What REALLY Makes Sonic Adventure 2 So Divisive

Sonic Adventure 2 is a fascinating entry in the franchise from a historical point of view. It marked the end of an era with the Dreamcast being discontinued and Sega retiring from the console market, while simultaneously it marked the beginning of a new era with the port to the Nintendo GameCube, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle – yeah, I have a Japanese copy, what about it – introducing the blue blur to an entirely new audience. Coincidentally, it’s probably also the most polarizing Sonic game to exist: you’ve got people who can’t comprehend what's so appealing about it, finding it dated and frustrating, but on the flip side there are passionate fans that love it to this very day. Certainly, I believe there’s at least a partial correlation there, however, to boil the issue down to nostalgia, or the decade one grew up in, is an oversimplification at best and disingenuous at worst. In reality it’s more complicated than that, but when digging deeper into the game itself, you’ll find identifiable reasons how players’ experiences can be so different – and how these experiences are all equally valid and understandable. Despite their similarities, SA2 is quite divisive as a sequel to SA1 as well, so the game really is the perfect breeding ground for debates and controversies. But to start simple, one of the major improvements I think SA2 brings over its predecessor is its structuring. SA1 was largely made up of six different, interlocking character campaigns, which was pretty cool and innovative conceptually, but in practice it didn’t pan out well. It made the overarching narrative puzzled together between the six campaigns feel disjointed, and a lot of content ended up getting blatantly recycled, from story beats to bits of gameplay, resulting in a very bloated package. While SA2 also has six playable characters, the number of campaigns has been scaled down to just two: the Hero side and the Dark side. Each side, then, alternates between three characters, streamlining things substantially. Granted, this simpler structure has a clear downside depending on how you look at it, which I’ll touch on much later, but the advantages are undeniable. There are still a handful of cutscenes and a few character battles that show up in both perspectives, but thankfully you can skip cutscenes in any version this time around, and there is far less repetition than in SA1 to begin with. For the most part, the two teams are doing different things at a given time despite being part of the same conflict, and both stories stay focused on what’s currently relevant to the characters – no Tikal flashbacks or any kind of side tangents like that. So, kickstarting the events of SA2, Eggman learns that his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, created a top secret weapon, which is now being held onto at Prison Island by GUN, a private military organization. Eggman breaks into GUN's facilities to release said weapon, which is none other than Shadow the Hedgehog, and together they seek to control the planet by utilizing the Eclipse Cannon, a laser capable of mass destruction, fired from aboard the Space Colony ARK. To unleash the cannon's full potential, however, all seven of the Chaos Emeralds are needed, which is where Rouge the Bat, a treasure hunter who specializes in all kinds of jewelry, comes in and joins the alliance. Now, I really enjoy that we get to tag along with the villains here – it’s very unique for a game. Eggman’s always carried out sinful schemes, but seeing one come to fruition from his perspective adds a whole new layer to this story. When he and Shadow team up with Rouge, for instance, the first thing they do is return to Prison Island in search of more Chaos Emeralds. In an attempt to cover up this invasion, Eggman devises a plan to blow up the entire island by letting Shadow place dynamite packs on GUN's weaponry, so that nobody has a chance to know what hit them. It's a memorable and intense set piece, made all the better by how you, as the player, get to act out this over-the-top, tactical mission by distracting GUN's forces, breaking into their security hall to steal the Chaos Emeralds, and narrowly escaping the island before it explodes. Then, with six Emeralds now in the team's possession, they figure that's sufficient to demonstrate a glimpse of the power of the Eclipse Cannon, and obliterate half the bloody moon to scare the world leaders into surrendering. Truly, Eggman is raising the stakes more than ever before, and he further demonstrates in SA2 just how smart and unhinged he is. When Sonic, Tails and Amy later make it aboard the ARK to save the planet, Eggman's systems pick up on energy readings from two separate Emeralds, leading him to deduce the heroes are trying to trick him with a fake Emerald. With no other option, Eggman tracks down Amy and holds her hostage, so that Sonic and Tails are forced to meet him before they can foil his plans. During this confrontation, Eggman traps Sonic inside a pod that will explode in space, but since he isn't 100% sure if Sonic is holding the fake Emerald, he baits Tails into admitting to it – it’s some serious 4D chess. This cements that, while Eggman can be a bit of a goofball, he is nonetheless a total savage that you don't mess around with; he kills Sonic in cold blood in front of his best friends, causing Amy to break down in tears, and making Tails feel personally guilty to boot. This might just be the peak of the character in the franchise, and again, the fact you get to play as him seals the deal. All the same, what’s fascinating is that Eggman is the only real sinister bastard of the group. You see, Shadow, despite sharing a very similar goal with Eggman, actually does not have a lust for world domination; instead, we learn from a flashback that a friend of his, Maria, was shot down by someone or something, and he is determined to fulfill her dying wish. The specifics of this wish seem lost from Shadow's memory, but he confidently interprets them as a request to seek revenge against humanity. This makes him a compelling character, because deep down he isn't as bad of a guy as you would expect. That nuance to him first comes through somewhat when Rouge is trapped inside a vault in the middle of the Prison Island operation. With the bombs going off soon, Rouge being on the brink of death draws parallels to Maria in Shadow's mind, and so he rushes over to save Rouge using Chaos Control – a technique that allows him to teleport around with the use of a Chaos Emerald. Shadow justifies this action to himself by saying he did it for the Emeralds, but the real reason couldn't be more obvious: he cares about Rouge. And that's my read on the character in general: Shadow has a heart for the people he's closer to, but since he doesn't really know anybody down on Earth, he believes, based on what he thinks Maria asked from him, that committing mass genocide is the right thing to do. As such, to boil down Shadow to "dark edgelord'' would be a misunderstanding, which is plain to see when you compare him to Eggman. Call me crazy, but I think there's an argument to be made that Rouge is actually more evil than Shadow; I mean, her main reason for cooperating with Eggman and Shadow is so she can sweep the Chaos Emeralds from the Eclipse Cannon before all seven are inserted. To her credit, she’s at least planning to intervene before it gets that far, but she still lets every catastrophe before that happen, all to satisfy her own greed. Unlike Shadow, she doesn’t have a good excuse, really, and is motivated for selfish reasons. I guess the excuse is supposed to be that Rouge is a government spy, working to gather information on Shadow for the President, but this makes little sense no matter how I look at it. Somehow, I doubt the President gave her orders to help Eggman; if he did, that opens a large can of worms, like the government being fine with blowing up a ton of GUN’s people and property, and greenlighting the destruction of half the moon. Perhaps, y'know, Rouge is just not reporting truthfully to the President, but I cannot imagine a legit scenario where that works, either. After all, Rouge informs on the phone early on that she has made it to Eggman’s base; coincidentally, Eggman gets intel from someone shortly after that there are a bunch of Chaos Emeralds on Prison Island; and the team’s plan to go undetected there fails on top of that. If the President has half a brain, Rouge is a suspect to investigate, but she is never questioned about anything. Honestly, this government spy aspect needlessly muddies the story; it’s probably meant to give Rouge a sense of intrigue, but it ends up being a confusing plot point that doesn’t seem thought through properly. If you ask me, a thief obsessed with gems was all we needed. That’s the aspect of Rouge’s character I always think of, anyway, creating all the friction with Knuckles over ownership of the Master Emerald, and she would be a sassy bitch taking the piss out of Eggman’s tantrums regardless. I suppose her duty to investigate Shadow does make her feel more sympathetic toward him, but the dynamic between these two could have worked perfectly fine without that. If anything, it might’ve worked better? Toward the end, Shadow walks in on Rouge trying to steal all the Emeralds, and says she must be that government spy, Rouge the Bat… So, like, he knew there was a government spy named Rouge the Bat, but wasn't able to connect the dots until she literally betrayed the cause? That is so bizarre, and when you think about it, makes Eggman and Shadow’s alliance with her more questionable than it already was. Like OK, initially, they were forced to take Rouge aboard out of necessity, but once she’d informed them where the last Emerald was, why didn’t they dispose of her? She clearly cannot be trusted, and there’s bound to be a major conflict of interest regarding the Emeralds once all of them are acquired. Unfortunately, this conflict also gets ‘’resolved’’ in the worst way possible, because, when Shadow busts Rouge, Eggman calls him to stop Sonic from reaching the place… and he just