I wanted to make a review Sonic Adventure 2 because I've not expressed myself about it enough. It has been my favorite game of all time for a long while. It inhibits so many parts that I can identify with and appeal in regards to in video games, even if throughout the years where I'm recognizing flaws in the game and in the writing. From the tight and instant gameplay loop, to the charmingly conveyed narrative, it will always have something for me to go back to. The constant tension and creative movement is sublime from any other action game I've played, and the story while having a bad translation and its own set of problems, is still a personal piece that tells a message of purpose and the potential good in humanity. Sonic Adventure 2 is a byproduct of its time; originally released just at the end of the Dreamcast's twilight, at the start of the early 2000's, and just when the 3d platforming genre started to expand. So much has gone past this era of the franchise that I can't help but appreciate SA2 for how it passionately paved the series and placed its mark on the genre. It's an incredibly tight game that thrives off its edgy appeal.

The gameplay keeps you at the heart of the action at every single turn; level hazards, enemy patterns, higher paths, maneuvering rails and multiple pathways all play into the ranking system. It rewards players that mastered their movement and combat options and make sharp turns according to the level layout, and this in turn lets them get the best out of a level. It's like an arcade game, and you could say this replaces the level direction on Adventure 1's open movement with SA2's linear obstacle course level design, though in my opinion it justifies this in creating scripted set pieces that are engaging enough mechanically and visually. It streamlines intersections of levels that involve action and movement while still having enough of a skill ceiling to create replay value. It's less about translating movement to level design elements like in the classic games, and more about flowing through different segments of level design. It's cathartic. I feel like Sonic games since its wake ignored this and instead chose to hyper focus on the latter to exacerbate this design even more to the point that it's all scripted inputs. Despite all the oddly quirks it has in its movement and gravity, and the level design in some of the later parts, there are no games can draw me in as easily as candidly as SA2 has, and still have a fun time out of it.

Diving into SA2 by the first core idea you get greeted by the box art and the opening cutscene; good and bad, heroes and villains, organic and artificial, nature and industry. This is the main idea it spreads throughout the game in small ways to enhance the whole experience. Like how it uses its absurd gameplay pieces to portray how G.U.N corrupt is, it's kind of farcical that way. The characters have a wide range of vocal themes highlighting their motives or their thoughts in a certain point in the story, contrasting their interests. The U.I blends and interacts with the style of the game perfectly, it has a digital neon aesthetic that represents themes of advanced technology in the game. The character art is angular and has exaggerated proportions. It sings its edge and style the game was going for, it can get corny at some points but the energy can still hit you.

It's hard writing genuine reviews for these games without slowly drifting into being argumentative, because I need to vindicate Sonic games of all things in order to truly ask myself that I loved them like I've always had, due to the new standards and views in the side of discussion. I asked myself to see the other side of the coin many times, because I did share some of the problems when I've started to get conscious about the game in contrast to SA1. Sonic Adventure had loose, floating movement that often was extremely satisfying to take advantage in levels. Sonic Adventure 2 had strict movement that will mostly lean towards one direction and hard to control anywhere else. SA1 had 5 different characters that were easy to digest due to the the short amount of levels they each had and free story progression between them. SA2 had only 2 of them with played out story progression, and with 3 different gameplay types. SA1 had the premise almost summed up in the opening, had a straightforward story that had its plot beats told in each side of the story, and had satisfying development wrapped up by the end of most campaigns. SA2 had a story that to some felt convoluted and had a lot of plot holes. It's very easy to pin point the disconnect here. But then, when I started to play the game beyond its flaws I began to experiment with it. I saw how all these aspects flow and understood the direction it was going for. The Speed stages were becoming less aggravating and I started to appreciate how it used all of its mechanics as the focal point for each level. The Mech stages weren't sluggish and I saw how much potential there was in stacking enemies together, and the annoying room encounters were much more satisfying to approach. The Emerald Hunting stages which were the hardest part for me to sit down and play on my own, began to grow up on me. I started to learn the level layouts and tracked a pattern order where I search each section of the level. Once I did that it became a really fun time to replay over and over to find out niche parts of them that I've never considered. I watched the story through the Japanese translation and it's jarring to see how it enhanced the story with all the baggage of the English script. It had great voice direction, the interactions were more grounded, the story actually hit me emotionally. There is so much more that SA2 has to challenge the player beyond trial and error, and the story is worth delving into beyond its short comings. I mastered this game 3 times over because there is so much that isn't on the surface that keeps me entertained. Seeing all these things elevate placed itself as my favorite game of all time.

