Going into this game, I was super hyped. After having a good time with Adventure, and all my childhood memories about this game coming back to me, I was so ready to enjoy Adventure 2 all over again. Unfortunately, what I found is that this game has probably aged worse than the first one.
This game decides to forgo splitting the game into six separate campaigns and instead just has two main ones, Hero and Dark. Conceptually, I like this approach better than Adventure's. There's no need to play similar levels with other characters five or six times, and switching between characters in a single campaign may allow the story to be told at a smoother pace and keep the gameplay fresh. In practice, though, I just wanted to play as Sonic or Shadow for most of this game.
Sonic and Shadow control about the same as Sonic did in Adventure. Although Sonic gets a cool new bounce ability that makes controlling him feel better than Shadow. For the most, part, I thought their levels were great. The classic City Escape, Green Forest, White Jungle, and Radical Highway were highlights for me. It's not until the Space Colony that their levels started to frustrate me.
With Tails, however, the frustration was felt from the beginning. He's in this mech that is slow and awkward to control, particularly when you have to turn around, and the camera does you no favors. Until you get the jet boosters, platforming is a nightmare. And, just like Sonic and Shadow, once you get to the Space Colony, it only gets worse.
Knuckles and Rogue's levels follow the same concept as the first game's Emerald hunts, except now the stages are much bigger... Much, much bigger. It's hard to talk about these stages because the Emerald pieces spawn in random locations, so if you get lucky spawns, you'll finish these things in two or three minutes. In Meteor Herd, it took me 15 minutes to find all the pieces. So much time spent flying around aimlessly because these levels are huge and the radar isn't making a peep of noise. Personally, I had a harder time with Knuckles' stages than Rogue, but again, that may very well be because I got luckier spawns with her. Either way, sometimes you had to play multiple Tails and Knuckles segments before going back to Sonic and I just wasn't having fun with that. I never felt that in the first game, partly because I knew I was going to be playing as them for an entire campaign, but also because the level design was a lot less chaotic and the camera wasn't getting in my way so much. It's strange, I ran into a lot more of those types of control and camera issues that I just didn't have while playing Adventure.
The absolute worst of it all was the Last Story's Cannon Core. A final stage that has you playing as all the characters, one after the other. If you get a Game Over as Sonic, you have to do Tails' segment again, then Eggman's, then Rouge', then Knuckles'... So you can give Sonic's part another go. Of course, once you've already figured out what to do, you can breeze through the level fairly quickly. Until, of course, I realized that Knuckles' segment was unbearable unless you found an optional upgrade earlier in the game that lets you breathe underwater indefinitely. Then there's Biolizard. A boss battle that hurt me to my core. The camera's close to the ground and in front of where you're going so if you accidentally fall into the current and get swept away mid-battle OOPS. Tough luck. When Biolizard summons the orbs around him you have to homing attack to reach his weak spot, I just had to pray and hope that I could make it. I didn't feel like I had any control of where to home in on and if I couldn't get to the center of his back or if I homed in on his side and took damage... I was toast. Finalhazard was really cool, though. Beat it in one go. But at that point I was so exhausted from the previous fight, I didn't really feel the rush like when I fought Perfect Chaos. I was a bit numb at this point.
If it sounds like I've just been complaining this whole time it's because I have been, yes. And it's because I care. Everything about this game's story appeals to me. It goes where Sonic stories don't dare to go anymore. We got Eggman blowing up an island, blowing up the Moon, we infiltrate the pyramids that secretly house a rocket that takes us to a space colony. How could you not love this? We even get some new background for Eggman with his grandfather and Shadow's whole relationship with Maria. It's all really out there and interesting. Even if, much like Adventure, the cutscenes are really awkwardly animated and voiced. There's an undeniable charm to it all. Plus, anyone that doesn't think Shadow is cool is lying to themselves. I just wish the game around this story was more... fun. Realizing that it wasn't really disappointed me because I was looking forward to it. The game still did some things right. Like I said, I enjoyed Sonic/Shadow's levels. In fact, I think the Dark Story was much better than Hero. It's just weird how many issues I ran into with this game that I simply didn't when I played Sonic Adventure. I realized it's not the vastly better sequel I hoped it would be. At the risk of disregarding the entire review, I might just still be salty after a frustrating final level. Who knows? In a month or so I'll probably be looking back fondly on this game again. After all, Live and Learn is an absolute banger.
