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.