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
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
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.
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.
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.
A couple months ago, I decided to breathe some new life into my old, beat up Sega Dreamcast, and transferred its internals into a new shell. While I was up in them guts, I figured I'd go the extra mile and put in a PicoPSU, Noctua fan, and (most importantly) a GDEMU clone. I own three Dreamcast games on disc, they're all Sonic and they're all scratched to hell, and considering the longevity of Dreamcast disc drives, it did not pain me to rip that sucker out of there. Besides, an SD card opens me up to games I'd never dream of affording...
Anyway, I 100%'d Sonic Adventure 2 again. God damnit, why do I keep ending up here?
I explicitly told myself I would not, but looking at my childhood save file, I was maybe eight to ten hours of actual work shy of running through Green Hill, which I've previously unlocked twice on two different versions of the game (the Dreamcast original via emulation, and Battle for the GameCube.) It's not like I had something to prove so much as I hated the idea of leaving something undone, even if it meant feeding a Chao the same skeleton dog over and over again for three hours while alone in a dark room. Oh well, my time could not be less valuable.
I bring all this up because I'm going to say some fairly disparaging things about Sonic Adventure 2 - which for a lot of people sits in this exalted "sacred cow" position - and I just need everyone to accept that I've done my time with this game and feel pretty strongly about it.
Sonic Adventure 2 condenses Sonic Adventure's six distinct gameplay styles into three, and makes each of them more robust, which on paper sounds great. Sounds like something you'd do with a sequel, cut all the filler and build out from what worked... Only, I think adding more to the mech and emerald hunting stages makes them a total drag to play. What was once arcadey and enjoyable is now bloated and boring, sometimes outright frustrating. Sonic and Shadow get the best levels of the bunch, but given how often these brief bursts of fun are interrupted, does it even really matter?
Even setting aside my grievances with the way these modes are designed, I feel like Sonic Adventure 2 is just... sloppy. It has the collision detection of a cheap D-tier licensed platformer, with characters constantly juttering and clipping when making slight contact with uneven surfaces. Even flat surfaces are temperamental given how often Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles will catch on some 1 pixel tall seam. The camera is uncooperative, characters move inconsistently, and every part of the geometry feels like it's held together by Elmer's glue and tongue depressors. So much as brush a corner wrong and the game will shut off whatever complex calculation it needs to run to determine momentum. Having done this three times now, I can confidently say the worst part of the 180 emblem experience is fighting with the parts of the game that are unpredictable, like, you know, landing on a solid stationary platform and just falling through it.
This is all coming from the guy who frequently writes Labyrinth Zone apologia on Backloggd Dot Com, so I can't stress enough that my opinion on this shouldn't be taken as some condemnation of those who enjoy Sonic Adventure 2, or a statement that I'm more right for having a dissenting opinion. There's thousands of you and uh... I don't think there's even a dozen people that like Labyrinth. And hey, Sonic Adventure 2 isn't without its charm. I've previously praised the excellent soundtrack, which I remember owning once on CD (which also got scratched to hell), and though I hated the tonal shift SA2 made at the time, I think it's probably the best part of the game now. The voice clips cutting off, Grandpa Robotnik being put in front of a firing squad... it's not good, but it's good.
Unfortunately, it's not enough to bring me around on the game as a whole package, and I feel like the amount of hours I've logged both qualifies my dislike while calling into question my sanity. Sometimes you go for 180 emblems in Sonic Adventure 2 while playing Mario Party 6 while playing In Sound Mind while playing Shining in the Darkness. Sometimes you're just that kind of depressed, where you're glad you don't live with someone who could walk by your room and see you running through Mad Space and think "oh god he's spiraling." But it doesn't matter now. I'm finished. I never have to do this ever again.
Oh hey, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is on sale on Xbox...!
Anyway, I 100%'d Sonic Adventure 2 again. God damnit, why do I keep ending up here?
I explicitly told myself I would not, but looking at my childhood save file, I was maybe eight to ten hours of actual work shy of running through Green Hill, which I've previously unlocked twice on two different versions of the game (the Dreamcast original via emulation, and Battle for the GameCube.) It's not like I had something to prove so much as I hated the idea of leaving something undone, even if it meant feeding a Chao the same skeleton dog over and over again for three hours while alone in a dark room. Oh well, my time could not be less valuable.
I bring all this up because I'm going to say some fairly disparaging things about Sonic Adventure 2 - which for a lot of people sits in this exalted "sacred cow" position - and I just need everyone to accept that I've done my time with this game and feel pretty strongly about it.
Sonic Adventure 2 condenses Sonic Adventure's six distinct gameplay styles into three, and makes each of them more robust, which on paper sounds great. Sounds like something you'd do with a sequel, cut all the filler and build out from what worked... Only, I think adding more to the mech and emerald hunting stages makes them a total drag to play. What was once arcadey and enjoyable is now bloated and boring, sometimes outright frustrating. Sonic and Shadow get the best levels of the bunch, but given how often these brief bursts of fun are interrupted, does it even really matter?
Even setting aside my grievances with the way these modes are designed, I feel like Sonic Adventure 2 is just... sloppy. It has the collision detection of a cheap D-tier licensed platformer, with characters constantly juttering and clipping when making slight contact with uneven surfaces. Even flat surfaces are temperamental given how often Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles will catch on some 1 pixel tall seam. The camera is uncooperative, characters move inconsistently, and every part of the geometry feels like it's held together by Elmer's glue and tongue depressors. So much as brush a corner wrong and the game will shut off whatever complex calculation it needs to run to determine momentum. Having done this three times now, I can confidently say the worst part of the 180 emblem experience is fighting with the parts of the game that are unpredictable, like, you know, landing on a solid stationary platform and just falling through it.
This is all coming from the guy who frequently writes Labyrinth Zone apologia on Backloggd Dot Com, so I can't stress enough that my opinion on this shouldn't be taken as some condemnation of those who enjoy Sonic Adventure 2, or a statement that I'm more right for having a dissenting opinion. There's thousands of you and uh... I don't think there's even a dozen people that like Labyrinth. And hey, Sonic Adventure 2 isn't without its charm. I've previously praised the excellent soundtrack, which I remember owning once on CD (which also got scratched to hell), and though I hated the tonal shift SA2 made at the time, I think it's probably the best part of the game now. The voice clips cutting off, Grandpa Robotnik being put in front of a firing squad... it's not good, but it's good.
Unfortunately, it's not enough to bring me around on the game as a whole package, and I feel like the amount of hours I've logged both qualifies my dislike while calling into question my sanity. Sometimes you go for 180 emblems in Sonic Adventure 2 while playing Mario Party 6 while playing In Sound Mind while playing Shining in the Darkness. Sometimes you're just that kind of depressed, where you're glad you don't live with someone who could walk by your room and see you running through Mad Space and think "oh god he's spiraling." But it doesn't matter now. I'm finished. I never have to do this ever again.
Oh hey, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is on sale on Xbox...!
Hard to put into words the power this game has but I know it when I feel it. It's Sonic skydiving out of a cop copter, it's locking onto 9 targets and once and getting that meaty score notif, it's gliding all the way from one peak of Pumpkin Hill to the other, it's the way each character gets their own musical genre, it's the obscenely harsh 100% requirements, the list goes on
Unstoppable apex, unequivocally itself, living by its own feeling.
Unstoppable apex, unequivocally itself, living by its own feeling.
rouge the bat is a transwoman and your tax dollars paid for her BA ❤️
Rouge she is so fucking hot. Made me realize I love women. God. She’s so hot dude. If she a bat I’m a bat. Iykyk. She’s so bad.
"I peed on your wife, Robotnik. She's mine now."
Flaws in controls, camera problems and Knuckles' long ass levels can't stop me from enjoying this charming and fun game.
I've come to make an announcement: Shadow the Hedgehog's a bitch-ass motherfucker, he pissed on my fucking wife. That's right, he took his hedgehog-fuckin' quilly dick out and he pissed on my fucking wife, and he said his dick was "THIS BIG," and I said "that's disgusting," so I'm making a callout post on my Twitter.com: Shadow the Hedgehog, you've got a small dick. It's the size of this walnut except WAY smaller. And guess what? Here's what my dong looks like.
[Explosion sounds] That's right, baby. All points, no quills, no pillows — look at that, it looks like two balls and a bong. He fucked my wife, so guess what, I'm gonna fuck the Earth. That's right, this is what you get: MY SUPER LASER PISS!! Except I'm not gonna piss on the Earth, I'm gonna go higher; I'M PISSING ON THE MOON! How do you like that, Obama?! I PISSED ON THE MOON, YOU IDIOT!
You have twenty-three hours before the piss D R O P L E T S hit the fucking Earth, now get outta my fucking sight, before I piss on you too!
[Explosion sounds] That's right, baby. All points, no quills, no pillows — look at that, it looks like two balls and a bong. He fucked my wife, so guess what, I'm gonna fuck the Earth. That's right, this is what you get: MY SUPER LASER PISS!! Except I'm not gonna piss on the Earth, I'm gonna go higher; I'M PISSING ON THE MOON! How do you like that, Obama?! I PISSED ON THE MOON, YOU IDIOT!
You have twenty-three hours before the piss D R O P L E T S hit the fucking Earth, now get outta my fucking sight, before I piss on you too!
