NOTE: This review was originally posted to Tumblr on May 29, 2019, and has been reposted here for archival purposes. It may not reflect recent events or my current opinions.
For a more recent review of Sonic Adventure 2, click here.
Oh, boy. Sonic Adventure 2 is a game that there’s been tons of videos over the years of, ending up in a sea of polarization between people who think it’s bad and overrated and others who thinks the game in general held up well and has gotten too much flak over the past few years or so. And in 2015, when I was still using the shitheap that was MLPForums and when I was trying to be a professional game reviewer at the age of 14, I did a review of this game and… well, was on the side of the former. I originally gave the game a 5/10, average score, basically jumping on the whole bandwagon of only a third of the game being fun to play (The speed stages) and the rest of it (The treasure hunting and mech stages) being trash.
Yet after all these years and looking back at my original review, I can say that my review was in general flawed for a number of reasons. I mean, obviously, being at the age of 14 I can’t help but regret looking back at my original reviews and think about me trying to be a professional game reviewer at that age, but it’s more than that. Like I said, I was moreorless jumping on the whole Projared bandwagon at the time and even with that aside… I really don’t feel like I had enough experience with the game to really give it a fair shot. My perspective on the game back then was coming from someone who only played it for about 10 minutes, then a few months later decided the game was bad. It goes a little deeper than that, so how about I explain.
2012 was the year where I was beginning to get into the Sonic series. I can say the year before that, 2011, was pretty much where I started getting into gaming as a whole that was more than just playing ROBLOX and flash games on my crappy PC. I had some experience with the Sonic series before that, through weird flash games, and uh… Sonic Genesis on the GBA as well as… Sonic 06… yeah, but while I enjoyed those games as a kid (not much now though for obvious reasons), I didn’t really consider myself a Sonic “fan” until I bought the Classic Collection for DS in the fall of 2011, which is what got me introduced to the rest of the classic games and made me want to play the rest of the series. I spent so much time playing the Classics, especially Sonic 2, which for the longest time was my favorite in the series. And as a result, I starting getting into the community a bit more and… just overall wanted to play more Sonic. Generations had just come out and to me it looked fucking amazing, and while I didn’t buy it for the next few years, I ended up buying Sonic Colors for the Wii not long after my birthday, and it was a game I did really enjoy. And as someone who was getting interested in the series, there was definitely a lot to look for, and among the games that I wanted to try out most were Adventure 1 and 2. Both games I had often seen considered among the best in the series, in some cases being called the best 3D Sonic games and in other cases… the best Sonic games of all time. This was especially the case with Adventure 2, and it was definitely a game I wanted to get around to playing whenever I got the chance. That said, I can’t say I really had that chance at first. At the time, the versions on PC, 360 and PS3 weren’t available, nor did I own a Dreamcast or Gamecube. I could’ve just bought it somewhere and played it on my Wii, but unfortunately I had gotten that Wii the preceding Christmas and it was the shitty Family Edition that couldn’t play Gamecube games. What the fuck, Nintendo. The very most I could do was watch videos of the game to form my opinion, but I didn’t really get any chance to actually play the game.
That was, until the game was re-released later that year. My brother had actually bought the game on Steam for me when it came out, and I was definitely hyped to play it. As the game downloaded, I was expecting something amazing, a game that would blow me away, and overall the definitive 3D Sonic game there was. So I played the first level of both the Hero and Dark stories and…
I was actually kind of underwhelmed.
I mean, I enjoyed what I played at first, but something about Sonic Adventure 2 just wasn’t motivating me to play more. Maybe it was the weird keyboard controls because I didn’t know you could use Xbox 360 controllers on a PC, maybe it was the slight lag from using a crappy PC, maybe it was the fact that my brother kept his Steam log in information hidden from me so I couldn’t simply play the game whenever I wanted. But even with all that aside… something just wasn’t clicking with me about the game in the same way every other Sonic game I played prior was. It kind of sucked because I really wanted to love the game… but I just couldn’t.
