Before I start, I'd like to thank ShickOuttaShape, one of my favorite Dtoiders and fellow Mother enthusiast. Without him, I would never have even put this idea into motion, or even come up with it. We've both written sister pieces in which we each discus our favorite of the two Sonic Adventure games. Mine is on Sonic Adventure 2 and Shick's piece is on the original Sonic Adventure. We hope you enjoy!

I never owned a Dreamcast, and so I didn't get to experience the joy of a prerelease extravaganza like Shick did. Instead, I saw a commercial for the Gamecube rerelease and, on a whim, decided to go pick it up. I had enjoyed my limited Sonic on friend's Genesis and was excited to finally own my own version of the famous blue blur.



Sonic Adventure 2 is widely considered to have heralded the beginning of the series decline, and that's true; all the console Sonic games (I'm specifically leaving out the handheld one, and thus the fantastic Sonic Advance series, which highly recommend) to follow ranged from mediocre (Sonic Heroes) to complete crap (Shadow the Hedgehog,) and SA2 set the trends that led to it's sequels being such piss poor games. But despite the havoc it's influence would wreak, Sonic Adventure 2 is itself a wonderful game that finds the perfect balance the classic Sonic gameplay wonderfully transferred into 3-D and a new character based story style rife with new mechanics, an equilibrium that none of the following games could ever come close to achieving.



The character based story differs from Sonic Adventure 1 in that instead of each character having their own independent level arcs, the game is divided into two separate segments, the good story, and the evil story, with each featuring three different character types (The hedgehog, the inventor, and the treasure hunter) and their own unique type of gameplay.

Sonic and Shadow's levels comprise the bulk of the game, and is without a doubt the strongest of the three game types. They feature the classic Sonic gameplay of running through a course filled with loopdy loops and traps, and the feeling of raw, barely controllable speed so present in the Genesis titles carries over perfectly into the 3D levels as you blaze through a variety of settings including but not limited too: a military harbor, the exterior of a space colony and a mysterious jungle island. And although I do miss the familiar (and less campy) locales of Green Hill Zone and Angel Island, the new areas so full of their personality and awesome moments, that you can hardly complain.

One such awesome moment occurs early on in Sonic's (and the game's) first level. You start off snowboarding down a hilly street (which is awesome in it of itself,) only to hop off, and begin running through a vibrant San Francisco-esque cityscape. All very funny, but incomparable to what follows. At one point, you find yourself back on a stretch of road when suddenly, a comically oversized truck appears out of nowhere and starts chasing you down a long incline full of speed boosters and rings. It's over the top, it's cheesy, but dear god is it fun, and, you have to admit, pretty cool as well.


Where have we seen this before...

Moments like this are scattered all throughout the game, but it seems that Sonic and Shadow's levels have the most memorable ones, like racing up scaffolding, or riding on a gigantic rocket to escape a military prison, or chasing after another hedgehog while atop of a gigantic space laser.

But despite the many similarities between the two hedgehogs, Shadow and Sonic's personality are night and day. Sonic is still the same cocky, over confident hero as always, but Shadow, the newcomer, is quite the opposite. Sarcastic, ruthless and a quite frankly a dick, Shadow follows the Sephiroth school of character design, which gains him both a massive fanbase, and an equally massive group of haters. I admit it. I like Shadow, in the context of SA2. He has a suprisngly interesting (albeit it camp) story, and some actual depth to his character. He's the classic antihero with a heart of gold tuck underneath the layers of anger and hatred, but you can't really take him 100% seriously, because he's a hedgehog, and hedgehog's are cute, fuzzy little animals, which makes him kind of ridiculous, and thus, both amusing and endearing.You even sort of feel for the little furry when he kicks it (by the way, spoilers warning!) But just like his cousin Sephiroth, sleeping dogs are never left to lie, and Shadow has surpassed even the one winged angel himself as fanficers symbol of angst.



Always blazing new trails, SA2 lets the players control archnemesis Dr. Robotnik for the first time in the series. Seeing as the good doctor isn't nearly as agile as his blue hued foe, several new game mechanics would have to be implemented to allow for this. The solution was to give him a mech, complete with lasers, hoverjets and whole shebang. Sonics' foxy (not like that you sickos,) friend Tails was selected as Eggman's good counterpart due his and the doc's shared love of machinery. Their missions fun, and highly reminiscent of the awesome E-102 Gamma stages in SA1 (If you haven't played them, their sort of like Sin and Punishment with more movement options) and fits Robotonik's character perfectly (although I'd still love to play as him in a hovercraft..) But for Tails, I far prefer his stages, in the original Sonic Adventure; in which he chases after Sonic, desperately tying to get out from his shadow. It just fits him so well, and is such a clever reference to his role in the Genesis era games. I digress though; it's extremely fun, and makes for a great chance of pace, so who am I to complain?