leaves Rouge alone, essentially handing over the Emeralds to her… Except no, apparently she decides to leave them be, wasting her efforts across the entire campaign, because a few scenes later all the Emeralds are still in the console and Eggman inserts the last one… Uhm, excuse me? What? That’s such an arbitrary and lame victory for Eggman – it’s as if the writers just gave up here. It’s best not to ponder the details too much, really, because SA2 crumbles when you go down that road. On a fundamental level, there are some quirks to this plot; I mean, why did Eggman even go to the trouble of building the Death Egg before, when the ARK already exists? I guess he somehow never noticed this conspicuous Space Colony floating around, but then how is the teleporter inside his base taking him there? Additionally, now that a military unit like GUN has been established in this universe, where were they to stop Eggman in all the previous titles? You could rationalize it by saying Eggman was always ten steps ahead of GUN, but this screws up a core plot point as we move over to the Hero campaign. The Hero campaign famously starts with Sonic breaking out of a military helicopter and descending onto the streets of San Francisco. This is a classic and energetic opening, but at the same time it’s also bullshit. Basically, what’s happening is that the military is put on high alert after Eggman releases Shadow, and mistakenly arrests Sonic. Now, the most plausible explanation for how this could occur is that earlier concept designs for Shadow resemble Sonic far more closely than he does with his final design. This aspect of the script was never re-written, however, and so it makes the mistaken identity fiasco in the actual game rather awkward, especially when the media has clear shots of Shadow with his upwards spines, chest hair and different accessories, not to mention Shadow is black with red stripes instead of blue with a tan colored stomach and arms. The two look distinctly different in various aspects, and moreover, GUN is the organization that’s kept Shadow locked away – it's baffling. This drama is what fuels Sonic and Shadow's rivalry, as well, and for a while it just leads to them calling each other fake hedgehogs – riveting stuff. I do like how they seem to have built mutual respect for one another by the end of the campaigns, though, and have a proper duel in a race to the Eclipse Cannon. With that pay off, I could honestly let the setup of the military initially arresting Sonic slide, but then it gets stretched out over the first half of the entire Hero story. You see, Tails and Amy, catching wind of Sonic's predicament, break into his jail cell to free him, and this in turn causes all three of them to be wanted and hunted down by GUN. In fact, GUN is so vehement to capture them that they are pumping a massive amount of resources into weapons, are willing to obliterate the entire Golden Gate bridge, and are unapologetically destroying tons of people’s properties. Sure, breaking into jail cells and damaging military equipment is a criminal offense, but it’s GUN’s own conduct that got everybody involved in this mess. They should’ve given it a rest already, because they know Sonic and Tails are the ones who have been saving the world over and over and over and over; GUN, meanwhile, has never achieved a damn thing in that regard. It doesn’t help at all that, in SA2 itself, it once again comes down to Sonic and friends to stop Eggman, while GUN is sucking on their thumbs in the background or something. The lack of self awareness is astounding. The good news is, the second half of the Hero story is less dumb, with the boys and girl having finally outrun the military, and infiltrating Eggman’s secret base in Egypt to make their way to the ARK. Once there, you get a nice example of the two campaigns filling in each other’s blanks: Tails engineered a fake Chaos Emerald that, when inserted into the Eclipse Cannon, will cause the device to blow up. This is context you’re missing if you’re playing the Dark story first; you know there is a fake Emerald, but not exactly for what purpose. Inversely, if you played the Hero story first, you wouldn’t know how Eggman already knew about the fake Emerald. Neither of these details are needed to understand the other side of the story, but together they create a holistic picture of the situation. Similarly, if you played the Dark story first and find out Sonic is still alive at the end, the Hero story reveals how: when Sonic gets ejected into space, he uses the fake Emerald to Chaos Control himself out of there. This is actually a cool moment, I think, because it challenges Sonic in a new way; after all, he’s never used Chaos Control before, but at the same time he is no stranger to the Emeralds. When he’s on the brink of death, then, he puts all his focus and efforts into initiating the technique he witnessed from Shadow, and manages to pull it off – and we see afterwards that it took a hell of a lot out of him. It’s a really suspenseful event with a genuinely clever outcome, although I will say the implications of this for the series going forward kinda bother me. Shadow being able to use Chaos Control is one thing, but now Sonic has also learned how to perform it, and… Well, spoiler alert: future entries basically ignore this, because it's really hard to tell a story involving the Chaos Emeralds otherwise. Anyway, that gripe of mine aside, what further elevates this cutscene is how perfectly it encapsulates Sonic’s personality. He enters the room all lively with cocky banter to tease Eggman, thinking he’s got the upper hand, but as soon as he gets locked up he drops the attitude. Believing he has lost in that moment, Sonic gives Tails his final words of faith and encouragement, tells Amy to take care of herself, and goes out like a champ. It is this balance of generally being snarky and free spirited, but also taking things seriously when appropriate, that makes Sonic a great character. And bouncing off of the Tails bit, that is the culmination of how far he has come as a character, too. In SA1, Tails was rather fearsome by himself and slowly learned to believe more in himself, but in SA2 he full-on breaks into Prison Island to save Sonic, and is the main brain behind the heroes’ operation of foiling Eggman's plan. To see him stand tall against and take on Eggman to avenge Sonic’s supposed death feels like the final step of the arc he’s been undergoing for two games now. Really, I think it’s fair to say this is the best scene in the game. The only thing that hurts it slightly is that it’s built on how terribly Amy is handled in the story. From the beginning, her inclusion is incredibly arbitrary – through inexplicable means she managed to reach Prison Island by herself to rescue Sonic, when it’s located in the middle of the fucking ocean – and from there she constantly gets ditched as some kind of recurring gag, I guess. She proves herself to be more of a liability than anything, but then Sonic and Tails still decide it’s a smart idea to bring Amy with them to the ARK… Where they leave her behind again… Which then results in her being caught by Eggman. After her little adventure in SA1, this is kind of insulting. To be fair, we shouldn’t pin all of the blame on Sonic and Tails; it’s partially Knuckles’ fault too, because he’s probably the one who took Amy with him to Eggman’s base in the first place. Insert joke here how I almost forgot Knuckles is in this game, which I didn't really, but it does make for a great segue, because I've got a bone to pick with his integration also. For most of the story he is off on his own, hunting for the scattered pieces of the Master Emerald after he shattered the thing to prevent it from being stolen by Rouge and Eggman – which Eggman seems to have completely forgotten about for the remainder of the game, by the way. It kinda irks me that Knuckles is the guardian of the Master Emerald when he’s so miserable at his job, because it means his purpose in this story is a retread from the last game. He does have far fewer cutscenes as a result, so there is that, but whenever you pivot away from Sonic and Tails to Knuckles, it’s like everything's being put on pause and it can be disruptive to the flow and pacing. The best example of that is when Sonic receives the call from Tails that Eggman is holding Amy at gunpoint, and then the game cuts to a totally unrelated Knuckles stage that, according to the countdown timer, takes place well before Tails’ call to Sonic. I’m aware, creating suspense with plot switcheroos like this is nothing abnormal, and you could argue Knuckles' isolation from the rest reflects his personality, but none of that negates how uneventful most of his business is, and that it doesn’t tie into the game’s central conflict. The only exception, really, is when he finds the keys to get the group into the center of Eggman’s base. I’m glad at least, though, that this does allow for nuggets of interaction between Sonic and Knuckles, showing that Knuckles has become a little more chill and level headed since SA1, and his dynamic with Sonic has developed more toward proper buddies than… tolerating each other as they did in SA1. We’re seeing some growth for the man, and after Rouge has been an endless pain in his neck, Knuckles is still courteous enough to rescue her when she is ‘’falling to her death’’. It reinforces that he doesn’t really want to harm anyone; he simply has tunnel vision when it comes to protecting the Master Emerald, and can be painfully naive. Even still in SA2, he seems oblivious to the fact Rouge is attracted to him – it’s almost adorable. The way Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are portrayed is easily my favorite part about the Hero story, and their friendship and how they have each other’s backs is an interesting juxtaposition with the Dark team. Shadow and Rouge do develop some kind of connection over time, but it’s not on the same level, and I don’t think Eggman actually cares about them whatsoever – he just views them as a means to an end. It’s another factor that sets the two campaigns apart from each other, which I really