And over time, those somewhat mixed first impressions turned to hype backlash, which later turned to hate for the game. Even after my first time playing, I was still seeing tons of people go on about how great Sonic Adventure 2 was and how it was one of the best 3D Sonic games in the series. Every forum post I went on about Sonic had tons of people talking about how much they loved Adventure 2, and I guess I just… couldn’t relate to it. I kind of felt left out of that love since I wasn’t really getting that much out of Adventure 2 or at least as much as I was expecting. I couldn’t really put my finger on why exactly, and when watching ProJared’s video on the game (y’know, before he turned out to be a cheating scumbag), I kind of felt like he pointed things out about the game that I wasn’t liking. But in retrospect… I’ve come to the conclusion that I was largely suffering from hype backlash. You know how people on the internet constantly complain about how the hype towards games like Undertale, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Overwatch, Fortnite, Final Fantasy VII, Ocarina of Time, and so on “ruined” the game for them? That’s basically what I was feeling about Sonic Adventure 2. All the hype led me to believe it would be one of my favorites in the series and when it wasn’t, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
That said, I have gone back and actually played the game, listened to other people’s views on it like ExoParadigmGamer’s video on it, and I have gone back and given Sonic Adventure 2 a fair chance. So, apologies for the extremely long intro, but here’s my review of Sonic Adventure 2.
Sonic Adventure 2’s plot starts out with Sonic being arrested after being accused of crimes caused by Shadow the Hedgehog as a result of the entire US military being colorblind. Shadow turns out to be a creation by Dr. Geraldo del Rivero Robotnik, Dr. Eggman’s grandfather, and works with Eggman to steal the chaos emeralds in an attempt to get revenge and take over the world. Tails and Amy find Sonic on Prison Island and free him, and now them and Knuckles have to work together to stop Eggman, Shadow and the new furry porn bait Rouge the Bat.
I probably explained the story pretty badly, but whatever. This was originally one of my criticisms towards the game in my MLPForums review, and as far as game stories go, it’s… definitely not that good. There are tons of plot holes and unexplained situations throughout the game leading to parts of the story just being confusing and poorly thought out.
But, at the same time… I really don’t expect all Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts-level story telling from the Sonic series (even in cases when it tries to do that *cough*SONIC06*cough*) and as far as Sonic stories go, I’d say Sonic Adventure 2’s plot is one of the better ones in the series. For all it’s worth, it’s still pretty ambitious and somewhat entertaining aside for the stiff presentation (i mean seriously the entire spyro trilogy was out at this point so idk why they still weren’t able to make the animation look decent) and there are aspects of it I do enjoy. I think I’d still say Unleashed has probably my favorite Sonic story mostly having an edge due to the much better presentation overall, but it’s still one of the better ones in the series. I mean hey, my favorite Sonic game has probably one of the more shallow stories in the series so it’s whatever.
But then of course we get to the gameplay, and this was of course my biggest criticism towards the game initially. And it was more or less retelling what ProJared said (god i’ve mention that asshole’s name multiple times in this review) and saying that only 1/3rd of the game was really enjoyable, those of course being the Sonic series. But now that I’m a fully grown adult and have actually given a fair shot, I of course wanted to look back at the playstyles and see how I actually do feel about them now.
So, of course there are the speed stages, or the Sonic and Shadow stages. And for me these are definitely the high point of the game, basically containing a lot of what I enjoy about the franchise. And, really, I don’t have many complaints for them - they control fine for the most part, the level design is great, and they generally carry that speediness that the series is known for. City Escape is definitely one of the most iconic levels in the franchise for good reason, having a huge emphasis on speed and fast-paced gameplay, something that the Sonic series is pretty much infamous for. And, really, I don’t have much to complain about, pretty much all the Sonic and Shadow stages are fun to play and feel like an improvement upon the first Adventure game. Some would say that Sonic Adventure 2 has the best control of any 3D Sonic game… which I slightly disagree. I don’t think the controls here are bad, I just feel that there are times where they feel… somewhat twitchy to me and don’t feel as refined as Generations and Colors Wii, but at the same time that’s probably just because I’m more used to how those games control moreso than either of the Sonic Adventure games.
