Sonic's Bizarre Adventure: Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast, 2001) Review

 NOTE: This review is part of a retrospective of the Sonic franchise. Feel free to read the other Sonic reviews I’ve done here - https://expithecat.blogspot.com/search/label/sonic%20retrospective

Well, now with all those spin-off titles out of the way, time to go back to the main series and look at Sonic Adventure 2. In June, I reviewed the first Sonic Adventure game and my conclusion was that it was a solid first 3D entry for the series. Not perfect by any means - the game does lack a bit of polish and stuff like Big’s stages did come off to me as just… filler, and honestly it’s not a game I have that much desire to replay after playing through the main story, but I still think it’s a fun game and a solid Sonic game.

But that begs the question. If Sonic Adventure is so great, why isn’t there Sonic Adventure 2?

Wait, I made that joke already?

Background and History

Following the release of Sonic Adventure in the US, Sonic Team USA almost immediately went on to start development on the next 3D Sonic game - which ended up, of course, being Sonic Adventure 2. The game was intended to be more fast-paced and action-oriented than it’s predecessor, and the game was first shown off at E3 2000. Over time, the game also became marketed in relation to Sonic’s 10th anniversary. But in addition, as the Dreamcast was failing to take off, Sonic Adventure 2 was going to be the last Sonic game on the system. In fact, it was the last Sonic game on a Sega system period. While I’m not entirely sure on the validity of this, it’s also rumored that the game was also only going to contain three playable characters at first - Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman, but fans pushed Sonic Team into adding three more - those being Tails, Shadow and Rouge.

And it’s safe to say that the game on it’s own really wasn’t enough to save the Dreamcast - by the time this game was released I’m pretty sure the Dreamcast had been discontinued and most people I know who played this game growing up recognize it more based off it’s Gamecube port, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle.

That said, Sonic Adventure 2 is one game that’s been commonly cited as one of if not the best game in the series by a good chunk of the Sonic fanbase. In fact, it’s most likely the fan favorite among those who grew up in the 2000’s and started out with the series on systems like the GameCube. But like the first Adventure game, there have been some who have called that love into question - citing, again, that the game hasn’t necessarily aged well and that the Sonic and Shadow speed stages are the only real good part of the game with the Knuckles/Rouge and Tails/Eggman stages not being so great. Still, this game does hold a pretty massive cult following and to this day plenty of fans have wished Sega would return to the Adventure formula at some point.

Personal Experiences

In my Sonic Adventure review, I mentioned that both of the Sonic Adventure were ones that got my attention as a newcomer to the series around 2011 or 2012. Sonic Adventure 2 especially was one I had commonly heard considered to be one of the best in the series, one of the few really good 3D games and one of the last really great Sonic games at least prior to what’s considered to be the “Dark Age” of Sonic. So, this was one I really wanted to try for myself, but since I didn’t have a Dreamcast or GameCube, and since the game still hadn’t been ported to PC or XBLA yet, that wasn’t necessarily going to happen for a while. I do remember spending time looking at footage of the game on Youtube and that the “City Escape” theme was my jam.

But in late 2012, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the game was finally ported to modern systems, and now I would be able to experience the game for myself for the first time. I actually remember my brother buying it on his own Steam account and letting me play it. And going into the game, I had pretty high expectations for it. I was honestly expecting to fall in love with it like I did Sonic 2 or Sonic CD at one point, and I pretty much was already writing it off as the best 3D Sonic game before I even played it. And so, after installing it, I finally got to play Sonic Adventure 2 for the first time.

And honestly, while I kind of denied it at first… I was actually somewhat disappointed. Frankly, I was expecting the game to blow me away and it honestly just didn’t. Though I will admit that my opinion of the game was somewhat influenced by certain outside factors that weren’t exactly a fault of the game itself - for one thing I was using a keyboard and I could not for the life of me figure out the key bindings, and there was also the fact that it was attached to my brother’s Steam account, and if I ever wanted to play the game again, I would have to ask him for his password. Still, even looking past that, after playing the first stages of each story, I can’t really say that I was that impressed with the game at first. And after playing Sonic Adventure 1 on a Dreamcast emulator, it was then I realized that I actually found myself enjoying it’s predecessor more and that I really just wasn’t as fond of Sonic Adventure 2 as I wanted to be.

