Why Sonic Adventure 2 is AMAZING!

back when I was a stupid kid without the exquisitely refined standards of quality and game design I have now I loved Sonic Adventure 2 playing today just leaves me with the cell or taste in my mouth Sonic is the only good part of the game the knuckles and robot stages are unplayable I mean look at that that's unavoidable totally unacceptable with today's standards of game design not to mention this story is deviantART inflation levels of cringe that tries way too hard to be dark and edgy I mean come on this is a cartoon blue hedgehog we're talking about Sonic should just shut up run fast and destroy robots we all know the only good part of this game is the chow so that goes six am i right [Applause] heyo guys Ruby a blue here and this is why I think Sonic Adventure 2 is amazing sadly though just like essay 1 the game has received a brutal lashing in recent years an undeserved one at that so that's why I'm here to explain to you in detail why I think this game is not only amazing but my favorite 3d Sonic game I believe this game to be great in just about every area even more so than essay 1 thanks to the competency which the fast-paced action-oriented replayable gameplay huge amounts of extra content amazing and diverse soundtrack and ambitious intricate storyline were made a lot of the basics from essay 1 that also applied to essay 2 I've already covered in my Sonic Adventure 1 analysis so if you haven't already be sure to watch that video first before we get into the analysis proper let me recommend two mods the Sonic Adventure 2 retranslated mod and a mod that fixes the volume for the sound effects for those who use Japanese voices this mod alters the subtitles to be accurate translations of the Japanese dialogue because even with the Japanese voices selected the game still shows subtitles for the English dialogue a lot of character moments and story points can only be properly conveyed through the Japanese dialogue so this is a vital mod if you want the full experience I highly recommend switching to the original voices if you want to get the most out of the story of this game because not only can the English acting and Direction fall short sure or was it a direct order from the president now I know you're that government spy who's the back [Music] the localization really doesn't do the games characters and story justice the other mod lowers the sound effects of the game which were here grading lis loud this was a result of the extremely shitty boarding jobs that not just si too has undergone but sa one as well both of the games have been very poorly ported from Dreamcast to Gamecube and I've had ports of ports made up them that bring them to modern platforms screwed up in these ports or even flat-out missing our textures lighting effects shading sound mixing and even glitches have been introduced if you want to run down on just how badly as I wanted to have been named by these port jobs there are links in the description of analyses going into detail that the changes in breaks unfortunately the GameCube versions which were ported onto modern platforms later are the versions that most people namely YouTube critics have played and that's a shame because when the ports screw up the presentation in such a lousy way it can really sour someone's overall perspective on the game unlike the Sonic Adventure 1 there is not yet a Dreamcast conversion moddable for SI 2 and that hurts if you watch the si 2 version comparison video I linked in the description you'll see many many visual elements are flat-out missing or broken in every version since the GameCube so please any modders out there we're all begging you please do Sega's job for them and let us all see this game the way it was intended now that's out of the way for one of this analysis will focus on everything from the gameplay to the extra modes like the chao garden even to the art and character designs and the soundtrack in part 2 will laser focus on the story and go into each individual level as well now then let's get to the meat the way I like to put it is that Sonic Adventure 2 is a streamlined and refined Sonic Adventure 1 it cuts the fat is more polished and expands and improves on the prior games ideas while adding some of its own like a good sequel does the biggest difference in structure between essay 1 and 2 is that 2 lacks any adventure fields depending on who you ask this is a good or bad thing but I really think there's merits of both approaches because of the lack of adventure fields this allows si to story an adventure to spend a significantly larger amount of land and show us more of the sonic world but it also allows each character to have their own levels specifically designed to play to their own strengths since they don't have to worry about having entrance to every level in adventure fields though side notes sadly with this approach we don't get to have Sonic go through areas designed for knuckles which I think made for the best parts of his levels in essay 1 this approach also lends itself to having more consistent and smoother story momentum and pacing essay ones adventure filled to serve their purpose well as spaces to flush out the world of Sonic and cooldown from the story and I think it earned Adventure 2 the right to streamline things for the sake of both telling its narrative and the best way possible but fleshing out each style even further speaking of styles and streamlining another big element is that we've gone from essay 1 6 gameplay styles with 6 stories to 3 gameplay styles and 2 stories not counting the shorter last episode essay 2 cuts tails us flight based gameplay Amy slower platforming and Biggs fishing in favor of keeping sonic speed platforming knuckles hunting and gammas mech suiting while expanding and improving on them in some way one general improvement that impacts all styles greatly is the change from 30 FPS to 60 FPS honestly all sonic games really need to be 60 FPS or above because Sonic games are exactly the kind of games that benefit more from the fluidity and reaction time that 60 FPS gives you si - now only features two stories hero and dark with all three styles in both which means you'll be switching gameplay styles between levels though the switching between styles will never be a consistent pattern such that there can be two stages of one style back to back this story structure has some benefits of our si one's character roulette the biggest being the amount of repetition is cut down significantly where before you would see a cutscene three maybe even four separate times with minor differences here it's at most two and again it lends itself to a smooth and consistent flow of the narrative and at that one where we get to see multiple characters perspectives back-to-back but this structure I suspect is a giant factor in why some people complain about the hunting and shooting stages do you ever find it strange that you barely see anyone making a big deal out of the non Sonic gameplay styles and si one other than the fishing because memes but an sa-2 even though they make some improvements those stages are touted as some egregious examples of bad game design I think that's mainly because in essay 1 if you wanted to play a sonic only you hood and with the exception of si one's minigames you'd never be forced to play another style however with si - you switch styles on a level by level basis for some people namely people who subscribe to the Sonics stupid friends line of thinking this method of structuring the game can be a negative I mean for me this actually works as a positive the switching of styles allows the game to stay fresh since the different style is always right around the corner this along with the lack of adventure fields makes si to story mode easier to just casually binge on than si one for me none of this is to say the hunting and shooting stages are fundamentally different from the speed stages though si - does well to maintain a consistent philosophy of facilitating a player's flow of movement or action with a high skill ceiling no matter which style the character moves very quickly and the levels are built to accommodate skillful build-up and preservation of momentum with minimal downtime for the most part but for any future games that follow si - structure this problem can be easily avoided if you're going to have style switching between levels then you should ideally have each style play more similar linked to each other with minor alterations similar objectives and similar level design for example how the 2d games handle other characters they all have the same or similar base controls and movements but with their own abilities to play around with with the goal of reaching the end of the stage and a consistent level design