It's funny, despite being somewhat of a hater of this game, I find myself disagreeing with a lot of the criticisms thrown at it. It's a perfectly functional game. Nothing about it makes it hard to enjoy for what it is. My take is that it's just too dumbed down from the first Adventure game and/or forgets a lot of the core ideas the series was built on from the beginning. A more casual fan or someone who's new to the series, likely will have an ok time at worst with this game. I'm just in too deep with this franchise to honestly enjoy much of what this game offers anymore. I don't dislike this game, but as a genuinely huge fan of the series as a whole, this isn't even in the top half of my personal Sonic tier list. Less "it's bad" and more "I've outgrown it". This is a game I find myself both adamantly defending, and also thoroughly tearing apart. I certainly will never understand how people say the camera is this game's worst enemy. Like bruh you may as well be saying you can't see what's coming in Crash Bandicoot. The game's a bunch of hallways with preset camera angles that give you the best possible view 99.5% of the time.
A lot of people say the game's 1/3rd good, referring to Sonic/Shadow's stages being the only good part. But imo they're the worst part by a long shot. There's nothing that makes the levels hard to play or poorly designed, they're just VERY straightforward. Not in a It's linear and therefor it's bad kind of way, but in a I feel like I'm playing a precursor to Sonic Forces kind of way. Goodbye to the idea that you can play at your own pace, speed being a reward for mastery of a level, with the core gameplay being about using momentum to your advantage. Hello samey empty hallways that shove you through at full speed with little to no effort. The varied landscapes of SA1 stages are nowhere to be seen. The ranking system added in this game is a great addition to the series, but in this case it feels like a bandaid solution. Ranking systems in Sonic are meant to really push the idea of replaying stages to get better at them, they're a seamless addition to the appeal of the Sonic formula. But in SA2 the system is skewed so hard to just killing enemies and hitting tricks. This is because your first playthrough of a SA2 stage is going to look VERY similar to your 20th and beyond. There's not really any mastery to be had, you can't really run down an empty path filled with dash pads and automated loops any better if you tried. And while getting an A rank is inherently satisfying to an extent, it's not enough to change the fact that SA2's speed levels are some of the most bare bones in the series. And every level is designed the same way.
Keep in mind this is coming from someone who REALLY values replay value in Sonic games and has replayed every single game in the series to a probably unhealthy degree. The average person will likely find no issue in how SA2's speed stages are handled. But for the same reasons Forces is a very limiting and uninteresting game to replay, SA2's levels do hit an expiration date. You can only run down the same shallow pathways so many times, hitting the same tricks for bonus points before you'd rather just play literally any other game in the series. This game's more boost to win than half the actual boost games are.
Mechs are inherently a bit more engaging and getting a higher rank is more satisfying as the gameplay style is designed entirely around getting higher combos for higher scores. Stretching your lock on as long as possible to aim as close to a perfect combo as you can is fun enough. It does get pretty repetitive really fast though as besides a very select few exceptions, there's very little in the way of level gimmicks to make many of them stand out. And platforming is mostly an afterthought. Any challenge really just comes from enemies with obnoxious placements. Still this segment of the game fares a bit better than the speed imo as it's more than just watching sonic run down a hallway. The Mechs just aren't even as satisfying to play as Amy from SA1 let alone Gamma who's their direct counterpart. The mere fact that you play as Eggman during half of these stages is enough to carry them for the first playthrough at least.