Even though I played this game when I was literally a few months old, I never actually completed it until I was 4.
Objectively speaking, Sonic Adventure 2 has definitely shown its age. There are some parts of it that haven't aged well on repeat playthroughs such as the cutscene animations, the overall story (with plotholes and underdeveloped story threads), and just the Mech and Treasure Hunting sections that slow the game down.
Of course, there are the things that it does just right such as the Speed and Platforming section, the music, and the characterization of Sonic.
However, subjectively, this game has a very special place in my heart due to it being the literal first video game I ever played and it defined my love for Sonic and video games in general.
I love you, Sonic Adventure 2. I hope we'll get an Adventure 3 someday...
Someday...
Objectively speaking, Sonic Adventure 2 has definitely shown its age. There are some parts of it that haven't aged well on repeat playthroughs such as the cutscene animations, the overall story (with plotholes and underdeveloped story threads), and just the Mech and Treasure Hunting sections that slow the game down.
Of course, there are the things that it does just right such as the Speed and Platforming section, the music, and the characterization of Sonic.
However, subjectively, this game has a very special place in my heart due to it being the literal first video game I ever played and it defined my love for Sonic and video games in general.
I love you, Sonic Adventure 2. I hope we'll get an Adventure 3 someday...
Someday...
I've come to make an announcement; Shadow The Hedgehog's a bitch ass motherfucker, he pissed on my fucking wife. Thats right, he took his hedgehog quilly dick out and he pissed on my fucking wife, and he said his dick was "This big" and I said that's disgusting, so I'm making a callout post on my twitter dot com, Shadow the Hedgehog, you've got a small dick, it's the size of this walnut except WAY smaller, and guess what? Here's what my dong looks like: PFFFT, THAT'S RIGHT, BABY. ALL POINTS, NO QUILLS, NO PILLOWS. Look at that, it looks like two balls and a bong. He fucked my wife so guess what? I'm gonna fuck the Earth. THAT'S RIGHT THIS IS WHAT YOU GET, MY SUPER LASER PISS! Except I'm not gonna piss on the earth. I'm gonna go higher. I'M PISSING ON THE MOON! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, OBAMA? I PISSED ON THE MOON YOU IDIOT! YOU HAVE 23 HOURS BEFORE THE PISS DROPLETS HIT THE FUCKING EARTH NOW GET OUT OF MY SIGHT BEFORE I PISS ON YOU TOO.
As someone who has spent many hours playing every port of this game throughout my childhood, even well beyond its sell-by date, and now finally the original - I feel truly qualified to review this game for what it is.
Sonic Adventure 2 is a game that is quite literally a product of its development cycle. For context, this game, as I recall, was developed over the course of a year as a follow-up to Sonic Adventure, the first true 3D Platformer in Sonic's catalogue. SEGA knew that the Dreamcast was on its last legs and they weren't going to go down without a fight - perhaps if it weren't for their awful business decisions throughout their time in the console market, this game would have been able to resuscitate the Dreamcast and the future of gaming would have gone very differently.
For better or worse, Sonic Adventure 2 is a practice makes perfect, skill-based action platformer. To say this game is divisive would be an understatement - on one hand you have delusional fans saying this is the best game ever created, and on the other you have uncultured SWINE who just aren't fans of Sonic's fast paced gameplay who dub this as an atrocity. The truth of the matter is that Sonic Team captured lightning in a bottle with Adventure 2 and hit it's full potential - which landed somewhere in the middle.
The sequel to Sonic Adventure presents you at first with a Story Mode to get things going. Out of the gate, first impressions are high, with one of the most iconic and well-made levels in all of platforming and video game history, City Escape (seriously, there are literal video essays on this). Unfortunately, moving on from this level the rest of the story is a rollercoaster - a mixed bag with ups and downs a plenty.
I'm sure you don't need me to tell you about the gameplay styles on offer here - this is amongst the most well-known games of all time and there have been no shortage of reviews for it. Each of the three gameplay styles for both campaigns have good and bad stages, but unfortunately the mech-shooter galleries and treasure hunting maps have it worse.
You may have wondered what I meant when I said this game hit its full potential - often times there are games (especially nowadays), where you think "If they just did this this game could be amazing" - I don't think thats applicable here. Any minute quality of life change does not solve the problems that these modes have (those who have modded the game on Steam may know what I mean), and any significant change and I feel you would risk sacrificing the good that these stages do have to offer or even the games identity completely.
The issue with these various gameplay styles is the design choices that went into crafting the game, rather than the actual variety itself. For the most part, most of the stages are decently mapped and can be enjoyed - the problem is that getting there can be an infuriating, controller breaking experience, and sometimes it can feel natural. If you have ever completed this game you may remember that sometimes, you'll go through a level for the first time and hit a C or a B rank, and think "Ah wow, if i'd have just executed that a little tighter I could've got the A Rank!" - which is a good, addicting feeling to have - and then for other stages, you'll complete them with multiple deaths, or take so long to finish it that you get a D or an E rank, and you think "Right, well next time I do this I guess i've got to remember that, that, and that". And hell, even if you've played this game back to back countless times like I have you still won't get it every single time, even on the best levels - I can promise you that.
Occasionally, this is due to general 3D platformer jank (this game doesn't suffer too greatly from a bad camera thankfully), but often you will fall off when trying to perform skips for higher ranks etc. if you don't literally get it pixel perfect. This isn't so much of an issue - that's the nature of the beast. Where the frustration comes in is when the game throws at you stage hazards and enemies that LITERALLY drop right in front of you, centimetres in front of your face as your hurtling forward at jet speed. If you took these hazards out altogether, there would be nothing to be an obstacle for you, making the levels too easy (seeing as Ranks come from a combination of both score and clear time), but if you slowed down the characters, it wouldn't be a Sonic game anymore (and believe me, this is like one of three games where it being a Sonic game is actually a positive trait).
As I'm sure you can imagine, these frustrating moments can make your story mode playthroughs a slog. This isn't to even mention boss fights, which there are a few of, but are rarely anything impressive (with some big exceptions, of course) and sometimes very frustrating themselves. So why then, would I rate this game so highly, in spite of this? You'll be surprised to hear that it's NOT the Chao Garden.
Simply put, Sonic Adventure 2 has some of the most iconic, memorable, and well-executed platforming segments in gaming history. It's a diamond in the rough to be sure - but what this game does that lends itself so favourably to fans is the inclusion of Emblem Challenges and re-playability that extends your save file far beyond the two stories.
Once you've beaten a stage in the story mode, you are given a stage select option in the menu where you can revisit the stage with a charming, well designed world map. Each stage, in addition to its first act that you played through in Story Mode, has 4 extra bonus missions to complete, which will require powerups (some of which are hidden in stages, but only a few, and they are mostly optional ones) from finishing the story mode to get anywhere close to full completion. This is something I like about the game, as it naturally encourages you to get the story "out of the way", as it were, before you get into the real meat of the game.
With Sonic and Shadow combined having a slight majority in levels for their gameplay style in total, and their levels being in general, more consistently good, having the freedom to revisit levels at your own pace and in whichever order you choose is a blessing. Where those previously mentioned frustrating levels don't inherently get better from a gameplay standpoint, they do feel more palatable and enjoyable when enjoyed in between the favourite stages, as often times what makes the Story mode drag is that these frustrating levels can come one after the other.
And even with the Stage Select being the clear outlier as the best mode (which feels really strange to write), that isn't where the highlights end. The game has an enjoyable 2 Player mode where you can battle it out across the stages with some extra 2P exclusive stages, a (mediocre at best) Kart Racing minigame that can also be played in 2 Player, and obviously the Chao Garden - a game within a game and the highlight for most people, where you raise your very own Chao with stupid animal limbs and pit him in underground Chao Races for rewards, with the additional option to take him to school and teach him mundane activities like watching TV or doing a spin.
Hell, with the Dreamcast being so ahead of its time, I was surprised to see that the original version of this game STILL to this day has an official webpage accessible from SEGA within the game menu! It was incredible to see and impressive that they even kept it running - you can download Halloween and Christmas costumes for each of the characters in 2 Player Mode, as well as Menu themes where the characters will narrate options in the menu. There's also online Chao Trading, a Black Market to buy things for your Chao Garden, and even downloadable Kart Racing tracks - all of which is available completely for free, and to add, I played this on an emulator, and was still able to just open the browser and connect to it.
The Dreamcast original of this game is absolutely the definitive edition - with the only content worth missing is the Chao Karate, but I would happily sacrifice that for the constant easter egg Big the Cat cameos in most stages, better looking character models, seasonal costumes and DLC content, and the original, unshrunk Dark and Hero Chao Worlds. Are you missing out if you've enjoyed the game on the Gamecube? No, at the end of the day, the game is 90% the same, but if you're an enthusiastic fan of Sonic Adventure 2, the Dreamcast version is absolutely worth your time, especially as there is no 59 / 60hz bug in this version of the game, which if anyone remembers, used to cause your character to perform homing attacks on the ground or hover the minute you leave the floor in the mech stages, which got you killed constantly.
Whilst Sonic Adventure 2 certainly isn't the greatest game ever made, it proudly boasts some of gaming's best stages, soundtracks, and satisfying challenges to overcome and complete. The amount of content on offer here is pretty huge as well - 100%ing this game is a sizable task in the best way.