philosophy however I am a bit hesitant to propose that as a solution because if that model will followed with si - it wouldn't exist in its current form and I love si - as it is that solution would change the game such that we wouldn't get to see tails flesh out his intelligence and character arc by using a cyclone and we wouldn't have gotten to plays Eggman for the first time which also allowed us to get to know him more personally and cementum has more than just a comical villain I know the structure can turn some people off but speaking for myself I wouldn't want to change si - structure or gameplay in any drastic way before we go into the styles in detail I want to expand on the point of the precise turning I mentioned in my essay 1 review I've heard people complain that the sensitivity of the turning makes it too hard to control at higher speeds and as a flaw I disagree this is the best part about the basic movement because it creates a high skill ceiling with albeit a higher skill floor when going fast and every Sonic game up to now except Sonic 1 it was always easy to gain incredible of speed what was difficult however was maintaining that speed the adventure games are no different in that regard but where the 2d games required quick reflexes and memorization to maintain speed in the open areas the adventure games require mastering the precise and sensitive controls which yes are perfectly capable of being mastered and that precision being maintained at high speeds allows for so much freedom and platforming potential even if it requires more skill to maintain that speed and puts you a bigger risk of running into a hazard if we were to say reduce the rate at which sonic turns the higher his speed is or have him turn like in the boost games that would severely limit not just the players options but would actively discouraged from trying to go fast in the more nonlinear open areas this would not be possible where the movement controls to lose their precision upon reaching higher speeds but anyway like I said si to chose to keep the speed platforming hunting and shooting and expand and improve on them and I'd say it did that quite well but it did also make changes to each style that makes them unique from there I say 1 counterparts in some way some for better some for worse Sonic proudly reprises his si 1 gameplay with newcomer Shadow the Hedgehog using the same style featuring the same basic movement controls smooth buildup of momentum momentum physics and homing attack a neat little detail added with the homing attack as the characters will now make different poses as they fly from enemy to enemy cheeky bastards and the characters will now visibly spin out of a homing attack when not targeting an enemy rather than just falling out of it another small detail is that this time when doing the basic jump we physically see them spin in the air rather than being represented by an abstract ball to be honest I prefer the ball animation it's still used in other areas just not for the basic jump something they neglected to mention in my si1 analysis and this applies to SI 2 as well is that often times enemies will be lined up over a gap where you must chain the homing attack to get across it's a pretty simple challenge but you can't just mash the jump button to clear it you must make sure you're actually aiming at the enemy with the control stick and you have to wait a fraction of a second before hitting another enemy to get more air since you can't homing attack enemies above s take 2 expands on these homing attack chains by having alternate paths of enemies leading to more points time chains between enemies activating force fields having to kill an enemy over a pit where you must homing attack back to the starting platform and so on but for a lot of these chains it's possible to make use of the returning and refined Lightspeed attack to clear the gap in a flash which can actually break through an enemy's electric force field and lastly if you don't care about the extra points from enemy kills and instead prefer faster but riskier strats oftentimes you can take advantage of the Spin Dash to cross those large gaps with ease and speaking of which the biggest change sa-2 makes to the face abilities is the Spin Dash which now requires holding down the action button for a second before it actually begins charging this now means spamming it like an essay one is impossible if you watch my essay 1 video you'd know the spin dash was actually my favorite part of the gameplay because it allowed me to go as fast as I wanted while still retaining full array of movement as long as I had the skill to not run into everything and die and a faster activation also meant less downtime when taking advantage of the game's physics to get creative while I definitely prefer the Spin Dash in essay 1 the way it functions in essay 2 certainly doesn't ruin it for me you can still use it to maintain a high speed activate it at any time while running without coming to a complete stop turn freely while charging up and use it to take advantage of the game's physics to get creative but something I do find questionable as the somersault which you activate by tapping the action bug it's used to pass under tight spaces destroy boxes and attack enemies legs the amount of times you tap the button will be the number of rolls performed up to three and you can even cancel out of a roll if you press the jump button immediately after starting it if you jump out of it after the first roll sonic will have a special jump animation you can already really see that sa-2 takes great care with polish over si1 with all these little details while they appreciate the care put into the move I find this new addition really redundant there's no reason the Spin Dash shouldn't be able to do everything that the somersault does and the move has a set low speed too which can really break your flow if you accidentally activate it I don't hate the somersault by any means but there you go just giving its functionality that the Spin Dash would have been better and that way without having to share a button the Spin Dash could work like it did in SA one wall around it another new move is the bounce attack which you get from the powerup the bounce bracelet and I love this one you use it primarily to reach higher platforms but the best part about it is that you can use it to immediately gain a huge amount of downward moment allowing you to reach the ground much faster when in the air even better is when you chain a homing attack out of the move and immediately gain forward momentum on the ground I love this technique for maintaining a nice flow through a level and I find myself doing it all the time now this totally isn't an intended feature of the bounce attack but damn is it fun to use if you spin - towards a wall and bounce at the last second before hitting the wall while still moving towards it your forward momentum will be transferred into vertical momentum allowing you to bounce crazy high this can be used to traverse areas faster but also specifically in the egg golem boss fight to get quick access to the weak point on his head it's just a shame that without the sa-2 mod manager shadow can't use this ability something interesting of note is how the elemental shields from Sonic 3 and K which were a great part of that game have been effectively implemented in the Sonics move set the fire shields - ability has been turned into the homing attack the bubble shields have been turned into the bounce attack the only one that's still a shield is the electric shield it can still attract rings but it's double jump has been removed from SI wanted to the light speed - returns from si one but vastly improved instead of charging it up with a spin - all you have to do is approach any trail of rings and you're immediately whisked along in an instant it's something that's just satisfying to do and this time around there are many more optional ring trails to take advantage of the best thing about this is where before the light speed - would break your flow now it enhances it you can use it on any trail of rings to speed forward extremely quickly and often times the move is used to quickly attach to a rail to grind on and speaking of which grinding is the biggest addition to the gameplay the mechanic itself is pretty basic just land on the rail and balance left and right using this stick while holding down the action button to accelerate the speed you're going when you hit the rail will be transferred into your grind so you can gain a huge amount of speed a few homing attack or bounce attacked the rail at the right angle but since you can't home in on Rails it does require some skill to do effectively grinding itself isn't the great thing on its own what's great is how it's used