(I played the game on the X Legacy Collection for Switch)

This game. This f*cking game. It seems that the goal of the X series after X5 was not entertainment anymore, oh no, it became to punish the people who convinced Capcom to make more games after the intended finale.

There isn't a single thing in this game I can say I actually like out of it being good, the best thing this game has is how stupid it is in voice acting and writing because at least that makes me laugh, it makes me feel good.
Most of the time, you are going to be walking around with the stiff controls mashing the fire button (or holding it if you're playing as X) in bland stages with bad setpieces. It's hard to accurately describe my exact problems, but dashing feels slow and bad and Axl has a useless roll ability which you will accidentally be using a lot if you choose to play as him. The most infuriating part of the controls is characters falling down whenever they're hit hard, which only serves to either cheaply shove you into a put or build your rage.
The level design itself is... ok enough for most of the 2d sections but in 3d you either just ignore the level or you're forced into a maze (Vanishing Gungaroo or Snipe Anteator). I appreciate the lack of completely gimmick stages which X8 reeked of, only 2 levels here substantially change how you play and one is using ride armor which could be worse.
I don't really want to get into the story because who actually cares, but the story does have the direct consequence of you not being able to play as X until about half of the main 8 stages. I don't absolutely hate this decision like most people (aside from the contrived in game reason) but it does come off as forcing the player to use Axl which I'm not a fan of, it feels like it devalues the partner switching idea since you're forced into one setup for a large part of the game.
I don't really have much more to say since it has admittedly been a while since I finished this, the only time I could ever recommend this game to anyone is if you want to be able to accurately voice your opinion on it. This game isn't good even for hardcore X series fans, do not waste your time with it.

It's... ok. Really the most I can say about this game. I should say that this is all from a single player perspective, I have sadly never been able to play this game with other people, despite it being a fighting game.
I think the core gameplay is nice, having a basic attack, a heavy attack, a dash attack, an air attack, an upper, a kind of weird homing in attack you can use in certain situations, and various special attacks. The game doesn't really come off as hampered from the lack of buttons imo, my main issue with the gameplay is the lack of interesting movement options, which is a shame due to the size of the arenas the fights takes place in. Each character feels unique to play which is nice, but there's obviously some balancing issues here (Cream is ridiculously good compared to the rest of the cast for example). A cool part of the game is that the main character, Emerl, gets to use traits from every other character, so you get to pick your favorite tools and combine them into one super-character. Though sadly, by the time you've got enough skill points to use everything you want (skill points being increased after each fight, they're the game's way of not having Emerl be stupid broken from the get-go, limiting what you can have on him at once) the story is pretty much over. Also annoyingly there's no actual way to get one skill over another (outside of character), it's not based on how much a move is used or anything, you just have to get into a battle with the character you want to get something from and pray you get the one you want.
The main story is... pretty fun but it has a few critical issues. Sometimes it can just drag on and on, like, you'll finish a battle that has 3 lives for everyone, and then have to do an exact repeat of that fight with 5 lives. It just gets exhausting.
Secondly, the AI is very susceptible to getting caught in loops (mainly with special moves, but can be done with some other moves like Rouge's air attack) which obviously makes the fights less engaging, though the AI will automatically block a special attack if you use it too much against them (this is limited to one at a time however, so if you alternate between two the problem is still very much there).
The story is, like, stupidly good for this GBA spinoff fighting game, but I don't want to reveal too much. Basically it centers around Emerl, an ancient robot that Professor Gerald had worked on before Shadow, with him interacting with different characters in the 8 campaigns. There's ones that are kind of just there like Knuckles', but if you get through all of them the story in this game is really one of the best out of Sonic.
Aesthetically I don't have much to say but yeah it's excellent. The portraits are all super sleek and there's a reason the sprites from this game were used in all those flash animations. Music is good, sometimes the GBA soundchip makes it ear grating but sometimes it really works (go listen to Battle Highway).
I don't really know who I'd recommend this game to, Sonic fans for the story, sure, but none of the elements from the main series really work their way into here. This game is very odd for a fighting game, so don't know if I'd suggest it there either. Just play it if you feel like it, I guess.

TL:DR AT THE END

Very COOL. That's the best way to describe this game. It's cool, radical, flashy, etc etc. Even If this game has a lot of flaws design wise and shit, I can't really bring myself to think of it poorly because its sense of style just elevates it so much. So I guess I should start with that.

