This is a game I technically beat before I even started Mario Sunshine, but I wanted to wait until I was properly done playing with it to write a review for it. That time was when I finished playing it on stream (again) yesterday, so now's the time to put it back on the shelf and write my review for it. I got 68 out or 180 emblems, and played the Japanese version of the game for about 20 hours.

Sonic Adventure 2 is the followup to the first Sonic Adventure, and it follows Sonic & co as they try to stop Eggman from blowing up the world with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. But that's only the Hero story mode. There's also the Dark story mode, where you play as Eggman & co trying to end the world with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. It's a neat gimmick where you see both sides of a story that plays out more or less the same either way, as there's a "LAST" story mode you unlock after completing the other two that ties them together and gives a conclusion to everyone's stories. It's ultimately a fairly campy and silly story (that introduces characters such as Shadow the Hedgehog and Rogue the Bat), but it does have some nice moments. It's serviceable and entertaining for what it is, and that's all it needs to be.

I'd actually never realized that apparently this game just has a language select feature, and you can switch between several languages' subtitles as well as the Japanese or English voice tracks in any version of the game! As a result, the Japanese version of the game's only actual difference (so far as I can tell) is that the main title screen is in Japanese (changing the language doesn't affect that, so far as I know). The Japanese voice track is much better voice acted than the English in many places, but I will say that I definitely prefer the English voice for Eggman over the Japanese one. And the infamously awful sound balancing this game has, where music in cutscenes is often far too loud compared to the dialogue, is also consistent across both languages, sadly XP

There are six playable characters, but they're basically light and dark copies of each other. There are upgrades to find for each character individually, but for the most part each character plays identically to their counterpart. Sonic and Shadow both have very speed-focused stages where you jump around, platform, and homing attack enemies. Rogue and Knuckles both have more open stages where there isn't a goal to get to, and instead you're using computer terminals scattered around the level to get hints to where the hidden master emerald pieces are. Last, you have Tails and Eggman, who each have linear levels where they stomp around in big mechs, using homing shots to blast everything in their paths.

Sonic/Shadow stages and Tails/Eggman stages all work pretty soundly and are good fun to go through. This was originally designed for the Dreamcast, and this is a pretty dead-on port job, so the C-stick does nothing and instead the camera is controlled by holding R and L respectively. This is usually something you don't need to worry about, as the game does a pretty good job following you with its auto camera, but it's often not an issue outside of a few boss fights. Where it is constantly a problem is in Rogue/Knuckles stages. They're so open that the auto-camera often doesn't really know what to do, and the levels eventually become so large and annoying to navigate (one of them even has a 5 minute time limit), and they're by far the least fun parts of the game.

There are 31 levels in the game not counting boss fights and including two racing time trial levels, but once you beat a story mode you unlock those levels to play in level select mode. In level select mode, you can play through each of that stage's five missions, and each of those missions has its own emblem associated with it. There are also hidden powerups you can only find upon returning to a previous level with a later level's powerup. It adds a LOT of playtime to the game if you're going for 100%, but this is easily one of the hardest/time consuming games in this fashion I've played in that regard from this time period.

Even completing all the missions in a certain stage (which range from collecting 100 rings to finding a hidden Chao to completing a much harder version of the level) is a challenge in and of itself, but there is also an emblem for each character that you get when getting an A rank on every single one of their missions. You get a rank from A to E when finishing a mission, and that's dependent on your point total at the end (and the point total associated with each rank is never told to the player). Points are gotten by chaining together enemy kills and finishing the level quickly, so in order to get A ranks on EVERY mission, it means replaying them a LOT to get really good at finishing them very quickly and with as many good enemy kills as you can. It's a time commitment I can't really justify for how much I enjoy the gameplay loop, so it's not something I think I'll ever do (and it's the reason I stopped at a little over 60 emblems when I was too demoralized to continue getting them XP).

