Sonic Adventure 2 is an iconic game that definitely deserves a lot of the praise, and criticism that have been throw it’s way over the years.
Adventure 2’s story is pretty ambitious, and honestly if you just don’t think too hard about it, it’s entertaining. The acting is pretty good and the animation is a huge step up from SA1. But being honest, there are tons of plot holes surronding newcomer Shadow the Hedgehog, the Militatry who killed his creator Gerald Robotnick, and Shadows motive to destroy the planet. But it is entertaining, if only due to how high the stakes get. It’s not taken too seriously though, so its tone is spot on, and the game is endlessly quotable. For those reasons I think it succeeds at what it tries to do.
The gameplay attempts to refine SA1s most popular gameplay styles, Sonic’s Speed stages, Gamma’s shooting stages and Knuckles’ treasure hunting. Speed stages are just as fun as before, though more linear due to being designed for just Sonic and Shadow. This game introduce grind rails to the series, and while a little janky, they add to the high octane gameplay. The shooting levels with Dr Eggman and Tails are okay, I think the levels themselves can be pretty fun, but the control is very stiff and speed isn’t really a thing, which is so wierd as Gamma didn’t have this problem atall. The treasure hunting with Knuckles and Rouge took the biggest hit, as for some reason the you can only locate one emerald piece at a time, and some of these stages are huge.
It leads to a game that is more focussed, but it definitely has more obvious cracks. I still think overall it’s a fun game, and the boss fights are really good this time, except the Biolizard, not to be controversial, but I always thought this fight was super janky and way too long.
The music is fantastic, with every character getting their own style, as well as their own theme, and the main theme “Live and Learn” is one of the most iconic songs in the series.
SA2 is far from perfect, but if you can look past its cracks, I think it’s a lot of fun.
Adventure 2’s story is pretty ambitious, and honestly if you just don’t think too hard about it, it’s entertaining. The acting is pretty good and the animation is a huge step up from SA1. But being honest, there are tons of plot holes surronding newcomer Shadow the Hedgehog, the Militatry who killed his creator Gerald Robotnick, and Shadows motive to destroy the planet. But it is entertaining, if only due to how high the stakes get. It’s not taken too seriously though, so its tone is spot on, and the game is endlessly quotable. For those reasons I think it succeeds at what it tries to do.
The gameplay attempts to refine SA1s most popular gameplay styles, Sonic’s Speed stages, Gamma’s shooting stages and Knuckles’ treasure hunting. Speed stages are just as fun as before, though more linear due to being designed for just Sonic and Shadow. This game introduce grind rails to the series, and while a little janky, they add to the high octane gameplay. The shooting levels with Dr Eggman and Tails are okay, I think the levels themselves can be pretty fun, but the control is very stiff and speed isn’t really a thing, which is so wierd as Gamma didn’t have this problem atall. The treasure hunting with Knuckles and Rouge took the biggest hit, as for some reason the you can only locate one emerald piece at a time, and some of these stages are huge.
It leads to a game that is more focussed, but it definitely has more obvious cracks. I still think overall it’s a fun game, and the boss fights are really good this time, except the Biolizard, not to be controversial, but I always thought this fight was super janky and way too long.
The music is fantastic, with every character getting their own style, as well as their own theme, and the main theme “Live and Learn” is one of the most iconic songs in the series.
SA2 is far from perfect, but if you can look past its cracks, I think it’s a lot of fun.