Graphics wise, it's good but not insane or anything. The main appeal of the visuals are the awesome spectacles you get out of the speed stages, like the intro to Final Rush/Chase. The soundtrack however, holy fucking shit, SSS tier, the mech stage music is the most boring but it's not that by any means. From Sonic's rock, Rouge's jazz, Knuckle's rap, or Shadow's edge (admittedly don't know what to call it, despite it being consistently my favorite), all of it is absolutely TOP notch. Listen to it sometime.

SA2 is split into 3 distinct gameplay styles, speed (Sonic & Shadow), shooting/mech (Tails & Eggman), and treasure hunting (Knuckles & Rouge). The goals for speed are get to the end fast while performing tricks (they raise the point gauge, which I'll talk about later), for shooting its to be fast while also getting enemy chains (targeting a large amount of enemies at once and then shooting), and for treasure hunting it's just collecting the 3 emerald shards (for 2 levels they aren't emerald shards, but they're functionally identical) as fast as possible.

It seems everyone is in agreement that the speed stages are the best, and it's no surprise why. These are the stages that ARE Sonic, they're high speed precision platforming. The controls also feel very tight, I'd say the best in the series up to this point (yes, even more so than Adventure 1). Like previous games, you might not be able to go terribly fast at first, and hell, just going fast isn't the only thing you have to worry about now (again, ranking system) but it still is a key part of the gameplay and I feel that it is executed well. Even ignoring shortcuts, simple mastery of the stage layout and how to efficiently get momentum really offer an engaging way to play through levels even if you've played them dozens of times over. Admittedly a part of the level mastery is knowing when enemies will pop out of nowhere, which definitely does suck, but you get used to it (not defending it at all, but it won't hamper your experience after you know it's coming). The points system adds so much depth here though, giving you an incentive to chain together homing attacks for combos or to just do sick tricks to earn points (even if they can be arbitrary at times), it really makes you feel COOL, which is clearly what this style is concerned with.

Next is... mech... yeah I don't really like this style. The controls are just... stiff and not very fun here. While chaining combos together can take skill and is the main thing here, there are parts where that is the only thing you can do and if you're only looking to complete the level those parts are just a total waste of time. Even if you are going for the rank, those parts are still stupid because instead of having to optimize yourself the game just tells you "yes this is where you do the chain thing" and move on with it. This style in general also feels like it has more random enemies from nowhere popping out at you, but I can't tell if that's because it actually has less than the speed style or if it's just less noticeable in the speed stages due to being able to spindash and get your groove back quickly. Also the music is the least interesting for these characters, but you know, that's kinda subjective. If you just enjoy watching things blow up though, you can probably get something out of this. I just wish they kept the time limit Gamma had in sa1.

Last but not (well, arguably) least, the treasure hunting stages! These seem to be the most divisive, while everyone agrees the speed stages are good, and everyone seems to agree the mech stages are at best mid, I've seen high praise to lots of hate for these. A big part is that a few levels of these are REALLY bad, which isn't something you see with the other styles, hampering opinion on this style as a whole. Mad Space, Meteor Herd, Aquatic Mine, and Death Chamber all seem to be widely hated or at least disliked. Me, personally, really enjoy the treasure hunting stages, but they definitely have issues. The main one I can think of is that there is, like the mech stages, lack of engagement if you aren't going for a high rank. There are little to no threats in these levels, the challenge is simply getting the emeralds as fast as you can, but there's no reward to getting them faster unless you care about the points. While in sa1 it was a joke finding the emeralds, here they can real nuisances due to the radar only showing one at a time, you can check one spot multiple times where there's an emerald but never know because you simply weren't tracking that one at the time. There's a hint system in place, but it's explained so poorly to where I legit didn't know they existed until after already completing the game. Some of these maps are just really annoying to traverse, which is a shame, because I think Knuckles and Rouge control really well unlike the mech stages. Stages like Death Chamber see you in these claustrophobic hallways going over the same ground over and over again with no progress and it just takes forever. I have spent up to half an hour in some of these stages just not finding anything. I know this sounds really negative, but it does legitimately feel really nice to be able to collect the emeralds quickly with knowledge of the stages. In that sense it's similar to the speed stages, but it lacks that instant appeal and instead is ONLY engaging once you know what you're dealing with.