aside from the spectacle aspect grinding is best used as either a reward a quick traversal for your skillful platforming and momentum preservation or used to build anticipation for an upcoming challenge and to test your timing and mastery of the controls in essence what makes grinding great and si - isn't the grinding itself but how it's used to enhance the momentum based platforming gameplay the only bad thing of the grinding mechanic is the rail switching mechanic can be pretty unreliable if you hold the stick in the direction of a parallel rail you can quickly hop over to it while preserving your momentum unfortunately it flat-out doesn't work if you're going too fast or making a turn you either go flying off the rail or don't jump properly often and resulting in death but you really need to switch rails anyway and anytime you do you're never going fast enough to mess up your jump another minor annoyance that crops up is that sa-2 doesn't seem to properly take advantage of the multiple buttons on the controller but the exception of jump and the homing attack every single move is mapped the action button in some ways this works nicely to minimize the amount of button management your fingers need to do and keeps things simple but sometimes it can result in undesired effects for example if you're in the air you want to use the Lightspeed dash on a trail of rings you may accidentally activate the bounce tag instead which will send you plummeting down often to your death and when trying to interact with objects you can accidentally activate the somersault instead simply put there's no reason Lightspeed - an object interaction couldn't be mapped to either the Y or B button on the Dreamcast controller just like I say one si two features short automated transitional segments however this time around they do a much better job with the spectacled NSA one loops would often have the camera zoom out while Sonic ran through them and si - though the camera is much more involved in the action I talked about how these segments served as transitions and give you an overview of the next big area at the end of them but upon replaying these games I've come to realize they serve another purpose as breathers both si 1 & 2 are very high octane action platformers where my hands in mind are working overtime to manage the speedy gameplay and as such the automated sections have always served as short breathers for me without even realizing it until now and they gave me time to prepare for the next section but the great thing is they still keep the action and movement of the level flowing these automated sections are often lauded as cheap thrills but as someone who replays si 1 & 2 constantly have come to realize these short sections may play a small but important role in why these stages are so much fun to replay over and over in that they prevent player burnout with short breathers without stopping the action now the biggest change to the overall gameplay and a big factor in why a lot of people prefer si 1 sonic gameplay is the level design where a lot of si ones levels tended to be more an intricate SI toos levels continuing with the theme of streamlining featured linear but not straight paths that are generally smaller the level design specifically facilitates a preservation of your momentum or flow but it also means the exploration value is cut down significantly there are still hidden items and alternate paths depending on the level just to a lesser degree than sa one you'd think that with this giant changing the level design si 2 would have much less depth than si 1 right well si 2 has other ideas to make up for the loss in exploration in level size si 2 adds a slew of new features that work alongside the more linear design increased a primal satisfaction and enhance the replay value by raising the skill ceiling we've already gone over the grinding but another giant new factor that synergizes it with the linear design is the trick system this was something in Si one to a limited degree however it's been massively flushed out here the speed stages aren't only about skillfully preserving your momentum anymore but doing in the coolest most stylish way possible performing tricks off of ramps and rails chaining together enemy kills jumping through hoops reaching more challenging areas and grinding on hard-to-reach rails all earn you points that increase your total score and often times performing these tricks directly speed up your flow of momentum making a synergize perfectly with the base gameplay and enhance it and since these aren't all easy to perform it facilitates the replay value to learn and improve your gameplay and feel so damn good when you perfect your flow through a stage the boost games were also designed in a similar way however what I say too has over the boost gameplay is that it doesn't sacrifice the fluidity and freedom of the controls and is much more kind to first-time players of that stage so you don't have to already have memorized the stage to do well in it also it's not 3/5 to T another factor is that si ones level design shook itself up more often having more varied level layouts and challenges with minigames interspersed here and there si 2 is much more homogeneous in focus which makes sense since the levels can now be built for the speed characters exclusively and there's nothing wrong with that either well let's say once level design is great in its own right si to speed stages still retain the same precise controls and abilities and really perfect that addiction and replay value down to a tee in large part thanks to the game's positive reinforcement of skillful gameplay through the points for tricks and new ranking system in every Sonic game you were always scored based on the amount of rings collected enemies killed and time completed sa-2 is the first game to actually contextualize that score giving you a rank of e to a depending on the amount for me at least this is a huge factor as to why SI 2 is so fun to play and replay is something that goes for any game when making it enjoyable giving the player positive reinforcement for doing well I do understand though that some people prefer not to have the ranking system because it works in the other way too negative reinforcement for doing poorly honestly this is an easy one all you need to do is have an option to disable ranks appearing at the end of levels and everybody's happy so si to speed stages are a great example of how you can do something different with the same fundamentals they are without a doubt a worthy successor to what came before but even then I still prefer si ones stages by just a smidge the more open and varied level design and Unchained spin - being the main factors still the next time in the adventure style title comes along a speed stage style that combines the best of both worlds could make for the best 3d Sonic gameplay we've ever seen because si 2 stages definitely made a lot of valuable contributions on their own the hunting stages make their return from si one with another newcomer rouge the bat sharing the style with knuckles however this time it isn't only the Master Emerald charts that are being hunted there could also be keys or even the Chaos Emeralds themselves and these stages do a really great job at fleshing out the style knuckles punch or in Raj's case her kick returns from essay 1 but expanded and improved NSA 1 you hit the button three times to perform a powerful punch NSA - it's much the same but you do different punches depending on your speed if going slow the character will perform an uppercut if going fast they'll perform running punches ending in a forward spiral attack which actually hones in on enemies this replaces knuckles ball roll from essay 1 this means not only can even maintain your speed when attacking enemies on the ground but because this move has a high set speed you can use it to immediately reach top speed as soon as you pass the threshold to use the attack I've come to use this all the time to gain and maintain my flow through a stage the glide also returns a little faster and more responsive than before as well as the wall climbing which now attaches to the wall a bit quicker a new move is an upward spiral attack which you can activate by spinning the stick and hitting the action button my favourite addition to knuckles and Rouge is moveset is the downward spiral dive which is activated by hitting the action button in the you immediately get a huge amount of downward momentum with a great amount of midair control and you're able to chain a glide out of it this move is vital because of how vertical the hunting stages are in this game it's together with the glide facilitates speedy traversal of huge amounts of space but the returning digging move also works off of the dive