Treasure hunting is an interesting one. On paper it's a huge improvement over the ones from SA1. They get their own stages instead of piggybacking off existing Sonic stages. They get progressively bigger and more complex. Knuckles' movement and combat is now more acrobatic and fast than before. But they decided to use these levels as hard padding unfortunately by gutting the radar to only being able to find 1 emerald at a time, in a strict order. I understand nerfing the hint system from SA1 but they could have just made it a stationary arrow or SOMETHING, because the hint system is completely worthless to 99% of players now. Let alone later in the game when they put the text given to you by the hints in reverse...noissap ym si ngised emaG. Like they were just trying to be as annoying and unusable as possible seemingly on purpose here. Despite my complaints though these are definitely the best levels in the game. There's actually a lot of nuance to these stages not really present in the rest of the game. It's the only style that feels rewarding to master because of it. Simply optimizing how you're navigating the levels and its obstacles, and finding a quick route to check the most areas as fast as possible, feels great! I never memorized many of the hints, as there's so many different emerald locations and so many of the worst hints ever written by man that it's beyond me. But, unlike the speed stages, your rank is largely determined by...your speed. This makes consistently getting A ranks actually satisfying since it's not just about I pressed A in the right spots and killed enough enemies like in the speed levels, and more about actually getting good at the stages. (Since there's ROOM to get good at these ones) but also leads into the problem that the treasure hunting stages are honestly best without worrying about your rank. They're such an RNG nightmare and the stages quickly get WAY too big for the radar they give you. Just flying around Pumpkin Hill and vibing to the music and aesthetic is enough to make Knuckles' portion enjoyable. But this game's entirely built around you wanting to get A ranks and rewarding you for doing so. I think more people would enjoy the treasure hunting stages for what they are, if they didn't feel like anything other than an A rank meant well gee now I just have to play it again It goes against the entire appeal of the style I think.
So speed has very lacking, repetitive, mostly unengaging level design. Mechs are the most unfun to control things in this series and also too repetitive to be replayable in the slightest. And treasure hunting has room to be a really fun portion of the game but is still held back by flat out bad design choices. Story presentation is honestly the ONLY area that was objectively improved over SA1. Sonic doesn't make goofy faces while delivering his goofy dialogue that means the game's better I suppose? Eggman has a mouth that can open this time around so that's huge.
It definitely feels like a more polished game from a presentation standpoint, but if you go for 100% it honestly pushes the engine REALLY thin for what it can handle. Every level has 5 missions and really the further I get into doing these the more exhausted I get by the game. Hunting for the mystic music flute for every character with very little idea which level it might be in and hunting for the chao gets really obnoxious in a lot of these stages. I just don't think most of these stages were good enough to warrant having 5 missions in each one. You'll quickly blast through all the decent ones and be left with the worst stages getting worse and worse with each mission. Gotta love doing 100 ring missions in a game that spawns enemies on top of your head. Or the chill vibes of the treasure hunting stages getting even more obliterated by having a time limit as one of the missions. The missions are all the same across every level and gameplay style, it gets so exhausting by the end of getting 180 emblems. And for what? An extra average level unlocked once you get all of them?
This game's got it all, a complete lack of depth leading to boredom and no replay value, and total frustration through trying to 100% it at the same time! As well as a Chao garden that's more charming than it is actually fun. Sonic fans will really hold a grudge for literal decades on perceived "non-sonic" gameplay ideas like Big the Cat, or Amy...And sit there watching their chao do 30 really slow races for hours. Not to talk too much trash on chao, I do really like them and have had my fun with them, especially on Dreamcast where there's a bit of a Tamagotchi angle from the VMU's. And the depth in raising them is super interesting and the exact kinda thing I love out of classic niche games. I just don't understand Sonic fans. I feel like this game is given a huge pass given it's what introduced a LOT of people to the series. But to me it doesn't really feature much I love about this series. Seems to me a lot of people fell in love with this game and proceeded to hate almost every game after it despite (imo) those games being more faithful to the Sonic Formula and therefor more engaging than this one. To make a probably weird correlation... SA2 is to Sonic what Skyrim is to Elder Scrolls/rpgs in general.
This game's kind of the start of people preferring the dumbed down route for sonic games. The series even 20+ years later struggles to escape the shadow of the obscenely undeserved and double standard ridden pedestal SA2 is sitting on. SA2 being one of the most popular games in the series puts Sega in an unwinnable position. Trying to make a game more engaging than SA2 filters a LOT of people. But making a game as shallow as SA2 gets SA2 elitists scoffing and pretending their game is the Smash Bros Melee of Sonic when actually it's the Brawl at best. I don't mean to trash on other's opinions, I could just as easily talk about why I have a good time with this game. This is just my perception of SA2's place in the series and why despite me not actively disliking the game I find it doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.
