Why Adventure 2 Is My Favorite Sonic Game

to this day i still think sonic adventure is a really good game the game is not perfect but i think that the game is still probably the best translation of the classic formula into 3d we've ever seen sonic adventure is also an essential game for anyone collecting dreamcast titles as was a launch title for this system and an impressive display of hardware capabilities however as good of a console as the dreamcast was it ultimately could not save sega from the hole they dug themselves in the years prior to the dreamcast's release for more info on that i'd say you should be watching my previous sonic videos but for now let's get to the game of today sonic adventure 2 released for the sega dreamcast in 2001. the 10th anniversary of sonic the hedgehog and it being the first sonic game to brand itself as such although i do like to look at 3d blast as the 5th anniversary game as it came out in 96 and was the final sonic game for the genesis his console of origin and the first game to come out next generation hardware by the time of psychometry 2 is released the dreamcast was well beyond saving as the playstation 2 the greatest game console of all time if you ask me just released the previous holiday season with an admittedly weak launch lineup but with a ridiculous amount of great instantly iconic games coming out in the holiday season of 2001 such as jack and daxter devil may cry and metal gear solid 2 and the list goes on but if the dreamcast was going to go out they wanted to go out with a bang and that's how we got sonic adventure 2. this is it this is the game that currently sits as my favorite sonic game of all time one of my favorites of all time 10 years worth of games and stories have led up to this one the most action-packed replayable sonic game released yet the final sonic interview exclusively released on a sega console as the dreamcast got discontinued after this game was released however that's not the end of the story for sonic adventure 2. it was the last sonic game for a sega console but it was also the first sonic and released on the competing consoles as later in 2001 history was made sonic debuted on nintendo for the first time with the release of the enhanced port sonic adventure 2 battle with a nintendo gamecube and we also saw sonic advance hit the game boy advance for more classic side-scrolling sonic action sonic adventure 2 really was a pivotal moment in the franchise's history i'd say even more than the first sonic adventure was for many sonic adventure 2 was the end of an era but for others sonic manager 2 battle marks the beginning of another as a new generation of players could experience this game on their gamecubes or just people who never owned a sega console before could finally own a sonic game and see what it was all about as well as checking out the rest of the series as the gamecube also saw the release of the sonic mega collection with sonic 1 2 3 and knuckles on it sonic cd and some other obscure games hit the gems collection sonic adventure came to the gamecube with sonic adventure dx director's cut and all sonic games going forward would be available on almost every single console as sega was now just a software manufacturer and sonic adventure 2 is an integral part of that story regardless of what aspect of it you're talking about this hasn't always been my favorite sonic game but my story with this entry in the sonic franchise is honestly worth diving in too much later in the video so it's now been established that sonic adventure 2 was not only the swan song of the sega dreamcast not only did it mark the 10th anniversary of the most important gaming icon of the 90s but it also had to impress new fans the battle port as well as stacking up to sonic adventure 1 and all the great games that came before that's a heavy burden to carry but the cat's out of the bag song adventure 2 is my favorite sonic game of all time and we're here to see how it lived up to its potential its namesake and then some this is my review of sonic adventure 2. [Music] file select this is merely how i feel less than any quantifiable information but it seems to me that discussion surrounding sonic adventure 2 is more divisive than adventure 1. like i think most people can agree that sa1 has noticeably aged whether you think that detracts from the overall quality is the real discussion here with this game it's a debate as to whether or not this game has aged poorly at all and then if you do concede to that notion how much does the game suffer from age with sonic adventure 1 once i played the game for the video i had a pretty solid idea of where i wanted to take the video as i've been planning this retrospective for over a year now so talking points and moments i wanted to execute have been set for a while but the connecting dots is the work that needs to be done now with adventure 2 there are a couple of things pressuring me here first i want to do this game justice obviously but secondly i feel like my perspective on this game has already been well documented so making a video that's worth your time and enjoyable to watch is another challenge but like always i'm going to try my best and take it from there so what to say from the start like any good sequel sonic adventure 2 is significantly streamlined from its predecessor sonic adventure 1 told one story spread across six campaigns and a final story with six unique gameplay styles in sonic adventure 2 everything is stacked upon the theme of duality here we have one story told across two campaigns and a final one you look at the box sort of the game on the dreamcast and you see blue and red in the background sonic and shadow the logo has this unique look to it that effortlessly portrays the duality theme i just mentioned and on the box of the gamecube version we see the two sides of the story in essay 2 we have a hero side story with three gameplay styles returning from adventure 1 and a dark side story with those same three gameplay styles countering the ones on the hero side of the two campaigns i think the devs intended for you to start with the hero side story so let's begin there sonic adventure 2 sets out to make a great first impression adventure 1 did the same however the clunky animation killed it like it did many times in that game but here a military chopper flies over san francisco reporting the status of the captured hedgehog aboard which is a pretty interesting change of pace i mean what could that be about we don't have time to think about that as sonic makes his first appearance he's taking out everyone aboard it what's wrong freeze what do you think you're doing get that hedgehog talk about low budget flights no food or movies i'm out of here i like running better [Music] yeah already the amount of excitement the animation the quality of the voice acting has all been dramatically upped from sa1 but that brings us to the first stage city escape what is no exaggeration one of the most iconic sonic levels next to the likes of green hill zone from sonic 1 and chemical plant from sonic 2. sonic flies down the streets of san francisco on a makeshift snowboard blowing past the oncoming traffic and destroying the military robots like it's nothing it's just such an action-packed stage that changed up the scenery and challenges frequently it introduces you to the more action-based focus of sonic adventure 2 with the unforgettable music cementing this level as a legendary sonic stage already being way better to play than most of the levels in adventure 1. capping it off with a chase scene that puts the whale from sonic adventure 1 to shame as the military sends a giant truck to chase sonic this part here has evolved from the chase and emerald coast as that was a pure visual spectacle but in sa2 you do actually have to avoid the truck which is an easy enough task to accomplish but there are also these trick ramps you can jump off of that were introduced right at the beginning of the stage but now you have to time it carefully where you jump off of them while facing the camera it's impossible to not feel like a gaming guru when you nail both trick ramps in one run here it's just a really satisfying stage to play bringing us to the first boss fight a simple mech from the military requiring some basic homing attacks and that's all she wrote now what is sonic adventure 2 about well that begins with the most memorable cut scenes in a sonic game as the premise is that sonic has been arrested by a military faction on earth gun or gun the guardian units of nations sonic is being arrested on the charges of being a deserter from a gun base and for stealing a chaos emerald however this is obviously false as the real perpetrator is the one and only ultimate life form shadow the hedgehog making his debut in the sonic series and i'm not going to mince words here shadow is my favorite sonic character of all time and this game is such a great job leaving a great impression on both the players and video games as a whole shadow's not sonic's first rival i mean in 1993 we got introduced to metal sonic so i thought he did a good job as a whole lifeless sonic thing matching his abilities physically but ultimately metal sonic went out with little fanfare in sonic cd and just became spin-off fodder from that point on in games like sonic triple trouble sonic drift 2 and knuckles chaotix speaking of knuckles he became the well-known rival to sonic when sonic 3 came out doing an excellent job countering the hedgehog during the angel island incident propping him up as the next most popular character behind sonic himself but this presented a problem again metal sonic was basically absent from the main series at this point getting nothing but cameos in sa1 knuckles was an enemy to sonic and sonic 3 and knuckles specifically under the false pretense that sonic