I honestly have to wonder what the thought process behind this game's creation was, like...
It's no secret Sonic games are generally on the shorter side, the previous Rush game only took me about 7 hours to beat both Sonic and Blaze's campaigns and get all chaos emeralda and, I'm someone who'll restart a level a dozen times if they feel like they're not playing it well.
Did the original Rush mostly get rented instead of bought by players? Was it a game that people traded-in frequently at gamestop? It feels like a lot of the design decisions made with Rush Adventure were a result of something like that.
The vehicle sections, the crafting system that'll require to finish stages multiples of times, the overly obnoxious and long boss battles, it all feels somewhat like padding.
Still, when it comes to the Zones, the level design, I'd say it's generally an improvement over the first game!
The high highs are still there with really fun levels like Haunted ship and Pirates' Island, oh and Blizzard Peaks is actually one of the best Sonic levels ever made; the only level that's really any bad is Sky Babylon, the rest are really fun to play!
The hidden islands as well are super cool, they basically add an extra act to each of the levels as well as a brand new zone, they were really fun to pnay through!
The vehicles you use to discover and reach the levels though... are a bit of mixed bag, the water bike and hovercraft I found really fun! While the sailboat and the submarine especially felt incredibly boring.
And unfortunately, due to the game's structure, you'll find yourself using the sailboat the most out of all the vehicles, which... is pretty unfortunate.
I think it'd have been a lot better if you only had the water bike to use and for you to upgrade it over the game to make it faster and travel longer but, it is what it is.
One really odd thing about this game is how you're allowed to pick your character at the start of each level as opposed to it being split into two campaigns which, considering that Blaze is just a better Sonic, is kind of a dumb design decision, I think they should've redesigned her to make her play more distinctly if they were gonna let you always be able to pick her.
And speaking of characters and the story in general, it's honestly pretty bad compared to the first game, feels like the plot to a saturday morning cartoon, but... at least Marine is pretty funny.
What I'm trying to say with all this rambling is, this game is really fucking good, but god does it feel really disconnected and unfocused, I think you should give it a try, but if you find yourself getting bored of all the backtracking and vehicle stuff, just download a completed save file from the internet to play the rest of the zones.
It's no secret Sonic games are generally on the shorter side, the previous Rush game only took me about 7 hours to beat both Sonic and Blaze's campaigns and get all chaos emeralda and, I'm someone who'll restart a level a dozen times if they feel like they're not playing it well.
Did the original Rush mostly get rented instead of bought by players? Was it a game that people traded-in frequently at gamestop? It feels like a lot of the design decisions made with Rush Adventure were a result of something like that.
The vehicle sections, the crafting system that'll require to finish stages multiples of times, the overly obnoxious and long boss battles, it all feels somewhat like padding.
Still, when it comes to the Zones, the level design, I'd say it's generally an improvement over the first game!
The high highs are still there with really fun levels like Haunted ship and Pirates' Island, oh and Blizzard Peaks is actually one of the best Sonic levels ever made; the only level that's really any bad is Sky Babylon, the rest are really fun to play!
The hidden islands as well are super cool, they basically add an extra act to each of the levels as well as a brand new zone, they were really fun to pnay through!
The vehicles you use to discover and reach the levels though... are a bit of mixed bag, the water bike and hovercraft I found really fun! While the sailboat and the submarine especially felt incredibly boring.
And unfortunately, due to the game's structure, you'll find yourself using the sailboat the most out of all the vehicles, which... is pretty unfortunate.
I think it'd have been a lot better if you only had the water bike to use and for you to upgrade it over the game to make it faster and travel longer but, it is what it is.
One really odd thing about this game is how you're allowed to pick your character at the start of each level as opposed to it being split into two campaigns which, considering that Blaze is just a better Sonic, is kind of a dumb design decision, I think they should've redesigned her to make her play more distinctly if they were gonna let you always be able to pick her.
And speaking of characters and the story in general, it's honestly pretty bad compared to the first game, feels like the plot to a saturday morning cartoon, but... at least Marine is pretty funny.
What I'm trying to say with all this rambling is, this game is really fucking good, but god does it feel really disconnected and unfocused, I think you should give it a try, but if you find yourself getting bored of all the backtracking and vehicle stuff, just download a completed save file from the internet to play the rest of the zones.