That said, if there was something maybe slightly negative I had to note, I find Sonic Adventure 2’s stages are a bit more linear compared to Adventure 1’s. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I do enjoy linear level design when it’s done well, and overall I think Sonic Adventure 2’s stage design is overall a step up from the first Adventure and one of this game’s biggest strengths. So it’s not really a negative towards the game, but I just find it kind of ironic because I see a lot of fans of the Adventure formula and this game particularly to say that one of the biggest issues with the Boost formula is that the level design is “too linear.” Now, yes, when it’s not done well in the case of Forces I can definitely understand, but I find it odd when people bash Colors and Generations simply for being “too linear” yet turn around and act like this game is the Citizen Kane of Sonic games when I could easily argue that the level design here is also largely pretty damn linear. In fact, I can actually say that I feel that Generations’ level design at least is more intricate due to it having multiple pathways in the vain of the classic Genesis games making them actually feel more replayable compared to Adventure 2’s. But again, this isn’t really a negative towards the game more than it is just kind of something I find kind of odd regarding the Sonic fandom.
BUT ANYWAY,
So then we get to the Knuckles and Rouge treasure hunting stages, and in my original review I said this was where the game more or less fell flat for me. And I actually don’t really agree with my original opinion of these stages. A lot of my criticism is centered around the radar system, and for what it’s worth, I still think they should’ve kept the original radar system from Adventure 1. I still feel that it is somewhat tedious to play these stages and only being able to use hints and the radar for one emerald at a time, and it can be kind of annoying when you’re near an emerald, miss it, but then have to backtrack through the stage to where you were just at to find the next one. I wouldn’t really mind this change if the levels weren’t so… huge. In terms of level design the stages here are more exploration based and bigger compared to the first Adventure game, and for what it’s worth I think that is a positive… it’s just that I really don’t feel like they should’ve changed the radar system when they were going to flesh out the gameplay in this sort of way. There’s also the hint system, which I feel is kind of a mixed bag in this game. Sometimes it can be helpful and actually provide good hints towards getting the emerald. Other times, it can be a bit too vague. And if you’re playing for the first time, these treasure hunting stages can go on for a bit too long with all these issues. I mean, the first time I played Death Chamber, I’m pretty sure I spent at least half an hour on the stage trying to hunt down one last emerald because it was hidden behind a really obscure detail that I didn’t notice until I actually paid attention to the details on the walls. For that reason, I can understand why one may not like these stages on a first playthrough. But for what it’s worth, the more I played the game, I actually found myself enjoying these stages on their own merits. I do occasionally enjoy exploration in games, at least when it’s done in small spurts like in the Adventure games and not in a giant bland open world like The Witcher 3 (oh boy i’m going to get hate for that aren’t I), and with Knuckles’ and Rouge’s movesets I definitely find the Treasure Hunting stages, while not as good as the speed stages, still overall fun to play. Pumpkin Hill I would argue is one of the best stages in the game overall just because of how well it is structured and how fun it is to use the level gimmicks to maneuver through the levels. They can actually be fun to go back to and get higher ranks when you understand the playstyle and levels well enough. I guess the only thing that may make it slightly annoying is the randomization of the emerald pieces, making repeat playthroughs somewhat inconsistent, but I think it actually adds a level of replayability and challenge to the stages in that it encourages you to explore new areas, something I genuinely like in a Sonic game. And the issues I have with them are relatively minor and don’t really take away from the overall experience too much, so I think the Treasure Hunting stages are actually pretty fun.
Mad Space is still shit though.
Then we get to the mech stages and… to be honest, I’m still somewhat mixed about these. If there’s any playstyle that I think does take away from the overall experience, it’s probably these, and even after playing the game multiple times… I could never really find myself getting enjoyment out of any of them. I don’t even know what to say other than that… well, they’re boring. I don’t really find the level design to be all that interesting in general due to them mostly being literal hallways with enemies flying everywhere with little platforming. And when there is 3D platforming, it’s… not very good. The mechs are kind of clunky and slow and also have somewhat floaty jumps that make platforming kind of awkward to me. Obviously if you like these stages, that’s perfectly fine, and I can say they have their moments on occasion for what they are, but they just aren’t generally what I’m looking forward to whenever I play this game. Granted I wasn’t a fan of E102 Gamma in Sonic Adventure 1 so I guess I didn’t really expect these stages to fare all that much better.