To summarise, I can say this: All of the quality of life and small details lost in exchange for Chao Karate where you do minimal input and watch your Chaos fight to the death?
What a price to pay.
NERD SHIT:
For the optimal experience emulating this game "as it was" on the Dreamcast without actually owning one, here are my recommendations:
RetroArch Emulator
Flycast Core (to run the game)
Sonic Adventure 2 GDI file (needs the bin files also within the folder)
NO DEADZONE on analog sticks (IMPORTANT - can be changed within the Quick Menu on RetroArch by pressing F1 in game. You don't want to change this globally, just for this game in particular. The original Dreamcast game had no Deadzone).
640x480 Native Dreamcast Resolution (YES, even if you have a 4K monitor like myself, trust me).
"CRT_Consumer" Shader applied to RetroArch once you get in the game. (Change Interlacing Toggle under Shader Parameters to 0 instead of 1 if the screen flashing gives you a headache like it does me).
Enjoy your trip down memory lane.
Sonic Adventure 2 is a game that is quite literally a product of its development cycle. For context, this game, as I recall, was developed over the course of a year as a follow-up to Sonic Adventure, the first true 3D Platformer in Sonic's catalogue. SEGA knew that the Dreamcast was on its last legs and they weren't going to go down without a fight - perhaps if it weren't for their awful business decisions throughout their time in the console market, this game would have been able to resuscitate the Dreamcast and the future of gaming would have gone very differently.
For better or worse, Sonic Adventure 2 is a practice makes perfect, skill-based action platformer. To say this game is divisive would be an understatement - on one hand you have delusional fans saying this is the best game ever created, and on the other you have uncultured SWINE who just aren't fans of Sonic's fast paced gameplay who dub this as an atrocity. The truth of the matter is that Sonic Team captured lightning in a bottle with Adventure 2 and hit it's full potential - which landed somewhere in the middle.
The sequel to Sonic Adventure presents you at first with a Story Mode to get things going. Out of the gate, first impressions are high, with one of the most iconic and well-made levels in all of platforming and video game history, City Escape (seriously, there are literal video essays on this). Unfortunately, moving on from this level the rest of the story is a rollercoaster - a mixed bag with ups and downs a plenty.
I'm sure you don't need me to tell you about the gameplay styles on offer here - this is amongst the most well-known games of all time and there have been no shortage of reviews for it. Each of the three gameplay styles for both campaigns have good and bad stages, but unfortunately the mech-shooter galleries and treasure hunting maps have it worse.
You may have wondered what I meant when I said this game hit its full potential - often times there are games (especially nowadays), where you think "If they just did this this game could be amazing" - I don't think thats applicable here. Any minute quality of life change does not solve the problems that these modes have (those who have modded the game on Steam may know what I mean), and any significant change and I feel you would risk sacrificing the good that these stages do have to offer or even the games identity completely.
The issue with these various gameplay styles is the design choices that went into crafting the game, rather than the actual variety itself. For the most part, most of the stages are decently mapped and can be enjoyed - the problem is that getting there can be an infuriating, controller breaking experience, and sometimes it can feel natural. If you have ever completed this game you may remember that sometimes, you'll go through a level for the first time and hit a C or a B rank, and think "Ah wow, if i'd have just executed that a little tighter I could've got the A Rank!" - which is a good, addicting feeling to have - and then for other stages, you'll complete them with multiple deaths, or take so long to finish it that you get a D or an E rank, and you think "Right, well next time I do this I guess i've got to remember that, that, and that". And hell, even if you've played this game back to back countless times like I have you still won't get it every single time, even on the best levels - I can promise you that.
Occasionally, this is due to general 3D platformer jank (this game doesn't suffer too greatly from a bad camera thankfully), but often you will fall off when trying to perform skips for higher ranks etc. if you don't literally get it pixel perfect. This isn't so much of an issue - that's the nature of the beast. Where the frustration comes in is when the game throws at you stage hazards and enemies that LITERALLY drop right in front of you, centimetres in front of your face as your hurtling forward at jet speed. If you took these hazards out altogether, there would be nothing to be an obstacle for you, making the levels too easy (seeing as Ranks come from a combination of both score and clear time), but if you slowed down the characters, it wouldn't be a Sonic game anymore (and believe me, this is like one of three games where it being a Sonic game is actually a positive trait).
As I'm sure you can imagine, these frustrating moments can make your story mode playthroughs a slog. This isn't to even mention boss fights, which there are a few of, but are rarely anything impressive (with some big exceptions, of course) and sometimes very frustrating themselves. So why then, would I rate this game so highly, in spite of this? You'll be surprised to hear that it's NOT the Chao Garden.
Simply put, Sonic Adventure 2 has some of the most iconic, memorable, and well-executed platforming segments in gaming history. It's a diamond in the rough to be sure - but what this game does that lends itself so favourably to fans is the inclusion of Emblem Challenges and re-playability that extends your save file far beyond the two stories.
Once you've beaten a stage in the story mode, you are given a stage select option in the menu where you can revisit the stage with a charming, well designed world map. Each stage, in addition to its first act that you played through in Story Mode, has 4 extra bonus missions to complete, which will require powerups (some of which are hidden in stages, but only a few, and they are mostly optional ones) from finishing the story mode to get anywhere close to full completion. This is something I like about the game, as it naturally encourages you to get the story "out of the way", as it were, before you get into the real meat of the game.
With Sonic and Shadow combined having a slight majority in levels for their gameplay style in total, and their levels being in general, more consistently good, having the freedom to revisit levels at your own pace and in whichever order you choose is a blessing. Where those previously mentioned frustrating levels don't inherently get better from a gameplay standpoint, they do feel more palatable and enjoyable when enjoyed in between the favourite stages, as often times what makes the Story mode drag is that these frustrating levels can come one after the other.
And even with the Stage Select being the clear outlier as the best mode (which feels really strange to write), that isn't where the highlights end. The game has an enjoyable 2 Player mode where you can battle it out across the stages with some extra 2P exclusive stages, a (mediocre at best) Kart Racing minigame that can also be played in 2 Player, and obviously the Chao Garden - a game within a game and the highlight for most people, where you raise your very own Chao with stupid animal limbs and pit him in underground Chao Races for rewards, with the additional option to take him to school and teach him mundane activities like watching TV or doing a spin.
Hell, with the Dreamcast being so ahead of its time, I was surprised to see that the original version of this game STILL to this day has an official webpage accessible from SEGA within the game menu! It was incredible to see and impressive that they even kept it running - you can download Halloween and Christmas costumes for each of the characters in 2 Player Mode, as well as Menu themes where the characters will narrate options in the menu. There's also online Chao Trading, a Black Market to buy things for your Chao Garden, and even downloadable Kart Racing tracks - all of which is available completely for free, and to add, I played this on an emulator, and was still able to just open the browser and connect to it.
The Dreamcast original of this game is absolutely the definitive edition - with the only content worth missing is the Chao Karate, but I would happily sacrifice that for the constant easter egg Big the Cat cameos in most stages, better looking character models, seasonal costumes and DLC content, and the original, unshrunk Dark and Hero Chao Worlds. Are you missing out if you've enjoyed the game on the Gamecube? No, at the end of the day, the game is 90% the same, but if you're an enthusiastic fan of Sonic Adventure 2, the Dreamcast version is absolutely worth your time, especially as there is no 59 / 60hz bug in this version of the game, which if anyone remembers, used to cause your character to perform homing attacks on the ground or hover the minute you leave the floor in the mech stages, which got you killed constantly.
Whilst Sonic Adventure 2 certainly isn't the greatest game ever made, it proudly boasts some of gaming's best stages, soundtracks, and satisfying challenges to overcome and complete. The amount of content on offer here is pretty huge as well - 100%ing this game is a sizable task in the best way.
To summarise, I can say this: All of the quality of life and small details lost in exchange for Chao Karate where you do minimal input and watch your Chaos fight to the death?
What a price to pay.
NERD SHIT:
For the optimal experience emulating this game "as it was" on the Dreamcast without actually owning one, here are my recommendations:
RetroArch Emulator
Flycast Core (to run the game)
Sonic Adventure 2 GDI file (needs the bin files also within the folder)
NO DEADZONE on analog sticks (IMPORTANT - can be changed within the Quick Menu on RetroArch by pressing F1 in game. You don't want to change this globally, just for this game in particular. The original Dreamcast game had no Deadzone).
640x480 Native Dreamcast Resolution (YES, even if you have a 4K monitor like myself, trust me).
"CRT_Consumer" Shader applied to RetroArch once you get in the game. (Change Interlacing Toggle under Shader Parameters to 0 instead of 1 if the screen flashing gives you a headache like it does me).
Enjoy your trip down memory lane.
Of all Sonic games I expected to see less of when coming back, this may have been the absolute last one I could've predicted. The gameplay has been tightened to match the speed Sonic and Shadow are capable of, the treasure hunting levels are way more complex, and the story is just about the best it can be for a 3D Sonic game, even to this day (unfortunately). So, what is the problem?