This game decides to forgo splitting the game into six separate campaigns and instead just has two main ones, Hero and Dark. Conceptually, I like this approach better than Adventure's. There's no need to play similar levels with other characters five or six times, and switching between characters in a single campaign may allow the story to be told at a smoother pace and keep the gameplay fresh. In practice, though, I just wanted to play as Sonic or Shadow for most of this game.
Sonic and Shadow control about the same as Sonic did in Adventure. Although Sonic gets a cool new bounce ability that makes controlling him feel better than Shadow. For the most, part, I thought their levels were great. The classic City Escape, Green Forest, White Jungle, and Radical Highway were highlights for me. It's not until the Space Colony that their levels started to frustrate me.
With Tails, however, the frustration was felt from the beginning. He's in this mech that is slow and awkward to control, particularly when you have to turn around, and the camera does you no favors. Until you get the jet boosters, platforming is a nightmare. And, just like Sonic and Shadow, once you get to the Space Colony, it only gets worse.
Knuckles and Rogue's levels follow the same concept as the first game's Emerald hunts, except now the stages are much bigger... Much, much bigger. It's hard to talk about these stages because the Emerald pieces spawn in random locations, so if you get lucky spawns, you'll finish these things in two or three minutes. In Meteor Herd, it took me 15 minutes to find all the pieces. So much time spent flying around aimlessly because these levels are huge and the radar isn't making a peep of noise. Personally, I had a harder time with Knuckles' stages than Rogue, but again, that may very well be because I got luckier spawns with her. Either way, sometimes you had to play multiple Tails and Knuckles segments before going back to Sonic and I just wasn't having fun with that. I never felt that in the first game, partly because I knew I was going to be playing as them for an entire campaign, but also because the level design was a lot less chaotic and the camera wasn't getting in my way so much. It's strange, I ran into a lot more of those types of control and camera issues that I just didn't have while playing Adventure.
The absolute worst of it all was the Last Story's Cannon Core. A final stage that has you playing as all the characters, one after the other. If you get a Game Over as Sonic, you have to do Tails' segment again, then Eggman's, then Rouge', then Knuckles'... So you can give Sonic's part another go. Of course, once you've already figured out what to do, you can breeze through the level fairly quickly. Until, of course, I realized that Knuckles' segment was unbearable unless you found an optional upgrade earlier in the game that lets you breathe underwater indefinitely. Then there's Biolizard. A boss battle that hurt me to my core. The camera's close to the ground and in front of where you're going so if you accidentally fall into the current and get swept away mid-battle OOPS. Tough luck. When Biolizard summons the orbs around him you have to homing attack to reach his weak spot, I just had to pray and hope that I could make it. I didn't feel like I had any control of where to home in on and if I couldn't get to the center of his back or if I homed in on his side and took damage... I was toast. Finalhazard was really cool, though. Beat it in one go. But at that point I was so exhausted from the previous fight, I didn't really feel the rush like when I fought Perfect Chaos. I was a bit numb at this point.
If it sounds like I've just been complaining this whole time it's because I have been, yes. And it's because I care. Everything about this game's story appeals to me. It goes where Sonic stories don't dare to go anymore. We got Eggman blowing up an island, blowing up the Moon, we infiltrate the pyramids that secretly house a rocket that takes us to a space colony. How could you not love this? We even get some new background for Eggman with his grandfather and Shadow's whole relationship with Maria. It's all really out there and interesting. Even if, much like Adventure, the cutscenes are really awkwardly animated and voiced. There's an undeniable charm to it all. Plus, anyone that doesn't think Shadow is cool is lying to themselves. I just wish the game around this story was more... fun. Realizing that it wasn't really disappointed me because I was looking forward to it. The game still did some things right. Like I said, I enjoyed Sonic/Shadow's levels. In fact, I think the Dark Story was much better than Hero. It's just weird how many issues I ran into with this game that I simply didn't when I played Sonic Adventure. I realized it's not the vastly better sequel I hoped it would be. At the risk of disregarding the entire review, I might just still be salty after a frustrating final level. Who knows? In a month or so I'll probably be looking back fondly on this game again. After all, Live and Learn is an absolute banger.