Chickaroo Reviews - Sonic Adventure 2 (GC / PS3)
Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 5:15 am
As one of the last DreamCast games before it was killed off at a young age by Father SEGA, this game has been considered one of the best Sonic games ever. But is that true? Or are we all in an illusion?Game: Sonic Adventure 2 / Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
Systems: Dreamcast, GameCube, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows
Release Dates: DC: 6/19/01 (NA), 6/23/01 (JP + PAL)
GC: 12/20/01 (JP) 2/11/02 (NA), 5/3/02 (EU)
PSN: 10/2/12 (NA), 10/3/12 (EU), 10/4/12 (JP)
XBLA: 10/5/12 (World Wide)
PC: 11/19/12 (World Wide)
Developer: Sonic Team USA
Heroes Vs. Villains
Story: So the game is split into heroes and dark sides to play as. Heroes have Sonic, Tails and Knuckles and Dark has Dr. Eggman, newcomers Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat.
The main story all together (since both sides end up crossing each other), is that Eggman discovers the “ultimate lifeform” named Shadow the Hedgehog and uses him to steal the Chaos Emeralds. Somewhat working with him is Rouge the Bat, a treasure hunter. And now it’s up to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to stop them.
(Sorry this is a poor written summary on the story, it’s confusing and long).
Shortened Down To Three
Gameplay: Remember in the first Sonic Adventure how there were six different characters and six different gameplay styles? Well now it’s been shortened down to three. Sonic and Shadow have high-speed action stages. Dr. Eggman and Tails have mech shooting (the reason why Tails is in a mech was because originally, Tails wasn’t going to be a playable character in the first place. But after an outcry of fans complaining about it, they threw Tails in with the same gameplay style as Eggman to be balanced.) And Knuckles and Rouge have emerald hunting stages. I’ll break it down for you:
Sonic / Shadow: The gameplay style here is similar to Sonic’s gameplay style in the first Adventure game but with all the powerups from there implemented here such as the light speed dash or the ring dash and the homing attack. The main goal of these stages are to just get to the end of the stage.
Tails / Dr.Eggman: Here it’s a mech shooting gameplay style. It’s literally just shoot everything in sight. The more enemies you can target, the more points you get. Also, enemy placement here is just crap.
Knuckles / Rouge: Treasure hunting is the name of the game. But oh my god is the emerald detector broken as hell. It wants you to detect one emerald at a time and it’s a huge pain. And then all of a sudden, these levels overstay their welcome as they can last almost over 10 minutes if you can’t seem to find the emeralds easily.
Not only can you play the main game, there is also a Chao garden like in the first Adventure game. Throughout the main game, you can collect little chips and keys for your Chao. Raising a Chao with a hero character will make him / her good. Same goes for the dark characters.
A Lot Better
Graphics: Compared to the previous game, it’s a lot better. But sadly, the mouth syncing in the English version is pretty bad. Some characters end up cutting each other off while talking. And in the GameCube version, the lighting has gone down, making things look a little darker.
The Variety Has Gone Down a Bit
Music: Music wise, it’s still a pretty good soundtrack. But back in Sonic Adventure, there was a huge variety of different genres in each level. Here, it’s just mostly rock with a hint of cheesy as hell rap songs and some jazz. Still fun to listen to, but not a whole lot of variety.
Music is composed by Jun Senoue, Kenichi Tokoi, Fumie Kumatani and Tomoya Ohtani.
The Greatest 3D Sonic Game In All of History As We Know It?
Overall: As a whole, Sonic Adventure 2 does improve a lot on the last game, but brings up some new issues. Shadow becomes a recurring character later in the series due to fans liking him even though he was supposed to be a one time character.
I did like this game a little, though, some levels overstayed their welcome pass the 10 minute mark (and trust me, this isn’t going away anytime soon in future Sonic games). But it was fun while it lasted. There is replay value yes, but the story was pretty confusing and weird. On the whole it’s a pretty fun game nonetheless.
4 / 5
Systems: Dreamcast, GameCube, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows
Release Dates: DC: 6/19/01 (NA), 6/23/01 (JP + PAL)
GC: 12/20/01 (JP) 2/11/02 (NA), 5/3/02 (EU)
PSN: 10/2/12 (NA), 10/3/12 (EU), 10/4/12 (JP)
XBLA: 10/5/12 (World Wide)
PC: 11/19/12 (World Wide)
Developer: Sonic Team USA
Heroes Vs. Villains
Story: So the game is split into heroes and dark sides to play as. Heroes have Sonic, Tails and Knuckles and Dark has Dr. Eggman, newcomers Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat.
The main story all together (since both sides end up crossing each other), is that Eggman discovers the “ultimate lifeform” named Shadow the Hedgehog and uses him to steal the Chaos Emeralds. Somewhat working with him is Rouge the Bat, a treasure hunter. And now it’s up to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to stop them.
(Sorry this is a poor written summary on the story, it’s confusing and long).
Shortened Down To Three
Gameplay: Remember in the first Sonic Adventure how there were six different characters and six different gameplay styles? Well now it’s been shortened down to three. Sonic and Shadow have high-speed action stages. Dr. Eggman and Tails have mech shooting (the reason why Tails is in a mech was because originally, Tails wasn’t going to be a playable character in the first place. But after an outcry of fans complaining about it, they threw Tails in with the same gameplay style as Eggman to be balanced.) And Knuckles and Rouge have emerald hunting stages. I’ll break it down for you:
Sonic / Shadow: The gameplay style here is similar to Sonic’s gameplay style in the first Adventure game but with all the powerups from there implemented here such as the light speed dash or the ring dash and the homing attack. The main goal of these stages are to just get to the end of the stage.
Tails / Dr.Eggman: Here it’s a mech shooting gameplay style. It’s literally just shoot everything in sight. The more enemies you can target, the more points you get. Also, enemy placement here is just crap.
Knuckles / Rouge: Treasure hunting is the name of the game. But oh my god is the emerald detector broken as hell. It wants you to detect one emerald at a time and it’s a huge pain. And then all of a sudden, these levels overstay their welcome as they can last almost over 10 minutes if you can’t seem to find the emeralds easily.
Not only can you play the main game, there is also a Chao garden like in the first Adventure game. Throughout the main game, you can collect little chips and keys for your Chao. Raising a Chao with a hero character will make him / her good. Same goes for the dark characters.
A Lot Better
Graphics: Compared to the previous game, it’s a lot better. But sadly, the mouth syncing in the English version is pretty bad. Some characters end up cutting each other off while talking. And in the GameCube version, the lighting has gone down, making things look a little darker.
The Variety Has Gone Down a Bit
Music: Music wise, it’s still a pretty good soundtrack. But back in Sonic Adventure, there was a huge variety of different genres in each level. Here, it’s just mostly rock with a hint of cheesy as hell rap songs and some jazz. Still fun to listen to, but not a whole lot of variety.
Music is composed by Jun Senoue, Kenichi Tokoi, Fumie Kumatani and Tomoya Ohtani.
The Greatest 3D Sonic Game In All of History As We Know It?
Overall: As a whole, Sonic Adventure 2 does improve a lot on the last game, but brings up some new issues. Shadow becomes a recurring character later in the series due to fans liking him even though he was supposed to be a one time character.
I did like this game a little, though, some levels overstayed their welcome pass the 10 minute mark (and trust me, this isn’t going away anytime soon in future Sonic games). But it was fun while it lasted. There is replay value yes, but the story was pretty confusing and weird. On the whole it’s a pretty fun game nonetheless.
4 / 5