was the villain and eggman was his ally once the veil had been lifted there knuckles became a friend of sonic and tails needs to be tricked again in triple trouble and sonic adventure to fight sonic again so the point is sonic was in need of a new rival one with more personality than ever before way back in my review of devil may cry 3 i said that virgil had such a strong impact on how to do rivals and action-oriented video games which i think still holds true but this game as one that came out a couple years earlier i think deserves praise in that category too because if you played this game in 2001 how could the rivalry between sonic and shadow not leave an impact i've been talking about build up and pay off a lot since i started this sonic retrospective and this is a prime example in the hero side story shadow follows the rule of three here in this insanely quotable unforgettable scene shadow was just so above sonic at this point that he is consistently standing above him throughout this entire scene and the one time they do clash it's to show that shadow has powers never before seen in the series mastering the use of chaos control a time-space all-terrain move that harnesses the power of a chaos someone to warp through the air also i might add shadow never has to touch the ground that sonic has to walk on now while this might sound like scene over analysis it should absolutely be said that these video game cutscenes don't make themselves much like movies the position of characters is often thought out so i can't help but notice that shadow's always above sonic barely saying a word as his distinct music is playing the only words he can muster by the end is that my name is shadow i'm the world's ultimate life form there's no time for games farewell like sonic's not worth his time the next time the two meets on prison island here they fight in a relatively equal playing field ending in a draw but if you play on the dark side story shadow still thinks sonic isn't worth his time no time to hang out with the likes of you by the end of the game sonic has learned to use chaos control to escape from a deadly trap and now shadow's impressed as we get the final race between the two with life or death stakes as the final boss of both the hero side and dark side stories these moments they're all so quotable and iconic and i think build up payoff the rule of three very simple storytelling techniques are ultimately the reason why shadow left an impact from the hero side story alone it's basically taking what metal sonic and knuckles had accomplished and doing it even better shadow escapes with the emerald leaving sonic to get arrested by the military and that's the note the hero's side story starts on making you feel all powerful as sonic for the first stage and boss and the show that shadow's character is 10 times as cool as you and he doesn't even need the homeport advantage like knuckles had in sonic 3. so let's move on from the story for a second talk about something else stages in sonic adventure were divided between three adventure fields perfectly sized hub worlds that logically transition the player between levels also just making the game feel like it had a world that was more fleshed out than the ones in the previous game could ever offer sonic adventure 2 drops the adventure field aspect of the game completely in exchange for a classic styled level by level action now i don't think this change comes at the cost of the game feeling like a world nor do i think it's a change that's particularly out of place like certain games would be if you play sonic adventure and then sonic adventure 2 it doesn't really require any outside sources to understand why the adventure fields are missing as well you could just come to the conclusion that they thought the story they were trying to tell required a bit more urgency than the leisure the adventure fields gave and that's that stages are connected via a world map when trying to replay them as opposed to the level select list from sa1 i just love this interface highlighting the great art design the adventure era had going for it this part of it's also been thought out as while no real locations would ever look like this obviously but i like how city escape and radical highway are moving towards one another which is how sonic and shadow intersected at the start of the story i like how knuckles first three stages wild canyon pumpkin hill and aquatic mine clearly show that knuckles is moving west linearly across the map catching up with tails and amy at his highway stage if you were to ask me which of these methods of stage progression i prefer to be honest i don't really have one like look at the sonic advance games for example advance one just takes you from stage to stage via a level list like the trial mode of sa1 advanced 2 uses a world map like adventure 2 and advanced 3 uses a mini hub world all our sonic adventure 1's campaign mode i don't really have a preference either way hub worlds have a greater likelihood of failing the player than stage stage action ever could i'll admit but in principle assuming hubs are done like essay 1 or unleashed and not like sonic o6 then i'm fine with it a change that does come from the lack of hub worlds is character upgrades in essay 1 you'd have to find upgrades like the light speed dash tails of super spin and jet anklet or knuckles as digging claws in the hub worlds and then use them in the stages without the adventure feels you now just find them in stages like sa1 many are required like the returning and improved light speed dash hovering mechs and digging claws improve because of more instantaneous access to these abilities but others are also optional rewarding you for exploration like the mystic melodies for each character or shadow's flame ring so with that said how does the dark side story begin well we find ourselves in control of dr eggman for the first time in a main series game and let me tell you his character has been great since the very beginning of the franchise but this game is eggman's absolute best for many reasons we'll explore before the day is done in eggman's first stage iron gate we see him before the hero side story even begins sneaking into the gun base on prison island to borrow a point from sonic dissected here we see sonic and eggman our hero and villain with tried and true rules being thrust in new situations eggman's the one breaking into a facility tearing robots apart and sonic is the one on the run on defense not that eggman takes opposition seriously mind you like that's something i always love about eggman in this game and any game where guns a story point they are constantly at war with dr eggman he's such a strong independent army and of himself but he just beats them every time like when they're looking for his hidden base in the desert you know the one that's covered in eggman iconography he's just like those kiddies but back on track eggman is rated the gun base because he discovered his grandfather professor gerald robotnik's diary which claimed that his research was hidden away on prison island that research being project shadow the ultimate life form the project was shut down by the military 50 years ago because they feared project shadow for whatever reason shadow's been sealed away for 50 years now that he's free he tells dr eggman to meet him with more chaos emeralds at the space colony arc gerald's abandoned research facility but yeah gerald's going to be one of the most significant sonic characters in the next couple games and so is that damn diary i mean gerald's diary is just eggman's go-to he doesn't have any plans of his own like legit shadow also steals himself a chaos and one from the bank before going to the ark and that's how he meets sonic for the first time which leads me to the first of the three gameplay styles in adventure 2 the speed stages the three best play styles in adventure 1 were sonic speed stages knuckles treasure hunting levels and gamma shooting and these are the three that are brought back and refined in the sequel i said in the previous video that sonic's gameplay adventure 1 was the most accurate translation of the classic gameplay ever brought into 3d well i think that still holds true when specifically looking at a translation between 2d and 3d but on the whole i think sa2 is a complete improvement the area i think sa1 has over sa2 the most is i think sonic handled a little bit better not by a great deal but enough to where i noticed whenever playing sa2 sonic turns slightly better in the last game deals with different terrain better and overall suffers from a problem dubbed same button syndrome a lot less where sonic and shadow have multiple abilities mapped to the same button like the light speed dash the spin dash and balance bracelet all being on the b button but none of these problems are severe enough for me to say that this gets in the way of the play experience my taste in video games is generally towards skill oriented action and i'm a glutton for punishment still working on those dmc2s ranks the speed gameplay gets the same amount of stage as it did in sa1 10. city escape metal harbor green forest pyramid cave crazy gadget final rush radical highway white jungle sky rail and final chase each one of these stages has some kind of explosive set piece memorable moment to speak of often times not being automated either i already talked about how great it was to tear through the streets of city escape but it's just as much fun to shred down the golden gate bridge as shadow and radical highway race through a military base with enemies after you while you try to catch a rocket in our time limit in metal harbor blasting towards these time doors and pyramid cave are going at warp speed on the grind rails of final rush and final chase which is the newest mechanic added to sonic's