in which you will drill straight into surfaces that can be dug in an essay worm shards hidden in the ground were very easy to find thanks to the precise radar and clearly telegraphed dig locations often denoted by a circle of rings and then say too though it's less clear where exactly a shard will be hidden since it isn't as clearly telegraphed and because of the less precise radar but something actually good that the GameCube version of sa-2 added was an exclamation point over the character's head when you were right on top of the shard this really helps in cutting down the amount of time digging trying to find the shard I dare say it was even a necessary addition for a few pieces and speaking of the radar system the biggest change from essay 1 is how it works in essay 1 the radar could pick up on any of the three pieces at any time however an essay - it only picks up one piece at a time I suspect this was done to pad out the length of the stages but it feels pretty artificial and forces you to go through the same areas you might have already traversed again and again though you can totally find the other emerald shards out of order if you happen to see them or have memorized the many many possible locations that can be in something I haven't done though the size and glow enos of the pieces have been reduced compared to essay 1 making them harder to spot without the radar the stages would have been just fine if the radar worked like it did in essay 1 and SI toos radars also less precise than SI ones radar in essay 1 the radar would progressively beat faster and had five stages of detection denoted by color and size making it really easy to tell how far away you were from a shard but an SI - there are only three stages that all have their own set speeds well four if you count the exclamation point the new radar system seems to be a big turn-off to people but honestly I really don't mind it much think about it the hunting stages are all about making use of the controls the speedily and efficiently hunt for the shards as fast as you can when you take into account the improved and added moves that are used to enhance your flow that it just feels good to control the character and that most levels are built for quick sweeping at the same area over and over asking for more traversal the levels really isn't a big deal for me the design of the hunting stages this time around is much more interesting and fun to traverse the size of the stages this time around is massively increased particularly vertically but to account for this you have a move set to accommodate that as I've gone into but also the addition of rocket pads and Springs everywhere to quickly go up simply put the hunting stages in Si to really put emphasis on verticality with some exceptions but I'll go into individual levels later and because of this verticality one of the most fun things you can do is travel to the topical level like meteor hurted mad space and drill dive all the way back down an element of the levels that's been expanded from essay 1 is that sometimes in the hunting stages you'll be able to get close to a piece but you won't immediately be able to access it instead needing to do some kind of action first like hitting a switch to open the safe that's in and sometimes pieces even have many challenges too even getting them like a piece being placed under a giant weight or between hazards and the hunting stages do well to make each stage unique with their own ideas or gimmicks one such gimmick is that a few stages actually feature swimming you hold the action button to descend and hold the jump button to ascend unlike some other games with swimming levels the hunting stages are never entirely swimming base for the most part instead are just small areas within the levels an aquatic mine you can even control the amount of water you want I know water levels or segments aren't exactly loved in games but si 2 doesn't overuse it at all instead serving as very brief sections that shake up the gameplay a bit or provide for an interesting challenge while the swimming itself is relatively fast and while we're talking about water get another thing I wish I touched on in my Sonic Adventure 1 analysis is the drowning theme many many people will instantly have flashbacks to their time as a kid playing Sonic games when underwater with your air slowly running out and stilling anxiety only to then hear that damn drowning theme [Music] [Music] it's much the same and as I wanted to wherever there is water all day much much worse [Music] Oh needless to say this got me good when I was a kid and made the hunting stages with water uniquely tense one last major addition to the hunting stages or hit monitors that will give you hints to the locations of pieces you can only activate one at first waiting a little bit before you can activate another one the first hint is always cryptic and with each successive hint they'll get more specific the hint box is decreased the score you get when you find the current emblem chart by one stage and the score allotted when you find a shard is based on the amount of time you found it in you could still get a ranks using multiple hit boxes though but the more you use the more you're gonna have to rely on your time completion bonus for a good rank so overall I think si twos hunting stages are a big improvement over si once and I definitely prefer them even with the inferior radar system the improved level design very challenges and gimmicks and expanded moveset make these a real joy for me to play it's funny you could almost consider that all of si ones exploration value was poured into SI toos hunting stages and honestly I think I might enjoy playing SI toos hunting stages just as much as si tu eSpeed stages if not more so when just casually replaying the game and going to the stage select I think I may very well fire up these stages just as much as the speed stages SI toos hunting stages put a particular emphasis on replayability with the randomized emerald charts such that you must master the controls and level assets to adapt to the different shard locations that replayability and testing of how well you adapt could be pushed even further if you started in a different location every time you played the stage I honestly cannot understand or relate to the hate these stages get the way you're supposed to play these stages ends up being pretty much identical to how the speed stages are played in that you must master the controls moves and level design to maintain a smooth flow of momentum to complete the stage in the most efficient way possible what's so different the non-linearity isn't that exactly why stuff like sonic utopia has given so much praise the climbing if that's it why is it in a problem with the 2d games we're this style to return I'd welcome it with open arms because I know that I really enjoyed it I loved SI toos hunting stages for their openness replayability and high skill ceiling the shooting stages returned from si 1 and are fittingly given to tails and Eggman whom we get to play as in a core game for the first time I can understand the disappointment of not getting to play as tails on foot his gameplay was great in essay 1 it is really sad to not get to see it fleshed out in this game but having tails operate a machine as a logical path for his character ever since his debut he's always been flying the tornado making use of technology and his abnormally high intelligence so him harnessing his intelligence and creating a new mech is a logical evolution of his art from essay 1 this doesn't mean we have to ditch tails on foot gameplay for the future though but I don't have a problem with the shooting style being given to him for this game the changes to this style between essay 1 and you are really an evenly mixed bag because of the nature of tales and Eggman's mechs the movement controls are a bit more unwieldy turning in a circular motion is more obtuse this time around what's interesting though is that like gamma you can aim independently at the legs of the mechs the upper body of the mech works on a swivel which means even though turning around movement wise is a bit harder you can still aim 360 degrees easily the mix jumps are lower and shorter than gammas which is a shame but like everything else with us they do cons come with pros an equal amount the movement speed is still very fast except uphill and even if the basic jumps are shorter the booster or hover powerup is improved from as I want now its activation is faster and can be used to preserve some of your upward or forward momentum from a jump allowing you to reach slightly higher I also find myself jumping and hovering to make sharp turns easier the gameplay is still based on locking onto as many enemies as you can within the