appreciate. As you might expect, however, two campaigns isn’t where this party stops: after finishing both, you unlock the Last, conclusive segment. Now, how this comes together canonically is kind of up to interpretation, because Tails wins from Eggman on the Hero side and vice versa, and the same applies between Sonic and Shadow. Either way, the plot thickens when Eggman finally puts the legit, seventh Emerald into the Eclipse Cannon. In a twist, the cannon doesn't fire at all; instead the entire ARK gets set on a collision course to Earth, and a video recording plays where Gerald Robotnik is about to be executed. Why is that? Well, Gerald's diary reveals that, 50 years ago, the military feared the development of Project Shadow and raided the ARK. During this invasion, Gerald was arrested and imprisoned back down on Earth, and reports stated that many of his colleagues on the Colony, and even his granddaughter Maria, were killed by GUN. Struck with grief and loss, Gerald desired to avenge those close to him and wipe out all of humanity. This is the moment the plot got lost on me – and who am I kidding: a ton of people. Seriously, the more you learn about GUN the more you start to question them. First they fund Gerald's research, because it was intended to benefit mankind; at some point they believe the experiments are becoming dangerous, however, which… fine, but they then decide their best course of action is to carry out the most extreme act imaginable? Like, Christ, was it necessary to shoot down so many innocents to capture Shadow? The game gives no insight into whether GUN negotiated with Gerald or issued a warning or anything either, so I’m missing rationale and development here to justify such an insane order. Taking that for what it is, though, this opens quite the rabbit hole. We’re going to assume that Gerald was able to resume his research for at least some time after the ARK was invaded, because it would’ve been physically impossible for him to alter Shadow’s mind to carry out revenge otherwise, and all the scientific jargon on the walls in his prison cell lends further credence to this idea. From there, it seems implied that Shadow programmed the crash course function into the ARK or this entire setup would implode on itself, but this begs the question: if GUN feared Shadow so much, why did they still let Gerald work on him? Did they want Shadow for themselves and take the credit or some shit? If so, such a motivation is never explored, and GUN would be putting an awful lot of trust into someone they’ve caged in like an animal, not to mention they killed his friends and a loved one. They also must’ve read Gerald’s diary that details his revenge plan, and evidently not a soul within GUN seems to have the technical know-how to reprogram Shadow, so what were they hoping to achieve by keeping him around? It seems like a needless security risk, especially when Gerald’s grandson, Eggman, has always been ten steps ahead of GUN. Heck, how did Eggman even get a hold of this diary full of dangerous, secret sauce, anyway? Yet another major GUN blunder we can add to the list. Somehow the world’s leading safety and security organization has made the worst decisions that run counterintuitive to their goal over the duration of 50 years, and their idiocy continues into the present events of the game. Everybody makes mistakes, but GUN borders on parody on how inept and irrational world leaders are – they are probably the worst component of this story. Ah well, poorly written background aside, the urgency of the ARK crashing down to Earth, and the Hero and Dark sides combining their efforts to stop it, is undeniably a rush. Even Eggman, who greatly admires his grandfather's scheme, is forced to cooperate with Sonic and co, because it's also his own life now that's on the line. In that sense, the setup of this Last story is a significant improvement over SA1's. The one in SA1 was disappointing, because it only had a single boss to fight – no levels at all – and nobody besides Sonic contributed anything, neither in story nor gameplay. In SA2, you get a multi-segmented stage where you cycle between five of the characters to reach the core of the ARK, and after that you face off against Shadow's prototype, the Biolizard, as Shadow himself; as a result, the existence of this Last story segment feels earned. But, I can hear the uninformed thinking, what could possibly make Shadow want to save the planet all of a sudden? That's a bit of doozy. So, as Amy is wandering around the ARK, she runs into Shadow, who seems content now that he's about to fulfill his promise to Maria. Amy gives a sweet and kind hearted speech that gets through to Shadow so much, however, that it restores his memory of Maria's true wish: to serve and benefit mankind – the opposite of what he’s believed the entire game. This feels like an anti-climax. Memory loss is a complex thing and we never see Shadow wrestling with doubts that he might be misremembering Maria's last words. Rouge vaguely alludes to the possibility in an earlier scene, and Shadow did rescue Rouge from Prison Island, but in spite of that he’s always carried on business as normal without a hint of reflection or hesitation. It's quite a happy accident, then, that one brief interaction with a stranger at the last second is what it took for a one-eighty. Don't get me wrong, it's natural that Shadow could eventually come to this conclusion, but the road to that conclusion would have benefited from more fleshing out. It's also completely transparent at this point that Amy being brought along to the ARK is purely for plot conveniences and nothing more. Contrivances appear to come in spades in the Last story, though. Fast forward to the ARK's core, and Sonic and Knuckles make their way to the altar where they neutralize the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Knuckles uses the Master Emerald to do so by reciting the quotes from Tikal in SA1 to seal Chaos – which is a pretty neat throwback and detail – and by extension, Knuckles' antics in the Hero campaign finally have some relevance to the main story. Now, with the Chaos Emeralds neutralized, that should put a halt to the impending doom… Except, the Biolizard uses Chaos Control to merge itself with the ARK and keep it on its collision course. This feels so cheap; you’ve just disabled the power source that fueled the collision course, but then the game casually pulls out of its ass that the Biolizard can Chaos Control without any Emeralds. Yeah yeah, the Biolizard has a special organ that gives it the ability to do so, but this information is tucked away so obtusely that 99.9% of players would never find it. Why even bother conceiving an explanation in that case? It’s a flimsy explanation, anyway, because Shadow, a more advanced revision of the Ultimate Life Form, does need an Emerald to Chaos Control. Of course, that’s how it had to be, because Sonic wouldn’t think to replicate the move to escape the pod if Shadow never demonstrated it to him with an Emerald – you’re not pulling the wool over my eyes, fellas. I’m also puzzled how the Biolizard shows up here to begin with. Did GUN just leave it to rot aboard the ARK for 50 years? How is it even programmed to annihilate the planet if Gerald was imprisoned? This wasn’t Shadow’s doing either, since he is sincerely caught off guard when the Biolizard performs Chaos Control without an Emerald. It’s a shame the execution of these beats in the Last story is so sloppy, because Shadow joining the good fight after all, and confronting an abandoned prototype of himself, are both exciting prospects. SA2 debatably has the most fondly remembered finale of any Sonic game, as well, and for good reason. True to Sonic’s character, he shows his willingness to forgive a former enemy again, partnering up with Shadow, and together they transform into their Super forms to fight the Biolizard with the Space Colony jammed far up its anus, in the middle of space. It’s an amazing set piece: the characters that have been so at odds with each other are now cheering on Sonic and Shadow as everybody is on the verge of total obliteration, Live & Learn is blasting into your eardrums all the while, and it perfectly exemplifies the kind of energy and spectacle that fans adore so much about this franchise. Equally remarkable is how, after such a hype battle, the game transitions to an emotional aftermath. As Sonic and Shadow defeat the Biolizard, Shadow regrettably doesn’t manage to stay in his Super form long enough to return himself to safety, and presumably dies in a fall to Earth. He sacrificed himself with his promise to Maria fulfilled – his story is complete – and when Sonic makes it back to the ARK, he delivers the bad news to the rest of the crew. What follows is a credits scene where the characters solemnly reflect on Shadow, as well as the journey they’ve all been through. For a moment they stand together in peace, with Eggman’s dialog sticking out to me in particular, as he seems hurt that his own grandfather, whom he looked up to as a child, was willing to kill him if it meant getting his revenge. That’s a vulnerable side of Eggman we’ve never seen before. And then, as the gang goes home, Sonic salutes Shadow for his heroic deed in an ending shot that still gives me chills a bit to this day. Man, what a wild ride. If there’s one thing you cannot. take away from SA2, it’s that it really tried to tell an in-depth story here. You'd be a fool to deny how passionate Sonic Team was about it – even more so than with SA1. I think that’s a huge reason why a lot of fans love the narrative in SA2, especially when you take into account how simplified the series would become in this regard over the next two decades. Also, I can see how this game could captivate the type of person who likes to craft and discuss theories, and read supplemental works to gain a better understanding of the details and lore. From those perspectives, it’s easy to understand why one would be more willing to let the flaws and shortcomings slide, and just admire such a bold story for what it gets right. Nevertheless, with the amount of effort put in and all the