gameplay sonic and shadow have the ability to grind down rails and jump between them when it works some of the best spectacle the series has seen yet but it can be a bit janky switching between rails often feels like a crap shoot as you might overshoot the jump and die especially at high speeds the gameplay itself between sonic adventure 1 and sonic adventure 2 is fairly consistent so you might be wondering why i consider sa1 to be the most direct translation of 2d sonic to 3d and not sa2 and that's actually solely because sa2 level design just does not have the same focus as the classic games or sa1 and i don't mean focus in like a good or bad design kind of way i mean like actual what we're trying to accomplish kind of way and each of those games speeding through levels was a highlight and a mark of good playing skills but in sa2 since we now have a dedicated speed play style the level design is specifically tailored towards making that the overall focus as a result levels are far more linear than the games that preceded this one so spin dash jumping up to higher areas in sonic adventure 1 or sonic 3 and knuckles is not as much of a thing in this game but this does not present a problem first some of the stages actually can be a bit more open-ended like reinforced or final rush but more importantly i think the levels themselves don't suffer from linearity because of their focus on stylish tricks and gameplay sonic adventure 2 is not the kind of game where you don't have to play it's a game requiring you getting those trick ramps being as fast you possibly can to succeed which in my opinion is almost infinitely replayable city escape is a fantastic stage it's nearly a straight line from start to finish however i can't say i get tired of playing it because every run i try to get max points in the trick ramps try to get the best time and so on one time i was playing radical highway and i decided to jump on top of this loop instead of running through it and i see this spring here that gives you access to the top of the bridge much easier for that epic grinding moment it's just great so that's my take on the speed based gameplay but i think it's more important to talk about the new character in depth shadow the hedgehog i already said a lot of great things about shadow's introduction but what else do i like about him shadow in the hero side story is a great rival but this is a game where i said rival character is also playable assuming you count sonic 3 and sonic and knuckles separately in this example shadow's character has a lot going on in the dark side story as early on we find out that he's a man on a mission 50 years ago when gunn shut down professor gerald's research in the space colony arc one of the casualties was shadow's best friend and geralt's granddaughter maria she saved shadow from the ark in her last moments and he sends promise to get revenge on the humans for what they've done point is shadow is the villain because he cares so much for the people he considers his friends and that he'd go to those lengths for them as shadow and eggman plan to use a secret weapon installed in the ark called the eclipse cannon empowered by the chaos emeralds destroy the earth if they don't surrender to the eggman empire although shadow has the true motive of getting revenge for maria while shadow wishes he was a heartless bastard he still isn't like when the other new character rouge the bat gets trapped with the chaos emeralds he goes back to save her rationalizing it to himself that he did it for the sake of the chaos emeralds i'm shadow the hedgehog the one and only ultimate life form looks like batgirl has failed her end of the deal i really could care less about her it's the chaos emeralds i have to save seriously there are a lot of assumptions made about the character of shadow that are just not true he doesn't really think of himself as better than others to a fault proven by how sonic is able to win his respect before the story is over or this part between shadow and rouge towards the end of the dark side story if you want to live leave the chaos emeralds where they are the fake emerald is good enough for you do you actually believe that you're the real shadow no doubt even your memories might not be real you know even if my memories are not real it's still me shadow and i will fulfill my promise to maria that's the only thing that matters to me now shadow maintains his tough persona for the sake of decreasing vulnerability but is ultimately soft on the inside shadow's character also looks great as well i like talking about the art design of these characters a lot and shadow is no exception the plot line of shadow being confused for sonic gets a lot of flack since it is kind of a stretch however my guess is that this is a plot line carried over from back when shadow's design was going to be a dark reflection of sonic in the literal sense making a good unique character design is hard which is why i love shadows look so much this proto shadow doesn't really work for me for many reasons and it all starts with this the silhouette the mark of a good character design is if they can stand out from just the silhouette shadow's early design looks so similar to the sonic we already have that he would not hold up to this test whereas the shadow we have in the final product looks very distinct on his own when put next to sonic he looks similar but not the same having his own silhouette that's unique to shadow the hedgehog which is what i think is worthy of unique praise i also think this early design is too villainous if that makes any sense like shadow is actually not the villain you think he is by the end of the story nor was he created for any evil intentions as the flashbacks of shadow and maria establish so looking this way doesn't really match up you could already argue that with the final shadow design but i think that criticism especially goes to this early one all this talk of maria and jailed gets me thinking though the fact that humans exist on earth alongside sonic and friends gets a lot of heat people say they prefer if dr eggman is the only human in the world of sonic but to that i just say i don't really think that makes any sense going back to sonic the hedgehog 1 there were only two characters sonic and eggman and a bunch of cartoony looking animals when we got to sonic adventure we have cartoony looking animals real animals like orcas humans and characters like sonic i think they might have benefited from having more sonic-like characters mixed in with humans as to further establish the fact that sonic and friends are not out of place amongst humans but i really don't care about this aspect of it at all eggman is a human an eggman would need to have a family to exist so yeah professor gerald is his grandfather and maria is his cousin there was never an intention in the old games for sonic to be a world without humans that is merely the interpretation that some fans have but it's just that we don't really need to get into the logistics of the two worlds explanation of sonic today but my point is just that eggman proves humans exist in sonic and then you might say but he's a cartoony looking human but then i say that humans vary a lot in the actual sonic games as the humans in sa1 have more of an anime look to them the ones in sonic unleashed feel more pixar-like and then the ones in sa2 shadow the hedgehog and sonic 06 feel more realistic there's no consistent rule to point to but as far as rules are concerned there exists none that say adventure 1 invented human beings in sonic games does it feel silly to have sonic be like don't worry mr president just leave it to us maybe it does but that does not discredit what i'm saying sly cooper is a world of all cartoon characters well except this and this and this and this all of which were species that have anthro counterparts in the games i might add now trying to explain that is the real headache point is it really isn't that big of a deal in adventure 2 there is a theory out that the human involvement is all part of a cover-up conspiracy as shadow escaped the base and sonic is arrested for this and the president seemingly allows their spy to aid shadow and eggman and blowing up prison island to that i just say there is no evidence to say that that's not true but i don't think that's the intention there were just a few holes left in the story by the writers and i think that's a theory that fills them in like i don't either subscribe nor not subscribe to any theory explaining it i just review the story as it is but speaking of the spy that's the other new character rouge the bat introduced to us in a scuffle with knuckles the echidna over the master emerald that results in it shattering as they both look for the pieces i really like rouge's character she's never been one of my favorite sonic characters but as the first major female character in the game cast since amy i think they did a good job making her feel unique with her mysterious allegiance throughout the dark side story and her physical abilities that are on par with knuckles going head-to-head with him in a way no other characters besides sonic have done before i mentioned they make her look distinct from amy which is another good design choice as at first i think the concept art actually looks a little too similar to amy with the haircut but in the final version they really pulled this off creating two new characters that challenge old characters in brand new ways whether they be physically or just personality clashes that are new or plainly entertaining to watch the two characters have an interesting dynamic together fit again great with the cast we already have both becoming mainstays in their own right in their stages knuckles and rouge must search for three pieces of the master emerald and occasionally search