Well to start off, I'm not exactly fond of most of the speed stages outside of Radical Highway, Metal Harbor and Green Forest. City Escape is great in concept but there's just something... wrong with the physics for me at times, especially the rails. This carries on for most of the game until the very end for sonic in Final Rush, which is probably the most skill based level in the series thus far, as it requires mastery of rail grinding, the level layout itself, and the absurdly shit camera controls, all of which I have none! But I can respect the sheer amount of branching pathways with varying rewards regardless. The absolute worst part about these stages though is the complete incompetence placed into Sonic and Shadow's kits. Wanna Spindash? Hold the action button, which now has a delay in this game but its not a problem in my eyes, considering the new Somersault mechanic, tied to the same button! Wanna Light Speed Dash? Tap the action button but not really because you'll just Somersault instead. Well how about the new Bounce attack? Obviously tap the action button while in the air repeatedly to gain height. You get the point, so many new things to work with and because of how hard they wanted to maintain the single button does all mentality from the classic games, the levels and by extension my enjoyment is as inconsistent as the controls themselves.
Tails stages just suck, filled with enemies that spawn right on top of you, bad platforming, a terrible camera that doesn't fix when going down (universal problem for all characters) and a gameplay loop that isn't even satisfying in the first place. Its even more frustrating that the answer to all of these problems is simply playing as Eggman, who has way better level design and intriguing levels (I'm only saying this because I A ranked Cosmic Wall first try 😁). Even with that going for him, both Eggman and Tails suffer from shitty collision with the levels themselves, which lead to the main cause of death throughout my time as them, other then Artificial Chaos' of course. I won't even go into detail about Artificial Chaos' but like imagine an enemy that can stunlock you and hide their only weakspot from you whenever they please, and appear in sections where you're falling where you just so happen to have a single shot at killing them, usually after you've been hit and too late to react. Other than that, these could easily be fixed by just making the aim more accurate akin to that of gamma from SA1, which these two are biting directly off of, yet done worse in every way somehow, leave it to Sonic Team I guess.
Just like SA1, I enjoyed my time with both treasure hunting characters, so outside of the obvious radar problem, there isn't much for me to comment on. That being said, FUCK MAD SPACE. Meteor Herd didn't give me too much trouble but I could've just gotten lucky, but holy shit who thought Mad Space was a good mesh with this games mechanics. My biggest problem isn't even the radar being absent for this stage, instead the god awful camera mixed with there being literal planets with their own gravitational pull that just serve to pad the time out every single time you drop down either on purpose or by the games sheer hatred of you. Somehow I felt lucky to beat this in 20 minutes, as I did cheat a bit and look into some of the possible locations of the shards, I got lucky enough after about 14 minutes of doing nothing and got my ticket out of that hellhole. Its a shame how bad Sega is at handling different characters considering how well they did it in the LAST GAME, even with Big in consideration he didn't void out the good parts of the game, especially because of how short his story was and how funny the context of that section was.
The last story is something I'm entirely conflicted on. On one hand the mech parts aren't terrible, but Eggman stoops down to Tails' level in terms of its layout so idk. The time stop mechanic is pretty cool but is abused during Knuckles and Rouge's sections, to the point it just becomes another gimmick getting in the way of finishing the level quicker. Also I drowned like 3 times as Knuckles here because I didn't know there was an upgrade to breathe underwater, leading to me getting a game over as Sonic. Speaking of, his section is... meh. Pretty short if you know what you're doing but I almost wish more was done here, but I can only assume Sonic Team realized how punishing the Knuckles section was and trimmed this down in late development. I guess now would be a good time to mention the bosses, yeah? Long story short, the rival bosses are boring, with the Eggman and Tails ones just being utterly mind numbing mechanically. Sonic and Shadow's bouts are pretty cool visually, but shallow like the rest mechanically. Biolizard/Hazard was pretty fun, and highlights the standard selling point of Sonic games: the soundtracks. As over the top as ever, I find it interesting how much more SA2's tracks blend together naturally (outside of Knuckle's rap songs but even those are a joy in their own right), and seem to use similar production, unlike SA1 which are varied due to how unstructured and isolated those levels were.
The last thing I should probably bring up is the characters themselves. Personally, I'm content with the cast, but the voice work is pretty hit or miss depending on the character. Ryan Drummond is still great as Sonic of course, and David Humphrey is arguably the best depiction of Shadow to this day, however I prefer his work in Heroes a bit more. Deem Bristow is an amazing Eggman, who nearly edges out Shadow as my favorite member of this cast. Rouge, Tails and Knuckles' voices fit them for sure but it just seems like they weren't given as good of direction as the main stars of the game, which is a shame because I enjoy their interactions (for as rare as they are outside of plot dumps). Amy is solid too but her inclusion just feels random, maybe just a placeholder for the Battle rerelease I guess but I'd rather her as well as many other side characters in this franchise do nothing in the story than just not show up at all, although it would be nice for them to have a purpose once in a while.
This is definitely the turning point for Sonic as a franchise, and it just so happens that I didn't grow up on it as much as many others who hail it as the peak of the franchise. I can certainly see through the cracks of this game's problems, within it lies yet another ambitious title, one that took in one too many ideas for its gameplay and didn't execute on a majority of them. Here's hoping for a remake, same as the last game, but for vastly different reasons.
Well to start off, I'm not exactly fond of most of the speed stages outside of Radical Highway, Metal Harbor and Green Forest. City Escape is great in concept but there's just something... wrong with the physics for me at times, especially the rails. This carries on for most of the game until the very end for sonic in Final Rush, which is probably the most skill based level in the series thus far, as it requires mastery of rail grinding, the level layout itself, and the absurdly shit camera controls, all of which I have none! But I can respect the sheer amount of branching pathways with varying rewards regardless. The absolute worst part about these stages though is the complete incompetence placed into Sonic and Shadow's kits. Wanna Spindash? Hold the action button, which now has a delay in this game but its not a problem in my eyes, considering the new Somersault mechanic, tied to the same button! Wanna Light Speed Dash? Tap the action button but not really because you'll just Somersault instead. Well how about the new Bounce attack? Obviously tap the action button while in the air repeatedly to gain height. You get the point, so many new things to work with and because of how hard they wanted to maintain the single button does all mentality from the classic games, the levels and by extension my enjoyment is as inconsistent as the controls themselves.
Tails stages just suck, filled with enemies that spawn right on top of you, bad platforming, a terrible camera that doesn't fix when going down (universal problem for all characters) and a gameplay loop that isn't even satisfying in the first place. Its even more frustrating that the answer to all of these problems is simply playing as Eggman, who has way better level design and intriguing levels (I'm only saying this because I A ranked Cosmic Wall first try 😁). Even with that going for him, both Eggman and Tails suffer from shitty collision with the levels themselves, which lead to the main cause of death throughout my time as them, other then Artificial Chaos' of course. I won't even go into detail about Artificial Chaos' but like imagine an enemy that can stunlock you and hide their only weakspot from you whenever they please, and appear in sections where you're falling where you just so happen to have a single shot at killing them, usually after you've been hit and too late to react. Other than that, these could easily be fixed by just making the aim more accurate akin to that of gamma from SA1, which these two are biting directly off of, yet done worse in every way somehow, leave it to Sonic Team I guess.
Just like SA1, I enjoyed my time with both treasure hunting characters, so outside of the obvious radar problem, there isn't much for me to comment on. That being said, FUCK MAD SPACE. Meteor Herd didn't give me too much trouble but I could've just gotten lucky, but holy shit who thought Mad Space was a good mesh with this games mechanics. My biggest problem isn't even the radar being absent for this stage, instead the god awful camera mixed with there being literal planets with their own gravitational pull that just serve to pad the time out every single time you drop down either on purpose or by the games sheer hatred of you. Somehow I felt lucky to beat this in 20 minutes, as I did cheat a bit and look into some of the possible locations of the shards, I got lucky enough after about 14 minutes of doing nothing and got my ticket out of that hellhole. Its a shame how bad Sega is at handling different characters considering how well they did it in the LAST GAME, even with Big in consideration he didn't void out the good parts of the game, especially because of how short his story was and how funny the context of that section was.
The last story is something I'm entirely conflicted on. On one hand the mech parts aren't terrible, but Eggman stoops down to Tails' level in terms of its layout so idk. The time stop mechanic is pretty cool but is abused during Knuckles and Rouge's sections, to the point it just becomes another gimmick getting in the way of finishing the level quicker. Also I drowned like 3 times as Knuckles here because I didn't know there was an upgrade to breathe underwater, leading to me getting a game over as Sonic. Speaking of, his section is... meh. Pretty short if you know what you're doing but I almost wish more was done here, but I can only assume Sonic Team realized how punishing the Knuckles section was and trimmed this down in late development. I guess now would be a good time to mention the bosses, yeah? Long story short, the rival bosses are boring, with the Eggman and Tails ones just being utterly mind numbing mechanically. Sonic and Shadow's bouts are pretty cool visually, but shallow like the rest mechanically. Biolizard/Hazard was pretty fun, and highlights the standard selling point of Sonic games: the soundtracks. As over the top as ever, I find it interesting how much more SA2's tracks blend together naturally (outside of Knuckle's rap songs but even those are a joy in their own right), and seem to use similar production, unlike SA1 which are varied due to how unstructured and isolated those levels were.