layers going on, I also think it deserves the scrutiny I’ve been applying. Most of my critiques I'm confident people will have answers to – and if these answers enhance people’s enjoyment of the narrative, more power to 'em – but I simply don't believe SA2 was meant to be this taxing work of fiction where the audience has to piece together a bunch of ambiguous spaghetti, and think critically with their own interpretations, in order to fill in the gaps and understand the writers’ intentions. Instead, the finesse simply isn't there, and that's where the detractors and their grievances come from. Ultimately, I do find SA2's story to be more entertaining than SA1's, given that it's more focused from moment to moment, but whenever I try to appreciate the plot and writing on a deeper level it does my opinion of them more harm than good. Admittedly, though, a contributing factor toward my preference for SA2’s story is the presentation of the cutscenes. The animation is heaps and bounds better than last time around with proper facial expressions, and specific acting choices in every cinematic. The range of animation is much greater, so it actually feels, more or less, like you’re watching characters, rather than computer models cycling through janky, one-size-fits-all presets. That said, to deal with this increased workload, the developers relied on motion capture techniques for SA2, and it's obvious that the data wasn't fine tuned by hand enough: body movements are reminiscent of humans in a costume more so than anthropomorphic cartoon characters, and facial expressions still come across somewhat uncanny and muppet-like. As such, the animation altogether hasn’t necessarily aged well, but it's watchable and decent for the time. I’d say the voice acting is competently done, too. You’ll certainly hear the odd line deliveries that could’ve used another take, and I tend to get the impression that the actors don’t fully know the context of the scenes they’re voicing and how their colleagues are gonna sound. However, when you isolate the individual performances, I think the actors do a fine job and suit their characters. The worst performance and voice is definitely Tails again; the kid actor thing just isn’t working, and he can be painfully devoid of emotion in critical moments… But since that’s only one character out of six that I actively dislike, I’m not about to lose sleep over it. Still, the voice acting itself is only one half of re-dubbing a medium; how well the dialog matches with the mouth flaps is the other half, and SA2 drops the ball on this front. In the worst instances, the character’s body language feels totally disconnected from their voice delivery… And the English dialog can be too long, leading to characters interrupting each other, and awkward cuts. What exacerbates this issue is that the cutscene editing and direction in general feels hasty. On one hand, I’ll take it over SA1’s plodding tempo, but on the other it leaves little room for things to breathe and the player to absorb what’s happening sometimes. The moment Amy convinces Shadow to help everyone is the perfect example. You see what I mean? It’s like the game is turbo charged to go through and jump between story beats as quickly as possible. Despite the improvements to SA2’s cutscenes, then, it remains difficult for me to get immersed in them, and rather than address any of it, the Battle port only breaks certain things further. Most infamously, while the audio mixing already leaves something to be desired on Dreamcast, it’s pretty abysmal on GameCube. Dialog frequently gets drowned out by the loudness of the music and sound effects, which is just inexcusable when Sonic Team has had the opportunity to figure this shit out since SA1 – instead, it's only gotten worse. To add insult to injury, the cutscene music itself consists of a lot of repeated material that often cuts off poorly yet again. It's not as offensive as in SA1, no, but it's a disappointing compromise regardless when you factor in how well produced and meaty the rest of the soundtrack is. Listen, all the split opinions on SA2 may spiral us into World War III at some point, but I think most folks can agree that the music is pretty tight. The game is just full of bangers and sports some of the most beloved and iconic songs in all of Sonic, and the score as a whole stands out for the theming it's got going on in relation to the characters. You see, all six of them are defined a bit by their own sound or genre entirely: Sonic boasts high-energy and courageous rock… Knuckles’ stages feature hip-hop and rap… Rouge has smooth jazz pieces with female vocals… And Shadow is most associated with brooding techno. Oddly enough, though, some of Shadow’s music is rock akin to Sonic’s, which leads me to my main complaint with SA2’s soundtrack: the oversaturation of rock. Tails is set apart somewhat from Sonic with synthesized leads… And Eggman’s tracks are more grungy with thick percussion… But these differences are more subtle. In addition, most of the boss themes, all of Cannon’s Core, and much of the menu music are rock oriented, as well, so you’ll be hearing the electric guitar by the buttloads throughout this game. I like the character aspect of SA2 – I really do – but if Tails and Eggman had more of a distinct style, it wouldn’t have come at the detriment of variety in genres and instrumentation. With that in mind, I think I do prefer SA1's soundtrack. By the same token, I also prefer the overall aesthetic of SA1. The use of color in SA2 has always felt kind of bland to me. There's lots of grey, shades of brown, and many of the environments lack a sense of pop. Green Forest is a prime culprit for what I mean; true to its name, everything is coated in green, from the tubes to the platforms to the trees, and even the water has sort of a green tint – there’s barely any contrast on the screen. That’s not to say every stage looks as dull as Green Forest, but I don’t really find any of them in this game to be visually striking. I realize that's very subjective, but the emphasis on more realistic cities, military infrastructures and buildings, a bunch of space settings in and around the ARK – I suppose it all fits the tone and themes of the story, but there’s just not that much variety, and I miss the art direction from the previous games. The levels also feel pretty modular, if that makes sense; like they’re made up of a bunch of reusable assets in a video game plane. SA1 has areas like this, as well – Windy Valley being an obvious example – but in SA2 that’s almost every area. This difference is partially explained by the increase from 11 stages in SA1 to 31 stages in SA2, but you can effectively cut the number of actual Zones, as it were, in half, because most of them show up in both campaigns – think of it like Act 1 and 2. I’m fine with that approach, frankly, but stages can already look monotonous and funnel you through similar hallways, tubes, and what have you, and at times chunks of geometry and layout are literally copy-pasted between the two Acts. Since those 11 stages in SA1 are composed of multiple Acts, as well, I’m just saying SA2 isn’t drastically larger in scale, if at all. Despite that, the draw distance is a bit rough with no rendering fog and constant, unmissable object pop-in, and considering how linear the stages are that’s not very flattering by 2001 standards. It’s more understandable for the explorative treasure hunting sandboxes, but a level-of-detail system could’ve gone a long way there, too. To be fair, it's more so the Battle port that leaves much of the GameCube's additional horsepower untapped, only slightly extending the draw distance, and upping the polygon count a bit for character models. For the Dreamcast, SA2 is actually a technically accomplished release otherwise with gorgeous lighting and razor sharp textures. It also manages to run at a near flawless 60 frames per second, and after the performance issues of SA1 and even DX, smooth gameplay is definitely an upgrade. Speaking of gameplay, it's high time we get to that, isn't it? Keeping in line with the game's streamlined structure, it's worth noting, for starters, that hub worlds have been axed in SA2. This may be a bummer to you if you enjoyed the world building they provided in SA1, but functionally they didn't serve a whole lot of purpose, and finding the way forward was sometimes a time consuming hassle. Going from stage to stage in SA2 keeps the pace up and ensures nobody gets stumped on some arbitrary progression gate. Since both teams are made up of three characters, the number of gameplay styles has also been trimmed down from six to three, giving the developers more focus to refine and expand upon the ones that have made a comeback – doubly so now that characters have received their own dedicated stages, as well. Unsurprisingly, the returning gameplay styles happen to be the ones an intelligent design analyst like me would rank in the top 3 in SA1, so things are looking promising for the sequel. Self explanatory, Sonic’s high-speed platforming from SA1 had to make its return, and in many ways it’s what we’ve come to know and love. The basic handling has been tweaked a bit – notably, the Spin Dash is not as spammable anymore – but for all intents and purposes, the controls are as terrific as they were before. A mechanical refinement has been made, however, in that the Light Dash is now instantaneous – much needed after SA1 required you to stand still and charge up – which is a refinement made in service of stages that, more than ever, don’t waste any of the player’s time. You know what I’m talking about, right? As far back as the 16-bit Sonic titles, there would be segments that forced you to slow down and play the waiting game, regardless of your skill and knowledge, and even when you think back to SA1 you can identify a couple of standout moments like this in Sonic’s campaign. In SA2, there is none of this ‘’come on, get a move on’’ stuff; the absolute most you can point to is that perplexing diversion in Pyramid Cave where you need to carry this key to a hole to open a door, but even still you can stay on the move while holding