for something else like the keys and headquarters and death chamber as well as the chaos emeralds and security hall there is debate as to whether sonic's gameplay and sa-1 is better than sonic and shadow in sa2 but i really don't think that knuckles gameplay in adventure 1 comes close to the quality of this treasure hunting stage is in adventure 2. in the last game knuckles was just plopped in the sonic stages which just so happened to work out for the levels but it was ultimately a style that didn't have much depth it just looked really good compared to tails amy and big here the stages we get with knuckles and rouge wild canyon pumpkin hill aquatic mine death chamber meteor herd dry lagoon headquarters security hall and mad space are built from the ground up to accommodate for exploration being these big open spaces you can take advantage of their flying climbing in knuckles and rouge control excellently have great combat abilities and so they're characters that are fundamentally fun to use i just love dive bombing in the air as them and then resuming the glide it's great what complexity was an essay one's treasure hunting stages was bogged down by the hint system where to call will just take you to wherever the emerald piece you're looking for was calling it a day in adventure two there are two changes that aid in the difficulty increase from the last game one the radar for the emeralds has gone from showing all three pieces at once to showing one at a time this is admittedly an artificial change made to make these stages longer but when thinking about whether or not there's a significant problem my conclusion is no with the exception of egg quarters and death chamber and i think headquarters is a fine stage but both suffer from being a series of corridors which take away from the most fun part of the style in this game thus creating a significant amount of backtracking when working with the emerald radar we have but the more open stages it really doesn't create an issue for me as the odds of having to cover the same ground again and again is pretty low from where i'm sitting if you do have trouble this is where the hints return but this time requiring more effort from you as instead of just telling you where to go it's an actual hint you get three hints per emerald the first one being vague the second being more direct and the third being more obvious the typical argument against this is that using hints decreases your rank which is not quite accurate the most important thing to getting a high score on these stages is the time it takes you to do it which yes rewards repeat playthroughs which i can get back to later using hints to find an emerald piece will net you 1500 points as opposed to the 2000 you would have gotten without it but again with speed you can get away with using like four or five hints in a stage and still getting an a overall i'm impressed that the devs were able to program in so many different locations for these emerald pieces and designed three hints for each one it's a very well thought out system that despite having shortcomings in stages like death chamber or mad space which is less the fault of the gameplay style and more the clunky space mechanics my point is i think if given another attempt this gameplay could really reach new heights like all sonic games more dev time could lead to completely fine tuning stages that make all levels optimized for exploration so no death chambers needless to say i tried playing the game with a hack that enabled all three emerald charts to be traced at once and like i suspected my experience didn't really get much easier because the emerald chards never plays close together enough for missing one by accident to be a common occurrence so i've been giving a lot of praise to the story of sonic adventure 2 and in the first adventure game i did the same but i came with the obvious follow-up point that sonic adventure 1's story was a love it or hate it purely depended upon how willing you were to look past the cut scenes here in essay 2 i really don't feel like that's a factor anymore yeah i think the cutscenes are great in this game a fantastic improvement from the last game which just used animation from gameplay for cutscenes i don't think the animation in sa2 is perfect by any means is it oftentimes look like there's a really incompetent puppeteer controlling the characters from beyond the boundaries of the scene but when it comes to the fundamentals of making a good cutscene essay 2 gets this right in a way essay 1 could never dream of like i highlighted in shadow's introduction this game has real cinematography that looks like a lot of thought got put into it with all these animation details that couldn't be done in the last game like right before the final gloss of both campaigns shadows in disbelief over how sonic used chaos control and sonic gives a cocky eyebrow raise or how shadow just has this douchey grin on his face when looking down upon sonic in their first cutscene eggman actually animates as a funny thing i have to compliment but seriously he looked awful in the last game characters can convincingly enough display emotions and change emotions in a way they could not in the last game like the cut scenes between knuckles and rouge and now you could say that sa2 doesn't look as good as other 2001 games but again i think it's worth mentioning that this game has some of the most plot a platformer had seen up to this point in gaming so i'm impressed that they pulled it off as much as they did when the superior animation in jack and daxter is telling a much simpler story at the end of the day complementing these cut scenes i love is unforgettable voice acting if you told me that sonic adventure 1 had bad acting i wouldn't entirely agree but i'm not going to die on that hill either in sonic adventure 2 i think the voice acting in this game really gets the job done now there are some obvious exceptions that the internet loves to point out oh no don't touch that lever but the only character i think is consistently bad is tails voiced by connor bring us the brother of corey bring us who voiced tales in sonic adventure 1 and sonic shuffle but he hit puberty so they just cast his younger brother instead and he just sounds like he is reading off a script the whole time which is actually kind of an improvement over how annoying i thought tails wasn't sa1 i guess but this time i think ryan drummond has the perfect cadence as sonic with these being the highest stakes the character has ever seen i think drummond played the more serious moments really well in addition to the sonic charm we all know and love scott dryer is knuckles and he's the best voice the character has ever had an aspect of knuckles that got lost along the way was his laid-back nature knuckles is supposed to be a calm and soft-spoken character who has a short temper at times and this guy just does it right no awkward line reads or anything like that lonnie manila the voice director of the series since adventure 1 plays rouge doing a good job like as a kid i got used to the sonic x error rouge and this doesn't really sound like that but it is still good and i love david humphrey as shadow in the games he played shadow i think he really got the fact that shadow's standoffish nature is an act and that he's really a softy on the inside which is what i think the most important aspect of shadow is above all else the voice acting is helped by one of the most memorable scripts in the history of sonic ask any fan i feel like they could quote a lot of these cutscenes and i don't think it's because it's lull so bad like you could say about sa1 i mean these cutscenes just left such an impact on the player base that it's hard not to remember it all starts with this from shadow or and then the world could be yours it's just unforgettable much improved cutscenes voice acting and scripting is to thank for that and then you have the soundtrack and it's just fantastic similar to sonic adventure 1 it's not my favorite sonic ost but it's certainly one of them i think sa1 wins out from pure genre variety but this soundtrack does the thing the whole game excels at character like the stages the menus the logos the box arts this game is all about character the soundtrack in slack adventure 2 has a fondness of the guitar above all other instruments but what i appreciate is that each character's music gets a slight twist to suit their style like sonic having this fast-paced action tails getting these tracks with slower pace than sonic but still providing an upbeat tune [Music] knuckles diving in on his rap style from essay 1 and making a new song for each of his stages [Music] i'm just going creep down in pumpkin shadow getting these techno tracks that highlight the artificial nature of the character [Music] eggman's music being similar to tales with a more punchy bass [Music] and rouge getting these jazzier tunes to complement her stages as well [Music] the soundtrack that the whole game is incredibly memorable and has become an iconic part of the sonic fandom and i don't think there's a single slouch in the ost which includes the vocal theme collection like sa1 all six characters got a vocal theme in addition to the main theme the game already has for the hero side story the vocal themes from sa1 it doesn't matter believe in myself and unknown from emmy all get a remix that goes along with the style of music that each of these characters stages have [Applause] [Music] somebody will be [Music] i prefer the adventure 1 mixes of all these songs but i do love the new ones anyway for the dark side story we get three new vocals throw it all away for shadow e-g-g-m-a-n for dr eggman and fly in the freedom for rouge when it comes to the sa2 vocal collection the dark side has my preferred themes over the hero side in all categories instruments