And over time, these somewhat mixed feelings towards the game spiraled into outright disliking of the game. You know how there are people who say they get turned off by a popular game - for example, Undertale, Fortnite, Witcher 3, or whatever else - simply because of the hype surrounding it? As much as I dislike that line of thinking nowadays, that was honestly the case with me and Sonic Adventure 2. Pretty much every time I interacted with the fanbase, there were always several people who insisted that it was the best Sonic game of all time, and after my first impressions… I just didn’t really get it. I even tried playing it on an emulator a couple times and my opinions on the game just didn’t really improve. 

Then, in 2015, ProJared uploaded his review of the game, and while nowadays I understand that review is inherently flawed and that ProJared is well, ProJared, I did often use it as a scapegoat for my opinions on the game - that really only a third of the game, the speed stages, were enjoyable to me whereas everything else was stuff I just didn’t really care for.

That said, I actually hadn’t played through the entire game until 2016 - by then I had my own Steam account and I decided to pick up Sonic Adventure 2 for myself to give it another shot to try and see the appeal in the game. I played through the game in summer of 2016, and admittedly I did hold a more positive view of the game than I did before, but I was still pretty critical. There were still several aspects of the game that I didn't really like and I felt that the game hadn’t aged very well. 

And ever since then, I… honestly haven’t decided how I feel about Sonic Adventure 2. I have gone back to the game a few times since my initial playthrough - sometimes replaying some of the levels or playing the game as a whole.

Should also mention that isn’t my first time reviewing Sonic Adventure 2. In fact, it’s my third time. The first time I reviewed the game was in 2015 on an MLP forum, it was actually one of the earliest reviews I did, and it wasn’t too positive. As you can probably guess I pretty much said the same thing that ProJared said in his review from earlier that year. But after actually playing through the game, I did intend to review it again, which I did last year on my tumblr page. But not long after I posted that review, I felt that it just didn’t quite reflect my true thoughts on the game as a whole. And as I’m doing this Sonic retrospective series, it gives me a real chance to review this game once again.

So, with this extremely long Personal Experiences section aside, it’s time to strap yourself in because this is going to be a long review.

Story

Prior to the events of this game, Professor Gerald Robotnik - Ivo Robotnik/Eggman’s grandfather - develops a secret weapon to get revenge on humanity, this being the ‘Ultimate Life Form’ or, Shadow. Eggman learns about this, and infiltrates a G.U.N facility and frees him, and Shadow returns the favor by helping him conquer the world. Shadow steals an emerald after going into Central City and leads the military to mistake him for Sonic, who is captured.

The story unfolds from there, split into a “Hero” and “Dark” story and ending in a final story after both those are played through. I don’t want to spend a bunch of time in this review explaining the story (I mean, the people who are reading this probably already know what happens regardless), but I do want to touch upon my thoughts on this game’s story.

First of all, insert le funneh SnapCube reference here.

But anyway, I used to be a lot more critical of this game’s plot - citing a lot of the “plotholes” that Somecallmejohnny and ProJared mentioned (again… kind of being a sheep) and I considered it to be poorly written. I guess I could talk about how dumb it was for G.U.N to get Sonic and Shadow confused and assuming they were the same person but considering all the news about the US military I see that actually seems more realistic than I initially thought.