I think this is the only time DMC wanted me to drop a game because of how it genuinely disinteresting it is. It has the worst puzzles and mission design in the series, with convoluted segments cycling over and over.

The early game is fun but as soon as you enter Fortuna castle it's the worst. It has really boring visuals with color drained and plain looking textures, though the corridors in Fortuna look great.

In its core it has really good gameplay, I can say it has a really hammy combat system more than 5's even, though 5's is more refined. Nero is really satisfying to use, accesible learning curve with a combination of aggressive and precise play styles. Dante is fun as hell, when you master this character you'll look like fly buzzing in and out of the screen but he's still so cool in this game. Most of his reintroduced weapons are boring and the only unique one gets introduced late game with only one upgrade. Out of the reintroduced weapons I just prefer Pandora over Mary's rocket launcher because of how many options it has. The enemies here are much more bearable than 3's because you just have to counter them instead of just shattering their defense or revealing them. Vergil was really great to learn despite everything which made me replay bloody palace a bit more, and his perfect judgement cuts are so infinitely raw. Nonetheless I'm not interested in going through the game again with Trish and Lady since that just means I have to go through recycled stages again consecutively.

The story is mediocre. It has so little stakes that the only ones you see struggling is Nero not being able to save Kyrie and seeing Credo die, or demons raiding the town and killing people. Dante is pretty lighthearted in this game which can come across as an issue because he literally just waits for Nero outside the statue to finish his fight with the priest, and gets an unceremonious ending later. It parallels 1 in some ways through Nero which I appreciate. I would've loved to see what was the full planned storyline for this game.

Overall an underwhelming decent game, which is what I've heard most people say about it. This game was rushed in (and even took from us the greatest Vergil theme in DMC) and it just left a shell of 3's character action game formula. It didn't have that much potential for me personally because a lot of its fundamental aspects are not good enough to improve.

Pretty good; it's a really impressive remake for something like MegaMan X1. X is just as fun to control as the original. X is finally able to skip dashes like in the original SNES games instead of the sluggish dash they gave him after X3. His weapons have a massive amount of options compared to X1's. You can use a charged weapon ability while also being able to switch to a different weapon and fire it. Like Sting Chameleon's invincibility, Armored Armadillo's shield, and Spark Mandrill's weapon which is finally useful and its charged version can make a decent screen nuke. The armor parts are the same here, though you can get Zero's unique buster that can deal 1 or 2 bars more of damage, but X is only able to obtain at Sigma's 3rd palace so it's not really that worth getting. If you struggle with Sigma save Electric Spark for the 1st phase and then use Rolling Shield for the 2nd phase. All of the level design (layout, backgrounds, Light capsules, and enemies) are altered and it works kind of well except when the leg parts are not a free upgrade and are in Sting Chameleon's. Vile is added as a character after you beat the game, he’s neat. I don’t like that his gameplay feels like you’re controlling a boss and not a playable character because most of his attacks are very delayed. You have to switch between different angles your weapons can aim at. It's a bit iffy getting both the timing and the shot to land where enemies are. There is also a huge variety of alternate projectiles you can choose for Vile in his campaign. They’re not major but they’re okay to just keep you entertained for the lack of upgrades and different weapons. After completing his mode I think he doesn't work as a character like X or Zero. If he has significantly faster movement and a decent range for his weapons I would like him in any X game. The rocket punch missiles are what I'd recommend when you get them in this mode, they are more fun to use than the machine gun.


The remixed music tracks are done by X4's composer and it feels really good hearing the soft synths and dark ambiance X4 had with its soundtrack again, and also feature pretty cool guitar riffs used in the music. All of them are pretty fantastic renditions of the original themes. Although some tracks really over-synthesize the music, in particular I don't like Launch Octopus Stage’s theme because I can barely telegraph out the original music because of the synths blurring it out.