It's fine but it's not even in the top 13 best sonic games available on the Gamecube alone. Still I've managed to get all 180 emblems on both Xbox360 and Steam, as well as beating it on the Dreamcast. Lotta highs lotta lows, more lows the more I play it though as I've honestly just outgrown the level design long story short.
A lot of people say the game's 1/3rd good, referring to Sonic/Shadow's stages being the only good part. But imo they're the worst part by a long shot. There's nothing that makes the levels hard to play or poorly designed, they're just VERY straightforward. Not in a It's linear and therefor it's bad kind of way, but in a I feel like I'm playing a precursor to Sonic Forces kind of way. Goodbye to the idea that you can play at your own pace, speed being a reward for mastery of a level, with the core gameplay being about using momentum to your advantage. Hello samey empty hallways that shove you through at full speed with little to no effort. The varied landscapes of SA1 stages are nowhere to be seen. The ranking system added in this game is a great addition to the series, but in this case it feels like a bandaid solution. Ranking systems in Sonic are meant to really push the idea of replaying stages to get better at them, they're a seamless addition to the appeal of the Sonic formula. But in SA2 the system is skewed so hard to just killing enemies and hitting tricks. This is because your first playthrough of a SA2 stage is going to look VERY similar to your 20th and beyond. There's not really any mastery to be had, you can't really run down an empty path filled with dash pads and automated loops any better if you tried. And while getting an A rank is inherently satisfying to an extent, it's not enough to change the fact that SA2's speed levels are some of the most bare bones in the series. And every level is designed the same way.
Keep in mind this is coming from someone who REALLY values replay value in Sonic games and has replayed every single game in the series to a probably unhealthy degree. The average person will likely find no issue in how SA2's speed stages are handled. But for the same reasons Forces is a very limiting and uninteresting game to replay, SA2's levels do hit an expiration date. You can only run down the same shallow pathways so many times, hitting the same tricks for bonus points before you'd rather just play literally any other game in the series. This game's more boost to win than half the actual boost games are.
Mechs are inherently a bit more engaging and getting a higher rank is more satisfying as the gameplay style is designed entirely around getting higher combos for higher scores. Stretching your lock on as long as possible to aim as close to a perfect combo as you can is fun enough. It does get pretty repetitive really fast though as besides a very select few exceptions, there's very little in the way of level gimmicks to make many of them stand out. And platforming is mostly an afterthought. Any challenge really just comes from enemies with obnoxious placements. Still this segment of the game fares a bit better than the speed imo as it's more than just watching sonic run down a hallway. The Mechs just aren't even as satisfying to play as Amy from SA1 let alone Gamma who's their direct counterpart. The mere fact that you play as Eggman during half of these stages is enough to carry them for the first playthrough at least.
Treasure hunting is an interesting one. On paper it's a huge improvement over the ones from SA1. They get their own stages instead of piggybacking off existing Sonic stages. They get progressively bigger and more complex. Knuckles' movement and combat is now more acrobatic and fast than before. But they decided to use these levels as hard padding unfortunately by gutting the radar to only being able to find 1 emerald at a time, in a strict order. I understand nerfing the hint system from SA1 but they could have just made it a stationary arrow or SOMETHING, because the hint system is completely worthless to 99% of players now. Let alone later in the game when they put the text given to you by the hints in reverse...noissap ym si ngised emaG. Like they were just trying to be as annoying and unusable as possible seemingly on purpose here. Despite my complaints though these are definitely the best levels in the game. There's actually a lot of nuance to these stages not really present in the rest of the game. It's the only style that feels rewarding to master because of it. Simply optimizing how you're navigating the levels and its obstacles, and finding a quick route to check the most areas as fast as possible, feels great! I never memorized many of the hints, as there's so many different emerald locations and so many of the worst hints ever written by man that it's beyond me. But, unlike the speed stages, your rank is largely determined by...your speed. This makes consistently getting A ranks actually satisfying since it's not just about I pressed A in the right spots and killed enough enemies like in the speed levels, and more about actually getting good at the stages. (Since there's ROOM to get good at these ones) but also leads into the problem that the treasure hunting stages are honestly best without worrying about your rank. They're such an RNG nightmare and the stages quickly get WAY too big for the radar they give you. Just flying around Pumpkin Hill and vibing to the music and aesthetic is enough to make Knuckles' portion enjoyable. But this game's entirely built around you wanting to get A ranks and rewarding you for doing so. I think more people would enjoy the treasure hunting stages for what they are, if they didn't feel like anything other than an A rank meant well gee now I just have to play it again It goes against the entire appeal of the style I think.
