Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

Sonic Adventure 2 is the 10th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. I have had a lot of memories of this game. I first got it for the GameCube in 2005. I have played it constantly since.

PLOT: 4/5
I am not very good with plots, so I will just paraphrase a lot of this. Basically, Eggman is on Prison Island in search for "the Ultimate Lifeform" (A.K.A. Project: Shadow) created by his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik. Eggman finds Shadow and mistakes him for Sonic (prepare to see that a lot during the game) Shadow is thankful for Eggman awakening him, and proves his worthiness by defeating the military guard fighter. Shadow tells Eggman to find more Chaos Emeralds and to meet him on the Space Colony ARK, a research facility orbiting the Earth that was shut down and abandoned 50 years ago from whenever this game takes place in. Eggman decides to instead of going after the normal emeralds, go after the Master Emerald. Knuckles is guarding the Master Emerald, as he always does, and was currently in a fight with a new character, Rouge the Bat. Rouge is a spy for G.U.N., a military organization, and is a jewel thief. Because the Master Emerald is essentially one huge jewel, she will stop at nothing to get it. Eggman comes in and tries to take it but is stopped by Knuckles because he smashes it. Basically for the rest of the game, Rouge and Knuckles goes out and searches for the emerald pieces. In the meantime, Shadow steals a Chaos Emerald from a bank and is caught on national television. Like Eggman, everyone mistakes Shadow for Sonic. G.U.N. goes out to arrest Sonic and get their asses kicked from him. Sonic and Shadow finally confront each other, until G.U.N. steps in again but actually succeeds in arresting Sonic, and take him to Prison Island. On the Space Colony ARK, Rouge meets Shadow and Eggman, and then sticks around to help out. Their idea was to grab the 3 Chaos Emeralds on Prison Island, and escape along with blowing up the place as well. Tails and Amy come and rescue Sonic from Prison Island, and he escapes on a missile and lands in a vast jungle where he and Shadow confront each other once again. Sonic finds out the Island is going to blow up so he goes out to find them. Meanwhile, Rouge is sneaking in to steal the 3 Emeralds inside of the place, just to get stopped by a military guard fighter and gets locked in. Shadow comes in and uses Chaos Control to teleport the 2 of them out of there. Sonic, Tails, and Amy escape the island as it blows up. Eggman, Rouge, and Shadow go to the Space Colony ARK, and Eggman broadcasts a message to everyone, stating they need to surrender to the "Eggman Empire" or they would be destroyed. To prove this, Eggman uses the Eclipse Cannon to blow up half of the moon. Sonic finds out where he is and then immediately goes to the ARK. Knuckles finds more emerald pieces and confronts Rouge one last time, and she then gives Knuckles the emerald pieces she found. Knuckles restores the Master Emerald, and then take off. Tails creates a fake emerald that will blow up the Eclipse Cannon if it is placed where all of the other ones were. Sonic goes to do just that, but is stopped by Eggman who claims he will kill Amy if he doesn't come with the last emerald (as Eggman had 6 out of the 7) Sonic arrives, and gets tricked by Eggman into stepping into a capsule that then drops and explodes in space. Sonic appeared to be dead, as really no one could survive that. Tails and Eggman then fight because of that, and Tails wins. But Tails doesn't see Eggman take the last real emerald. It turns out Sonic somehow used Chaos Control with the fake emerald and then places it with the rest so it will blow up the Eclipse Cannon, and it does. Unfortunately, Shadow stops Sonic and they duke it out one last time. Eggman replaces the emerald, and laughs over victory. However, something goes wrong and a message of Gerald Robotnik comes up and wants revenge on all of humanity for the death of his granddaughter, Maria, who was also Shadow's friend. The Space Colony ARK then stars hurling towards the Earth. Everyone goes out to stop the Chaos Emeralds which are causing it to lunge into the atmosphere, but is stopped by the original ultimate life form, Biolizard. Shadow goes and defeats it, and Knuckles recites a poem or something that makes the Master Emerald stop the Chaos Emeralds. But, the Biolizard had something else in mind. It "attaches" itself with the Space Colony ARK and then manually pulls the ARK to the Earth. Sonic and Shadow goes super and stops the Biolizard, but Shadow falls into the Earth and supposedly dies. Sonic returns and the gang reflect back to the adventure and mourn the loss of Shadow. They finish and head back to Earth where the game ends.
I know I said "paraphrase" at the beginning, but I could've gotten into much more detail than that!
Normally, I would add points to the game's score but this one...Is lacking quite a bit of detail. There are so many plot holes in the story! I say though that it does a good enough job. The plot cant really hurt a game in my opinion, so I will only add points for the plot, but only half as much. I'll give it a 4/5

