This is a game I technically beat before I even started Mario Sunshine, but I wanted to wait until I was properly done playing with it to write a review for it. That time was when I finished playing it on stream (again) yesterday, so now's the time to put it back on the shelf and write my review for it. I got 68 out or 180 emblems, and played the Japanese version of the game for about 20 hours.
Sonic Adventure 2 is the followup to the first Sonic Adventure, and it follows Sonic & co as they try to stop Eggman from blowing up the world with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. But that's only the Hero story mode. There's also the Dark story mode, where you play as Eggman & co trying to end the world with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. It's a neat gimmick where you see both sides of a story that plays out more or less the same either way, as there's a "LAST" story mode you unlock after completing the other two that ties them together and gives a conclusion to everyone's stories. It's ultimately a fairly campy and silly story (that introduces characters such as Shadow the Hedgehog and Rogue the Bat), but it does have some nice moments. It's serviceable and entertaining for what it is, and that's all it needs to be.
I'd actually never realized that apparently this game just has a language select feature, and you can switch between several languages' subtitles as well as the Japanese or English voice tracks in any version of the game! As a result, the Japanese version of the game's only actual difference (so far as I can tell) is that the main title screen is in Japanese (changing the language doesn't affect that, so far as I know). The Japanese voice track is much better voice acted than the English in many places, but I will say that I definitely prefer the English voice for Eggman over the Japanese one. And the infamously awful sound balancing this game has, where music in cutscenes is often far too loud compared to the dialogue, is also consistent across both languages, sadly XP
There are six playable characters, but they're basically light and dark copies of each other. There are upgrades to find for each character individually, but for the most part each character plays identically to their counterpart. Sonic and Shadow both have very speed-focused stages where you jump around, platform, and homing attack enemies. Rogue and Knuckles both have more open stages where there isn't a goal to get to, and instead you're using computer terminals scattered around the level to get hints to where the hidden master emerald pieces are. Last, you have Tails and Eggman, who each have linear levels where they stomp around in big mechs, using homing shots to blast everything in their paths.
Sonic/Shadow stages and Tails/Eggman stages all work pretty soundly and are good fun to go through. This was originally designed for the Dreamcast, and this is a pretty dead-on port job, so the C-stick does nothing and instead the camera is controlled by holding R and L respectively. This is usually something you don't need to worry about, as the game does a pretty good job following you with its auto camera, but it's often not an issue outside of a few boss fights. Where it is constantly a problem is in Rogue/Knuckles stages. They're so open that the auto-camera often doesn't really know what to do, and the levels eventually become so large and annoying to navigate (one of them even has a 5 minute time limit), and they're by far the least fun parts of the game.
There are 31 levels in the game not counting boss fights and including two racing time trial levels, but once you beat a story mode you unlock those levels to play in level select mode. In level select mode, you can play through each of that stage's five missions, and each of those missions has its own emblem associated with it. There are also hidden powerups you can only find upon returning to a previous level with a later level's powerup. It adds a LOT of playtime to the game if you're going for 100%, but this is easily one of the hardest/time consuming games in this fashion I've played in that regard from this time period.
Even completing all the missions in a certain stage (which range from collecting 100 rings to finding a hidden Chao to completing a much harder version of the level) is a challenge in and of itself, but there is also an emblem for each character that you get when getting an A rank on every single one of their missions. You get a rank from A to E when finishing a mission, and that's dependent on your point total at the end (and the point total associated with each rank is never told to the player). Points are gotten by chaining together enemy kills and finishing the level quickly, so in order to get A ranks on EVERY mission, it means replaying them a LOT to get really good at finishing them very quickly and with as many good enemy kills as you can. It's a time commitment I can't really justify for how much I enjoy the gameplay loop, so it's not something I think I'll ever do (and it's the reason I stopped at a little over 60 emblems when I was too demoralized to continue getting them XP).
Outside of all of that, in each level, you can also find boxes with Chaos on them, and breaking one reveals a Chao key which takes you to the Chao garden afterwards. Around levels and from defeated enemies, you'll pick up power cores and small animals, and you can take these back to your Chao garden to allow your Chaos to absorb the power from them (but not kill them) and level up. Chaos who absorb energy from animals will even take on features from that animal (like bunny ears, dragon wings, etc). Chaos age as real time passes, and they can eventually turn into a Hero or Dark Chao depending on what alliance of character has given them the most affection. One of the most significant changes from the Dreamcast version to the GC port is actually that the time for a Chao aging one year has gone from 1 real time hour to 3 freakin' real time hours. Thankfully about a minute gets shaved off of that time each time a Chao eats a piece of fruit, but it still takes an annoying amount of time.
You can enter your Chao in races and karate competitions, which is why you need their stats raised. Completing a karate tournament or winning a series of races will earn you an emblem, and you need at least two (one hero and one dark) Chaos who are very good at racing in order to get all the emblems associated with the Chao garden. That requires a LOT of animals and power cores to get them that high, so ultimately the huge amount of time you'll spend replaying levels to try and get A ranks will feed into how much time you'll have to sink into raising two racing-ready Chao. Raising Chao is a simple but fun addition to the overall experience of going through levels and even just to the normal story mode. Chao have cute little idle animations, and you can even take them to Chao school to have them learn new animations to do (like playing with a tambourine). It's a weirdly engrossing part of the game, and raising my little Horatio and playing around with him is one of the things that kept me playing so far after I beat the game's main story.