it. Past this, every level for Sonic and Shadow, from start to finish, cuts the nonsense and is laser focused; even the integration of little mini games as seen in SA1, such as the slot machine in Casinopolis or the go karting in Twinkle Park, was left behind. This results in a consistently solid set of stages where I’m always down to play any of them, and truly can achieve a continuous, unhindered flow of forward movement throughout. Naturally, speedrunning is a blast because of it, and shortcuts in the stages are here and accounted for to further support that. I'd wager there's less of them than in SA1 – partially because of the less powerful Spin Dash – but you've still got opportunities to Spin Dash jump over gaps, and skip chunks of stages with skillful and cheeky play. Final Rush and Sky Rail are the pinnacle in this regard, with multiple instances where the momentum from grinding and jumping at the right time can launch you high up or far away and toward later sections; but I'm also thinking of segments like in Radical Highway, where you can propel yourself between these loops, and reach a hidden spring that lets your grind across the central bridge in full. And yeah, even many of the scripted loops can be cut short by jumping out of them correctly; I like that, since it allows you to maintain more control and save time in doing so. On a first playthrough you won’t do that, obviously, but I think the moments of automation shouldn’t be too bothersome then, anyway. The thrill of going fast is a major signature of Sonic games, and in SA2 everybody gets to relish in that from time to time without needing to be all that good. Many stages have their own form of spectacle, as well, to prevent them from blending together: from the GUN truck chase in City Escape, to the anti-gravity mechanic in Crazy Gadget that puts you on the ceiling and walls; and from rushing to grab onto a space missile in Metal Harbor before it launches, to the series staple grind rails, making their debut in SA2, found in a handful of levels. These add visual flare with a wicked sense of speed against various backdrops, and whenever they’re used you’ll often find the most diverging pathways and secret item boxes. Contrary to popular belief, the Speed stages in SA2 actually do have a surprising amount of nooks and crannies and hidden goodies to find, so keeping an eye out and experimenting with the terrain is definitely still rewarded. Again, maybe there isn’t quite as much of it as in SA1, but if you ask me it’s splitting hairs; there is far more than I could show off to you unless I padded out this part of the video with all the examples I have. Overall, I don’t even believe the level design is decidedly more linear than it was in SA1; rather, it appears more narrow and repetitive, which can be attributed to SA2’s visual compromises I was talking about a few minutes ago. Many of the levels in SA1 really did have a great sense of scale and progression, with unique and identifiable set pieces at almost every corner, making them more impressive locals to explore and speed through. Some of the individual Acts within a stage also were indeed more open ended in order to accommodate Knuckles’ treasure hunting gameplay, which SA2 didn’t have to do. They were a nice change of pace, though, and SA2 certainly pushes the player more so to go fast at all times; cemented by the increase in boost pads and such. This isn’t inherently good or bad, but it might partially explain, as well, how people perceive it to be more railroaded than SA1. For me, if I can put it succinctly, I think Sonic’s campaign in SA1 had the higher highs, but also the lower lows. There’s nothing in SA2 that I love as much as Speed Highway or Red Mountain, but there’s nothing as overambitious and botched as Sky Deck, and as I said I appreciate how action packed and uninterrupted all the stages here are. Ultimately, while there are differences and everybody’s going to have their preferences, these stages are comparable enough that, if you enjoyed them in SA1, you’ll probably enjoy them in SA2 – it’s the best gameplay style in both titles. Which leads us to the alternate gameplay styles, starting with mech shooting with Tails and Eggman, based on E-102 Gamma from SA1. At a glance, this one seems improved quite a bit. One of the fundamental issues with Gamma’s gameplay was that the functionality of the classic Ring system meant that, barring falling into pits, it was virtually impossible to die, and the enemies were simplistic badniks lifted straight from the platforming campaigns. SA2 addresses this by introducing a health meter, which is slowly replenished by picking up Rings, plus enemies come in larger numbers and are more aggressive, actively trying to shoot you down as you pass by. There is actually difficulty to speak of, which I’d argue is pretty important. Mind you, not all of this difficulty is of the fair type, as these stages suffer from some cheap enemy placement. I find Eggman’s levels to be less problematic in this regard, but as Tails you should be prepared for bullshit, be it military missiles striking you from the sky, or some cunt hitting you the split second a door opens. Fuck off. Developers who pull this kind of stunt often give me the impression they aren’t super confident in what they’re designing, and if that was the case here I can understand why, because these shooting stages are still undercooked despite the aforementioned changes. Firstly, enemy variety is subpar, with the same handful of GUN beetles and robots showing up throughout the game ad nauseam. There’s a brief respite with a monkey badnik in the desert areas and Artificial Chaos monsters in Eternal Engine and Cosmic Wall, but that’s about it, and I can’t help but notice that all these enemies are shared with the Speed stages. The two gameplay styles are different, so more specialized enemy design would be welcome. Similarly, your mechs themselves are limited to a single cannon/laser hybrid thing, and you never obtain any new weapons to experiment with. Combine these two factors and you have one of the most mechanically barebones third person shooters I’ve played. They also ditched the race against the clock mechanic from SA1, where you would rack up combos to prevent Gamma’s battery from running out – it’s weird. This timer was way too lenient, so in practice you could basically ignore it, but the concept was solid and I’m curious what SA2 could’ve done with it. The omission of this mechanic makes the auto scrolling segments, in particular, feel out of place. These are like shooting ranges with hordes of enemies that cannot hit you so you’re free to score big combos; however, since combos don’t keep you alive or power you up or something, you can safely drop the controller and have to wait before the stage progresses. Restricting movement and pace like this is not something I’m really a fan of as is, but if we need to have it at least give every player a worthwhile reason to be invested. It feels like padding, which these stages already have in spades. SA2's dejavú phenomenon I've talked about? It’s driven home with the mech gameplay: stages are composed of a lot of hallways and corridors that highlight how basic the shooting mechanics are, forcing you to perform the same actions that accomplish nothing more than creating a stop-and-go flow, again and again and again. Take the security gates in Iron Gate: what is so engaging about locking onto and releasing fire on the four corners of an inanimate object, that it justifies being repeated over a dozen times? It’s filler nontent; as are all the obtrusive stacks of boxes, the pillars that tip over when you destroy all the explosives attached to it, the abundance of doors you have to shoot three times to clear the path in Hidden Base, and so on and so forth. It’s only in Eternal Engine where all this mindless destruction of the environment finally gets a punchline: you can open windows that suck you into space and destroy platforms from underneath your feet. This is really cool, punishing inattentive and triggerhappy players with death; I just wish we saw creativity like this more often. Same applies to the platforming. Platforming is a recurring element in these levels, but really, Cannon’s Core is the only area that has an interesting gimmick: freezing moving blocks in place by hitting switches that stop the flow of time. This asks the player to observe the patterns of the blocks, and then time their hit on the switch in such a way that the blocks line up correctly for progression. It requires thought and precision compared to the rest of the mech platforming, which is very rudimentary. Cosmic Wall does have low gravity physics that allow you to jump and hover higher and further than normal, which is novel and feels neat, but I also would’ve liked to see the developers do a bit more with it than just making gaps between platforms longer and taller. I hesitate to reduce any platforming to ‘’just making jumps’’, but realistically that’s what much of it boils down to here. And where the Speed stages rightfully got rid of the need to ride and wait for slow moving platforms, in a couple of the Mech stages this type of shit does show up. I don’t think I need to explain why that sucks bully balls. On top of that, the walkers themselves feel heavy, and turning too sharply decreases your speed. Coming off of Gamma in SA1, who felt crisp to play as, this makes the innate act of running and jumping around feel a tad clunky in SA2. Thankfully, the problem of heavy jumps is alleviated once you gain the hover ability, and I'll say kudos to the hover ability in general. With dexterity and out of the box thinking, there are shortcuts you can take to hover past chunks of stages here and there, which is one of the most satisfying actions to pull off with the mechs. These glimmers of ingenuity show the potential of what could have been, but sadly they’re buried between a pile of mediocrity. Sure, there’s inherent fun to be had in blowing shit up, and if you ask me, SA2’s take on Gamma’s shooting is a step up for the increase in difficulty, but Gamma’s campaign was also much shorter. That’s