But... after becoming more active in the Sonic community over the last few years - particularly the r/SonictheHedgehog Discord server - and hearing other people’s points about the story, I’ll say that I have grown a lot more respect for Sonic Adventure 2’s plot. I think looking at what the story is ultimately going for and looking at it from other people’s perspectives, I would honestly say it’s one of if not the best story out of the Sonic series. I don’t expect Final Fantasy level storytelling from Sonic games, and as far as Sonic stories, this is definitely one of the strongest

For one thing I do feel the story does a good job of expanding the Sonic lore and universe. The game adds a few new characters to the mix - one of them being Eggman’s grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, and I think as far as his place in the story goes he does make for a good addition on some of the lore going into Sonic series in general - exploring Eggman’s past and potentially his inspiration for being an evil scientist. 

But with him aside, there’s also of course Shadow and Rouge - two of the playable characters in this game. I’m not gonna lie, Shadow’s never really been one of my favorite characters in the series, but I do think his introductory game does a good job developing him and explaining his backstory and intentions. The dark story especially feels like it has a large focus on his character and his desire to seek revenge on humanity before turning a new leaf towards the end. It is a really good character arc, and a solid introduction to his character with a story that would be built upon in later Sonic games. Of course, Shadow technically dies at the end of this game, but I guess Sonic Team wanted to keep his character around so this was retconned as soon as the next major console Sonic game released in 2004.

Rouge… I’m honestly not such a big fan of. I feel she isn’t really as well developed as Shadow is here and a lot of her dialogue just sort of came off as annoying to me. And I know this point has been made several times before but… she feels like a character created for the sake of sex appeal. I mean, with the way she’s designed and her personality in general, she basically feels like a typical “sexy woman” trope. I mean her design has very human-like anatomy just with some furry bat characteristics. It’s especially apparent with some of her multiplayer skins in both the original release and in Battle. She feels like peak furry bait and… I should stop talking, should I.

Still, I think one major positive aspect of this story is that it really feels like every character plays a part here and has their own little part of the plot. We obviously have Sonic himself here, and I talked about Shadow’s focus in the story, but for some characters it really feels like this game picked up where Sonic Adventure 1 left off. For one example, in this game’s predecessor, we watch Tails grow to be more independent and learn to fight his own battles, and that’s really showcased here. Even in the case of Amy, who isn’t a playable character here, has a really great moment towards the end of the game where she convinces Shadow to help save humanity and realize what Maria’s true promise was.

The characterization is pretty good here too. A common problem I have with the “Dark Age” games is that Sonic often comes off to me as a pretty one-note “good guy,” which is something I will cover when I get to those games, and other people criticize the modern stories for Sonic being too joke-y and not taking anything seriously. And I think Sonic’s characterization in this game feels like a good balance and reflection of Sonic’s character. He’s the snarky “guy who loves Adventure,” and I think SA2 pulls off that well.

And yes, you can discuss whatever plotholes there are or refute them, but at it’s core, I think Sonic Adventure 2 still pulls off a really a good story and as someone who generally doesn’t care that much for the Sonic lore, I can at least respect what Sonic Adventure 2’s plot is going for.

That said, I will say that the presentation of the story isn’t quite great. The first Sonic Adventure game was pretty notorious for having awkward animation and lip syncing and I gotta say… Sonic Adventure 2 isn’t quite a major improvement on that front. I feel like often character animations look very... stilted, almost like marionette puppets, and the lip sync isn’t quite spot on either. I get it, again this was still a fairly early example of cutscene animation in… any video game really, but that doesn’t really change the fact that this aspect of the game and story has still dated by quite a lot. Although even then I still feel like there were better examples of cutscene animation around this point, particularly Crash Bandicoot: Warped. Oh yeah and the subtitles in the original version at least are in Comic Sans what the fuck

I’ll also add that I’ve heard the English dub doesn’t quite do the story justice. While the core story is still there and is definitely good, a lot of the dialog isn’t translated very well and some of the dialog in the English translation comes off as a bit awkward. I haven’t read the script or watched the cutscenes with the original Japanese dub but from what I’ve heard it does clear up aspects of the English translation that were a bit confusing.