Outside of all of that, in each level, you can also find boxes with Chaos on them, and breaking one reveals a Chao key which takes you to the Chao garden afterwards. Around levels and from defeated enemies, you'll pick up power cores and small animals, and you can take these back to your Chao garden to allow your Chaos to absorb the power from them (but not kill them) and level up. Chaos who absorb energy from animals will even take on features from that animal (like bunny ears, dragon wings, etc). Chaos age as real time passes, and they can eventually turn into a Hero or Dark Chao depending on what alliance of character has given them the most affection. One of the most significant changes from the Dreamcast version to the GC port is actually that the time for a Chao aging one year has gone from 1 real time hour to 3 freakin' real time hours. Thankfully about a minute gets shaved off of that time each time a Chao eats a piece of fruit, but it still takes an annoying amount of time.

You can enter your Chao in races and karate competitions, which is why you need their stats raised. Completing a karate tournament or winning a series of races will earn you an emblem, and you need at least two (one hero and one dark) Chaos who are very good at racing in order to get all the emblems associated with the Chao garden. That requires a LOT of animals and power cores to get them that high, so ultimately the huge amount of time you'll spend replaying levels to try and get A ranks will feed into how much time you'll have to sink into raising two racing-ready Chao. Raising Chao is a simple but fun addition to the overall experience of going through levels and even just to the normal story mode. Chao have cute little idle animations, and you can even take them to Chao school to have them learn new animations to do (like playing with a tambourine). It's a weirdly engrossing part of the game, and raising my little Horatio and playing around with him is one of the things that kept me playing so far after I beat the game's main story.

Verdict: Recommended. This game won't be for everyone, but if there are any good purely 3D Sonic games, this is definitely among them. It's got a campy, fun story, reasonable gameplay, and a decent amount of extra content if you really wanna sink your teeth into it. It's a childhood favorite of mine, and it was really fun to go through it again after all these years ^w^

sonic adventure 2 Improves on pretty much everything from the first game. the story is more interesting, the levels are tighter, the shit overworld from the first game was wisely dropped, the multiple campaigns were condensed to 2, (3 if you count the ending one) and the soundtrack is also better. however, the knuckles and tails missions... why... why couldn't it just be sonic and shadow those levels are actually playable and fun. the voice acting/dialogue and animation is still pretty bad though. But this is a game I'd recommend playing if you're interested in the sonic franchise.

1: Easily one of the best pet-raising sim games of all time even though it's not even the main game
2: One of the best video game soundtracks of all time with a huge variety of genres
3: A story that starts by being hilarious because of how ridiculous it is, to being genuinely hype by the end

We all know about the bad parts of the game. The voice lines clip over each other, there's some glitches with floor/wall detection on some stages, and some people really dislike the Mech/Treasure Hunting stages.

Overall though I had more fun with this than 90% of games I've ever played. 10/10 doesn't mean perfect here, this game is clearly not flawless, but it is incredibly entertaining and memorable.

I'm not even a Sonic fan. I don't like most games in the series and I have no interest in the comics/movies/etc. I just think this is a fantastic game who's reputation has been mired by other Sonic games being awful and social media videos only showing off the worst parts.

The peak of Sonic the Hedgehog. 

For the first time in the franchise's history, the stars aligned for Sonic Team, and they made this banger of a game. To this day, the style, presentation, and storytelling haven't been matched by future entries in the series. While this isn't my personal favorite entry in the franchise, it does deserve its spot as one of the best. Yes, it's clunky. Yes, the voice acting is laughable. Yes, the emerald radar fucking sucks. But all of that doesn't matter because everything about this game is cool as fuck. When you boot up the game for the first time and hear the slight taste of Live & Learn in the opening cinematic, you can tell this game is special.

