time, and the radar is just less useful overall, with less levels of tracking. SA1 had 5, but 2 bumps it down to 3, an unneeded change. Oh, and you thought Treasure hunting was bad? Try the Mech stages! The mech stages are just awful. Not only are the controls still dogshit, but the physics combined with the controls make a confusing and bland slog of stages. Just spam B. That's the entire stage. Sure, you can go for higher ranks by holding B, but it still sucks to play + there's basically no motivation to do so, outside of achievements and whatnot. And the level designs themselves genuinely SUCK. I don't know what happened to the level designers from the first game, but they clearly needed to come back for this one, because GOOD LORD. These stages are TERRIBLE. Really the only ones I enjoyed were the Sonic/Shadow stages (although there's a severe lack of Shadow stages for whatever reason), and SOME of the Rouge stages. The level design for the stages I don't like feel tedious. Just the same, boring and repetitive shit you've been doing the last 14 hours. Spam B, fly in circles until your Radar dings, where's the variety? Yes, SA1 had a similar issue, but each gameplay style was different and shorter than Sonic’s, making it feel more fun to switch around characters. The only dud in SA1 was Big’s fishing, but other than that, SA1 was a fun, albeit slightly dated game. SA2 on the other hand, feels repetitive and bland. And when it isn't that, it's frustrating as all hell. And we all know where that applies most. Mad Space was my breaking point. It's genuinely one of, if not the WORST Sonic levels ever made. The antithesis when it comes to fun design. I was so close to beating SA2, but I just gave up here. Going through this War of Attrition was just soul crushing to me. And that's where I just stopped playing. Sonic Adventure 2 is one of my least favorite Sonic games, and I'm shocked at how such poor design is acclaimed by the Sonic community to this day. I didn't bring up every issue I had in this review, but I don't really feel like it. SA2 is just not a fun game in my opinion. Overall, SA2 is just terrible to me.

City Escape is one of the best opening levels in video game history, the Sonic and Shadow missions are all great fun, and the soundtrack might be the best any Sega game has ever had. Literally every single other thing about Sonic Adventure 2 is awful. The boss fights are terrible, the Tails/Eggman stages are these mindnumbing shoot-em-ups in bland environments, and the Knuckles/Rogue emerald hunting missions are so tedious it’s a wonder anyone ever beat this game. The only reason this game gets 3 stars is because of the Sonic/Shadow stages and the music. Otherwise I’d probably give it a 2.

honestly, i'd probably have a better opinion on 3d sonic if they were all more like this. the story is so silly and campy, they take it so seriously and then there's some genuinely really cool moments to compliment that tone, it's awesome. tails/eggman have terrible gameplay but otherwise it's fun to play if a bit inconsistent. shadow probably had my favorite level design, his stages had a much better sense of speed than sonic i felt. i ended up playing with the jp voices because the english performances aren't really my thing, but i have to admit that i love david humphrey's voice for shadow. the final episode is really good, i love the final boss and the ending. not a perfect game by any means, and i'd say it's honestly pretty bad at some points but it's fun enough that i can't even say i cared.

I was worried the spark of insanity would be missing from this since there's no more Big the Cat or Omega, but then you spawn into your first Tails level in a mech suit and I knew it would all be okay. Sort of feels like a hangover after the pure exuberant party of SA1, with a lot of great aspects (Sonic and Shadow levels, score, storytelling), but some weird steps back that probably improved it for a lot of people but took away from the magic of the first game for me. I miss the Adventure towns, the people to talk to, the real coherency there was to the world in that game. SA1 is a proper adventure, where 2 is a collection of pretty fun video game levels. Treasure hunting I'm split on, the radar nerf and huge size of the stages are frustrating, and it was a funny impulse to give Hunnid P a new vocal track for every Knucks stage, but when you're ten minutes in on the 5th loop of the song it hurts more than it helps (Rouge's stages aren't afflicted by this and the music bangs). Mech stages are about the same. I still don't understand the Chao Garden but I respect the ambition of whatever the fuck it is. Live and Learn advanced video games as an art form by decades

I'm gonna do an experiment, reply to this review with a quote from the fandub.


I'll start.



"WHAT THE FUCK, IS THAT SHADOW'S DICK?