time the targeting laser is active and releasing to wreak havoc however this time there's no time limit and instead your reward for combos on enemies feeds into your score something worth noting is that you shouldn't target over 11 enemies as 11 will net you the maximum score of 2000 after 11 you should release and begin a new combo and we have yet another example of how bad pork chops can affect the experience and that the target laser sound and Tails jump front can be really grating the sound effect mod takes care of the laser sound but tails this jump voice is still way too loud for something you're going to be hearing over and over whereas in the Dreamcast version not only was it much quieter but he also had a second jump grunt the same applies to Eggman for both characters there's a powerup that will increase the blast radius of laser blasts which could be very useful for netting a higher score but also hitting multiple item boxes with just one laser blast a small addition is front mounted cannons that fire linear projectiles to shoot destructible objects that aren't targetable it's fired simply by pressing the action button this is used to destroy boxes and comes in particularly handy during the character boss fights though sometimes you may accidentally take out an enemy you've meant to target though you help to train yourself to aim slightly a wave as you begin your target combo additionally there is an attack reserved for point-blank range for tails the little torpedo thing but for Eggman it's literally a spring-loaded boxing glove complete with a bowing sound effect good ol doctor for the first time in a Sonic game we actually have health bars you still collect rings in the stages but you use them to refill your health bar in small increments this has an element of endurance though the shooting stages and I think that makes sense given the amount of enemies and hazards so you can't just rely on invincibility frames and one ring to get through unlike with si1 the enemies are a lot more proactive in shooting and attacking you so you're not just accounting for targeting as many enemies as possible but also evading their attacks and because the mechs will be knocked back upon getting hit that means platforming over death pits a lot riskier and because of this again it's a shame that the movement of the mechs doesn't work like gammas because I feel like it would synergize well with the gameplay of evading enemy's attacks and make it more fun and interesting with the exception of prison lame the shooting levels do well to give a wide amount of space to maneuver when you need it they're out their best when they're either very spacious or have you moving downward as this allows the mechs to really show their speed and let you play around the hover mechanic as you consider when to start hovering to a target enemies and when to continue falling to avoid their attacks there are a few auto scroller sections and the levels that serve as short breeders where the timing of your targeting is tested explicitly something that plagues the mech stages though are cheap enemy placements very often enemies will drop right in front of you or fighter jets will bomb the path you're walking on force you to take a hit or even die if you don't know they're coming I don't know why these enemies have to sign this way and needless to say it's very annoying the mechs NSI too are a real toss-up I think gammas si1 stages controlled better and had a much smoother flow but I say twos are a lot meteor if you know what I mean they're more replayable with the score and ranking system and in that they're longer the enemies are much more interesting face and that you must both combo them and evade their attacks and the improved hover can add some nice death without a doubt if you just give them X gammas smooth movement and jump height while designing the levels around that and maybe don't have the mechs Lewis as much speed with moving uphill these stages would be superior by far and I think people would be more receptive to the style of the base movement was generally more unchained like it is with the speed and hunting stages but even as the mech stages are right now a constant flow of movement and action combined with the strategic targeting and timing of locking on enemies to let loose and destroy everything in sight make this style very fun and satisfying to me and with that we have a stalemate I prefer sa one speed stages as they choose hunting stages and both games shooting stages are equal to me but that's not really a bad thing though right SI toos gameplay manages to do something different with the same fundamentals while also making definite improvements in a lot of areas one thing I've noticed on the Internet is that there's really no consensus on which game is better among anybody I say one or two I constantly see people passionately going on about how si one is better than two or two is better than one and I think that's actually a beautiful thing these two games use the same fundamental philosophy but both managed to do something different with them some might prefer the freedom that is given to them with si 1 but others might prefer the refinement that si 2 provides and concerning people who don't say the adventure games are good with seeing some people talk about them on the Internet some of the reasons they come up with as evidence that these games aren't good baffle me like their tolerance for challenge failure or even legitimate issues drops dramatically when playing as I wanted to or even sonic games in general similarly it's like there are standards for what constitutes a good game rise unreasonably high why am I going so slow gotta go fast and I gotta go to sleep sonic wait what what's it nothin man what's with these platforms such bad design at least Mario 64 had guardrails and where do I go it can't possibly be through that drawer bright behind me which will unlock when I kill these enemies which the game's repeatedly taught me to do to unlock doors I am so lost such bad design I don't what is what is this I don't get help why it's it's like a wall that's invisible I don't understand what is with this running speed it's way too wild for this tiny enclosed canyon this doesn't help me travel faster at all such bad design how could be game to that to me to be sure both of these games do have their flaws and shortcomings but as someone who's had this entire video up to this point and their whole life to take a hard look into these games they're not any more flawed by any sort of standard we want to pretend his objective than any other games that we popularly accept as good games if we apply this standard of what counts as a good game then Mario 64 is terrible for its repetitive lackluster bossfights swimming levels booting out of levels and reusing of music Ocarina of Time is terrible for its long unskipable button mashing cutscenes shoddy aiming controls water temple and Navi and Resident Evil 4 is terrible for its limiting movement controls slow aiming half but game long escort mission and focus more on action than horror you see what I mean it's easy to just pick out flaws in a game and blow them up to such a ridiculous degree to portray the game in question as lesser for it and at worst as a Ellis traitor but that little skit even fabricate flaws but then why does this happen to Sonic more than seemingly any other game series honestly I think people are just more inclined to judge Sonic games more harshly because of that franchises blunders being so well known namely in silent go 6 with some Shadow the Hedgehog presentation and localization and boom thrown into the mix so people enjoy ripping on such an easy target to boost themselves and the games they like up by carrying something else down feels good to milk that locale am i right that's not to say everyone who criticizes us I wanted to harshly are just doing it for the lulz are misinformed about them for example plenty of classic sonic bands were put off by the direction si 1 & 2 took with their gameplay to put it bluntly neither si one or two are perfect translations of the suti games into 3d but they still maintain the same fundamentals and philosophy and that they're very fast paced platformers making use of momentum physics that invite the player to perfect their flow to a level changes they make from their don't make them any less great games in their own rights the same is true of mario 64 in sunshine those games weren't a full translation of the 2d gameplay into 3d but there's still great games with their own ideas specifically tailored to the strengths of 3d gameplay si 1 & 2 are no different changes these games do make such as unchaining the spin - makes sense in 3d because using it right requires more than just holding right in