Graphics and Music

I’ll say this - Sonic Adventure 2 is a really good looking game for when it was released and honestly still holds up pretty well graphically for the most part. Not perfect - the humans in the FMV cutscene look pretty uncanny to me and the textures on things like Sonic’s shoes plus the FMV cutscenes tend to look pretty low-res, but this game was released in 2001 so I can’t really criticize it for that. I’ll also say that I do kind of prefer what the art style of the first Sonic Adventure game was going for - more colorful environments and characters - but Sonic Adventure 2 is still a pretty good looking game for the time it was released.

To get a bit controversial though, I gotta admit the soundtrack isn’t my favorite. Not bad by any means, I still enjoy listening to it as I play through the game and I will say that the level themes tend to be fitting based off of what’s going on or what character you’re playing as, but at the same time it’s not a soundtrack I really go back to a lot. The only themes from the game that really stick with me are City Escape, Live and Learn and this game’s rendition of It Doesn’t Matter, and a lot of the other themes I just kind of find… forgettable. It’s still a good soundtrack, but it’s not a particularly memorable soundtrack to me out of a few lyrical themes.

Okay and I can’t really deny that Pumpkin Hill’s theme slaps.

Gameplay

Like the first Adventure game, the gameplay is split between a few playstyles. Only this time it isn’t dependant on the character select or the story you choose - both the hero and dark story have three identical playstyles that are split into Sonic and Shadow speed stages, Knuckles and Rouge treasure hunting stages (identical to Knuckles’ stages in SA1) and Tails and Eggman Mech stages (identical to E-102 Gamma’s stages in SA1). There’s a couple others, but these pretty much represent the core gameplay of Sonic Adventure 2. And I’ll start by discussing my opinions on each one.

Sonic and Shadow

The “speed” stages, as one would expect, have the most focus on fast-paced platforming in the game, and I don’t think I need to go too much into detail about that in of itself. 

However, this game employs a different approach to level design than Adventure 1 for Sonic’s stages in particular. With the first Adventure game, Sonic’s stages were generally a lot more “open” - designed in a way that allowed for different ways to play each stage and allowing for experimentation of Sonic’s move set, plus having different pathways and whatnot here and there. It was similar to what the classic games were going for, just in this time 3D. 

As I noted, I generally really liked Sonic Adventure 1’s Sonic stages, but admittedly they weren’t exactly without their problems. I kind of feel the size and scope that Sonic Adventure 1’s stages were going for was a bit ahead of it’s time and in some ways the standards of games from around that era weren’t quite ready to provide that classic-sequel level design. The result was that Sonic Adventure, while great for it’s time, feels a bit unpolished nowadays and while the game still has it’s fans, there is a lot of people who don’t feel the game has held up very well. I think another problem too is that Sonic Adventure’s stages don’t really feel like they incentivize speed unless you’re going for the timed Trial missions and if you’re not going out of your way to speed run the game’s stages they do feel a bit slow. 

With Sonic Adventure 2 on the other hand, the game as a whole was built around being faster paced and more action-oriented. I think The Geek Critique’s review of the game put it in a good way, whereas Adventure tried to emulate the classic-style level design of being more open and allowing for the player to take advantage of the physics to figure out different ways of getting to the end goal, Adventure 2 is more about maintaining speed and mastering the flow of the levels. Sonic Adventure 2’s speed stages are more streamlined, more spectacle and speed based compared to it’s predecessor, and I feel this sort of design influenced the “modern” era of the games in general. 

Now, a common opinion I’ve heard among Sonic fans, even among people who don’t necessarily care for the rest of the stages, is that Sonic Adventure 2 still serves as the best example of Sonic’s gameplay and control in 3D.

And to be honest, I… don’t really agree with this sentiment.

I’ll start by saying that as someone who started off with the classic games, I don’t really quite enjoy this approach to level design as much as what Adventure 1 was going for. To be fair I do think it makes sense here - with all of the issues that Adventure 1 had with it’s levels I can definitely understand why they would make a more linear and spectacle-based approach that was more straightforward and accessible to newcomers while still allowing for a good amount of skill mastery. And all things considered I think Sonic Adventure 2 handles this style of level design pretty well - there still is a lot of room for depth and skill mastery and the game isn’t too unforgiving like other games that went for this sort of thing.