GAMEPLAY: 7/10
There are 3 different gameplay styles in the game. Sonic and Shadow have awesome high speed action platforming that is really fun! Knuckles and Rouge have treasure hunting stages that can take painfully long times to complete. Tails and Eggman have shooting stages and...they kinda suck, but more about that later. About Sonic and Shadow's stages, they're pretty much like Sonic's stages from Adventure 1. They are fun to travel through, very replayable, and were done well. Knuckles and Rouge's stages are like Knuckles' stages from Adventure 1. They involve treasure hunting. Here's how it works, you run around and a radar system at the bottom alerts you if you're close to an emerald piece. It turns green if you're say 100ft away, yellow if you're say 50ft away, and red if you're about 10ft away. There will be hint monitors scattered around to give you written clues on where the emerald piece may be. Now, here is the bull crap. The radar will only allow you to detect one specific emerald piece at a time. In Adventure 1, the radar would go off when you're near ANY emerald piece. At times during the game, you could potentially be RIGHT NEXT to an emerald piece, but if it's not the one the game wants you to find, you may never know! The hint system isn't as good either. In Adventure 1, Tikal would show you the direction an emerald piece was at. It was a nice way to give people some assistance if it was needed. Here, the hint systems give you clues that are practically riddles, and you can only get 3 hints per emerald piece. The hints require you to be familiar with the map from the start, something which you would only be if you were playing the stage for a long time in search of an emerald piece. Lastly, some of these stages are huge, and if you combine these with the problems that I just addressed, don't be surprised if a stage takes you forever to complete! Overall, I think Knuckles and Rouge's stages are okay at best, but I think that if they stuck with the Adventure 1 formula, it would have been much better! Now for Eggman and Tails' stages…ugh. To put it bluntly, they suck. Just hear me out for a moment. Eggman and Tails are in a mechanical "body" I guess you could say, and their goal is to go around and shoot the crap out of everything, along with some platforming in the package too. That sounds great, but it really isn't. First question, why is Tails in a mech? His Adventure 1 stages were more than just fine! They were actually pretty fun! So why put him in a mech? This all makes sense for Dr. Eggman, but not Tails! The second problem is the control. It is really bad on these stages. The mechs have a hard time turning and because they weigh so much, they don't have a very high or floaty jump, so platforming is a lot harder. To make it all worse, there are bottomless pits everywhere! Why? I don't know. Tails/Eggman stages were basically supposed to be Gamma's stages from Adventure 1 but more fleshed out and improved, and while it is in some areas, it isn't in others. But, definitely the worst stages are the space stages, good god! Because they're out in space that means if you miss a platform, your ass is dead. Mad Space and Meteor Herd's problem for Knuckles/Rouge is that it's way too freaking big. You will probably spend the most time on those stages than any others. Plus, for Mad Space, the hint system is reversed, and there's gravitational pull on each "planet" you go to and it can just be so frustrating. Sonic's Crazy Gadget stage has anti-gravity everywhere and can be hard to complete, especially at the end. But, one of the worst things is the camera. Except for Sonic/Shadow stages, or any of the outside space missions, the camera just does whatever the hell it wants. This is most noticeable on Eggman/Tails stages, as those are normally so cramped.
Overall, I like Sonic and Shadow's stages, get bored of most Knuckles/Rouge stages, and don't enjoy Tails or Eggman's stages. There are 10 Sonic/Shadow stages, 10 Tails/Eggman stages, and 10 Knuckles/Rouge stages. That means I really only like about 1/3 of the game. That's a problem.
I'll give the gameplay a 9/10 for Sonic/Shadow stages, 6.5/10 for Knuckles/Rouge stages, and 4.5/10 for Eggman/Tails stages. So, it comes to an overall 7/10 for gameplay. But, I will add it is well worth going through everyone's stages to get to Sonic's and Shadow's stages!

GRAPHICS, ANIMATION, AND VOICE ACTING: 8.75/10
This game was released in mid 2001 for the Dreamcast. Putting that into perspective, the game looks amazing! If there's something Sonic Team has always done well, it's making these games look beautiful. That, and the soundtrack but we'll get there in a moment. The character models in the game are much better than the Adventure 1 character models. The textures are pretty good as well, but you'll normally be speeding through the stages so you really won't notice them. The graphics itself is pretty damn good for the era! The animation during gameplay is about 95% very fluent and is very good. Now, I said gameplay. The cutscenes are a different story. Compared to adventure one, the body movements during cutscenes are a lot better! In Adventure 1, you would really get tired seeing the same hand and body gestures in every cutscene. That is not really the case here. Now, the lip syncing is…different. You know the butt ugly faces you'd see whenever characters would talk in Adventure 1? Well, it's different here. It's lip synced to the Japanese voices, so it will look different. It actually still is better than the first Adventure title so that's good. However, during cutscenes, because of the timing of the Japanese voices, the lip sync may still continue when no one is speaking, and sometimes it's so short, they may directly cut each other off. But the actual voice acting itself is…questionable. It's definitely better than Adventure 1 by far, but I have a few nitpicks I should address. I'll admit it's better for every character, but Tails' voice actor sounds like he's always reading from the script, and Eggman is really just too quiet. Plus, the lines they say may come off as a bit awkwardly said. Overall, it's okay, but it could've been better. I'll give the graphics a 9.5/10, the animation a 7.75/10, and the voice acting and lip sync a 6.25/10. That comes to an average of I'd say an 8.75/10