timing chumps 3d requires a great amount of spatial awareness and mastery of movement with full 3d control so making this pin mesh easier to activate is justified the use of more bottomless pits is fine because unlike in 2d you can clearly see if something is a bottomless pit add on to that the increase in mid-air control and the homing tak to correct jumps the game is properly designed to accommodate such hazards my point is I don't consider exactly translating the 2d gameplay as the standard as to whether or not these games are good and I think that does a great disservice to them and their own unique ideas and honestly I think the adventure game is better capture what it would feel like to be Sonic without sacrificing fluidity and freedom like the Boost games do that's not at all let's say the classics are lesser games for this but like I said in my essay 1 video even if it requires more skill to manage 3d actually lends itself better to such fast paced gameplay and that you can see what's coming ahead it don't have to rely on memory and have a much wider array of movement couple that with the unchained spin - in addition to stuff like the homing attack and bounce attack which you believe in more maneuverability and freedom and we have what I consider to be the perfect formula for 3d Sonic or at least a perfect thing for future games to expand on anyway here are some things that every stage in the game features that I'd like to talk about in every stage there is a hidden robot called the Golden Gun beetle which will net 1,000 points for killing but it'll disappear after a couple of seconds so you gotta get it as quick as you can this robot comes in particularly handy for getting a better rank in the hunting stages so I recommend always getting it if you can and most of the speed and hunting stages there are small items that you can pick up and every stage has their own unique item like I have no idea why these things are here as they don't serve any purpose there's a small new feature added for the speed and hunting stages where if you almost run off a ledge at a high elevation you'll come to an immediate halt at the edge so it's just a small feature to prevent running straight off ledges to your death in the same vein characters will now grab onto ledges if you just barely miss your jump onto it replacing Tikal as the game's tutorial function is Omochao functionally identical and that is placed around in relevant areas and once activated it tells you information about the game levels and mechanics without stopping the action you can end up accidentally activating him at times but I suspect the devs were fully aware of how all mojo could be annoying so they let you directly interact with them for one thing you can straight-up attack Omochao which will shut him up for a second but when he wakes back up he won't be too pleased [Music] but hey he stays down belong that for you to run away you could also pick him up which will similarly result in a whole slew of reactions from him in addition to that he'll respond kindly if you put him down gently but you can also throw him even off the stage if you want and not just every stage but even in some cutscenes if you press certain buttons big the cat makes cameo appearances a lot of them there's no reason why he's in any of these places or somehow even ends up on the space colony Ark it's just a funny little easter egg and callback yes i won if the adventure style has ever continued this has to become an easter egg tradition of having big inexplicably in the background of every stage I just love all these little attentions to detail power-ups this time around are found in the stages themselves but you can't get all power-ups within a single playthrough certain power-ups like tails and Eggman's upgraded laser blasters or shadows flaming are only accessible once you get other power-ups so facilitates looking around the levels for secrets upon replaying though exploring in the speed and shooting stages can prove harder than an essay 1 because while you can turn the camera the moment you move it will snap back toward the direction the level flows and there's no manual mode option like there isn't Sonic Adventure DX they really should have just set the camera to immediately switch to manual once you hit one of the triggers and then map some kind of other button to switch the camera back to automatic mode kind of like Wind Waker in the way it's camera system works because of the way it works most of the time the camera is actually better than this I won but sometimes when trying to go backwards or reach some place that is far off the main path that's much worse anyway while we're on the subject of power-ups every character can find a powerup called the mystic melody which is used at small altars in every level to either access alternate routes or access hidden areas which are used in the extra missions and let's go into those extra missions every stage in the game has 5 optional missions the first of which is just beating the basic stage the second is to collect 100 rings the third is to find a child that is hidden within the stage somewhere often requiring the mystic melody the fourth is to complete the stage within a time limit and the fifth is really interesting the stage assets and types and locations hazards tricks pots and more are all altered to create more of a challenge and really shake things up aptly named hard mode but in the hunting stages the Emerald locations are all now set and Static but are all now puzzles are challenges to merely collect the pieces themselves and I just want to say I love the world map the stage lek shows it's got this really cool simple style that ties all the levels together nicely even without adventure fields for collecting all 180 emblems which requires a ranking every single mission in every single stage you're rewarded with a whole nother level a fully 3d Green Hill Zone complete with fully modeled classic enemies familiar set pieces and even the classic sound effects this is the closest we've ever gotten the stage is awesome even if SI toos automatic camera system doesn't gel well with a more open layout of the stage emulating the original level design even if you think a ranking all missions for green hill isn't worth it you've got to admit that it's nice the game provides for new challenges there are even alterations to the stages in a game that's already built for being played over and over again and that at the end of all that we get a classic level being fully realized in 3d for me since I consider every summit game from Sonic 1 to adventure 2 to make up the golden era of Sonic I find coming full circle with green hill at the end of it all perfect before it was over used to the point where the iconography became completely meaningless and disconnected from South Island and for the first time ever with the stage select were shown where South Island is in relation to the rest of the world well I mean as much as a drifting island can have its general location nailed down a neat little touch is that you can actually customize the menu style and voice to a specific character who all have their own unique lines for each menu interaction in the chat world black market you can even buy an amy and a Maria theme something which I didn't even know was a thing until recording this footage a good thing I had so many rings collected up to that point unlike sa1 sa-2 features two players split-screen multiplayer which has been expanded in the battle version of the game the mode features all gameplay styles of the game speed hunting shooting cho karate chao races and kart racing all the main characters are identical to their counterparts in terms of stats but we get new characters to play as with unique attributes that are exclusive to this mode so this means you can have a totally equal fight if you but if you're interested in shaking things up you can mix and match with the extra characters and much more the main characters all have alternate costumes some even with their own gameplay attributes allowing you to shake things up even more my favorites are tails red and yellow costume which calls back to the old tornados color scheme military Eggman and risque Rouge to him in this mode you have access to special moves that you can only use here the player in second place will be able to use more powerful attacks at a lower cost the more they fall behind though handicaps can be toned down in the options and again this game doesn't properly take advantage of the multiple face buttons as all special attacks are mapped to the action button so if you have access to one you can't use the action button without activating it had the special power function been mapped to something else it could have given more depth to matches them