But honestly one of the things I really liked about the classic games was just how... different each playthrough felt. The classic games generally had stuff like branching, alternate pathways and whatnot that I felt really added replay value to each of the 2D games and made them all the more fun to replay. And while I can still enjoy mastering the flow of Sonic Adventure 2’s speed stages, it definitely feels like stages are a lot more linear here and don’t really have much of that aspect going for them as the classic games did. Some stages, like Final Rush, do have an emphasis on alternate pathways, but for the most part, it really feels like the focus with this game is timing your button presses right and figuring out the fastest way to go along each stage. And honestly I don’t really feel this game has quite the same replay value to me as, say, the classic games have.

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the speed stages themselves. They were still a lot of fun for what they were going for and I could definitely see myself going back to them to try to perfect my skill. I think the way Sonic Adventure 2 handles this level design is still better than some other Sonic games that try to incorporate it and come off as either too trial-and-error heavy or on the opposite end too shallow and railroaded. But, ultimately I do have a preference for what SA1’s Sonic stages were really going for.

I also do have some issues with Sonic/Shadow’s control here. Admittedly the control is largely the same as Adventure 1’s, and in some ways there are improvements. Abilities such as the Light Dash don’t need to be charged up and can just be activated with the push of a button. The spin dash is also nerfed a bit - whereas it could be spammed in Adventure 1 it does need to be charged up here, and considering what Adventure 2’s levels were going for I can see why they made this change.

On the other hand, I kind of feel like the type of game design they were going for in Sonic Adventure 2 does expose some issues that Adventure 1’s controls had. One thing that’s always kind of bugged me about this game’s controls is how twitchy the characters feel when going at high speeds. And this isn’t just an issue with Sonic and Shadow, but also Knuckles and Rouge. When going at a high speed in this game as any of those characters it feels like any slight tilt of the analog stick sends the character you’re playing as flying in the direction you moved. It’s not always a huge problem, but there are times, especially when trying to speed run these stages, where the controls do feel a bit too imprecise for my liking.

And there’s also the fact that the light dash and somersault/spin dash are mapped to the same button. In theory I don’t exactly think this would be a big issue, in some ways it does prevent spamming of the button to cheese the game, but it does feel kind of unreliable here. There’s times where it feels like you have to be extremely precise with your placement next to a trail of rings in order to successfully pull of the light dash and considering the fast-pace nature of this game it does lead to moments where I swear I’m right in front of a trail of rings but the game decides to make me do a somersault rather than a light dash, which either ruins the pace and sometimes outright kills you.

Though, with all my criticisms aside… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the speed stages. While writing this review after finishing the game I did go back to speed stages in order to try to get the best ranks, and I can respect what they were going for here. While these stages don’t necessarily have much in the way of actual alternate pathways, there is still a lot of skill involved in trying to master the flow of these stages and on that note, it can be fun to try and A rank them just on the basis of mastering Sonic’s abilities and going as fast as possible. And for those who do like this approach to level design as well as rank-based gameplay, I can definitely see the appeal there. A ranking all these stages plus their missions leads to a reward - a stage based off Green Hill Zone. Usually I don’t like when Sonic games lock true “final” levels behind 100% completion, but seeing as this isn’t really necessary for any end story context or anything, I think it is a good reward for those who want to go back and achieve the best ranks for each stage.

And ultimately I could see myself going back to this game to replay Sonic stages and really master the flow of them. The game is designed around that, and designed rather well I might add. City Escape in particular is without a doubt one of my favorite 3D Sonic levels and a really good introduction to the game, and there’s some other good levels in addition like Metal Harbor and Green Forest. I do think that Shadow’s stages are a bit weaker than Sonic’s, but they can still be fun. Overall I wouldn’t say that Sonic Adventure 2 has my favorite 3D Sonic gameplay ever, but it’s still really fun to play, and I can honestly understand the appeal here.