The story is actually good!! I really like the concept that this game introduces with X about his potential to rationalize in a higher comprehension to normal reploids and Sigma's angle was only seeing it as to further advance reploid battle potential. Basically his worrying and caring instinctively would get him the drive to get stronger every time and Sigma manipulates him as much as possible. The only time MMX made me delve into the story without splitting hairs. The maverick dialogue is also worth listening to, at least this over the generic grunt dialogue before this point. Boomerang Kowanger was the one that pointed out that Sigma sees that potential in X actually. I like that the mavericks all have a reason to join Sigma besides just hating X when they were Maverick Hunters or something similar. The fact that this game acknowledges the boss rush in a meaningful way to showcase that Sigma is just manipulating the empty shells of the mavericks to fight for him elevates the story a bit. Vile’s side of the story is pretty average. It’s just Vile being edgy and salty for the rest of the run but it’s not fun as it sounds. He forces all the Maverick reploids to fight him for no reason, gets shot down by X and Zero and is forced to become a Sigma reploid at the end. The whole point of it is that Vile doesn’t need to be a Maverick to be evil and it’s corny.

The voice acting is some of the best in the series, not a high bar but it’s really good, although I don't like the forced delivery in the maverick reploids’ voices. It sounds straight out of a 4kids dub sometimes and it kind of kills the impact of the dialogue. Also I don’t like how Zero sounds, he sounds like the most average dude you could think of and I think they should’ve gone for a better tone for his voice. All of that aside, when it’s good it goes insanely hard. This cutscene of X and Sigma SHOCKED me when I heard it. There’s a lot of attention put into the dubbing and I don’t think it deserved to be overshadowed by knee-jerk jokes about X4’s voice acting.

Overall, great game. It’s not a replacement for X1, but it’s a great compliment for people that played it. It might be better if I gave it more time than X1 but I’ve only done my first playthrough.

I played this game as a kid with just getting into half of two campaigns and loved it. I bought this game again almost a decade later, fresh out of any memory of it I played back then just to re-experience it, and... I loved it, despite discovering the backlash towards the game. Bear with me here for a while. Over time though, I just grew to like it now because I glossed over how some parts of the game affected me and my enjoyment mellowed down. This is a game that I have to verify that I really like because of all the people saying it's fundamentally broken and I have to be contrarian to convince myself that this is something that I can sit down and enjoy. It is definitely an objectively flawed game through technical flaws no matter what, but I can say its quality was only determined by experience. The only glitches or bugs I found in 2 of my playthroughs were minor and kind of easy to get around, the only time they ever major were 2 times, which were in Shadow's Crisis City where I did a Chaos Snap and it directed me to the pits of the level. I played this on the Platinum Family Hits Xbox version so it didn't have as many glitches as the Playstation 3 version.

I don't enjoy much the character gameplay but for the level design. It has really fluid and rewarding set pieces even with the stiff character controls and movements. I like the sense of rhythm and satisfaction of targeting unique paths of obstacles, platforms and enemies to get the S rank. I find a lot of replay value and with some of the original level elements such as Elise's magic to traverse through sand and water, the air railings in Kingdom Valley and the magnetic tubes in Aquatic Base, it's fun revisting stages. The flaw I think that's present with all the level design is that exploration can be just summed up as going into set pathways that lead into linear sections or automated sequences, so going to a different part of a level doesn't make any difference going through any other one, and it isn't open ended like in the Adventure games.

There's a lot of things I don't like how they implemented here. The momentum and trajectory is completely gone and a lot of sections that involve a downward slope don't work at all. The score system is kind of broken since it heavily relies on ring points and broken object points to get a higher rank, in Silver's case sometimes you have to grab more rings and break level props to get an S rank so it's really pace breaking and leads into hoarding rings and shattering every object you see rather than doing good in a run. The campaigns are awful to go through blind, and make the pacing worse or inconsistent. Each one does a half effort of blending action levels and the hub world in the most unengaging way possible. The completion run is the worst part of the game, you have no rewards besides the achievements and the hub world missions are obnoxious.