the crux of the issue: we spend far more time with this gameplay style than in SA1, yet it’s not improved and substantive enough to really earn that. Alright, so what about the last gameplay style, the treasure hunting with Knuckles and Rouge, based on Knuckles’ gameplay from SA1? Hands down, these gotta be the most contentious segments in SA2, and I’m quite torn on them, myself. Let’s start with the positives, shall we? For SA1, I noted that the level design felt samey, lacking interesting complexities to work out, and that there wasn’t as much to the gameplay overall as I would’ve liked. Since SA2 has stages catered specifically toward each character that is now a complaint of the past. Wild Canyon and Dry Lagoon are relatively small with not a ton going on, but as the game progresses the areas get significantly larger and often sport some kind of gimmick. This can be as simple as flipping hourglasses to temporarily open doors in Death Chamber, or a security beetle surveilling you in Egg Quarters, but it can also be more elaborate. Aquatic Mine is where this is most apparent, taking inspiration from the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time with three tiers of water levels, influencing which rooms and corridors you can enter, and the actions you can perform. Security Hall is alike, featuring a bunch of color coded safes that are locked by default, which are opened by flicking the corresponding switch. It requires players to be observant of their surroundings and think critically, adding depth to the exploration. To coincide with this more intricate level design, taking Tikal’s place from the last game are these monitors that offer hints on where to find the next Emerald shard. Typically, a single clue will be too vague and directionless, but if not a second, then a third can certainly be helpful in nailing down a treasure location. In this example in Pumpkin Hill, the first hint is ‘’When you do something bad, this might happen…’’ which is pretty much useless, cryptically referring to ghosts popping out at tombstones, but the second hint is ‘’Church mountain’’, giving me a clearer idea of where to search. The third hint is ‘’A lonely tombstone at the bottom of the mountain’’, so, I see a mountain with a church on it in the distance, and get a blip on the radar when I fall down to the bottom. I circle around the mountain, find a lonely tombstone, and dig up the piece in front of it. Consider the fact there are roughly 100 possible spawns per stage, and it’s quite commendable how the developers designed the environments with defined landmarks, as well as a plethora of smaller setpieces and carefully planned out object arrangements, to then write so many hints around. It creates a lot of potential for replay value, and the more familiar you become with the ins and outs of the level layouts, the faster you’ll be able to plow through them and the less hints you’ll need. Getting around in stages is usually also efficient, thanks to rockets which shoot you high up and things of that nature, and Knuckles’ and Rouge’s speedy nature helps a ton too, plus their ability to climb and glide – they control excellently. It sounds like the treasure hunting in SA2 is a slam dunk, then, so what’s giving those darn noobs all this trouble? Well, it’s a multitude of factors that add up. An important one that might not even cross an experienced player’s mind is the inability to pan the camera up or down. SA1 found somewhat of a compromise for this by letting you go into a first person view using the D-pad, but SA2 removed that option for reasons I will never understand. Equally of note is that there was an opportunity to implement a more flexible camera system on the C-stick for the Battle port, but alas we didn’t get it. With how vertically tall and just plain big some of these stages are, this makes it more difficult for newcomers to find their bearings and identify points of interest effectively. The later stages in SA2 can also prove to be a spike in difficulty… for the wrong reasons. Death Chamber is a large, claustrophobic maze where much of it looks nearly identical. It’s split up by a bunch of hallways, upper floors, and side rooms, and you often have to run back and forth to the central area if you want to get from one end of the map to the other. Mad Space has a janky gravity gimmick that makes it a pain to traverse planets, and the level is overly spacious, causing it to be larger than necessary. You also have to locate specific switches and rockets to travel from landmark to landmark, which is not conducive to intuitive exploration, and as some sort of prank the hints here are reversed to misguide the player – a pointless annoyance in an already annoying stage. Most infamously, however, Security Hall has a five minute time limit, which feels rather harsh and artificial because it’s the only Hunting stage with any time pressure. Now, this wouldn’t be so bad, except the problem is compounded by the safe mechanic. As much as I enjoy this mechanic, it’s not communicated to the player very well, and the switches for them are tucked away on the topmost floor behind a single lever. Immediate clarity here was a must, and I don’t think the designers managed to provide that. In fact, communicating crucial information about the treasure hunting is something the game fumbles at, period. Primarily, it’s never explained that there are three hints per shard, and that they become less ambiguous with each. This functionality should be unmistakable, universal knowledge to anyone who plays, but it won’t be, and thus the narrative that the hints are trash is born. And this is pretty damning, because the most reliable and foolproof tool in your arsenal, the radar, has been nerfed to work in tandem with the hint system. Unlike the previous title, the radar in SA2 can only detect Emerald pieces sequentially, meaning if you’re close to a shard the monitors aren’t currently giving out clues for, you will not be alarmed. Genuinely, they should and could have found a way to make the hint system compatible with the old radar – maybe mark the monitors and user interface with numbers or something – because this newfound rigidity does not suit a play style about finding collectibles in a sandbox. This isn’t too offensive in the more compact levels, but you’re going to feel the impact in the bigger and tougher to navigate stages. That’s not desirable, and what also has the potential to add minutes to the clock are some of the dreadful Emerald spawns you can get if you’re unlucky. The footage on display speaks for itself how asinine it is to grab this little devil, but it can be asinine in a different sense, too, like how the side rooms you run past in Death Chamber don’t always register on the radar, because you are warped to a cube that technically exists somewhere else in the game’s virtual space – it’s brilliant. Of course, there’s always a possibility everything will be smooth sailing for you, but due to the element of randomness, the experience can vary wildly from person to person and playthrough to playthrough, in a way it simply cannot for the Speed and Mech gameplay. And anecdotal evidence suggests that players less familiar with the treasure hunting often aren’t riding so high on cloud nine, which includes my six-year-old self spending upwards of twenty minutes in one of the later areas. Even if you’re convinced the design isn’t at fault, however, and wanna chalk people's struggles up to "git gud", can you really blame them for not being proficient at something they may not even be that interested in to begin with, and for wanting to return to something they easily understood and enjoyed? This may be a tough pill to swallow for some, but judging these gameplay styles solely on their own merits will never be the end of the discussion. The treasure hunting has a fundamentally different rhythm than the Speed and Mech stages; those two are about as straightforward and accessible as they come, whereas in the former you take on the role of Sherlock Holmes, basically, and scour open ended playgrounds. No matter how you slice it, there is a unique learning curve there that one needs to get past, and the truth is it's a tall-ass order to make the player enjoy three different gameplay styles as is. Now, SA1 also has its quirks with multiple playstyles, but if you’ll recall I said near the beginning of the video that there is a clear downside to SA2’s streamlined structure. This downside is that we’ve lost the ability to pick and choose which characters we don’t want to touch – well, until everything is unlocked for the stage select, that is. This is one of the core arguments people present for SA1 over SA2, and honestly? It’s a pretty strong one. With the Dark story in particular, four of the 14 levels feature Shadow, which is a low ratio for what most consider to be the best and defining gameplay style. That's the thing: where in SA1 it’s clear most of the development went into Sonic and every character after didn't get as much attention, SA2 treats all three of its gameplay styles as equal. Whether that's for better or worse very much depends on your interpretation. There's a valid case to be made that Sonic's stages in SA1 were less compromised than SA2's Speed stages; Knuckles' hunting in SA1 had more primitive level design, a superior radar, and Tikal's generous guidance, thus more players could comfortably breeze through them; and if you don't really care about the shooting concept, at least as Gamma it was over before the monotony of it all had a chance to settle in. But of course, on the other side of the coin, this lack of length and depth for the non-Sonic characters could leave different people longing for more. This is a conflict rooted in many titles with multiple gameplay styles, and it's one of the main reasons why the idea of having them has largely fallen by the wayside after the late '90s and early 2000s. In that sense, SA1 and SA2 are products of their time. So, where do I sit with this? Well, I prefer SA2 over SA1, simply because I, personally, can pop in SA2, play through all of it, and generally have a fun time. By contrast, when I play