lyrics and [Music] performance this is a game all about the duality angle like i've said and the dark side themes do a great job countering the ones from the hero side like if tails this theme is about confidence in the sense of building ourselves up well eggman's is a bit different special mention to shadow's theme i used to not be into this one but now it's probably my favorite of the bunch as the instrumentals do an excellent job when it comes to portraying both the artificial life aspect of shadow and the tragic backstory becoming an iconic part of the cutscenes it was used in [Music] then the lyrics also show the personality traits of shadow i talked about earlier like the tough guy attitude and the inner conflict [Music] [Applause] [Music] we've still yet to address the final two characters of the playable roster tails and dr eggman it's really cool to see tails in the role he is in this game after all his arc in the first adventure game was realizing he could be a lot more than what he was as the sidekick and now he's the one doing a lot of the heavy lifting in adventure 2 with the tech and the plans going head-to-head with dr eggman on a mechanical level something thought impossible for him before the end of the previous game like i said earlier essay 2 is the best eggman we've ever gotten which leads to the big question is sonic adventure 2 too dark it's often said but i don't think so a story having world-ending stakes and the characters carrying to make sure it stopped is not too dark in my opinion now is the story too serious to that i also don't think so essay 2 has a great balance of all story elements when things get tough the game doesn't shy away from the fact but it can also be pretty funny too like eggman has always had a comedic angle to him and this game is no different doing it the best i think one of my favorite examples is the sequence of events when the heroes raid the pyramid base eggman's all excited because he has a war welcome for them if you watch the character recaps eggman at this moment says i was waiting for sonic at my hidden base to show my awesome robot it's one of the largest eggman mechs yet to where even sonic is surprised but in the dark side story sonic just busts it in one hit and eggman goes what a piece of junk the robot then turns on eggman he's like showing your villain act like a goober is a tough act of balance it can kill any legitimacy the character could have had like sly 4 there i said it however it's dr eggman's evil ambitions that release shadow it was him that used the power of the eclipse cannon to destroy half the moon as a warning shot for earth putting the heroes in these difficult positions and it was him who was serious about all of his plans in sonic 1 sonic 2 sonic cd and slot 3 and knuckles and adventure 1 and he just got stopped he will take over the world and build the eggman empire if he's not interfered with he also just happens to be a guy who likes to decorate his base in his own image and is funny when he's mad point is i think sa2 is the kind of game that keeps your attention with its good cut scenes chuckle worthy moments but also some suspenseful ones that fit in perfectly so how do tails and eggman play well they take the formula from e102 gamma and sa1 and make it a hundred times better with knuckles and rouge while i'm not bothered by the sa2 emerald radar i can't imagine and relate to it being a big problem for people while you could say that gamma controlled better i don't find that to be a difference that's noticeable and even at that these levels are just incomparable the stages we get for these two prison lane mission street hidden base eternal engine iron gate sand ocean lost colony weapons bed and cosmic wall have everything that gamma levels were missing i mean every single gamma stage that was not the hot shelter was an absolute joke you could argue that the removal of the time limit that gamma had gives less of an incentive to fight enemies and in theory that may be true but not in practice most gamble levels could be beaten by running to the end so that doesn't really count to me but the biggest problem was just that gamma like every other character was just plopped into sonic stages and it just so happened to work out since the shoot-em-up formula works in the next stages of adventure 2 there is no time limit but the reward for combat is completely intrinsic it's fun in and of itself to target enemies at once and get 2 000 points it's fun to glide over areas blowing up enemies it's a simple format for each of these stages but it's a lot of high energy fun where it fails is in three main areas one without the hover jump the platform can be a bit of a pain two the camera can be turned around manually however it snaps back to its set position after turning it so manipulating the camera to get a better view as a non-factor three there can be some annoying blind sides particularly in tales of stages but those issues mainly piss me off i'm trying to perfect my runs of the stage less so i'm just trying to play the game so with that said we're going to talk about the end game all story points converge at the space colony arc as the heroes take a shuttle sword away in eggman's base which yes is a fine plot element like why would eggman the guy who created two egg carriers not have [ __ ] like this lying around and they land on the ark they plan to use a fake chaos animal based on the real one that tails had and use it to destroy the eclipse cannon but amy gets taken hostage by eggman as he demands the emerald in exchange for her life this is a cut scene so good that it literally has videos dedicated to how good it is eggman wants the emerald since by this point the villains have collected six of them already and this is the last one sonic and tails think this is the perfect opportunity rescue amy and just give eggman the fake emerald to cause him to ruin his own plan it's perfect you thought you could trick me with that fake empty didn't you so how did you know it wasn't the real world because you just told me as i said best eggman ever he got tails to reveal that it was a fake emerald leaving sonic trapped in this capsule with no chance of escape or bargain the table is turned in literally seconds sonic is beat here he has nothing to say other than i'm counting on you tails take care of yourself yeah no punchline no laugh track eggman's just going to launch sonic into the void of space and the capsule will explode with sonic inside of it but then when you play the dark side story we see this from eggman's perspective as he and shadow already knew from the scanner that sonic and friends had a fake emerald so really he was in control the entire time i just want to give the heroes a false sense of hope when getting tales to reveal the fake emerald because he already knew why because it would make sonic's death ever so sweeter eggman really thinks this is it this is the time he's finally going to win marked by this great scene between him and shadow before this moment wait shadow i'm the one who should be telling them the end is near not you now is the time to end this long drawn-out battle place in history as the ultimate genius if something happens to me i'm counting on you to finish the job hurry the moment for attack has come it's now or never after eggman seemingly kills sonic he says farewell sonic but in the best recap of the game he says this i'm dr eggman the greatest scientific genius of the world i finally did it i've defeated sonic that annoying hedgehog is now gone forever he's nothing but floating chunks in space now what are you going to do now tails if you are against me you'll suffer the same fate as your buddy sonic these recaps have so much personality in them this time around i mentioned the sa1 version just coming off like exposition but the ones in sa2 really are the characters giving their actual thoughts in the current circumstances with good personality details thrown in like how the villains all introduce themselves in a more self-congratulatory fashion than the heroes do i'm sonic sonic the hedgehog my name is miles prower but everyone calls me tails i'm knuckles the echidna but you can call me knuckles i'm shadow the hedgehog the one and only ultimate life form i'm dr eggman the greatest scientific genius of the world my name is rouge the bat better known as the treasure hunter rouge back to the best scene in the game tales of the final battle with eggman thinking sonic is dead but inside the capsule sonic remembers that tales to the fake emerald has the same wavelength on properties as the real ones the only difference is that it would screw up the eclipse cannon in a moment of desperation sonic uses shadow's ability chaos control to escape the capsule before it explodes now let me explain this part in more depth sonic used a fake chaos on what to use chaos control there are two parts to this the fake emerald and sonic using the ability himself it kind of became a meme later in the series they really don't know what the technical properties of chaos control actually are so if you say sonic just saw shadow hold and emerald say chaos control and teleport and then did it himself yeah it's basically that simple chaos control was always doable but the heroes even knuckles just didn't know it existed before sonic also has been going super for several games now and we don't know how that works either and i'm sure it's the same thing he's used the chaos emeralds before then with the fake emerald i will say that it makes sense because of the fact that tails says it functions the same as a real emerald which is believable since the chaos emeralds are powered by chaos energy which is how chaos himself and sa1 could use the negative power of the emeralds and sonic produce the positive energy that's because all energy has positives and