Sonic Team really went all out with this game: unique vocal themes for all of the characters, unique set pieces, a grand spectacle story with some of the most iconic moments in the franchise, and one of the greatest finales in gaming ever. I really do believe Iizuka when he says he had the most fun working on this game.
There is an energy in this game that is sorely lacking in future titles. Frontiers attempts to bring this energy back, but I feel like they still have a long way to go to put the franchise back on course. What I mean by this is that SA2 feels like a purely cinematic game through and through. It's story and characters are played out with the upmost sincerity and full of heart, which makes the stories in this series special. The direction of this game stands out, and one aspect I really loved about this game were the movies that promoted the other stories in the game once you completed specific ones. The ones that play after first completing either the hero or dark story know how to pump you up for the other. My absolute favorite of them is the movie The Last Story. It perfectly sets the mood for the tone of the finale and gets you excited for the end. The direction in this game really does set it apart from the rest.
I think back to when Live & Learn was being played live on stream for the Sonic Symphony. Hearing everyone in the crowd erupt to sing along was the best thing ever. There's a reason why people love this song, and there's a reason why people love this game.

It's a flawed game just as much as the others, but I can't seem to dislike it all too much. It truly is one of a kind.

Eu não tinha escrito uma análise no momento que tinha zerado o jogo e após rejoga-lo no pc. Agora posso tirar minhas conclusões com certo olhar diferente.

Da primeira vez que tinha jogado, eu não gostei. Muitos falavam que esse era o melhor jogo da série e em partes, ele é. Entretanto, muitas fases me fizeram com que eu ficasse com um gosto amargo em minha boca. Concluído que ele era um jogo mid e que eu só rejogaria pelo chao garden.

Mas dei outra chance e minha experiência foi um pouco melhor, mas ainda sim com ressalvas.

Sobre a história, ela é pra mim uma das melhores da série. Suas cutscenes são meio zuadas por conta das animações. Mesmo assim, consegue ser envolvente e emocionante lá pro final. Já as músicas, são perfeitas, não preciso me alongar neste tópico.

Indo para a parte boa, comentando da gameplay e seus estilos, a do sonic e do shadow são boas, mas acho que elas falham em certas partes, como colocar gimmicks muito irritantes nas fases, principalmente aquelas que envolvem gravidade. Além do homing attack ser meio bugado, tendo um timing certo para ser feito, podendo te irritar nas primeiras jogadas.

Agora sobre os gameplays que boa parte odeia: As fases do knuckles/rouge e tails/robotnik. Na primeira jogatina, eu tinha odiado elas assim como todos aqueles que jogaram, ao zera-lo de novo, comecei a apreciar mais estes níveis. As fases de caça ao tesouro são interessantes no conceito e sua base funciona (assim como em Adventure 1), entretanto, existem pequenas decisões em seu design tornam estas fases muito piores do que elas realmente são. Por exemplo, elas são bem maiores comparadas com o primeiro e mesmo assim o radar apenas detecta um esmeralda vez. Não faz o menor sentido e fica massante, principalmente pelo fato delas estarem localizadas aleatoriamente. A dica que posso dar é tentar fazer uma rota para em pontos centrais do mapa e dar um passada de leve apenas como forma de conferir se tem alguma esmeralda por perto. Em relação às fases de mecha, são ok para meh. É divertido fazer um combo de pontuações, marcando o máximo de inimigos possível. Porém, a velocidade do robô é bem inconstante, o que faz as sessões de plataforma serem bem chatas e irritantes. Além da mixagem de áudio, que MEU DEUS, me faz ficar surdo por você ouvir um 300 bips por segundo, quase nem conseguindo ouvir a música. (Isso não acontece só nesse tipo de fases, vários momentos do jogo acontece isso).

Esses erros na qual comentei são pequenos, o que não está errado, mas são eles que fazem com que a experiência seja amarga e diminuindo muito do valor que ele tem aqui. Recomendaria? De certa forma sim. Mas recomendaria ainda mais jogar no pc, por ter vários mods que corrigem esses erros e deixam a jogatina bem mais tolerável e divertida. Ajuda também tentar focar em pegar rank A o máximo que puder, isso vai deixar as fases chatas com muito mais propósito e você não passará reto dos inimigos nas do tails e a exploração das fases do knuckles bem melhor.