What should have been

The last stage type belongs to Knuckles and Rouge, and features a much more open level then either of the other prior two, in which you much search around a small scale open world for three hidden fragments of the shattered Master Emerald. This can either be a fun, mellow excursion from the more fast paced levels, or an exasperating exercise in frustration and annoyance, all depending on where the emerald pieces get hidden. Of the three level types, treasure hunt is definitely the weakest. It's not bad, and can be quite fun, especially in Multiplayer, but for every great level you play of it, there will be two in which the random hiding spot generator screw you over. When it works though, it's simply grand.

On the character side, Knuckles is still just as lovable and gullible as ever, and can still pull of his classic tricks, like climbing up walls and gliding through the air. The new character, Rouge, is fun, and enjoyably sassy, but sadly, her fanbase is just as creepy as Starfox's Krystal, which really does spoil the character.



All three of these different modes are woven together in a chapter format, so that you play one type of stage, save, and then move on to another type and light and dark stories are structured independently so that you can switch back and forth between the two whenever, which makes for a nice, open, and constantly new experience. Both sides are different takes on one overarching plot, and while their are some purely seperate levels, occasionally, youâ'll get a cool little crossover in which you'll fight a boss battle against Dr. Robotnik in the good story and Tails in the same place when playing the bad story, or explore two very different sides of the same area. It's a really interesting way of telling a games story, that I would love to see used in a more narrative-centric game.

The aforementioned boss battles are one 2's finest aspects. There is a wide variety of enemies to face, ranging from small frys, like Shadow or Sonic (depending on which story you're playing) to the large, like the various military mechs that challenge our intrepid heroes (and villains,) to the ginormous, like a multi-story high stone golem ala Shadow of the Colossus, although technically SA2 came first, so SotC was ripping it off ;), that attacks not only Sonic, but it's creator, Dr. Eggman, as well. These boss battles are perfect, in the sense that they don't introduce some new fancy gimmick you'll only use their, but instead take the moves you've been using all along, and craft clever fight mechanics out of them. This may seem basic, but it's far less commonplace then you'd think, and is just one more example of the games superb design.

On to the plot. The premise behind the story is as follows; Sonic is arrested because he (or a hedgehog who looks just like him) was seen trashing an army base with Dr. Robotnik. Tails goes to rescue Sonic from his incarceration and meets up with Dr. Eggman who is there with Shadow searching for Chaos Emeralds to power up a space station. Meanwhile Knuckles and Rouge are racing to find the pieces of the Master Emerald, Knuckles for a noble goal, Rouge for a greedy one, after Dr. Eggman shattered it in a botched heist. Madcap hijinks ensue.

I admit, it sounds really idiotic when laid out like that, but give it a chance. Surprisingly enough, it works, and although it may not have any where near as good a plot as Mother 3 or Final Fantasy 6, it doesn't try to. It knows from the start what it wants to be: a goofy, corny, B-movie of a game, and achieves this vision perfectly, and even gets a little epic:

After a penultimate fight against the Bio-Lizard (don't ask, even I'm not sure what the fuck it is,) the not-dead-yet monster, teleports to the outside of Robotnik's space station (of course he has a space station) and starts pushing it down towards Earth. Sonic and Shadow, use the super-special-awesome powers of the chaos emeralds to transform into Super Sonic and Super Shadow respectively, and head out into space to defeat it, in an incredibly cheesy, yet incredibly enjoyable final fight. The music it's set to is just absurdly over the top, as is the battle, which consists of the gold hued hedgehogs flying through space and bombarding the reptile, in order to save Earth from destruction. As terrible as that may sound, the fight, combined with the massive level before it in which all the characters were utilized in a tag team like fashion, might be the most fun I;ve ever had in a video game. The campy nature of it really just works, and while this boss, and the whole game, is in essence, completely ridiculous, you can't help smile and enjoy it.

If you ever tire of story mode, which is highly unlikely, what with all the aforementioned amazingness it contains, SA2 includes two fun diversions in the form of an incredibly robust and enjoyable multiplayer mode, featuring extra playable characters like Amy Rose, Metal Sonic and the villain of Sonic Adventure 1, and the equally awesome Chao Garden. It's an expanded version of the Chao Garden from SA1, and now features Chao evolution, moral paths for your Chao to embark on (don't ask,) stat argumentation, greyhound-esque racing, and (if you're playing the GC version) Michel Vick-esque Chao fighting, complete with sketchy Chao black-market officials.


No caption needed. This picture is strange enough as it is

I recognize that Sonic Adventure 2 is far from a perfect game, but it's not nearly as bad as it's made out to be. On the contrary, it's really quite fun and one of the most beloved games in my collection. The cast of characters is fun, the level and story are well designed, and the multiplayer is a source of endless amusement to this day. I sincerely hope that Sonic Unleashed can return the series back to its glory days. (Update: it didn't.) Until then I'll stick with my two favorites.

Hope you all enjoyed this post! Make sure to read ShickOuttaShape’s sister post here.