The last thing I should probably bring up is the characters themselves. Personally, I'm content with the cast, but the voice work is pretty hit or miss depending on the character. Ryan Drummond is still great as Sonic of course, and David Humphrey is arguably the best depiction of Shadow to this day, however I prefer his work in Heroes a bit more. Deem Bristow is an amazing Eggman, who nearly edges out Shadow as my favorite member of this cast. Rouge, Tails and Knuckles' voices fit them for sure but it just seems like they weren't given as good of direction as the main stars of the game, which is a shame because I enjoy their interactions (for as rare as they are outside of plot dumps). Amy is solid too but her inclusion just feels random, maybe just a placeholder for the Battle rerelease I guess but I'd rather her as well as many other side characters in this franchise do nothing in the story than just not show up at all, although it would be nice for them to have a purpose once in a while.
This is definitely the turning point for Sonic as a franchise, and it just so happens that I didn't grow up on it as much as many others who hail it as the peak of the franchise. I can certainly see through the cracks of this game's problems, within it lies yet another ambitious title, one that took in one too many ideas for its gameplay and didn't execute on a majority of them. Here's hoping for a remake, same as the last game, but for vastly different reasons.
i miss my wife, tails
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?
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 1 Review
I recently went on a nostalgia trip by experiencing the original version of Sonic Adventure for the first time, after only having played the DX version on the GameCube. Once I finished it, I decided to continue that nostalgia trip by going ahead and playing through the Dreamcast version of its sequel as well. I was quite fond of both games as a kid, but at some point, I got the idea in my head that the first Adventure was better than the second. After coming back to both games, I no longer believe that to be true. Both games have problems, but Sonic Adventure 2 is a far more consistent and polished experience. It definitely has some low points, but it’s still a solid improvement over its predecessor that trims a lot of its fat.
After Dr. Eggman looks into his family history, he discovers a top secret project that was worked on by his grandfather, Dr. Gerald Robotnik. He infiltrates a military base where this project was being stored and uncovers Shadow the Hedgehog: The Ultimate Lifeform. Shadow promises Eggman a wish and brings Eggman to the Space Colony ARK, where he shows off the Eclipse Canon, a weapon of mass destruction powered by the seven Chaos Emeralds. Meanwhile, the military mistakes Sonic for Shadow, and their forces set out to capture him, all the while completely unaware they’re chasing after the wrong hedgehog. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles once again band together to take down Eggman, Shadow, and the mysterious Rouge the Bat and clear Sonic’s name before Eggman and his allies manage to obtain all of the Chaos Emeralds and power up the Eclipse Canon.
Instead of each playable character having their own unique campaign to play through, the main story of Sonic Adventure 2 is told through two campaigns that each star three characters. There’s Hero, which stars the classic trio of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and Dark, which stars Dr. Eggman and newcomers Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat. One character from each campaign share a different style of gameplay that comes from the first Adventure. This time around each character has their own unique stages, unlike in the previous game, where you generally played through chopped up versions of Sonic’s stages. For the most part, each character having their own unique stage is to Sonic Adventure 2’s benefit, and while some stages do have flaws that I’ll be getting into, at the very least this keeps the game from feeling as repetitive as Sonic Adventure did with its stages.
Sonic and Shadow’s stages feature the same speed focused platforming gameplay as Sonic’s stages from Adventure. They’re no longer composed of multiple sections, but the stages themselves are still comparable in length to the ones from the previous game. These stages are all fantastic, and once again, easily the best part of the game in general. They’re all laser focused on bringing out the best of these characters’ gameplay. I also had significantly less issues with the camera this time around, which was one of my biggest hang ups with the first Adventure. There were definitely still times where the camera would freak out or not cooperate, but not nearly as much as in the previous game.
Tails and Eggman’s gameplay is a more refined version of E-102 Gamma’s gameplay from the previous game. Tails and Eggman each pilot a small mech, and they run and gun throughout their stages with the same auto-homing shots as Gamma. This is where each character having their own unique stage really shines, as Tails and Eggman’s stages offer unique platforming challenges built around their moveset. Their stages are a lot longer compared to Gamma’s as well, giving a chance for their gameplay to actually breathe. My biggest complaint with Gamma’s gameplay and stages was that they all felt rather braindead. Since your projectiles automatically homed in on whatever you target, there wasn’t really anything stopping you from just targeting everything without any second thought. Tails and Eggman’s gameplay isn’t quite as trivial as Gamma’s was. While it’s still rather easy for the most part, there are actually a few enemies that require you to time your shots, as well as a couple of stages that will actually punish you for mindlessly targeting and shooting everything with environmental hazards that can cause you to take damage or die if you end up shooting them, which is a great way to force you to pay attention to what you’re shooting.
Finally, Knuckles and Rouge share Knuckles’ exploration-based gameplay from Adventure , where you search through stages for pieces of the Master Emerald. Unfortunately, despite also being given unique stages, Knuckles and Rouge’s gameplay isn’t a direct upgrade from Adventure, and it’s during their stages where a lot of my problems with the game stem from. For starters, the Emerald Radar, which is a tool that would beep at increasingly faster speeds the closer you get to an Emerald piece, was changed so that it only detects one Emerald piece at a time, whereas in Adventure, it could detect all three pieces at once. I have a theory about why this was done: Knuckles stages in Adventure tended to be rather small in terms of scale, and having the radar being able to detect all three Emerald pieces at once made it easy to find them rather quickly. In Adventure 2 however, all of Knuckles’ (and Rogue’s) stages are a lot larger compared to Knuckles’ stages in the previous game, so it makes hunting down the Emerald pieces one at a time take a lot longer. This problem gets worse with each subsequent stage, as they get larger and larger, coming to a head with the stages Meteor Herd and Mad Space, the final stages for Knuckles and Rouge respectively. These stages are so large that it can take up to 15 minutes to beat them if you’re unlucky with where the Emerald pieces are placed. Also, the one key difference between the Dreamcast version and the GameCube version of Sonic Adventure 2 that would make me recommend the latter over the former is that if Knuckles or Rouge walk or climb over a surface where an Emerald piece is buried, an exclamation point will appear above their head, letting you know that the piece is buried in that specific spot. This exclamation point doesn’t appear in the Dreamcast version, which made trying to find buried Emerald pieces a much bigger headache.
One aspect of Sonic Adventure that I completely forgot to talk about in my review for it was its various hub worlds that you need to travel through in-between stages. The main reason why I forgot to mention them was because of how little they really added to the game. They felt like they were just there for the sake of being there. They were rather small, they weren’t very interesting to explore, and there wasn’t much you could do in them besides just going into one of the characters’ levels or the Chao Garden. You could find some optional power ups for characters, which admittedly were kind of useful, but also weren’t necessary to finish the game and didn’t really enrich the experience that much further. As such, it’s no surprise that they were cut from Sonic Adventure 2, which was truly for the best. Instead, each campaign simply has one character’s stage follow another, and you can travel to the Chao Garden by finding a Chao Key item in a stage.
The story is a bit more straightforward and less ambitious than Sonic Adventure’s, but I think that was for the best, as it flows a lot better. It’s a Sonic game, so the writing isn’t some airtight masterwork of fiction, but it’s a decent enough story with some high stakes and thrilling moments. There are some aspects to the story that, even as a kid, I thought were questionable. In particular, the fact that anyone could confuse Sonic for Shadow and vice versa when they look nothing alike always confused me, even back then. Also Amy Rose appears as a non-playable character in the story, and her presence in general really confuses me. She frequently just… appears in locations with little to no explanation. It feels like she was meant to have a larger role in the game that got cut down heavily. The voice acting sounds a lot better this time around. Some characters do still sound a bit stiff like Tails and Rouge, but everyone else sounds like they have a lot more energy and are actually trying with their performances. Though Deem Bristow’s Eggman once again steals the show, I really gotta say, I feel like Ryan Drummond’s Sonic in particular has significantly improved. He sounds way more lively than before, and he does a better job capturing Sonic’s wit and attitude.
The music continues the Sonic series’ tradition of being fantastic. Something that I noticed during this playthrough is that each character has a specific type of music that plays during their stages. Sonic’s stages have fast paced punk rock tracks, Tails has upbeat rock that occasionally features some synthesizers, Knuckles has old school hip hop, Shadow features very bass heavy techno with distorted vocals, Eggman has heavy rock tracks that feature a lot of synthesizers, and Rouge has upbeat jazz tracks very reminiscent of spy films like the 007 movies, but with a lot of sensual sounding female background vocals. It’s a really excellent touch, and I very much dig how each stage’s song feels like it was tailored not just for the stage, but for the characters themselves. Some of my favorite tracks include Green Forest, Pumpkin Hill, White Jungle, and Cosmic Wall. (Yes I like City Escape too, I just thought claiming it as a favorite would be disingenuous and boring).
One of the game’s most notable issues is how truly awful its audio mixing and sound design is. Sound effects are deafeningly loud, in particular Tails and Eggman’s targeting laser as well as the Emerald Radar in Knuckles and Rouge’s stages. They both beep obnoxiously loudly. In stages where the Military are pursuing you like in Metal Harbor, Weapons Bed, or Mission Street, there will be this airplane engine sound effect that is also just so ridiculously loud it drowns out all of the other sounds and music that plays on the stage. Meanwhile the dialogue is too quiet, and characters frequently talk over each other. This can lead to some funny exchanges, such as during the cutscene where Sonic and Shadow battle one another on Prison Island, which for whatever reason has always tickled my funny bone even when I was little. The sound design doesn’t make the game unplayable by any means, but it’s very noticeable, jarring and annoying.