Verdict: Recommended. This game won't be for everyone, but if there are any good purely 3D Sonic games, this is definitely among them. It's got a campy, fun story, reasonable gameplay, and a decent amount of extra content if you really wanna sink your teeth into it. It's a childhood favorite of mine, and it was really fun to go through it again after all these years ^w^
Sonic Adventure 2 is the followup to the first Sonic Adventure, and it follows Sonic & co as they try to stop Eggman from blowing up the world with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. But that's only the Hero story mode. There's also the Dark story mode, where you play as Eggman & co trying to end the world with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. It's a neat gimmick where you see both sides of a story that plays out more or less the same either way, as there's a "LAST" story mode you unlock after completing the other two that ties them together and gives a conclusion to everyone's stories. It's ultimately a fairly campy and silly story (that introduces characters such as Shadow the Hedgehog and Rogue the Bat), but it does have some nice moments. It's serviceable and entertaining for what it is, and that's all it needs to be.
I'd actually never realized that apparently this game just has a language select feature, and you can switch between several languages' subtitles as well as the Japanese or English voice tracks in any version of the game! As a result, the Japanese version of the game's only actual difference (so far as I can tell) is that the main title screen is in Japanese (changing the language doesn't affect that, so far as I know). The Japanese voice track is much better voice acted than the English in many places, but I will say that I definitely prefer the English voice for Eggman over the Japanese one. And the infamously awful sound balancing this game has, where music in cutscenes is often far too loud compared to the dialogue, is also consistent across both languages, sadly XP
There are six playable characters, but they're basically light and dark copies of each other. There are upgrades to find for each character individually, but for the most part each character plays identically to their counterpart. Sonic and Shadow both have very speed-focused stages where you jump around, platform, and homing attack enemies. Rogue and Knuckles both have more open stages where there isn't a goal to get to, and instead you're using computer terminals scattered around the level to get hints to where the hidden master emerald pieces are. Last, you have Tails and Eggman, who each have linear levels where they stomp around in big mechs, using homing shots to blast everything in their paths.
Sonic/Shadow stages and Tails/Eggman stages all work pretty soundly and are good fun to go through. This was originally designed for the Dreamcast, and this is a pretty dead-on port job, so the C-stick does nothing and instead the camera is controlled by holding R and L respectively. This is usually something you don't need to worry about, as the game does a pretty good job following you with its auto camera, but it's often not an issue outside of a few boss fights. Where it is constantly a problem is in Rogue/Knuckles stages. They're so open that the auto-camera often doesn't really know what to do, and the levels eventually become so large and annoying to navigate (one of them even has a 5 minute time limit), and they're by far the least fun parts of the game.
There are 31 levels in the game not counting boss fights and including two racing time trial levels, but once you beat a story mode you unlock those levels to play in level select mode. In level select mode, you can play through each of that stage's five missions, and each of those missions has its own emblem associated with it. There are also hidden powerups you can only find upon returning to a previous level with a later level's powerup. It adds a LOT of playtime to the game if you're going for 100%, but this is easily one of the hardest/time consuming games in this fashion I've played in that regard from this time period.
Even completing all the missions in a certain stage (which range from collecting 100 rings to finding a hidden Chao to completing a much harder version of the level) is a challenge in and of itself, but there is also an emblem for each character that you get when getting an A rank on every single one of their missions. You get a rank from A to E when finishing a mission, and that's dependent on your point total at the end (and the point total associated with each rank is never told to the player). Points are gotten by chaining together enemy kills and finishing the level quickly, so in order to get A ranks on EVERY mission, it means replaying them a LOT to get really good at finishing them very quickly and with as many good enemy kills as you can. It's a time commitment I can't really justify for how much I enjoy the gameplay loop, so it's not something I think I'll ever do (and it's the reason I stopped at a little over 60 emblems when I was too demoralized to continue getting them XP).
Outside of all of that, in each level, you can also find boxes with Chaos on them, and breaking one reveals a Chao key which takes you to the Chao garden afterwards. Around levels and from defeated enemies, you'll pick up power cores and small animals, and you can take these back to your Chao garden to allow your Chaos to absorb the power from them (but not kill them) and level up. Chaos who absorb energy from animals will even take on features from that animal (like bunny ears, dragon wings, etc). Chaos age as real time passes, and they can eventually turn into a Hero or Dark Chao depending on what alliance of character has given them the most affection. One of the most significant changes from the Dreamcast version to the GC port is actually that the time for a Chao aging one year has gone from 1 real time hour to 3 freakin' real time hours. Thankfully about a minute gets shaved off of that time each time a Chao eats a piece of fruit, but it still takes an annoying amount of time.
You can enter your Chao in races and karate competitions, which is why you need their stats raised. Completing a karate tournament or winning a series of races will earn you an emblem, and you need at least two (one hero and one dark) Chaos who are very good at racing in order to get all the emblems associated with the Chao garden. That requires a LOT of animals and power cores to get them that high, so ultimately the huge amount of time you'll spend replaying levels to try and get A ranks will feed into how much time you'll have to sink into raising two racing-ready Chao. Raising Chao is a simple but fun addition to the overall experience of going through levels and even just to the normal story mode. Chao have cute little idle animations, and you can even take them to Chao school to have them learn new animations to do (like playing with a tambourine). It's a weirdly engrossing part of the game, and raising my little Horatio and playing around with him is one of the things that kept me playing so far after I beat the game's main story.
Verdict: Recommended. This game won't be for everyone, but if there are any good purely 3D Sonic games, this is definitely among them. It's got a campy, fun story, reasonable gameplay, and a decent amount of extra content if you really wanna sink your teeth into it. It's a childhood favorite of mine, and it was really fun to go through it again after all these years ^w^