through all of SA1, I cannot help but get bored and distracted with a lot of the content. For SA2, it’s only really the Kart stages where I can say that: the controls are surprisingly nice, but the track design is uninspired with long straights, few technical corners and bends to challenge your drifting prowess, and barely any obstacles to dodge. Still, with the karting only making up two levels, it is a miniscule part of the overall experience, and if it were more complex and challenging it could've ended up frustrating people – there's that dilemma again. Having said that, something might be on your mind right now: didn't I lambast the Mech gameplay for being mediocre? Wouldn't that interfere with my enjoyment of SA2 significantly? The answer: not quite, as I've intentionally been neglecting one of the game's core design principles. Let's see how many people comment that I missed it before finishing the video. OK, so where the series previously relied a lot on intrinsic value for players to get better and better, from SA2 onward there would also be an extrinsic motivator to do so with the ranking system: at the end of each stage, you are graded based on your final score, which is a total of all the points you’ve accumulated through the likes of collected extra lives and Rings, defeated enemies, and a time bonus that rewards you more handsomely the faster you reach the goal. Without hyperbole, this is the single greatest feature introduced in SA2, lending a sense of weight to all the exploration you do, and your ability to speed through levels so magnificently, that was absent in SA1 and even the Classics to some capacity. It’s huge for replayability, demanding players to master stages, as well as engage with each gameplay style’s mechanics to their fullest extent, in order to secure those coveted A ranks. In the Speed stages, you get extra points by defeating as many enemies as you can in a row without touching the ground, and there are also a bunch of stylish actions you can pull off, like chaining Light Dashes into grind rails, and, most predominantly, performing tricks off of ramps. Parts of levels that may have felt like spectacle over substance before now push you to be more active and reactionary; boarding down the hills in City Escape doesn’t present much of any depth, until you need to time jumps off of ramps at peak velocity to do the sickest tier of stunts and grab item boxes in the air. Overall, to maximize your score, it’s a balancing act between going fast, but not so fast that you neglect the other sources of points. Moving over to the Mech stages, it’s all about racking up big combos by locking onto and blowing up many targets simultaneously. Conceptually it’s still simple, but in execution it’s more dicey, because you only get a five second window to unleash fire – so there’s a risk-reward element there of squeezing in as much as possible before your laser fades out and you lose everything – and should you get hit, the combo gets interrupted instantly. By extension, the consequence for taking damage is larger than it’s ever been in a Sonic game; instead of spamming the fire button without a thought, you have to consider how and what you’re shooting; and those auto scrolling segments, while still stupid, at least give you something to focus on. Since there’s now a constant, real incentive to interact with and optimize your use of the combo mechanic, too, all the destruction you’re causing is also bound to trigger the pleasure centers of your brain more strongly – shit might as well be the equivalent of crack. If you ask me, of the three gameplay styles, the ranking system is easily the most transformative for this one. The least transformative, then, it is for the Hunting stages. The conditions for getting A ranks in those is to find each Emerald shard as quickly as possible, using as few hints as possible, to obtain larger bonuses. These conditions make sense, don't get me wrong, but overlap a lot with simply finishing as swiftly as you can, since the punishment for using hints isn't that severe; I mean, I get A ranks left and right while using a handful of hints across the three pieces. Who knows, perhaps I'm just extraordinarily fast to compensate, and it is still nice that there is a tangible reward for becoming more skilled and knowledgeable than the average player. The randomness of the spawns does potentially make the process more luck based, true, but someone who's perfected the controls and levels will be able to make do with any set. All told, it is remarkable how much mileage SA2 gets out of the ranking system, and how much it informs my opinion on the game. While some of the later entries in the series hand out the highest rank like candy, SA2 does the opposite. This taught me how to enjoy all three gameplay styles on their own terms, and plays an integral role in making SA2 so addictive and gratifying for many people. Nevertheless, it isn't some magic cure-all that excuses the game's shortcomings and problems we've gone over, because the first playthrough – or playthroughs – also matter. If someone finds the Mech stages painfully average because they aren't going for A ranks, and gets cockblocked by Hunting stages that drive them nuts, what exactly compels them to try again and dig deeper? Rather than zero in on offering everyone a fun, accessible challenge, it's as if the developers prioritized repeat players by focusing much of the design around the ranking system. I believe this to be the core of why SA2 is so divisive, and it explains, beyond nostalgia, how those who grew up with the game tend to speak more positively about it. This also manifests in a handle on the mechanics that help them mitigate all the jank present in this game. Much like its predecessor, SA2 isn’t the most polished, with shoddy collision detection that can have you clipping through the floor on occasion, and just killed in various unfair ways that are not the player’s responsibility. Rail switching is broken and you’ll overshoot unless some nebulous criteria decides you’re aligned well enough; many action commands for the Speed characters are inexplicably mapped to the same buttons, which is mighty finicky and can cause you to Bounce Bracelet into an abyss when you intend to Light Dash; and the Homing Attack can be unreliable until you’ve intuited its exact range and limitations. Even the camera can still have moments of malfunction, and while it generally does the job when staying on the forward path, it becomes your enemy when attempting to backtrack even a few steps, because it always snaps back to that forward path the split second you start moving. With the lack of vertical camera control, certain secrets also essentially require blind jumps to access, because the camera refuses to pan down as to not reveal them. Now, I’m not saying these shenanigans don’t trip up people who’ve poured countless hours into the game, but they are definitely more equipped to deal with it all than unsuspecting players. It’s an unfortunate barrier to the quest of obtaining A ranks, because you cannot afford to die and need to restart the stage every time you do. Assuming you can overcome that barrier, though, SA2 is filled to the brim with stuff to sink your teeth into in the form of extra missions to conquer on every stage, and these also rank you. The second missions, centered around Rings, return from SA1, albeit they’ve been tweaked; they now end as soon as you’ve amassed 100, which makes them shorter in a good way. I enjoy these for the Hunting gameplay; since those stages are sandboxes, you really have to put in work to find 100 Rings, and then on top of that plan a route that’s fast enough to net you the A rank. Due to the linearity of the Speed and Mech gameplay, however, racking up 100 Rings there quickly is mostly a matter of learning enemy placements and not taking damage – pretty underwhelming. The third missions are new to SA2: finding a lost Chao in the level. This encourages players to explore the stages with a fine-tooth comb, expanding their knowledge on the hidden areas in doing so, but what I don’t like is that you need a particular item for every character found in one of their stages, in order to be able to reach the Chao in the respective character’s stages. This isn’t hinted at by the game and feels pointlessly obtuse, which is doubly frustrating because missions on a level unlock sequentially. The fourth missions are brought back from SA1 again, where you have to beat a stage under a time limit, which is great across the board now because the checkpoints are removed, so it’s impossible to cheese these missions anymore. And finally, introduced in SA2, we have the fifth missions, making the player go through a harder version of a level. It’s a cool idea, but the quality of these remixes is a mixed bag: a stage like Crazy Gadget, for example, requires real finesse with the jumping controls and has a pretty clever puzzle involving a switch to access the Goal Ring, but some other levels have few meaningful changes, and feel more different for the sake of being different; to throw off muscle memory. Enemy and hazard placement sometimes leads to a fair but demanding test of reflexes, while other times it’s pure trial and error before you stop crashing into garbage out of nowhere. The Mech gameplay gets the worst of this sort of crap, with the already existing problem of cheap shots getting amplified. What an idiot I was for my inability to predict that. Now, the Hunting stages are interesting in that the Emerald pieces are placed in a fixed location. Some of these are legitimately tricky yet satisfying to find, but more often than not treasure is in an awkward spot, and you need to wear the Sunglasses to reveal a hidden spring or whatever to get to it. It’s a lame, obscure solution that the developers rely on a ridiculous amount, and the Sunglasses are not the most intuitive thing to find to begin with for both characters. Yeah, overall I’m not too ecstatic about the execution of SA2’s missions. They are better than in SA1, no doubt about it, and it’s rich to complain about such a breadth of optional content, but my main criticism