That said, Sonic’s stages are only a fraction of the game.

Knuckles and Rouge

And here’s where the game gets a bit more divisive among people. Knuckles and Rouge’s gameplay builds off the treasure hunting stages from Sonic Adventure, but with more scope and some changes. Probably the most common criticism I’ve seen here is the radar system, which works differently than in Sonic Adventure. Whereas in that game went off no matter what collectible you were nearby, with Sonic Adventure 2 it only picks up one emerald at a time.

But how do I feel about the Treasure Hunting stages? Well, it’s not necessarily black and white for me. There’s actually times where I enjoy the treasure hunting stages… but other times I really don’t. Let me explain.

I will say that I can definitely see the Treasure Hunting stages in SA2 as an improvement over SA1’s. Sonic Adventure’s Treasure Hunting stages, while fun, did have an issue in that they were mostly modified versions of Sonic’s levels and didn’t exactly feel designed around the treasure hunting mechanics in mind. With Sonic Adventure 2, the treasure hunting stages are pretty much built from the ground up - sometimes sharing set pieces from other levels but ultimately having more of a scope to them and being designed specifically with this play style in mind.

And honestly I’d say Sonic Adventure 2’s best treasure hunting stages were actually better than Sonic Adventure 1’s. Pumpkin Hill is honestly a good example of an actually pretty well-made treasure hunting stage - being generally pretty open and really taking advantage of Knuckles’ abilities as you pretty much glide from place to place searching for the emeralds in this level. And Wild Canyon, while not as spectacular or open as Pumpkin Hill is, is a pretty good introductory level to Knuckles’ gameplay. And honestly I’d also say I also liked Security Hall a bit aside for the fact that the level was timed.

Then… there’s the bad part. For every solid treasure hunting stage I feel like there’s one that, for whatever reason, isn’t so great. Mad Space is a particular stage that I always found kind of annoying. Even on repeated playthroughs it kind of feels like this stage is a bit too big and open for it’s own good, and the gimmicky aspects - such as the zero gravity mechanic - don’t really help it from being a pretty annoying level either. Another treasure hunting stage I really don’t like is Death Chamber, which feels really maze-like to me and can be a bit annoying even on repeated playthroughs. Also when I played through this game for the first time there was one key that required me to dig through a very specific hieroglyph on the wall, which I could barely even see, and even with the hints it took me 30 minutes to find it and frankly I’m still salty over that. There’s also levels like Aquatic Mine which, admittedly isn’t as bad as either of those, but still a bit too vertical and backtrack-heavy for my liking.

Ultimately with the treasure hunting stages I can see what they were going for, and for what it is I do prefer the scope and size of them compared to the first Adventure game and do enjoy the exploration aspect. But… not all of them really land with me.

I guess I could talk about the issue of the radar, but admittedly the more I think about it, the radar wasn’t *that* big of an issue for me personally. I mean I guess there were times where it did get annoying having to backtrack to areas I had been to look for emeralds I hadn’t seen, especially in the cases of the not-so-great levels I mentioned, but considering the movement speed and abilities of Knuckles and Rouge it wasn’t too bad.

I gotta admit though that, like the first Adventure game, I don’t really feel much desire to revisit these stages. I don’t mind them, but in general when I go back to Sonic Adventure 2 I still prefer revisiting the speed stages more than anything and I don’t really feel that SA2’s treasure hunting stages hold up to the quality of those. So, not the worst thing ever, but nothing I’m really jumping to revisit any time soon.

Then, there’s…

Tails and Eggman

I’ll just be frank here, I still don’t really enjoy this play style. I wasn’t a big fan of E102’s gameplay in Sonic Adventure 1 admittedly - didn’t think it was the worst thing ever but I don’t think the game would’ve been any worse without them, and here they feel about the same to me. One thing I really don’t like here is the movement of the mechs themselves. I’ve always kind of felt that the way the mechs control was just sort of clunky to me and putting the spectacle aside there just wasn’t really much to their levels. A lot of the replay value in these stages just comes down to holding down the B button and moving your laser over a bunch of enemies or other things. 