SOUND: 8/10
The sound mixing in this game is only mildly okay. In-game there's no problems, for the most part at least. It's just that during the cutscenes you're eyes will probably be at the bottom of the screen looking at the subtitles. Either the characters didn't speak loud enough, or they made the music amplified up the ass. Seriously, the music is way too freaking loud! I AM happy that at least the music is good. While the variety isn't as present here than it is in Adventure 1, it's still amazing. However, you'll notice it's primarily based around the electric guitar. So, the main music genre is rock. Sonic's stages have it, Shadow's stages have it, Tails has it along with the Sitar, and Eggman's stages are really rocking out! Knuckles and Rouge's stages are the only ones that don't have rock in them. For Knuckles, it's filled to the brim with incredibly corny rap songs that are actually not that bad! Rouge's stages have some smooth jazz that is pretty easy on the ears. Okay, so overall the soundtrack is awesome, but the sound mixing is bad. The soundtrack's score get a 9.5/10, sadly the sound mixing's score gets only a 6.5/10. That comes to 8/10. CONTROL: 8.75/10
Control is a tough one as it's hard to explain the control of a game to someone who hasn't played it. I can say for Sonic and Shadow, they control beautifully. They're just as acrobatic as you'd expect anyone from the Sonic universe to be, and the same goes with Rouge and Knuckles. The button are very responsive and even when you're going really fast, you don't carry too much momentum so you can still maneuver around going fast just as well when you're going slow. Now, the same can't be said for Eggman and Tails, as they're both in mechs. They do a damn fine job going in a straight line, but not so much when flying, falling, or going around corners, or a circle for that matter. At least the control doesn't screw you over at times. For Tails and Eggman's control, I'll give it a 7.25/10, for everyone else – 10/10. So, that's 8.75/10.

MULTIPLAYER: 9/10
Yeah, there's multiplayer in this game! You can play the stages in the game with a buddy. There's also special moves you can use if you get enough rings, ranging from just speeding up for a few seconds to stopping time! You can unlock more characters if you get enough emblems, which you get for completing a mission. There's also a kart racing mode where you're in a go-kart racing the team of characters you play in the game. It's not that deep of a mode, and I would've included it in the Extra section below, but this is I would say primarily multiplayer. Sonic Adventure 2's multiplayer is definitely one of the best multiplayer modes in the series! I'll give the main multiplayer a 9.5/10 and the kart racing a 8.5/10. That comes to a 9/10.

EXTRA: 5/5
To me, extra content (not to be confused with DLC, I'm talking about unlockables or just some extra stuff) can only help a game's score, but I only give half of the points. This game's extra stuff is the Chao Garden. If you haven't played Adventure 1 or seen Cream the Rabbit, then you don't really know what I'm talking about. Chao are adorable little creatures that you can raise and enter races with. They have stats that you can level up by giving them animals found throughout the game or chaos drive, those colored little capsules you get from destroying an enemy. The more you level it up, the better it will be. There's also different kinds of chao you can either raise to be or just kind of buy it or something. They really went above and beyond with this. Now, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but almost everyone seemed to enjoy it including me. I'll give this a5/5. There's nothing I really don't like about it and it can, and probably will, be incredibly addicting. I've probably spent more time there than playing the actual game itself!

PORTS: 9.5/10
This game was ported over to the Nintendo GameCube in late 2002, and recently got an HD re-release in early October of 2012 for Xbox Live Arcade and on the PlayStation Store. The GameCube's version, titled Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, I would say is THE definitive version of the game. The sound mixing isn't as bad, the character models in the cutscenes are better looking and smoother, the control I would say is better with the GameCube controller, and there's even MORE to do in the Chao Garden! For example: Chao Karate, a new mode for all of your chao. It's a one V.S. one fighter, but you don't control what the chao does. So your chao will either beat the crap out of its opponents, or your chao will get the crap beaten out of. So, keep leveling up those chao! The multiplayer is also better. You get all of the character from the start so you don't need to keep getting emblems to unlock them. And there's also a new mode which is called Battle, hence the name Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. This is definitely the best port of the game and the one I recommend. Now, the HD re-release is debatably worse. It has widescreen support and the picture is in HD, but there are still some problems. For example, the widescreen can be inconsistent at times because some cutscenes are in widescreen, while others are still rendered in their original 4:3 ratio. It's really just nitpicky. However, the sound mixing is EVEN WORSE this time around! If you couldn't hear them before then you certainly won't hear them this time! This is a real problem, and it might turn off a few of you. But there are also some achievements in the game if you're interested! The GameCube port gets a 10/10 and the HD port gets a 8.75/10 which comes to a whopping 9.5/10.

Sadly, Sonic Adventure 2 is a game that has been getting worse over the years. I only enjoy 1/3 of the game! It's certainly not a bad game; I've played a hell of a lot worse! But, this is a game where I can say it's a pretty good first glimpse of the series. If you didn't like the hedgehog before, play this and it may change your mind! I'll give this game an overall score of 9.25/10 but since GameSpot doesn't .25s and .75s, I'll give it a 9.5/10!