is that getting all the Emblems is more exhausting and repetitive than need be. With the exception of Hard Mode, I’m convinced these extra objectives could’ve been integrated somehow to be doable in a single run through the stage. Like, why did Lost Chao need to be a standalone objective, and one that ranks you at that? Unless you already know where the Chao is your odds of getting an A rank are low, and many of these rascals are found late into the levels, stretching out play time by an awful amount for what, exactly? For fuck’s sake, even those Kart stages have extra missions. Admittedly, the third and fourth objectives are decently tough and tense, requiring you to clear the course without touching any cars or walls respectively, but collecting 100 Rings is a total joke since there are no enemies, and Hard Mode just lowers the time limits, which is a worthless stipulation after missions three and four. Again, what I’m getting at is that you have to play through these two stages four and a half times to clear all the challenges, when they ought to be doable simultaneously in a single run. For some reason, SA2 also felt it necessary to add a boss rush mode, which can take upwards of an hour to complete. It’s a chore, because, after doing the Hero and Dark sides, you need to do both of them combined, followed by the Last story bosses to close it out. As stated way back, the two sides share fights as well, so those ones you’ll have to put up with four times over, and if that’s not tiresome enough any dialog preceding encounters cannot be skipped. What were they thinking? The bosses in SA2 aren’t anything to write home about in the first place. The character battles are marginally less terrible than in SA1, but the camera jerks around all over the goddamn place, and the behavior of your opponents is still embarrassing. The only one that I ever die to, Tails vs. Eggman 2, is more like a war of attrition to survive, and even Sonic vs. Shadow 2, while it does involve running, is just a matter of baiting your counterpart into an attack and then punishing them on loop until they’re done. These battles do a disservice to the rivalry between these characters, for real. At least the remaining bosses are mostly functional, and typically can be defeated swiftly if you’re skilled. Big Foot and Hot Shot are slogs normally, but by jumping onto and off the crates quickly and landing hits you can be done in 30 seconds, and it’s awesome that you can kill King Boom Boo in a single cycle if you run and punch in just the right manner when the sunlight is revealed. This isn’t easy at all – I still regularly fail it – but even getting in two hits per cycle is sweet, because four rounds of this clown trying to scare and chase you feels like an eternity. I also gotta give credit to Egg Golem for how it’s altered between Sonic and Eggman: as the former, you need to outrun the Egg Golem’s arms and use the platforms on its back to get to its head, while the latter shoots the torso from the front to expose three weak spots. If you make the player face a boss twice, this is how you do it. Unfortunately, the Last story bosses can be actively maddening. The Biolizard encounter has two death gaps in the ground you can suddenly fall into as you’re running away from the behemoth due to the awkward camera, and during the phase where all these bubbles come up as a means to reach the life support system, said bubbles can snipe you out of the air while you are at the mercy of the Homing Attack. I remember getting stuck on the Biolizard for a while as a kid, which sucked because the fight is otherwise kinda dull with no way to speed it up. As for the Finalhazard, it’s serviceable enough, seeing you guide Super Sonic and Super Shadow through space while dodging lasers and bubbles. The hitbox on the swelling area is bugged, though, as sometimes you’ll ram into it and get denied for no discernable reason, and the lasers can be rather sporadic in addition, catching you from out of a corner right as you’re about to deal damage and sending you flying all the way back. Within the context of the story this may be an epic showdown, but on a mechanical level not so much. Honestly, that’s why I don’t agree with the inclusion of a boss rush mode, because played back to back in this fashion, it does the perception of the game’s bosses no favors. Having said that, what absolutely takes the cake for Emblem collecting tedium is the Chao Garden. Before y’all get out the pitchforks, let me preface by saying the Chao Garden in SA2 is wonderful; it’s beloved for a reason, and some people revisit the game purely for it. It can be very intricate and involved stuff with tons of properties and evolutions; as a kid I spent more time than I dare to admit raising Chao, to the point I had all three Gardens fully inhabited, and I was the proud owner of a few absolute beasts that decimated the competition in Chao Races and Chao Karate. The thing is, as an adult, I simply do not have the time or patience for this anymore, and if you’re like me that’s where your journey to 100% completion may conclude prematurely. Raising Chao to compete in the top classes is an enormous undertaking; over the course of obtaining all the main game Emblems, I came back after every stage to level up my Chao, and by the end it wasn’t close to sufficient. It’s frankly absurd, and I think it’s misguided to even tie certain Emblems to this. Aren’t medals and the toys you can win for your Chao ample rewards? Personally, I just downloaded fully maxed out Chao to save myself the production time on this video – not sorry. Of course, what I wasn’t prepared for is how many Chao Races there are. SA1 could have used more courses, I guess, but SA2 went waaay overboard. There are a handful of different categories now with multiple races therein, which seems harmless on the surface, but there is an agonizing amount of recycling going on, and you have to painstakingly beat each class on every course in the Beginner and Jewel categories. This is already annoying in the former with three classes per course, but then you reach the latter and… Oh, dear God. Five classes? Are you outta your mind? Why can’t I just take on the highest class right away and move on? I hate when games do shit like this, y’know that? All told, it took me two and a half hours to go through it all, and that with a fully maxed Chao. Let that sink in – it’s far too long for what’s essentially a passive watch. Mercifully, Chao Karate is a lot more conservative in scope with four Tournaments consisting of five matches each. It’s hardly interactive, either, so that’s a let down, but it’s much easier to stomach, especially when you own the Chao equivalent of Gene from God Hand. Not gonna lie, now I really wanna see Chao spankin’ booty like that. But finally, once you’re done with all the above, the grand total of 180 Emblems is all yours, and to acknowledge the accomplishment of this gigantic task, the game unlocks a full 3D reimagination of Green Hill Zone - Act 1 from the original Sonic 1 on the Genesis. It comes complete with the level design that's burnt into our brains, recreated badniks, and classic sound effects and everything. Unlike today where Green Hill cameos run rampant, this was a delightful pay off and throwback considering how far the series had advanced at that point, and it was a fitting way to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. Yeah, Sonic Adventure 2 certainly had a lot riding on it when it was being developed, didn’t it? That while Sega as a company was in dire straits, and nobody knew for sure what the future had in store for their IPs, including Sonic. It must’ve been a stressful period; to create a product that meets expectations amidst the turmoil, and as we know it didn’t hit the mark for everybody. The game has demonstrable cut corners and is flawed in many respects, so if you don’t jive with most of the individual parts, it’s going to be an uphill battle to appreciate the experience as a whole for something that’s greater than the sum of its parts. You’re not malicious or nitpicky if you express a negative opinion on SA2, trust me on that. At the same time, the proof is in the pudding that the game was also a success by many accounts, since plenty of people still hold it in high regard. From the ambitious attempt at telling an intricate story, to that defining, early 2000s music and energy; from the ranking system that keeps pushing you to improve your performance, to the secondary forms of content like the Chao Garden and a fairly robust multiplayer that I can’t be bothered to talk about – there are well founded reasons to get a kick out of SA2, and if you’re part of that camp you’ll naturally be more able to appreciate the experience as a whole for something that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Couple that with the powerful nostalgic value it holds for a generation and you have a one-of-a-kind concoction, cementing a legacy that is nearly unparalleled within the franchise. Hey, thank you so much for watching and making it through this video! My throat hurts. You seem to enjoy my content if you made it this far, so consider dropping me a Super Thanks below or pledging on Patreon? I have one universal tier of $1 Per Video – not Per Month, so no charge without content – and your contributions really help support me and the channel. Of course, no one’s obliged, and I hope to see you all next time either way. Take care.

Channel: Retropolis Zone

Views: 54,647

Keywords: Sonic, Adventure, the, Hedgehog, Two, Dreamcast, Sega, GameCube, Nintendo, Team, 2001, 2002, Divisive, Polarizing, Split, Opinion, Miles, Tails, Prower, Knuckles, Echidna, Shadow, Rouge, Bat, Eggman, Robotnik, Gerald, Retrospective, Critique, Review, Analysis, PS3, PlayStation, Sony, Xbox, 360, Microsoft, PC, Steam, Windows, Speed, Mech, Hunt, Emerald, Chaos, Biolizard, Chao, Garden, GUN, Story, Narrative, Military, Amy, Rose, Platformer, Action, Shooting, Exploration, Fast, Running, Blue, Genesis, Mega, Drive, Battle, 10th, Anniversary, Ten, Stop, Nosing, My, Tags

Id: VhTLOu2pBWw

Length: 79min 46sec (4786 seconds)

Published: Fri May 27 2022