The level design for these stages felt like kind of a mixed bag overall for me - on one hand some levels just felt like hallways to me and even the ones that didn’t tended to have some pretty awkward platforming, and either way it felt like the level design here was the worst for cheap enemy placement as stuff just kind of comes flying at you before you can even see it.

I will say that I would consider Eggman’s stages to be better designed (Cosmic Wall is definitely the best mech stage in this game), but regardless I still just didn’t really care for the core gameplay. I wouldn’t consider these stages to be the worst alternate play style ever - if I had to choose between this, the Werehog or Big the Cat, I’d probably go with this, there’s at least some semblance of core Sonic gameplay here, and I do understand that there are people who don’t mind, even like this play style. And that’s fine, but for me? I dunno, I really don’t feel much desire to go back to these stages and even playing them within the main story wasn’t exactly an all around pleasant experience to me.

Other/Gameplay General

There are a couple other play styles that I should probably touch upon though.

One is the kart racing. This is a mode you can play in multiplayer which is enabled after playing it’s two respective stages in the Hero and Dark story.

and… I don’t like these stages.

As someone who generally likes kart racing games, I gotta say the controls of the kart racing gameplay in this game feels awkward to me. The handling feels awkward as hell - turning feels extremely slow - plus the stages with this style weren’t particularly interesting to me. Thankfully, there’s only two of these stages in the entire game and if you’re not going for the A rank you don’t have to go back to them, but if they were just cut entirely from the game I wouldn’t lose any sleep.

Then, there’s the infamous Chao Garden - a virtual pet simulator where you raise “Chao,” experiment with their stats by using different vials and animals you find in each level and enter them in mini games such as Chao Racing and Chao Karate. This was also a thing in the first Adventure game, but it’s definitely more developed in this game compared to the first with more features added

Wanna hear a secret though?

*whispers* I don’t really care about the Chao Garden.

*everyone gasps*

I have tried the Chao Garden at the past, but at the end of the day I just never really felt like I got anything out of it. I kind of went through a “pet simulator” phase growing up with some shovel ware titles on the Game Boy Advance but I’ve long since outgrown that and frankly I didn’t feel like there was anything about the Chao Garden that made me actually want to go back to it. And yes, I get it, there are people who liked the Chao Garden and spent a lot of time in it, and to those people, I say you do you, and at this point it would be a good idea for Sega to bring it back somehow just to please the fanbase, but I personally never lost any sleep about the Chao Garden not being in any other Sonic game and I didn’t really pay much attention to it here either.

There’s also the multiplayer...

lol i have no friends to play this with

But there are other elements of the gameplay I should probably discuss. One thing this game removes that the first Adventure had is the Adventure fields - where you would explore and travel along to find each stage. In this game, progression is more linear, every level is basically played in a sequence unless you choose the level from the stage selection.

And honestly… I’m happy with this change.

I gotta be honest, for everything I liked about the first Adventure title, I really never cared about the Adventure fields. All they really did for me was break the pace of the game and in some cases just lead me to getting lost on my way to move on to the next level. This game on the other hand doesn’t have that issue and I’m happy about that.

And then there’s the camera, which like the first game, is kind of an issue too. It’s not as noticeable as it was, which I can probably pin on the more streamlined level design, but there are still times where it did provide an inconvenience. I remember on Tails’ stage there were several times where I swear I hit every enemy in the room, yet the door was still locked, and after a minute I realized there was one more enemy in the air that the camera was not showing.

The treasure hunting stages are the worst with the camera issues in this game. You don’t really have much freedom in this game as far as camera control goes - you can move it horizontally with the L and R triggers (...sometimes) and when playing as Knuckles and Rouge it also aims up or down depending on the direction, but you don’t have full camera control. On the original Dreamcast release I can see why this was the case - the Dreamcast controller didn’t have a second stick so there really wasn’t much of a way to do that, but considering this game has been re-released since then I’m not real sure why Sega/Sonic Team didn’t think to add full analog camera control to this game. 