that you could actively save attacks for certain moments to over the other player in the nastiest way possible also with this mode both players are free to attack and kill each other as much as they please so be prepared for hilarity as both players fall down the rabbit hole of endless spawn killing the speed stages are exactly what you'd expect though a lot of the stages have been simplified and made slightly shorter but there are 2 multiplayer exclusive stages what is an extended version of the boarding section of ziddi escape with unique layout ramp placements and a snowy landscape and mountainous background with an instrumental version of escape from the city to boot the other is almost entirely grinding based where you ride rails from the outside of the pyramid to the deficit siding a neat thing about this stage is that you can engage in riskier but faster strats to jump off of high rails and land on Rails below to catch up to or get ahead of your opponent I know this isn't really relevant but can I mention just how frigging amazing the texture work is in this level I mean the art for the environments in SA to are amazin either way but this level in particular looks incredible the pyramid in the distance looks like it would be a skybox element right get closer and you find out that it's a fully 3d model and a set that you can go inside and everything something you can do to troll the other player behind you is to intentionally not hit checkpoints so we'll have to restart from much further behind if they die though the same also goes for you the two extra characters here are Amy and Metal Sonic amy is slow and has less base abilities but can activate special attacks at a lower cost metal sonic can't use any special attacks but can block special attacks from the other player and moves very fast and jumps very I remember when I talked about Amy's movement acceleration in Sonic Adventure 1 well her acceleration in this game is exactly what I said I wanted because in essay 2 since her top speed is much slower than the other characters her acceleration is much faster this is a look at how I'd like Amy to play now I don't think she should ever be canonically capable of running at blissing speeds or homing attacking like sonic and shadow can since it's already been established that she isn't physically gifted like them at least not in the same way but Amy NSA news multiplayer is the perfect example as to how Amy's basic movements should be and if she ever becomes playable again which she should you could find a million other ways to make her fun to play than just making her a sonic clone so let's talk about the special abilities of the Speed characters unlocked by collecting rings the first least-expensive ability is a huge boost in acceleration and top speed the second is an attack that hits the other player no matter how far ahead they are obviously slowing them down and making them lose their rings the third is where things get really trolly you outright freeze time stopping the other player in their tracks this can result in some real laughs especially when both players times stop each other at the same time though the frozen player can make the counter go down much faster with button mashing so at least it doesn't lock them out of the game completely the hunting stages are our best two out of three challenge of who can find the emerald shards faster and like the main game only one is tractable at a time but you can still find the other out of order if you see it dry lagoon and wild Canyon are both lit differently being at different times of day giving the stages an altered look it would have been cool if all the stages had their looks altered like this or had slightly different variations with different looks like imagine city scape at night or reticle highway during the day the two extra characters Artie Cole and chaos zero acting as a very nice callback to si want to call is the fastest of them all but has the weakest attacks chaos is the inverse of that slowest of them all but has those strongest attacks kind of a missed opportunity that chaos didn't have the fastest swimming out of everybody else considering he's made out of water it would have been something cool to counteract his otherwise slowest movement of the special abilities the first was pounding the ground making the other character lose their balance the second attack hits the character regardless of where they are and makes them dizzy and throws their movement controls the third is the beloved time stop the shooting levels are either an obstacle course race to the gold ring in a linear level path or a shootout to drain the opponent's health bar in an arena decked out with assets in the latter for most of the levels both players share the same screen and the camera zooms out the further apart they are a la Smash Bros in this style every single level is exclusive to the multiplayer the two extra characters in this style are funnily enough both Chao a neutral Chow and a dark Chao the neutral Shao has the weakest attacks in defense but is the fastest while the dark Chao is the slowest with the higher attack in defense a funny little detail I love is the Chao Walker description says it's something tails invented to help Chow fight which I can actually see him doing at the Chow were ever endangered by someone like angry echidna is winning their Emirates subsequently the dark Chao Walker's description says it was created by Eggman Pam could you imagine if Eggman actually raised Chao turn them into dark chill and had them fight for him just like his robots do imagined Sonic's reaction to seeing cho trying to kill him one of the dark Chao walkers attacks is actually literally called hell bomber so wedgie do it for the mechs special attacks the first is a flurry of laser blasts the second is a load of homing rockets and the third is a giant off firing my laser beam two more modes in the multiplayer include Chow racing in Chapter Audie which you pit your Chow against each other pretty self-explanatory I'll go into detail with the Chow shortly the last mode is kart racing with all six main characters playable all with their own stats there are actually DLC cards special characters and tracks all this extra stuff was downloadable content even back on the Dreamcast version though sadly the HD ports don't have the extra tracks so there are only three available this mode is featured shortly in the story mode for both hero and dark so most of the stuff all explained applies there as well it's pretty basic stuff but there is some nice depth to it the most important thing and the key to doing well is collecting twenty rings to gain a burst in speed you also have two modes normal and drifting which are self-explanatory you can begin drifting simply by letting go of the accelerating and holding it again immediately while turning now don't quote me on this as I don't know if this is actually true but I feel like in normal mode you Celer a much faster while in drifting mode you preserve your speed if you quickly and continuously beer left and right something that's actually a strat with speedrunners so I use normal mode to gain speed and drift mode to not only make sharper turns but also to maintain the speed I gain from a boost it's a simple kart racing side boat but I think there is some nice depth that provides for a higher skill ceiling so overall what's not to love about SI toos multiplayer it's a whole slew of extra content you can enjoy with another person whether that's actually competitive action or just messing about controlling each other it's just a shame that with the game coming to modern platforms they didn't add any sort of official online functioned in a multiplayer boy so here we go ladies and gentlemen the chao garden where do you even begin with something so deep and complex there's no way I'm going to be able to explain all aspects of the chowk art and in perfect detail but I'll go over what I think is the most important if you really want to dive into the intricacies of the Chao system I'll link a youtuber called sapphire Chows channel in the description as she's pretty much the authority when it comes to this stuff since there are no adventure fields in Sonic Adventure 2 the chao gardens this time around are accessible by grabbing a key in every stage in the game after you complete the stage you'll be sent to the chao world with that character even if you're playing through the story mode but outside the story mode the chao world is accessible by a stage select and he must find a key once with every character to unlock them in the stage like before the chao world the keys are located inside of blue Chao boxes in every stage what's more each stage has three chat boxes each if you've grabbed the key out of the first the