I was surprised to find that I still dig Sonic Adventure 2, at least more than I expected to after revisiting Sonic Adventure just before. There was a clear effort to improve upon Sonic Adventure, and I really respect that. I do think they did a rather decent job doing so for the most part. The Knuckles and Rouge stages are definitely a drag, the audio mixing is rather horrendous, and there are aspects of the story that can be a bit questionable, but the game as a whole still manages to be a pretty good time despite that, thanks to the excellent gameplay and level design of the other characters’ stages. At its best, Sonic Adventure 2 still manages to be hype even after all these years, and that’s not just the nostalgia talking.
I recently went on a nostalgia trip by experiencing the original version of Sonic Adventure for the first time, after only having played the DX version on the GameCube. Once I finished it, I decided to continue that nostalgia trip by going ahead and playing through the Dreamcast version of its sequel as well. I was quite fond of both games as a kid, but at some point, I got the idea in my head that the first Adventure was better than the second. After coming back to both games, I no longer believe that to be true. Both games have problems, but Sonic Adventure 2 is a far more consistent and polished experience. It definitely has some low points, but it’s still a solid improvement over its predecessor that trims a lot of its fat.
After Dr. Eggman looks into his family history, he discovers a top secret project that was worked on by his grandfather, Dr. Gerald Robotnik. He infiltrates a military base where this project was being stored and uncovers Shadow the Hedgehog: The Ultimate Lifeform. Shadow promises Eggman a wish and brings Eggman to the Space Colony ARK, where he shows off the Eclipse Canon, a weapon of mass destruction powered by the seven Chaos Emeralds. Meanwhile, the military mistakes Sonic for Shadow, and their forces set out to capture him, all the while completely unaware they’re chasing after the wrong hedgehog. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles once again band together to take down Eggman, Shadow, and the mysterious Rouge the Bat and clear Sonic’s name before Eggman and his allies manage to obtain all of the Chaos Emeralds and power up the Eclipse Canon.
Instead of each playable character having their own unique campaign to play through, the main story of Sonic Adventure 2 is told through two campaigns that each star three characters. There’s Hero, which stars the classic trio of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and Dark, which stars Dr. Eggman and newcomers Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat. One character from each campaign share a different style of gameplay that comes from the first Adventure. This time around each character has their own unique stages, unlike in the previous game, where you generally played through chopped up versions of Sonic’s stages. For the most part, each character having their own unique stage is to Sonic Adventure 2’s benefit, and while some stages do have flaws that I’ll be getting into, at the very least this keeps the game from feeling as repetitive as Sonic Adventure did with its stages.
Sonic and Shadow’s stages feature the same speed focused platforming gameplay as Sonic’s stages from Adventure. They’re no longer composed of multiple sections, but the stages themselves are still comparable in length to the ones from the previous game. These stages are all fantastic, and once again, easily the best part of the game in general. They’re all laser focused on bringing out the best of these characters’ gameplay. I also had significantly less issues with the camera this time around, which was one of my biggest hang ups with the first Adventure. There were definitely still times where the camera would freak out or not cooperate, but not nearly as much as in the previous game.
Tails and Eggman’s gameplay is a more refined version of E-102 Gamma’s gameplay from the previous game. Tails and Eggman each pilot a small mech, and they run and gun throughout their stages with the same auto-homing shots as Gamma. This is where each character having their own unique stage really shines, as Tails and Eggman’s stages offer unique platforming challenges built around their moveset. Their stages are a lot longer compared to Gamma’s as well, giving a chance for their gameplay to actually breathe. My biggest complaint with Gamma’s gameplay and stages was that they all felt rather braindead. Since your projectiles automatically homed in on whatever you target, there wasn’t really anything stopping you from just targeting everything without any second thought. Tails and Eggman’s gameplay isn’t quite as trivial as Gamma’s was. While it’s still rather easy for the most part, there are actually a few enemies that require you to time your shots, as well as a couple of stages that will actually punish you for mindlessly targeting and shooting everything with environmental hazards that can cause you to take damage or die if you end up shooting them, which is a great way to force you to pay attention to what you’re shooting.
Finally, Knuckles and Rouge share Knuckles’ exploration-based gameplay from Adventure , where you search through stages for pieces of the Master Emerald. Unfortunately, despite also being given unique stages, Knuckles and Rouge’s gameplay isn’t a direct upgrade from Adventure, and it’s during their stages where a lot of my problems with the game stem from. For starters, the Emerald Radar, which is a tool that would beep at increasingly faster speeds the closer you get to an Emerald piece, was changed so that it only detects one Emerald piece at a time, whereas in Adventure, it could detect all three pieces at once. I have a theory about why this was done: Knuckles stages in Adventure tended to be rather small in terms of scale, and having the radar being able to detect all three Emerald pieces at once made it easy to find them rather quickly. In Adventure 2 however, all of Knuckles’ (and Rogue’s) stages are a lot larger compared to Knuckles’ stages in the previous game, so it makes hunting down the Emerald pieces one at a time take a lot longer. This problem gets worse with each subsequent stage, as they get larger and larger, coming to a head with the stages Meteor Herd and Mad Space, the final stages for Knuckles and Rouge respectively. These stages are so large that it can take up to 15 minutes to beat them if you’re unlucky with where the Emerald pieces are placed. Also, the one key difference between the Dreamcast version and the GameCube version of Sonic Adventure 2 that would make me recommend the latter over the former is that if Knuckles or Rouge walk or climb over a surface where an Emerald piece is buried, an exclamation point will appear above their head, letting you know that the piece is buried in that specific spot. This exclamation point doesn’t appear in the Dreamcast version, which made trying to find buried Emerald pieces a much bigger headache.
One aspect of Sonic Adventure that I completely forgot to talk about in my review for it was its various hub worlds that you need to travel through in-between stages. The main reason why I forgot to mention them was because of how little they really added to the game. They felt like they were just there for the sake of being there. They were rather small, they weren’t very interesting to explore, and there wasn’t much you could do in them besides just going into one of the characters’ levels or the Chao Garden. You could find some optional power ups for characters, which admittedly were kind of useful, but also weren’t necessary to finish the game and didn’t really enrich the experience that much further. As such, it’s no surprise that they were cut from Sonic Adventure 2, which was truly for the best. Instead, each campaign simply has one character’s stage follow another, and you can travel to the Chao Garden by finding a Chao Key item in a stage.
The story is a bit more straightforward and less ambitious than Sonic Adventure’s, but I think that was for the best, as it flows a lot better. It’s a Sonic game, so the writing isn’t some airtight masterwork of fiction, but it’s a decent enough story with some high stakes and thrilling moments. There are some aspects to the story that, even as a kid, I thought were questionable. In particular, the fact that anyone could confuse Sonic for Shadow and vice versa when they look nothing alike always confused me, even back then. Also Amy Rose appears as a non-playable character in the story, and her presence in general really confuses me. She frequently just… appears in locations with little to no explanation. It feels like she was meant to have a larger role in the game that got cut down heavily. The voice acting sounds a lot better this time around. Some characters do still sound a bit stiff like Tails and Rouge, but everyone else sounds like they have a lot more energy and are actually trying with their performances. Though Deem Bristow’s Eggman once again steals the show, I really gotta say, I feel like Ryan Drummond’s Sonic in particular has significantly improved. He sounds way more lively than before, and he does a better job capturing Sonic’s wit and attitude.
The music continues the Sonic series’ tradition of being fantastic. Something that I noticed during this playthrough is that each character has a specific type of music that plays during their stages. Sonic’s stages have fast paced punk rock tracks, Tails has upbeat rock that occasionally features some synthesizers, Knuckles has old school hip hop, Shadow features very bass heavy techno with distorted vocals, Eggman has heavy rock tracks that feature a lot of synthesizers, and Rouge has upbeat jazz tracks very reminiscent of spy films like the 007 movies, but with a lot of sensual sounding female background vocals. It’s a really excellent touch, and I very much dig how each stage’s song feels like it was tailored not just for the stage, but for the characters themselves. Some of my favorite tracks include Green Forest, Pumpkin Hill, White Jungle, and Cosmic Wall. (Yes I like City Escape too, I just thought claiming it as a favorite would be disingenuous and boring).
One of the game’s most notable issues is how truly awful its audio mixing and sound design is. Sound effects are deafeningly loud, in particular Tails and Eggman’s targeting laser as well as the Emerald Radar in Knuckles and Rouge’s stages. They both beep obnoxiously loudly. In stages where the Military are pursuing you like in Metal Harbor, Weapons Bed, or Mission Street, there will be this airplane engine sound effect that is also just so ridiculously loud it drowns out all of the other sounds and music that plays on the stage. Meanwhile the dialogue is too quiet, and characters frequently talk over each other. This can lead to some funny exchanges, such as during the cutscene where Sonic and Shadow battle one another on Prison Island, which for whatever reason has always tickled my funny bone even when I was little. The sound design doesn’t make the game unplayable by any means, but it’s very noticeable, jarring and annoying.