Time to finally address it, the main thing SA2 brought to the table (well maybe excluding Shadow), the RANK SYSTEM. The idea is very simple, based on your score you get judged at the end with a letter of E-A. This sounds like an afterthought change, but it adds so much depth it's kind of ridiculous. You have a real incentive now to learn the stages and get high scores without that intrinsic benefit, it gives you a set goal which can really make it feel more progressive than like Sonic 1 where the goal was more abstractly just doing it faster. It feels SUPER GOOD to get that perfect run where you pulled off all that you needed to quick enough to get that sweet, succulent A rank. This is the singular thing that makes SA2 as good as it is, gameplay wise at least. The amount of replay value it adds with the added motivation to really master the levels just cannot be overstated.

For more completely optional content you can choose to engage with, each level has 5 different missions with the 1st being the normal in story one, 2nd being collect 100 rings, 3rd being find the lost Chao, 4th being beat the stage in a time limit, and 5th being a hard mode. The ring missions are pretty stupid in speed stages I find, but they can be legitimate challenges to get an A rank in (ranks for 2nd and 3rd mission are based solely on time) for treasure hunting or mech stages due to their significantly lower ring count. Finding the lost Chao can be... kind of interesting sometimes but also can just be annoying others. A big problem with this one though is that most of the time you'll need an upgrade for your character whose only use is to activate things that lead to the Chao, pointless design add-on that doesn't hurt the game too much but it being there at all bugs me. 4th is kind of pointless too really, if you got an A rank on mission 1 you should have no problem A ranking this one as well. Even without an A rank since you've had to go through the level 3 times by this point you're probably familiar enough with it to get through. The hard mode ones are the best if it isn't a treasure hunting stage, in treasure hunting stages the emeralds are always in the same 3 locations your job now becomes find these 3 specific harder to find/get ones. These can be cool puzzles sometimes but they also require the use of the sunglasses/spy glass (upgrades which let you see things you previously couldn't and interact with them) which is stupid as it necessitates you putting it on constantly to check for the invisible thing that can lead to the shard. Additionally, them always being in the same location means the replay value is super low on those. In contrast, the hard mode missions for mech and speed are really just that, harder remixes of the level before. They aren't revolutionary or anything but (depending on the level) they can legitimately offer a challenge to rank well in, though admittedly not so much just completing as after the last 4 missions you should be familiar enough with the level, they aren't that different.

I should at least mention it, the thing that everyone loves, the Chao Garden. It's cute, yeah, but I really don't care about it too much. It is unobtrusive mostly though, the only time you ever have to engage with it outside of the sake of it is if you want to go for true 100% completion with the emblems but like... It makes sense you have to interact with all parts of the game for 100%. You hatch cute baby things called Chao which you can give "chaos drives" which drop from robots to boost their stats with no downside or give them animals which both gives them a cosmetic trait of that animal but additionally will raise some of their stats, lower others (with a few exceptions but generally there's always a positive and negative). They can turn out wildly differently based on stats and age (yes, they actually age) and some other factors. I'm not really qualified to explain all of it, if you're interested in the in depth mechanics go to chao-island.com. The only thing you can do these with these little fellas is have them race or karate, both are cute but don't offer much value outside of that. Not much input is needed from you, it's really just to give a reason for the stats to exist. All in all Chao Garden is a nice little add on, and it's complex enough to where some people legitimately spend most of their time in the game on this, but its ultimately a very small part of the larger package.

The story... don't want to give away too much because don't want this to be marked spoiler but just know that despite the at times wonky presentation this story is still the best in a Sonic game to date. It revolves around Shadow and his motives, and how they aren't exactly positive or healthy. It manages to be connected to the gameplay without it interfering if you don't want it to, something many other Sonic games fail at doing. My biggest problems with it are that Knuckles does barely anything and there are a few major plotholes, my advice is don't look into it too deeply and you'll enjoy it.

All in all, I think SA2 is an excellent game, even if it isn't necessarily the most polished, it will always stand out due to how fucking good it is when you can actually get into it and deal with it. The gameplay, for at least some styles, can really be enjoyable if you take the time to learn it. I'd say that SA2 is an investment more than anything else, you play it understanding that you might not adore it instantly but given the time it deserves no other game really even comes close to it.