negatives not really something that needs a whole lot of exposition chaos energy is how chaos drives work these little tubes that power the gun mechs throughout the game that you can collect so making a fake cast on what is feasible enough in the universe that energy transforms thoughts into power as we've been told sonic put everything he had in his last moments to harness the power of chaos control to escape the pod and save the day sonic didn't escape the trap because he got lucky when backed into an impossible death trap his resolve to never give up is what saved the day it's great stuff i really do think so while the two mech characters are fighting we had two great scenes between the speed and treasure hunting characters in both stories on the hero side just like how sonic and knuckles really used to be enemies but now they completely trust each other in a scene i always thought was really triumphant feeling when going into the last level i'm worried about tails and amy i hate to ask but could you help them this is our last chance i got it before the cannon fires i'll slam dunk it in there [Music] but on the dark side shadow is not impressed seeing sonic explode in space and finds rouge wants to steal the emeralds for herself i love the way shadow goes i don't think so could watch that part over and over shadow reveals that he knows that rouge is the government spy rouge which makes no sense a product of some dated translation of dialogue at least as it's presented in english it doesn't make that much sense it's a plot point rouge's entire role as a spy is weird like i said way before with the whole blowing up the military base thing shadow just knows the truth now that truth being that rouge was here to report the secret info on project shadow on whether or not shadow is the real ultimate life form that gerald created and you can just cut the tension here with a knife here are the results of the research project called the ultimate life form but if this picture is of the real ultimate life form named shadow then exactly who or what is standing in front of me eggman announcing that someone's trying to get to the cannon is what brings us to shadow's final stage as the hedgehogs of the final battle i already went in depth on marvelous build-up and payoff way earlier so i'll just say this it's pretty well done boss fight as well as a good story moment it feels like the metal sonic race if it was a proper boss fight as well as a race between equals the bosses in sa2 are overall a lot better than the previous games the character battles aren't great still easily won but superior to the anti-bosses from sa1 but main bosses like the gunmax king boom boo or the egg golem provide a satisfactory challenge i'd say good speedrunning opportunity is like getting multiple hits on the ghost as knuckles in one phase as opposed to one hit in four total phases but yeah who wins the sonic vs shadow fight is kind of irrelevant as sonic destroys the canon if he wins but eggman nabs the real seventh emerald and puts in the machine anyway not a whole lot changes plus i like the empire strikes back reference in the ending shot first we have the death egg and now i guess we have an evil cloud city but with both the hero sides and dark side stories completed we've unlocked the last story but before we get into that as mentioned at the top of the hour sonic memory 2 is ported from the sega dreamcast to the nintendo gamecube with the title sonic adventure 2 battle i don't think the changes are nearly as bad or numerous as the ones from sonic adventure dx but there are some changes some for the better and some for the worse the biggest changes that hurts the gamecube version is worse lighting and cutscenes improper layering of effects and the fact that every character's face is a lot darker than it's supposed to be and the poor audio balance from the dreamcast original talk about low or movies budget out of here i like running better was made much worse talk about low budget flights no food or movies i'm out of here i like running better the main improvement was this scene with shadow and russia just went into in the original fly in the freedom place for the entire scene what about you here are the results of the research project called the ultimate life form but the gamecube version changed it to where it transitions to no background music here are the results of the research project called the ultimate life form to throw it all away [Music] an amazing example of how much scoring can affect how a scene is perceived yeah pretty small improvement compared to the list of downsides but otherwise i think if you want to play xa2 in a pixelated 4x3 fashion i don't think you'd go wrong with either the dreamcast or gamecube versions the shadows look pretty strange on dreamcast but that's all i've got the pc version is again the best the hd conversion overall is not nearly the joke that sadx was so it's fine as is but mods make it better of course as you might have noticed my pc footage of sa2 is the dreamcast models instead of the battle version models which is kind of the opposite of what a lot of players do when i use the dx models in sa1 of the dreamcast ones similar to sadx i think the models in sa2 battle are superior to the ones in the dreamcast but sa2 does this thing in both versions that mario 64 did where like the further away from the camera the character was the lower poly the model would be maybe sa2 did that on dreamcast to maintain a 60fps boost the game saw over the original version of sa1 but with battle models i find the transition between that and low poly sonic to be so glaring that i play with dreamcast models to make it less so i also wanted to increase consistency since the most important mod i downloaded was the one from speeps highway this is the dude who documented the changes in cutscenes from sa2 to sa2 battle in an excellent video he made a mod that completely transferred the cutscene details in the original sa2 into the pc version which uses dreamcast models and camera angles it's a pretty customizable mod i thought even bringing cutscenes that were 4x3 due to effects used in the 16x9 now i have no idea how that was done but it was with the remake of the intro that sonic which do battle came with just with dreamcast models and better facial animation the sonic fan community seriously has produced some incredible results and this game is no different so we've completed all the story lines but the fun doesn't have to stop there adventure one had a bunch of bna missions to complete which were a decent amount of post game content not a lot of particularly stimulating stuff but it was fine especially for sonic adventure 2 expands on the concept by giving each stage 4 missions to complete now here's a real task the second mission of every level is to collect 100 rings which may be easier in sonic and shadow levels but for knuckles and rouge you've really got to look around for hidden ring boxes and such giving us more exploration to mess around with for tails and eggman it's a matter of not getting hit which is easier said than done in stages like mission street or eternal engine making these missions my least favorite mech ones to do the third mission requires putting the character's upgrades to use or just the ones that all six can unlock the mystic melody hidden in every stage is a statue of the lost world temple from essay 1 and using the melody here will unlock a pathway towards the lost child that you rescued to complete the mission mission 4 requiring you to finish the stage within a time limit and mission 5 takes the same level and remixes it to be more difficult which will really mess with your muscle memory forcing you to be on your toes the whole time in the treasure hunting stages the three pieces of whatever you're looking for are located in set spots in mission five but you're gonna need certain upgrades in order to even grab them at all as well as an ability for yourself to really think outside the box i'm gonna say i feel like it's probably easier done with a guide but again i think it's an interesting challenge at the very least five missions per stage is certainly a lot of added play time already but then sa2 introduces a franchise staple that was cool for each mission you're graded on your enemy score your total time and your rings for a vast majority of missions getting an a rank is work even if you've done it consistently there will never be a time where getting an a rank in sa2 does not require you to be actively engaged with the game you have to take advantage of all the best routes and get as many points as possible testing knowledge of stages as using a minimal amount of hints will need you a fast time on treasure hunting levels and that's how you get an a tails in eggman combat is certainly incentivized when trying to get the best rank as you aren't getting an a if you didn't just blow through everything in sight in a timely manner that is cosmic wall just being an absolute blast to play for that reason it's a 6 minute stage it's impossible to get sick of from the bad ass music the high jump gravity and the amount of targets to contend with every time i play this level i always get over 100 000 points last year when i rediscovered just how much i loved this game it was such a great feeling to go through all these missions on pc and on gamecube getting each and every a rank because it's an insanely rewarding experience when you'd never see me get the bna missions done for big or do sadx's mission mode i once said sonic advance 3 was my favorite ranking system in the series since it was merely about time and seriously nothing else while i still do have fun doing that and it's certainly way better than the laughable trash and sonic generations or shot of the hedgehog or the easily broken system from sonic o6 but if you