I was surprised to find that I still dig Sonic Adventure 2, at least more than I expected to after revisiting Sonic Adventure just before. There was a clear effort to improve upon Sonic Adventure, and I really respect that. I do think they did a rather decent job doing so for the most part. The Knuckles and Rouge stages are definitely a drag, the audio mixing is rather horrendous, and there are aspects of the story that can be a bit questionable, but the game as a whole still manages to be a pretty good time despite that, thanks to the excellent gameplay and level design of the other characters’ stages. At its best, Sonic Adventure 2 still manages to be hype even after all these years, and that’s not just the nostalgia talking.
Perhaps one of the most relentlessly optimistic games ever made, crossing the threshold of the new millennium while wearing a bleeding heart on its sleeve. Never skipping a beat to encourage growth and confidence. Both within its rich cast of characters, and those willing to immerse themselves within the experience.
"oh but the speed stages are too easy and badly designed and control poorly"
"oh but the shooting stages are slower than in sonic adventure 1"
"the treasure hunting stages are lackluster and underdeveloped in comparison to the other two kinds of missions at best, and overly convoluted and artificially difficult at worst"
you know, in my quest to 100% this game for the first time in my 22-year sonic adventure 2 career, i was worried i'd ruined the magic of the game for myself. mastering this game is grueling, man. it's one of the most tedious, difficult, and demanding collect-a-thons ever made, and after a certain point the cracks in the foundation of the basic game design begins to show as sonic adventure 2 begins to burst under the weight of its own ambition. there are only so many times you can handle playing the same set of missions over the same set of levels clearly not designed around them before you start to feel a little wearied, you feel me?
but i think my saving grace was the fact that i opted to gather all of the mission emblems before i actually completed the main story. after getting every A-rank from city escape all the way to final chase, i strapped right back in to the last story and let it enfold me. it's kind of funny how a lot of the things i cherished heavily at one point due to nostalgia vision and their impact on me lose their luster when i revisit them - sonic adventure 1 itself isn't immune to this, nor are other contemporary classics like half-life 2 or the original bioshock that were equally impactful on me - but nope, sonic adventure 2 still makes me feel like i'm standing on the fucking ceiling every time i strap in and let the main campaign take me. i mean, sure, the game is strongest as a 5-hour tour de force where it can showcase the strengths of its perfected gameplay loops without having to stretch them thin over a bevy of tasks not suited to them, and a few of the levels actively work against what the game's mission statement is... but what does any of that matter in the long run when sonic adventure 2 is simply the coolest game ever made?
by june 2001, the writing wasn't even on the wall anymore - the wall had actively been blown the fuck down by a monolithic black juggernaut sent by sony to wipe the floor with any and all competitors. the dreamcast had already been discontinued in march after a less-than-three-year lifespan, and with sega's transition into exclusively third-party software development the future of the company and its individual identity was cast into utmost obfuscation. it would be all too easy to just bow your head and duck out quietly here, but sonic team didn't seem content to just sit there and take it. if they were gonna sink, they must have planned on going down with the ship, because sonic adventure 2 is a masterclass in confidence - narratively and mechanically this is the best game that they ever made, and it knows it.
i think i could make an easy case for sonic adventure 2's complexity and depth if i compared it to devil may cry 3 (a game which has a lot of story and stylistic parallels to sonic adventure 2 as well... hmmmm): it's easy to waffle your way through each level and just keep going after you stumble, keeping a skill ceiling just low enough that you don't drown in the insane amount of shit going on... but part of the reason why sonic adventure 2 has such a reputation for its insane 100% status is because playing sonic adventure 2 well takes a lot of skill, practice, and willingness to learn. between the points system actively rewarding stylish gameplay and optimizing the living hell out of every second of your run, the fact that even one mess-up can potentially mean a restart, be it due to failing to maximize your point accumilation or (even worse) dying and starting with 0 points from whatever checkpoint you'd hit before that point. granted, many of the missions actively work against this design philosophy (especially since the same set of 5 missions is copy-and-pasted onto probably 95% of the stages, regardless of genre or level design), but when it hits? you get what you put into it. i've been eking away at sonic frontiers for the past sixth months or so, and it's perpetually perplexing to me that they apparently still don't know how to make sonic control well when they got it right twenty-three years ago. i'm starting to think we'll never get platforming levels like metal harbor or final chase ever again, or even the utterly deranged examples set by cosmic wall and mad space...
all right. sit the fuck down with your jututsu kaisens and your chainsaw mans and your my hero academias. bleach? one piece? dragon ball z? hell, fucking full metal alchemist (the indisputable GOAT in my opinion)? you all take notes too. this is the real shit, motherfuckers. REAL SHOUNEN. all killer, no filler. a series of picture-perfect Moments flawlessly interwoven together with just enough internal rhyme and reason to convince you to Go With It and not think about it too hard, all while having enough genuine substance and things to say for its children-and-teens audience to chew on. there's a reason that you hear people recite basically every cutscene in this game word for word during GDQ runs: everything from the iconic jungle clash between sonic and shadow to the mundane little moments like amy, knuckles and tails chilling on the side of the road just ooze style and personality, even when the story at hand is so boneheaded and numbskulled that you can't really get much out of it besides the raw adrenaline pumping through your veins. i even think the weird mo-cap on the anthro actors gives everything a lot of personality and charm, if only because this is the only time that sonic and co have felt like real people and genuine action heroes to me: it's little things like sonic assuming a cool guy fighting pose when he's about to square up with eggman, or the sheer cuntiness in rouge dangling above the eclipse cannon when introducing herself to eggman and shadow. sonic has always sort of had this reputation as being a silly scrimblo bimblo cartoon series, and it is that, but for one brilliant moment of clarity it commits to the bit and makes sonic actually as cool as he purports to be... and he's got enough swag that it actively rubs off on everyone and anything around him.
of course, this is maybe sonic the hedgehog's most controversial foray into genuine pathos... but i think everybody hams up the perceived "edginess" at the heart of the game without considering whether or not it's all in service of what the game ultimately has to say. sega knew that this would likely be their swan song, and the introspection and reflection littered throughout the script and reflection reflect that perfectly: sega was going out with a whimper after exploding onto the game scene with a bang, and the sort of questions the story poses reflects that perfectly. what happens when you're not who you thought you were, or when the people you define yourself by aren't who they thought you to be? the consistent anti-authoritarian throughline (sonic adventure 2 is an explicitly anti-police and anti-military game, and i'm not exaggerating even a little) reflects a willingness to distrust that which is portrayed as the unambiguous and untouchable good within our society. eggman's idolization of his grandfather is broken when he beholds dr. gerald's descent into wickedness, perhaps coming to understand his own lust for power and control as something less than the true tragic evil that now lives on through the blood in his veins. rouge's loyalty eventually yields not to her government benefactors or to her own selfish desires, but to her endearment to knuckles - an act which seems to even surprise herself by the end. hell, tails actually manages to make good on his "being independent from sonic" character arc from the previous game, considering that he breaks free from the mold of being a simple sidekick and is probably the single largest driving factor in the hero storyline from the moment sonic gets arrested for a second time.
last but most CERTAINLY not least, shadow the hedgehog's obfuscated memories and trauma-laden motivations all act to obscure and suppress the genuine kind heart and noble intentions he was born with and made for, perhaps being the embodiment of the game's study of and statements against the very concept of dualism. you would think that sonic's comparative lack of depth would make him stick out like a sore thumb here, but if anything i think this is the one and only example of that one-note characterization working to his favor: sonic simply is who he is, and his acceptance of his simple nature allows him to be who he is effortlessly without any kind of cognitive dissonance or baggage keeping him burdened to the past or anchored to laments about his present. he holds himself to no particular moral standard or self-image save for doing what he simply feels is appropriate at any given moment, his need for self-indulgence and going with his heart mercifully counter-balanced by the inherent purity of his character. shadow yields the title of "ultimate life form" to sonic not out of a recognition of his physical power or infalliability as a person, but because sonic's ideology is simply the way to be: unapologetically, violently, proudly yourself, unfettered to the artificial molds arbitrated your society, your past, or even your own everyday insecurities.
when i say sonic adventure 2 is one of the all-time top game narratives, i don't mean that it reaches the ideological potence of something like disco elysium or the inscrutable complexity of chrono cross, my personal favorite game narrative... i just mean that for the kind of thing it sets out to accomplish there's simply nothing better than it. crucially, to understand this the same logic applied to the main cast must be applied to sonic adventure 2 itself. yes, sonic the hedgehog is a silly series for silly children about silly cartoon animals... but if you look past that exterior and let go of all the pre-conceived notions you might have forged about what sonic apparently is, something special awaits you: the reality that sonic adventure 2, top to bottom, is one of the greatest games ever made.
