there's something to be said about the heavy air of finality revolving around sonic adventure 2 in retrospect. by 2001 i imagine sonic team was looking down the barrel pretty clearly, likely a sinking feeling of defeat as the playstation 2 and gamecube began their respective dynasties, realizing that this project by and large was likely to serve as their last opportunity to say something unless a miracle came about. maybe sonic as a franchise never achieved the epic status of overarching story that this game bolstered in presentation, but this time around, after years of shitting on this game, i finally felt it a little bit. i got what the deal was with sonic adventure 2.
i don't even necessarily know if it's a 'better' game than adventure 1; i'd say it's more likely that it has less widely-spread problems, but those that exist are arguably more egregious. knuckles and rouge's downgrade to their playstyle in this game is frankly fucking inexcusable and rouge's stages in specific are some of the most time-consuming wastes of energy the game has to offer. tails' inclusion borders on irrelevant thanks to his entire playstyle being neutered just to serve as an eggman mechanical partner a-la waluigi's debut in mario tennis - and even then, the actual mecha gameplay is so clearly aping on gamma's from adventure 1 while managing to strip most of the fun of his mode that it's baffling. sonic's moveset received some bizarre changes in between titles (the spindash???) that feel blatantly unnecessary.
with that said, why does this game rank a little higher for me?
look, i'm at a point in my life where objective quality isn't exactly my paradigm with art. i'm not interested in dissolving into "this is better than that objectively because of x y and z." it's lame talk. it's plastic. let's talk about cool, let's talk about expression, let's talk about the obvious passion that went into this fucking janky bizarre mess of a game - a fitting finale with a heart on its sleeves and a love for all things precisely 2001 that likely would've (and should've) seen sonic off at this point in his tenure with sega.
is sonic adventure 2 a good game? well, not really, no. i do think overall thanks to level design, storyline and pacing it's at least a small step over sonic adventure 1 at this point - this being the first time in my life i can actually say i feel that way. but god help me, if something didn't click while sonic and shadow run around the endless stretch of highway and duke it out with pseudo nine inch nails club mixes in the background while shounen-ing up the fuck out of sonic's already attitude-centric aesthetic and storyline. i'm an adventure-era fan now. i love this game now. i'm glad to be on board.
oh yeah, and the scene where eggman pulls a fucking gat on amy rose is peak sonic.
i don't even necessarily know if it's a 'better' game than adventure 1; i'd say it's more likely that it has less widely-spread problems, but those that exist are arguably more egregious. knuckles and rouge's downgrade to their playstyle in this game is frankly fucking inexcusable and rouge's stages in specific are some of the most time-consuming wastes of energy the game has to offer. tails' inclusion borders on irrelevant thanks to his entire playstyle being neutered just to serve as an eggman mechanical partner a-la waluigi's debut in mario tennis - and even then, the actual mecha gameplay is so clearly aping on gamma's from adventure 1 while managing to strip most of the fun of his mode that it's baffling. sonic's moveset received some bizarre changes in between titles (the spindash???) that feel blatantly unnecessary.
with that said, why does this game rank a little higher for me?
look, i'm at a point in my life where objective quality isn't exactly my paradigm with art. i'm not interested in dissolving into "this is better than that objectively because of x y and z." it's lame talk. it's plastic. let's talk about cool, let's talk about expression, let's talk about the obvious passion that went into this fucking janky bizarre mess of a game - a fitting finale with a heart on its sleeves and a love for all things precisely 2001 that likely would've (and should've) seen sonic off at this point in his tenure with sega.
is sonic adventure 2 a good game? well, not really, no. i do think overall thanks to level design, storyline and pacing it's at least a small step over sonic adventure 1 at this point - this being the first time in my life i can actually say i feel that way. but god help me, if something didn't click while sonic and shadow run around the endless stretch of highway and duke it out with pseudo nine inch nails club mixes in the background while shounen-ing up the fuck out of sonic's already attitude-centric aesthetic and storyline. i'm an adventure-era fan now. i love this game now. i'm glad to be on board.
oh yeah, and the scene where eggman pulls a fucking gat on amy rose is peak sonic.