And then there’s the car stages. They kind of suck, but on the bright side there’s only 2 of them in the entire game and even then they’re over pretty quickly, so they don’t really ruin the experience overall.
I will say that the finale of this game, the “Last Story”, is definitely great, having you play each character to go through the level before the final face off with Biolizard and Final Lizard. I will say that I did find the final boss to be kind of… meh, since all you basically do is fly into the lizard with somewhat awkward flight controls while occasionally dodging lasers and bomb things, but other than that I think the Last Story in general was pretty well executed and fun to play through for the first time.
So, all that’s left is the presentation. The music… well, here’s what I said in my original review.
“As for the music, eh.. I’m not a fan of the soundtrack in all honesty. I mean, City Escape and Live and Learn are both really good, and are 2 of the best music pieces in the franchise, Rouge’s level themes aren’t too bad, but the rest of the soundtrack just feels rather meh and forgettable. My least favorites from it though are hands down Knuckles’ level themes. I’m sorry, but the raps feel rather annoying and cheesy to the point where playing his levels I actually feel like muting the game. I really don’t like ‘em.”
…
Man what the fuck was I smoking.
Sonic Adventure 2 doesn’t necessarily have one of my favorite soundtracks in the series, but I still do like the majority of the tracks, in particular City Escape and Live and Learn. It doesn’t have quite the variety that Sonic Adventure 1’s soundtrack had, but I still find the soundtrack to be mostly good and catchy, and that’s pretty much the case for any Sonic game really.
Also the knuckles raps are fucking dank as hell what was i talking about
The graphics are also fine for 2001. There are some signs of age like Sonic’s shoes being low-res textures as well as some of the FMV cutscenes looking really JPEG’d, but overall the characters and environments are about what I expect from a game from 2001.
That just leaves me to my conclusion. Now, would I consider this game my favorite 3D Sonic game. No, I still feel like that goes to Colors Wii and Generations due to just being more fast-paced and polished compared to Adventure 2 and also just being more replayable to me in general. And before you say that Colors Wii is technically a 2.5D game because most of it is spent in 2D sections… I don’t care you freaking nerd. But aside for those games, I’d definitely consider Adventure 2 one of the top 3D games in the series for a few reasons. What they did better than Adventure 1, they definitely did really better, and as a result the gameplay is definitely solid even if some aspects of it may be interpreted differently by subjectivity. If you haven’t been able to tell, Generations is still very much my favorite Sonic game, simply due to it having intricate and replayable level design that makes the game overall fun to speedrun while also not being too overly complicated, and for that reason I still find Generations to be an overall more replayable game even despite having far less levels. But, to be honest, I find myself actually disagreeing with my original review of the game. I’ve actually learned to get more enjoyment out of the game after actually playing through it and I also think watching ExoParadigmGamer’s review of it actually did give me more respect for this game and it’s legacy on the Sonic franchise in general. I guess that makes me kind of the opposite of a lot of people who say that they enjoyed the game less over time. And while it’s still not my very favorite in the series, I would still put it in my Top 5 or 6 Sonic games of all time, and I definitely think that there’s enjoyment to be had of the game.
That said, I still do believe there are flaws and I can understand why some people may not enjoy the game as much, but in retrospect I feel like a lot of those flaws are also somewhat exaggerated and that this game is still overall a solid title. Maybe not one of the best games of all time, but still a solid title. I guess I could just overall say that while I still don’t like this game as much as it’s biggest fans do, I also don’t hate it as much as I previously did or as much as the game’s haters do.
Would I recommend it? Well, yeah, definitely. The game’s on Steam for only $10 and it’s definitely a solid Sonic game overall. Just don’t go into it with the same amount of hype I was expecting, and you’ll probably get enjoyment out of it. Or not. That’s up to you.
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