Hey hey! I just replayed and beat this game in 2024!

Is it still good?

Yup.

Great?

Depends.

So if anyone else is familiar, this is where a lot of fans considered 3D Sonic to be peak. And I kinda almost agree.

For the time it came out, it was an impressive-looking game; and even playing it now radiates with the energy of retro 3D games and the late 90's going into the early aughts. Outdated phrases like "Tight" and "Radical" dot a corner of the screen that is guaranteed to make you laugh or cringe. Character models are goofy looking at times, with CGs featuring mo-cap that looks decent at best but aimless at worst; but still possessing that low-poly charm that only highlights each characters simple pronounced features and makes them all look just adorable. The music is a delightful arrangement spanning different genres that match the personality of every character: from buttrock lyrics that gets stuck in your head, to heavy metal instrumentals, to lo-fi rap to relax and find emeralds to, and to Lupin the 3rd-esque lounge jazz. The camera sweeps, cuts to different angles, and pulls back, revealing the colorful and elaborate Dreamcast era environments and void-like skyboxes that just precedes modern games forays towards the uncanny valley. It is no wonder why so many fans, myself included, have such a fondness for this game.

Sonic and Shadows' stages are the absolute pinnacle of well designed 3D Sonic stages! They're a strong mixture of platforming with a decent enough weight, split-second timing that greatly rewards, alternate routes that can keep you going forward after a fumble, and blasting through courses at such a breakneck speed that still somehow feels untouched compared to certain games after. These parts of the game would form the foundation of Sonic games to follow, and it stands to reason why! It's fun! These course were designed to be replayed and in different ways: the time-attack, lost chao, and hard mode challenges shining especially. I wish the light speed dash and homing attack were a little more consistent in how they worked; we looked past it a lot more at the time, but man have they aged poorly.

The Tails and Eggman stages are a nice breather between Sonics and Shadows, but the flaws are easier to notice. While I personally delight in the chaining of shots for a high score (Starfox 64 always making me yearn for that itch), the game slows down way too much at times and the near-constant pitch of the cannons focus-sight is enough to give me tinnitus 2. There is a fair bit of solid platforming to break up the monotony of every hallway, but the environments are so often cast in grays that it's a bit too dreary to enjoy its rather meticulous environmental design.

And last of all are the most egregious examples of SA2's flaws: Knuckles and Rouge's stages. These stages are beautiful diaramas of fantastical and interactive environments that it is such a shame it's teemed with the absolute worst physics and camera. The respective characters move at almost the same speed as Sonic/Shadow, which makes for quick traversal over these massive levels, but makes platforming on a smaller level so frustrating. You'll overshoot every jump or walk so often, you have to rely on gliding and climbing to get you anywhere. Standard attacks propel you forward and you have to commit to whatever direction it sends you.

The camera. Dear God. The camera! Have fun trying to look up and down these vertical stages with just L and R. The camera will freely do as it pleases as you move around these environments too, whether or not it is a matter of helping you get through somewhere or it accidentally clips with the environment, and it's an issue that occurs through every stage of the game. It works great during the more cinematic sequences of Sonic and Tails stages, but it will either remain fixed or try to "correct itself" when you need to explore somewhere off the beaten path. This serves as a major source of frustration throughout.

The story is meh, it's reflected more in its characters but not much else and is pretty standard fair for a Sonic game. Splitting up the narrative between Light and Dark does serve as a fun way to break up the game.

And that about covers this far-too-long review. It's a game that is no doubt well designed, influential, and filled to the brim with that charming early 2000's energy, but does still lack polish that keeps people from enjoying it's less speed-centered gameplay.

Also Chao Garden is far too cute and addictive and needs to be it's own game. Bye! ❤️