want to know what i consider the absolute highlight of sonic rankings it's here in adventure 2 and sonic heroes the fun still doesn't have to end there both sonic adventure games came with a virtual pet simulator called the chao garden where you do what i just said those blue pet creatures chaos protected in the story of adventure 1 actually exist in the game mechanics where you have your own chow and you can feed them things to raise their stats in certain areas and have them compete in competitions now this kind of thing's not for me for the same reason i don't play animal crossing because it's a consistent time sink that and i would honestly feel guilty about bringing these child to virtual life getting all the emblems for doing these tasks and then abandoning them sounds stupid i know but this is actually a really in-depth system with breeding stats and other knowledge if you want to be invested in the chao garden there is no half and half about it you need to go all in but anyway that's enough hoopla it's time we end this by diving into the last [Music] story [Music] sonic adventure 2 last episode wishes are eternal it was a ploy all along dr eggman was set up by professor gerald and shadow to collect the seven chaos emeralds and try to use the eclipse cannon what this really does is trigger gerald's true plan the space colony arc starts falling towards the earth at a velocity that would destroy the entire planet and everyone on it dr eggman and the heroes go over the notes in gerald's diary that revealed the fact that after the ark was raided by gun the professor was still doing research but when he found out that his granddaughter maria had died on the ark indirectly because of his own research on the ultimate life form project he went insane and focused only on a revenge plan he altered the memories of shadow before he got sealed away to think that maria had wanted shadow to complete this revenge mission which is advertised in the diary to be a method to unleash destruction which is why eggman started this whole thing but this is not the kind of destruction that remotely plays in eggman's benefit is the trick when gerald's plan got found out he got put down but the pieces were all put into place they just needed someone like eggman to set it in motion giving us for the first time in a sonic game a villain that you can't really stop gerald is the main villain of sonic adventure 2 however he's been dead for ages now all we can do is prevent the plans he created from coming to fruition to stop the space colony from falling the only chance the heroes have is to team up with dr eggman as he sonic tails knuckles and rouge work together to reach the core of the colony to use the master emerald to stop the chaos emeralds which are fueling the whole thing thus beginning the final stage canon's core a much better laugh story segment than super sonic's play through an essay 1 because here all the characters are playable one last time as tails and eggman tear through the blast doors and knuckles and rouge work together to open the last one for sonic to speed through it's here above all else that we see just how much gerald was invested in ancient echidna culture as one of the enemies we face here and in all the arc stages is an enemy called artificial chaos a recreation of the main villain from adventure 1 as well as the path towards the canon's core being a replica of the water trails in the lost world temple from adventure 1. the canon's core itself being a replica of the master emerald shrine the ultimate life forms prototype was just this lizard thing and it's easy to wonder how we went from that to a three foot tall black hedgehog and hey maybe gerald based that off of the super sonic mural from the hidden palace zone in sonic 3 and knuckles up to this point i've yet to talk about what i consider to be the weak link of the plot amy unlike tales the arc of amy and sa1 doesn't really carry over here as in this game amy is more comedic relief than anything else unlike a lot of the humor at adventure 1 it falls pretty flat for me i also feel like amy's a rival on prison island would be the biggest [ __ ] of the entire story like if you want to explain rouge away with the military government conspiracy is fine but how in the hell did amy raid a military base if throughout the rest of the story she literally can't do anything having said that i think she's good in the last story realizing that maybe she can't help in these dangerous missions but that doesn't mean she can't help at all she sees shadow with his mission complete embracing the end begging him to at least help everyone else and give them a chance to succeed the professor may be right there are bad people like the ones who killed maria but sonic and friends are trying so hard to save the day and that's worth helping them which triggers shadow's real memory of maria in her last moments she had no malice she wanted shadow to use his abilities to help people no matter what which is what the ultimate life form was created to do which i at the end of the day i think is a good moment even if it comes about really fast what i think helps make this believable is that shadow is nothing more than a man on the mission with the mission done he didn't have any malice either he was just neutral shadow is someone who's dedicated to his cause no matter what it is so he catches up to sonic and knuckles as the ultimate life-form prototype foreshadowed a couple times earlier in the story is also part of gerald's plan as it arrives to stop sonic and knuckles as shadow steps in to fight the monster off a battle of the ultimate life forms to see which one shall come out on top to accompany this we have the vocal theme supporting me which i think is an absolute banger with these catchy instrumentals and distorted lyrics [Music] mechanically the fight against the buyer lizard is the final challenge the player must overcome all skills you've learned from the speed style are put to the test i'd say grinding homing attacking rolling the works with that done the climax is even more exciting as knuckles recites the same prayer to the master emerald that takal did in the flashbacks of sonic adventure 1 and while it stops the chaos emeralds biolizard uses its own chaos control to fuse with the colony keeping it on its course destroy the earth leaving only one option transformer to supersonic and super shadow trying to destroy the monster before it's too late as sonic has seen enemies become allies before he has no trouble accepting shadow as a friend even after all that's happened thus far beginning the true final boss fight i praised super sonic vs perfect chaos and sa-1 from being an epic moment that topped the final boss of sonic 3 and knuckles and now we have the final hazard boss fight one that is certainly easier than the previous one was shadow but it is at the same time much more challenging than the fight against perfect chaos which was spectacle above all else here in essay 2 your first play is super sonic having to aim for a weakness spot when you do that you switch to shadow to do the same each phase getting more and more difficult to avoid than the last one if you almost run out of rings you can trade places with the other hedgehog or else you die mechanics aside what is this retrospective been about the whole time this is a great moment to end the game on you only have 5 minutes to finish this boss fight off as the screen gets all red to indicate they're running out of time as the colony gets closer to earth and a fantastic touch these characters we've seen going at each other for the entire game are rooting for sonic and shadow during the finale can you hear me shadow you two are the only ones who can stop him now you're our fast can you both hear me the art is close to the earth please hurry up everyone here is rooting for you good luck and give them trouble you can do it as we also get to see just how much of a nice guy shadow really is the aspect of his character people like to overlook sonic i think i've discovered what the ultimate life form is it might be you shadow i understand you're unstoppable let's destroy this creature now everyone is waiting for us back on earth and i of course don't even need to mention the choice of the main theme live and learn from crush 40 as the background music but i will anyway open your heart was already cool enough i thought but live and learn is probably one of my favorite crush 40 songs we'll see how i feel about that by the time the retrospective's over but for right now this track is just the exclamation mark upon an already perfect series of events [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] if you is [Applause] [Music] did you really think you had a chance with the final hazard destroyed sonic and shadow use one last combined chaos control to stop the ark from falling restoring its position in space but as was foreshadowed by the final boss dialogue shadow was unable to maintain his super form thinking he's fulfilled maria's wish shadow falls to the earth with sonic unable to save him completing his arc in the game and bringing us to the final scene when everyone's ready for the celebration sonic can only bring the bad news and this scene is absolutely one of the best in any sonic game like a lot of other impactful moments in the game there is no room for jokes sonic is sad that shadow couldn't make it see the results of his sacrifice he was what he was a brave and heroic hedgehog who gave his life to save this planet shadow the hedgehog i guess you're right but my favorite part of the ending is dr eggman's line here as a child i looked up to my grandfather because of all the great things he accomplished in his life he was my hero and i wanted to be a great scientist like him but did he really mean to destroy us he spent his whole life