Onto the story, it's actually good in my eyes. It has its awkward moments for sure because I can't
pretend Amy's cutscene with Elise isn't awful every time I watch it. Sonic's is good for what it is, it's pretty absent on characters involved in the main story which works in regards to Mephiles' plan awakening Iblis, but it makes Sonic's story shallow compared to the other 2. Elise is a pretty underwhelming character for this game, even if I don't hate her as vehemently as this community does. Elise getting kidnapped as a plot device gets pretty annoying and repetitive, but it makes sense in Eggman acting underhandedly for her or Sonic to react. It's no different from Eggman taking all the emeralds away in Adventure. Her romance with Sonic is pretty one sided (from her end) so it really doesn't bother me. Her character as a concept is honestly pretty sound in a Sonic game. She has an arc that works well with Sonic's philosophy and character. She has a strict way of life and she oppressively conforms herself to suit here role as royalty. Which you can kind of see this with Blaze's character. It's is pretty rushed and has contrivances in the end. Tails and Knuckles are given the end of the stick here too, because they aren't nearly as important as how Blaze is to Silver, or Omega and Rouge are to Shadow's story. They don't support the themes of the story or actively take part of it as much as the others do because they are here to simply tag along levels and the story.

Silver's Story follows up nicely out of Sonic's because of the context you get from his point of view and you slowly get to see more of Mephiles and how he pushed Silver into a false sense of agency and getting Sonic killed. Silver is a great optimistic character that moralizes conflict but has his own flaws and leaps in logic. But the fact is his dynamic with Blaze, or Blaze in this game in general, is underdeveloped and her existence can get convoluted. Blaze is almost invisible this game because she really doesn't interact with the other characters besides just Silver. Her dynamic with him works with his naïve nature, she's a mentor figure and close friend to Silver. Though we don't get to see how Blaze connected to Silver delved outside of that which is missed potential.

Shadow's story is by far the best one here. It's such a incredible send off for both Shadow as a character and also Rouge and Omega, on top of having great interactions all around with characters. We see here the themes and character dynamics Sonic Heroes established with Team Dark. Sonic Heroes has Rouge and Omega helping Shadow learn to confide in them and realize his own identity instead of trying to chase off his memories to find out who he is. "Even if I'm not real, I'm still the ultimate life form, Shadow the Hedgehog". This dynamic comes back in this game in full force. Shadow embraces his role as a paragon of virtue with an uncompromising sense of justice, and keepsakes his promise to protect humanity, knowing that Rouge and Omega will be there for him no matter what the happens in the future. Mephiles here is a great antagonist that pressures Shadow's reality, all of his conversations toward him have him saying that people will eventually betray him despite what he has done to them, which ties to SA2's themes incredibly well.

The last story is disappointing. It is the culmination of Mephiles' plan of manipulating the entire cast into summoning Iblis so it did a decent job re-contextualizing the story at this point. Why I really dislike it that there is no way for the cast to react to Sonic dying, when I'm pretty sure Amy wouldn't be the only one to cry to that and Tails would be destroyed seeing him like that. The kiss was awkward, but it's not something I'm offended seeing, it's stupid but I don't care much about it. The last story at least showed that Silver being the one that never gave in to the end of the world, that was a nice detail. The atmosphere is the only part I think is good here because of the music motifs, it progresses between a very void and empty tune but it eventually starts adding all the instruments and synths together into the music and it becomes a more powerful melody.

Overall all of the stories combined give a nice overarching thematic of loyalty to the world through past, present and future (Shadow overcoming the ties of his origin, Elise learning to take initiative and action, Silver valuing the cost of salvation). The mocap was unbearable here and the voice acting is terrible in some dialogue, but the important scenes hit when they need to, at least they did to me.

I'm going to stop here because I don't want this to be as drawn out for as long as possible, more than it is, so yeah that's it. I think it's good!! Also don't buy the DLC's because they glitch the cutscenes and the only ones worth buying are Shadow's Very Hard Mode and the Amigo's DLC.

This is probably my favorite racing game of all time. It has the best early-2000's charm with its choppy audio design, punk rock songs and the general aesthetic. The gameplay doesn't have as much depth as other racing games I've played but it's still fun to mess around and master, specially when you mess around with other characters and the unlockable boards. The only flaw I was constantly encountering was that steering to sharp turns is hard to pull off and you have to brake in order to make them. The campaign is also too short and could've used more tracks. Overall though, a very good game.

It's now socially acceptable to like this game nowadays, so I don't have to tell you that this is great without being watched when I sleep. I love this game to bits honestly, I think is over praised in some areas but when I look more into the game the more I respect how much dedication it was put into it. I wish my disc for this game wasn't scratched so that I could've truly 100% it and go more deeper into its ideas and design. So many fond memories of just messing around in the hub and finally S ranking the harder challenges...