An excellent take at what a 3D Sonic game should be, particularly with the design and style of Sonic's stages. Technical and engine glitches hold Sonic Adventure back from realizing its full potential.

Sonic Adventure 2 is overflowing with cool, fun, and interesting ideas. The creativity is there.

But the technical limitations of the engine, coupled with the adversarial nature of the gameplay for newcomers, results in an experience that doesn't fully realize those cool ideas nor feels as fun all the way through as it could.

Not for the faint of heart.

At times cryptic, at other times difficult, and most of the time needlessly both.

When people crack jokes about yearly sports games being roster updates without any actual improvements to the game, this is what they're talking about.