I mean, SA2’s camera is an improvement over SA1’s, there weren't as many times where I felt blindsided as to where I was going, but it’s still far from perfect.

Conclusion

Whew, this review turned out longer than I expected. Guess it's a Sonic game I have a lot to say about

At the end of the day, I’ll just come forth and say that Sonic Adventure 2 isn’t exactly one of my favorite Sonic games. While it does have a lot of strengths, there are various aspects and parts of it that do bring down the game as a whole for me, and even now I still don’t find myself enjoying it as much as most other Sonic fans seem to. And when it comes to choosing between this and Adventure 1, I’d pretty easily choose Adventure 1 personally. Adventure 2 does have it’s strengths over Adventure 1, in fact playing it now I actually sort of came to the conclusion that Sonic Adventure 2 does have higher highs over Sonic Adventure 1 as far as the non-speed play styles go, but at the same time… it also has lower lows. At least when we’re not talking about Big the Cat. But ultimately, as far as Sonic’s gameplay goes I’d still say I prefer Adventure 1’s overall approach to level design and whatnot, and while I’m not entirely fond of Adventure 1’s alternate play styles either the worst of them aren’t really as prevalent. Even in the case of Big the Cat, that’s really only four stages in total, a small part of the game, whereas stuff like the mech stages takes up a larger portion and even that aside there are still some levels I don’t particularly enjoy either.

Buuuuuuuuuttttt… with my issues aside, I would be lying if I said I didn’t have fun with this game. Because, frankly, I did. The Sonic and Shadow stages were still a blast to play and I also found myself enjoying the Treasure Hunting stages even if they aren’t anything I’m dying to replay any time soon. Overall, I would still say that, while not my favorite Sonic game, Sonic Adventure 2 is a good entry in the series.

Sonic Adventure 2, in a lot of ways, is a landmark game. It went along with the first Adventure in terms of bringing the series to the third dimension, and pushed an entirely new take on Sonic’s core gameplay. It was also the last Sonic game on a Sega platform, but with the game’s port on the GameCube brought a whole new generation of Sonic fans that is very prominent in the fanbase especially now. Ultimately, I can’t deny that a lot of people love this game - some even hold it close to them as one that either got them into the Sonic series or really gaming in general. And there’s people to this day who have a lot of fun with this game, especially with it’s approach to rank-based gameplay.

And frankly, I respect that.

I may have my own gripes with this game, but that doesn’t change the fact that this game still means a lot to some people, and that there is a good amount of people who not only consider this one of if not the best game in the series, but one of the best games of all time. And I think there is a good case to be made there.

And honestly, even with those gripes, again, I would be lying if I said I didn’t have any fun with this game. All things considered, it is still a good Sonic game. Maybe not the game that blew me away like I expected it too, but it’s still a good Sonic game. I still do enjoy going back to it from time to time, whether that be by playing through the main story or just replaying individual levels. And to those who consider this to be their favorite Sonic game of all time, I can understand, there is ultimately a lot to like about Sonic Adventure 2 and I do respect the love this game has going for it. It may not be my favorite, but for those who consider it their favorite, there’s nothing wrong with that and I’m happy to hear that this game had that much of an impact on you.

Would I recommend this game? I mean, yeah. Not everyone will enjoy it, but honestly, I’d still say it’s worth at least playing. The game’s currently available digitally on Steam, PS3, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Like the first Adventure game there are people who aren’t happy with the more modern ports, but again I don’t really see much of an issue with playing any of those - I feel like the only real noticeable problem with those modern ports is the cutscene lighting and some of the audio balancing, but ultimately the core game is still there and I doubt most people are going to care about stuff like that. Obviously not everyone has a Dreamcast, and Dreamcast copies of this game are also a bit steep - hell, GameCube copies of this game are a bit steep, so I think most people will be fine with the HD 2012 ports of this game.