"oh but the shooting stages are slower than in sonic adventure 1"
"the treasure hunting stages are lackluster and underdeveloped in comparison to the other two kinds of missions at best, and overly convoluted and artificially difficult at worst"
you know, in my quest to 100% this game for the first time in my 22-year sonic adventure 2 career, i was worried i'd ruined the magic of the game for myself. mastering this game is grueling, man. it's one of the most tedious, difficult, and demanding collect-a-thons ever made, and after a certain point the cracks in the foundation of the basic game design begins to show as sonic adventure 2 begins to burst under the weight of its own ambition. there are only so many times you can handle playing the same set of missions over the same set of levels clearly not designed around them before you start to feel a little wearied, you feel me?
but i think my saving grace was the fact that i opted to gather all of the mission emblems before i actually completed the main story. after getting every A-rank from city escape all the way to final chase, i strapped right back in to the last story and let it enfold me. it's kind of funny how a lot of the things i cherished heavily at one point due to nostalgia vision and their impact on me lose their luster when i revisit them - sonic adventure 1 itself isn't immune to this, nor are other contemporary classics like half-life 2 or the original bioshock that were equally impactful on me - but nope, sonic adventure 2 still makes me feel like i'm standing on the fucking ceiling every time i strap in and let the main campaign take me. i mean, sure, the game is strongest as a 5-hour tour de force where it can showcase the strengths of its perfected gameplay loops without having to stretch them thin over a bevy of tasks not suited to them, and a few of the levels actively work against what the game's mission statement is... but what does any of that matter in the long run when sonic adventure 2 is simply the coolest game ever made?
by june 2001, the writing wasn't even on the wall anymore - the wall had actively been blown the fuck down by a monolithic black juggernaut sent by sony to wipe the floor with any and all competitors. the dreamcast had already been discontinued in march after a less-than-three-year lifespan, and with sega's transition into exclusively third-party software development the future of the company and its individual identity was cast into utmost obfuscation. it would be all too easy to just bow your head and duck out quietly here, but sonic team didn't seem content to just sit there and take it. if they were gonna sink, they must have planned on going down with the ship, because sonic adventure 2 is a masterclass in confidence - narratively and mechanically this is the best game that they ever made, and it knows it.
i think i could make an easy case for sonic adventure 2's complexity and depth if i compared it to devil may cry 3 (a game which has a lot of story and stylistic parallels to sonic adventure 2 as well... hmmmm): it's easy to waffle your way through each level and just keep going after you stumble, keeping a skill ceiling just low enough that you don't drown in the insane amount of shit going on... but part of the reason why sonic adventure 2 has such a reputation for its insane 100% status is because playing sonic adventure 2 well takes a lot of skill, practice, and willingness to learn. between the points system actively rewarding stylish gameplay and optimizing the living hell out of every second of your run, the fact that even one mess-up can potentially mean a restart, be it due to failing to maximize your point accumilation or (even worse) dying and starting with 0 points from whatever checkpoint you'd hit before that point. granted, many of the missions actively work against this design philosophy (especially since the same set of 5 missions is copy-and-pasted onto probably 95% of the stages, regardless of genre or level design), but when it hits? you get what you put into it. i've been eking away at sonic frontiers for the past sixth months or so, and it's perpetually perplexing to me that they apparently still don't know how to make sonic control well when they got it right twenty-three years ago. i'm starting to think we'll never get platforming levels like metal harbor or final chase ever again, or even the utterly deranged examples set by cosmic wall and mad space...
all right. sit the fuck down with your jututsu kaisens and your chainsaw mans and your my hero academias. bleach? one piece? dragon ball z? hell, fucking full metal alchemist (the indisputable GOAT in my opinion)? you all take notes too. this is the real shit, motherfuckers. REAL SHOUNEN. all killer, no filler. a series of picture-perfect Moments flawlessly interwoven together with just enough internal rhyme and reason to convince you to Go With It and not think about it too hard, all while having enough genuine substance and things to say for its children-and-teens audience to chew on. there's a reason that you hear people recite basically every cutscene in this game word for word during GDQ runs: everything from the iconic jungle clash between sonic and shadow to the mundane little moments like amy, knuckles and tails chilling on the side of the road just ooze style and personality, even when the story at hand is so boneheaded and numbskulled that you can't really get much out of it besides the raw adrenaline pumping through your veins. i even think the weird mo-cap on the anthro actors gives everything a lot of personality and charm, if only because this is the only time that sonic and co have felt like real people and genuine action heroes to me: it's little things like sonic assuming a cool guy fighting pose when he's about to square up with eggman, or the sheer cuntiness in rouge dangling above the eclipse cannon when introducing herself to eggman and shadow. sonic has always sort of had this reputation as being a silly scrimblo bimblo cartoon series, and it is that, but for one brilliant moment of clarity it commits to the bit and makes sonic actually as cool as he purports to be... and he's got enough swag that it actively rubs off on everyone and anything around him.
of course, this is maybe sonic the hedgehog's most controversial foray into genuine pathos... but i think everybody hams up the perceived "edginess" at the heart of the game without considering whether or not it's all in service of what the game ultimately has to say. sega knew that this would likely be their swan song, and the introspection and reflection littered throughout the script and reflection reflect that perfectly: sega was going out with a whimper after exploding onto the game scene with a bang, and the sort of questions the story poses reflects that perfectly. what happens when you're not who you thought you were, or when the people you define yourself by aren't who they thought you to be? the consistent anti-authoritarian throughline (sonic adventure 2 is an explicitly anti-police and anti-military game, and i'm not exaggerating even a little) reflects a willingness to distrust that which is portrayed as the unambiguous and untouchable good within our society. eggman's idolization of his grandfather is broken when he beholds dr. gerald's descent into wickedness, perhaps coming to understand his own lust for power and control as something less than the true tragic evil that now lives on through the blood in his veins. rouge's loyalty eventually yields not to her government benefactors or to her own selfish desires, but to her endearment to knuckles - an act which seems to even surprise herself by the end. hell, tails actually manages to make good on his "being independent from sonic" character arc from the previous game, considering that he breaks free from the mold of being a simple sidekick and is probably the single largest driving factor in the hero storyline from the moment sonic gets arrested for a second time.
last but most CERTAINLY not least, shadow the hedgehog's obfuscated memories and trauma-laden motivations all act to obscure and suppress the genuine kind heart and noble intentions he was born with and made for, perhaps being the embodiment of the game's study of and statements against the very concept of dualism. you would think that sonic's comparative lack of depth would make him stick out like a sore thumb here, but if anything i think this is the one and only example of that one-note characterization working to his favor: sonic simply is who he is, and his acceptance of his simple nature allows him to be who he is effortlessly without any kind of cognitive dissonance or baggage keeping him burdened to the past or anchored to laments about his present. he holds himself to no particular moral standard or self-image save for doing what he simply feels is appropriate at any given moment, his need for self-indulgence and going with his heart mercifully counter-balanced by the inherent purity of his character. shadow yields the title of "ultimate life form" to sonic not out of a recognition of his physical power or infalliability as a person, but because sonic's ideology is simply the way to be: unapologetically, violently, proudly yourself, unfettered to the artificial molds arbitrated your society, your past, or even your own everyday insecurities.
when i say sonic adventure 2 is one of the all-time top game narratives, i don't mean that it reaches the ideological potence of something like disco elysium or the inscrutable complexity of chrono cross, my personal favorite game narrative... i just mean that for the kind of thing it sets out to accomplish there's simply nothing better than it. crucially, to understand this the same logic applied to the main cast must be applied to sonic adventure 2 itself. yes, sonic the hedgehog is a silly series for silly children about silly cartoon animals... but if you look past that exterior and let go of all the pre-conceived notions you might have forged about what sonic apparently is, something special awaits you: the reality that sonic adventure 2, top to bottom, is one of the greatest games ever made.
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.
Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were the first Sonic games I ever personally owned since I never had a Sega console prior to the Dreamcast, and let me tell you - I loved these games.
Sonic Adventure 2 specifically kicked ass.
But my fondest memory of Sonic Adventure 2 isn't the gameplay, Shadow, or any of other characters. No no. My fondest Sonic Adventure 2 memory is the Chao Garden and being able to play with my Chao on the VMU. That shit ruled. Loved my Chaos.
Sonic Adventure 2 specifically kicked ass.
But my fondest memory of Sonic Adventure 2 isn't the gameplay, Shadow, or any of other characters. No no. My fondest Sonic Adventure 2 memory is the Chao Garden and being able to play with my Chao on the VMU. That shit ruled. Loved my Chaos.
pretty solid for the queer camp arthouse romcom that it is
Similar to the first game, this one is just pretty alright overall. The Sonic and Shadow stages are awesome and are easily the highlight. Knuckles and Rogue stages are okay, but can sometimes take a while and become annoying and tedious. The Tails and Eggman stages range from pretty good to terrible.
Of course, the soundtrack is iconic, and the final story is pretty great too, for what it's worth. Boss battles overall are decent although the character battles are laughable.
Like the first game, it ends up being a pretty mixed bag.
Of course, the soundtrack is iconic, and the final story is pretty great too, for what it's worth. Boss battles overall are decent although the character battles are laughable.
Like the first game, it ends up being a pretty mixed bag.
why does it have the same map as crazy taxi
This review contains spoilers
Sayonara... Shadow the Hedgehog.
The homing attack is garbage. The Artificial Chaos enemies are garbage. The gameplay pacing is mind-numbingly garbage, especially in boss fights. Terrible death traps. The Emerald radar is garbage. The Mech gameplay is just Gamma but garbage.
I hate this game
I hate this game
Worse than SA1.
What is it with this era of Sonic and stories involving the US Government? I'm not complaining, I'm just curious.
Sonic literally means more to me than my dad I genuinely wouldn't be the same person I am without this game everything about this game I'm deeply in love with from the clunky mech levels to the fast and thrilling speed levels. It is a super janky game but jank can be good :3