So speed has very lacking, repetitive, mostly unengaging level design. Mechs are the most unfun to control things in this series and also too repetitive to be replayable in the slightest. And treasure hunting has room to be a really fun portion of the game but is still held back by flat out bad design choices. Story presentation is honestly the ONLY area that was objectively improved over SA1. Sonic doesn't make goofy faces while delivering his goofy dialogue that means the game's better I suppose? Eggman has a mouth that can open this time around so that's huge.
It definitely feels like a more polished game from a presentation standpoint, but if you go for 100% it honestly pushes the engine REALLY thin for what it can handle. Every level has 5 missions and really the further I get into doing these the more exhausted I get by the game. Hunting for the mystic music flute for every character with very little idea which level it might be in and hunting for the chao gets really obnoxious in a lot of these stages. I just don't think most of these stages were good enough to warrant having 5 missions in each one. You'll quickly blast through all the decent ones and be left with the worst stages getting worse and worse with each mission. Gotta love doing 100 ring missions in a game that spawns enemies on top of your head. Or the chill vibes of the treasure hunting stages getting even more obliterated by having a time limit as one of the missions. The missions are all the same across every level and gameplay style, it gets so exhausting by the end of getting 180 emblems. And for what? An extra average level unlocked once you get all of them?
This game's got it all, a complete lack of depth leading to boredom and no replay value, and total frustration through trying to 100% it at the same time! As well as a Chao garden that's more charming than it is actually fun. Sonic fans will really hold a grudge for literal decades on perceived "non-sonic" gameplay ideas like Big the Cat, or Amy...And sit there watching their chao do 30 really slow races for hours. Not to talk too much trash on chao, I do really like them and have had my fun with them, especially on Dreamcast where there's a bit of a Tamagotchi angle from the VMU's. And the depth in raising them is super interesting and the exact kinda thing I love out of classic niche games. I just don't understand Sonic fans. I feel like this game is given a huge pass given it's what introduced a LOT of people to the series. But to me it doesn't really feature much I love about this series. Seems to me a lot of people fell in love with this game and proceeded to hate almost every game after it despite (imo) those games being more faithful to the Sonic Formula and therefor more engaging than this one. To make a probably weird correlation... SA2 is to Sonic what Skyrim is to Elder Scrolls/rpgs in general.
This game's kind of the start of people preferring the dumbed down route for sonic games. The series even 20+ years later struggles to escape the shadow of the obscenely undeserved and double standard ridden pedestal SA2 is sitting on. SA2 being one of the most popular games in the series puts Sega in an unwinnable position. Trying to make a game more engaging than SA2 filters a LOT of people. But making a game as shallow as SA2 gets SA2 elitists scoffing and pretending their game is the Smash Bros Melee of Sonic when actually it's the Brawl at best. I don't mean to trash on other's opinions, I could just as easily talk about why I have a good time with this game. This is just my perception of SA2's place in the series and why despite me not actively disliking the game I find it doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.
It's fine but it's not even in the top 13 best sonic games available on the Gamecube alone. Still I've managed to get all 180 emblems on both Xbox360 and Steam, as well as beating it on the Dreamcast. Lotta highs lotta lows, more lows the more I play it though as I've honestly just outgrown the level design long story short.