TL:DR: Sonic Adventure 2 is a game with many rough edges that shines if you can get used to its bs, and even before then manages to be enjoyable due to its sense of style and charm. Not a 10/10 bc of the aforementioned bs and that some levels i really just do not like in general, but this is still one of my favorite games.

This game is still a MMZ game. So it's awesome. That being said though, after replaying them all recently, this is the one I find myself thinking positively of the least. It's hard for me to really pinpoint anything specific; but I think my main issue with the game is simply the level design. Many feel very... uninspired. Notably, the only good level out of the 4 stages you get before the final ones I'd say is Cubit Foxtar. While the other games have their stinkers too, they aren't as bad as they are here I'd say. I also find the bosses here to be probably the least interesting in the series. The part system I find pretty lame because most of the time they're either useless or busted, so I end up not using anything. This game is definitely still good (like I said, MMZ) but I don't think it's the best in the series anymore.

Original Review
~~~~~~~
The culmination of the MMZ series. While 4 is technically the last, that game set itself apart from this one with new things specifically because it knew this was already the perfection of the formula. This game completely cuts away the weapon grinding from the past 2, adds a kickass new weapon (the recoil rod), and has more stages than the past ones. The only thing I think you could actually argue is a regression is the forms from mmz2 being replaced with chips, which I find to be less interesting.
This has all the reasons the first two are good, the fluid and rewarding combat, the tight controls, the grim setting, the good music, the ranking system, topped off with an actually good story for a GBA platformer (though admittedly mmz1 probably has a better one).
The improvements from the previous ones aren't super substantial, but all that means is the mmz series always had what it took to be great. It really is just improved level design and greatly reduced grinding that elevates this one above the others. My only real issues is that this game can be really easy if you exploit certain things (element chips, cyberspace, cyber elves), but previous games had this too and you can ignore these, just thought I should mention it. Also the fox boss is weirdly hard compared to all the other ones for some reason.
The worst part of this game is that I can't recommend this game by itself as the story requires buildup from 1 and especially 2 to be worthwhile, with the story actually being important enough to want to have the best of, but that's hardly a fault. This game rules.

Not an exaggeration to say you'll be playing this for the style alone. Absolutely adore both the soundtrack and visuals, the character models especially are SO appealing with that stylistic low poly look. But the design here can be very annoying, a lot of the time boosting in the wrong place will just get you killed, and sometimes you just get locked in a room and get told to kill enemies for no reason. This game kind of reminds me of Sonic Heroes, a lot of the time it can be annoying (though here it's due to bad level design and not physics jank) but when it works it works. Blaze is cool, and the special stages are best in the series bar none.

Recommended if you're a fan of Sonic, if not, you can always just listen to the OST on Youtube.

This game is one of the best Kirby has to offer. Graphics are very cute and good, complimented by a nice soundtrack. Of course the thing I really care about is gameplay, and this game is really good there as well. Copy abilities are more complex than just press single button most of the time which makes them much more interesting to use than past games. The different campaigns offer unique experiences, personally my favorite is probably Revenge of Meta Knight, but none stand out as particularly bad. That being said quite a few are pretty mediocre, so having to beat them to unlock more can be somewhat of a chore. Difficulty varies a lot between each mode, most of the time it's at a sweet spot of engaging without frustrating but sometimes its too easy for me.

Would recommend to anyone, really.

Improvement over the last in level design, which I think makes it superior, but worse everywhere else (well except for visuals and maybe bosses). The soundtrack is still nice, just not on the same level, the low poly characters models are kept with much better looking environments for the stages themselves making for a wonderful visual presentation. The new watercraft minigames are (mostly, fuck that boat) cool but I definitely understand if you don't like them, I do like the exploring it adds to the table. The mini stages you get from them are fun, if simplistic, my only complaint with them is some of them are mandatory to complete but only AFTER you get to a certain point in the story so if you got there before you're forced to redo them. Special stages are kind of cool here, but I remember getting very upset them. Not anywhere near as bad as OG Sonic 2 or anything but a shame considering its predecessor had the best special stages in the series. The way you get the Sol Emeralds is through specific missions, most of the missions are obvious padding but it's not like you have to interact with them so not a big deal. Not like it matters much though because the reward for getting all the emeralds sucks ass here lmao.