wanting to live up to gerald but gerald planned on killing everyone knowing that his grandson iva will be one of them tails can only remark that whether or not that's true we save the day by working together and is there anything else you can reflect on the victory with other than that it's just a really soft character moment where everyone gets to reflect on this journey the one that's taken the biggest toll out of all these characters yet what's the matter sonic [Music] oh it's nothing come on let's go home to the planet as cool and blue as me [Music] sayonara shadow the hedgehog [Music] that very well could have been the final line in the history of sonic the hedgehog but as it stands it's how we end sonic adventure 2. sonic adventure 2 is a game that needs no introduction and at this point harley needs a conclusion if you've been watching this video i think you'd know that i love sonic adventure 2. it's not a perfect game i hardly describe it any game as such however when it comes to sonic adventure 2 just does everything i want this is a game with endlessly replayable levels three gameplay styles that are highly improved and fun to use and action-packed direction and soundtrack an unforgettable story with lines you can quote to the pigs fly sonic adventure 2 is not a great idea that didn't live up to its potential like adventure 1 was sonic adventure 2 is a great game that i have played for countless hours now and i'll never get sick of it i will get annoyed by same button syndrome or the mech camera but it'll never take away from the joy that a revisit of sonic adventure 2 can give me it's a fantastic game i think it achieves everything a sonic was trying to be since day one which is a great thing for a 10th anniversary game to do it is the game that was the highest rated sonic game for over a decade it is a game that left such an impact that every single time crush 40 does a concert all across the globe and the crowd hears that opening of live and learn [Music] [Applause] they lose their minds and know every single word it's not only what i considered the best sonic game of all time but it's one of my favorite games ever made but that's not how it always was i've gone on record to say how stupid i think calling me nostalgia blinded by adventure 2 was and i guess that means it's story time i did not own a gamecube when i was a kid my first console was a playstation 2. my idea of a nostalgic game is this not this i first got into sonic in 2004 with the mega collection plus i was playing games that were just turning 10 years old at the time and even then i still felt like i was playing something special something grand for its time i've been playing sonic consistently ever since then is a graphic of all the sonic games i played in each year leading up to 2010 i like making graphics for my videos let's take a look naturally as a sonic fan i played every game i could get my hands on for my ps2 and my gba the adventure games weren't on that list but i knew about them from the arks and sonic x and the adventure games had a direct influence over one of my favorite childhood games sonic the hedgehog 2006 for xbox 360. sonic adventure dx was an exciting game for me to play as a kid on my wii but the one i really wanted to play with select image 2 battle and the reason was simple i had already played sonic heroes shadow of the hedgehog sonic battle and sonic 06 by this point i was familiar with the character i've shadowed the hedgehog and everything about him his backstory his amnesia it kept coming back to this one game i never played this game that the manuals keep referring to as the space colony arc incident like there was a big race between sonic and shadow some island called prison island gets destroyed this must be some game in 2009 i finally got my hands on sonic adventure 2 battle the last sonic game i had ever played that was released at this point this was the one i played after all those other games and it delivered an epic quest with unforgettable moments and thrilling stages that's exactly how i just described essay 2 a mere moment ago that's because that's just how i feel about sonic adventure 2. it's not because sa2 introduced me to sonic it's not because it introduced me to video games not that it's a problem if it did but because this game is great but i wouldn't always say that my opinion on sa2 being the best sonic game stayed consistent in 2010 and 2011 but in early 2012 i decided to give the game another play through this one was different dying a lot from the jankier aspects of the stages check missing countless jumps as eggman and tails check noticing little issues in the story i think the plot was now ruined check and being so lost in meteor hurt as knuckles that i played it for 27 minutes check this this game is terrible only confirmed to me when some call me johnny to his review on it later that year if you were to ask me if the internet's perspective on sonic adventure 2 had changed over time i would tell you the answer that question is yes in a heartbeat now look i'm not here to be like yeah johnny and pro jared suck for saying essay 2 isn't a 10 out of 10. everyone's entitled to their own opinion because of the fact that youtubers me included i'm sure have some members of the audience that don't really think for themselves is not the fault of that person just sharing their opinion i'm not saying that every person ever loved adventure 2 once upon a time and then game grumps just magically changed their mind but it's more like the assumption by most people that it's good i remember the day johnny uploaded his sonic colors review the old one on christmas of 2010. i am such an old man seriously i was there for that he said well i can say this now this is certainly one of the best sonic games released in years better than heroes better than at least certainly right out there with the adventure titles probably better than adventure 2 even yes i did just say that and in his review of generations the following year he said this anniversary titles for the hedgehog have been very polarizing so far but the 10th anniversary there was sonic adventure 2 which was good and for the 15th anniversary there was ugh see what i mean it's that assumption that the game is good nothing thinks it's horrific now but still quote probably better than adventure 2 even yes i did just say that says something far bigger to me then you get to modern times when nitro rad is reviewing pac-man world 2 when he says this okay so i know a lot of people complain about segments where you're running towards the camera and games but the truth is there are ways to do this properly so take sonic adventure 2 for example and yes i do believe this is a good example because the only thing you have to worry about is the truck did you notice the difference when using sonic adventure 2 as a positive example it needs to be qualified with yes i do think the game is good again i don't really want anyone to feel attacked by this segment because i'm really not trying to attack anybody i'm just trying to illustrate my experience with sonic adventure 2 and its reception and these admittedly anecdotal pieces of evidence highlight what i've seen over the years and it helps me highlight my experience to the audience my idea that the game sucked carried on for a couple years until 2015 when my new friend at the time exo paradigm gamer convinced me to give the game another playthrough around the time of his own video on the matter and something about it just clicked with me again so i played it again and i fell in love with the game again it's not one of my favorite sonic games of all time but i heavily enjoyed the experience now this wasn't where i was singing its praises but i was able to enjoy this game i once did without pulling my teeth out since this is when i started doing youtube if you've been following me for a long time you probably know what happens next but as i watch these cutscenes i sighed disappointment tearing my games off the shelf like i'm patchy the freaking pirate that was just a bunch of cheap walk cycles i play sonic forces when it comes out i'm incredibly disappointed and i finally see what the problems with the what i came to dub the meta era of like the hedgehog were sonic was not the franchise i grew up with anymore and while these games aren't specifically made for me that much it's still sad to see when sonic meant as much as it did to people my age who never gave up being fans as the years went on i go viral bashing forces but it's still not enough in 2019 i decided to replay the sonic series up to sonic heroes and this is when the click finally happens sonic adventure 2 is the personification of everything sonic meant to me when i was a kid and this is a passion i now have for the game that will never diminish for as long as i live i really don't need to go on any longer this video has gone in detail on what i love about sa2 and if you still don't agree then that's perfectly fine but i'm happy that i finally got a chance to express how i feel about this game it took me a long time to come back to where i was 11 years ago but it has happened sonic adventure 2 is my favorite sonic game one of my favorite games of all time you

Channel: J's Reviews

Views: 631,902

Keywords: sonic adventure 2, sonic the hedgehog, sonic adventure 2 battle, sonic adventure, sonic adventure 2 is bad, sonic adventure 2 is good, sonic adventure 2 review, sonic, why sonic adventure is good, sonic adventure review, sonic adventure 2 overrated, sonic adventure 2 (video game), sonic adventure 3, why sonic adventure 2 is good, sonic adventure design, sonic adventure analysis, sonic adventure 2: battle, sonic adventure game design, is sonic adventure 2 still good

Id: 5l5LhMyVssw

Length: 71min 24sec (4284 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 23 2020