second will contain four tiny animals perspective to the stage and the third will contain a single special animal I'll go into more detail with the tiny animals later and since all main characters are playable in the Chao world that includes tails and Eggman tails is actually my favorite character to use in the Chao world mostly because he's the best at using an exploit I'll talk about later but also because he can of course fly infinitely I might add Eggman in the Chao world though is really weird in a good way seeing him interact with these small cutesy creatures is so surreal and so is seeing him able to run so damn fast seriously though look up Eggman and City escape it's hilarious so basically the tower virtual pets that are highly customizable partly through the use of chaos drives and tiny animals which alter your Chao stats and looks to get the most out of the chow requires replaying the main stages for those animals and chaos drives but also for rings which are used to buy things for the Chow burden generally speed stages are best for collecting rings hunting stages are best for collecting tiny animals and shooting stages are best for collecting chaos drives but that's only part of it when it comes to Chow customization introduced in the dreamcast version of sa - is the alignment system as I say - featured two main stories hero and dark the Chow will take on an angelic or a devilish appearance depending on the character you interact with a mess and how you treat them so Sonic Tails and Knuckles will turn Chow and a hero Chow and Eggman shadow and Rouge will turn them into dark Chow all newborn Chows start out as neutral and will inch towards one side with each interaction so if you treat a shout kindly with a hero character it will gradually become a hero Chow however if you abuse your Chow as a hero character they will move towards becoming a dark Chow and vice versa with the dark characters an interesting thing is individual Chow or will remember all of this and will grow fond of a specific character if treated well by them and grow to hate a specific character of abused by them moreover their behavior will change depending on how they're treated and if you treat a child poorly they'll die at the end of their life cycle but if you give them a happy life they'll instead reincarnate into an egg their name and all of their genetic attributes remaining the same but as all chefs start out as neutral it's entirely possible to keep them in the neutral alignment as well but it requires balancing interactions between hero and dark characters to keep them within the neutral threshold it would have been nice if there was an extra character who didn't affect the child's alignment at all so it'd be easier to not only get a neutral child but care for baby Chow of both alignments at the same time since you wouldn't have to constantly switch between hero and dark I mean unless you're okay with abusing your child and make their alignment go in the opposite direction maybe amy could have fit this role her character is definitely one of the hero alignment but for the sake of an extra character in this side mode it would have been nice and as you make hero in dark Chao you unlock two respective Gardens athlete with a heaven and hell look the dark chat Garden literally having a pool of blood the hero garden is actually my favorite because I think its color scheme and music is easy on the eyes and ears both the hero and dark Gardens had way more interesting layouts in the dreamcast version so i'm not sure why they changed it in every port since maybe just so it'd be easier to find your child since it's more straightforward as you're going to be spending a lot of time in each garden the theme from essay 1 has were prized into three versions for each garden but its intensity has been toned down as much as I like to say ones garden theme this is definitely for the better now that I've laid out the basics let's go into more detail chaos drives are dropped by gun robots and are used to increase a certain stat in the Chow in small increments and since the majority of enemies in SAT are now gun robots tiny animals are now hidden all throughout each stage and each stage has its own selection of animals so stages with lots of water will contain may swim animals and stages at high altitudes will contain many fly enemas each animal will increase a stat or a set of stats a higher amount than the chaos drives but can also decrease some stats but even then a stat will never actually go down a level and only its experienced Bar will train with each animal given to the Chao it'll gain some of its physical traits allowing for a crazy amount of combinations if you want to increase a certain stat without altering your Chows look you're gonna have to use chaos drives there are a slew of animals that don't specialize in any particular stat though animals marked by blue are more of a jack-of-all-trades animals marked by black are similar but all have special uses the bat removes the Chows legs making it look like a ghost the half-fish turns the Chows emotion ball into a flame the skeleton dog is the most useful one removing physical traits gained from animals and allowing Chow to wear hats the final animal class is a gold class of mythical animals such as a dragon unicorn and Phoenix who are mostly all-rounders but give a higher status than the other animals what's more Chow will start performing behaviors respective to the animals you give them honestly I think the stat gained from each individual chaos drive and animal is way too low but funnily enough it's a glitch that comes to the rescue and makes the Chow raising much more reasonable normally when giving a Chow a chaos driver animal it'll be used up and you won't be able to use it again but if you simply drop it in front of the child they will absorb it but you'll still be able to use it and so with the cycle of picking up and dropping over and over the process is 10 20 or 30 times faster than it would be otherwise I dare say this glitches the Chow gardens saving grace because otherwise raising a child would prove extremely crine Dee I mean that's not to say doing this for several minutes isn't grindy but it's the kind of grind that can buy into because it's all for making my child as perfect as possible but why would you invest so much time into raising stats in the first place well aside from the racing and karate mode stats play a huge role in the customization of your Chow every child has four main stats swim fly run and power the more of one stat you raise the more your Chow and so inclined toward that attribute so if you feed your child a bunch of power type animals or chaos drives it'll begin to take on the unique appearance of a power type Chow influence it towards run a run type Chow and the Huayra stat is the Chow we'll use an animation more suited to their higher skill level in that area so if you don't want to hear your Chow constantly drowning in water you should probably raise their swim stat of it after a certain amount of time spent in the garden and your child will enter a cocoon and become an adult Chow solidifying it as the type you influenced it towards hero neutral and dark will also become solidified and Chow will gain unique appearances and emotion bubbles to suit them you can make your Chow reach adult LEvolution faster by feeding it fruits and nuts which will also increase its stamina stamina by the way is the only stat that doesn't alter appearance and every lineman neutral hero dark all have their own versions of every stat type but interestingly without enough stat influence in any direction your child can simply evolve to be a normal type Chow but what if we went even deeper once your child is an adult with an appearance respective to its stat type they'll continue to evolve gradually over time depending on the stats you influence from there so if we want a neutral aligned fly type Chow we could just leave it alone and it will evolve its appearance accordingly within the fly type family but we can also keep influencing fly which will take it in another direction but what if we influenced toward run let's go even further in addition to maximizing run influence let's maximize swim influence as well so both stats have equal influence so once it's done with its gradual adult evolution we end up with a neutral slash fly slash run plus swim Chow with a very unique appearance but the possibilities are endless we could make a hero slash power slash run + fly Cho a dark slash run swim + run Chao a neutral slash neutral slash power Chao a hero slash neutral slash swim Chao a dark swim slash power + fly Chao a neutral slush run / run Chao and that's not even counting all the combinations of animal traits if they're a monotone or shiny Chao a two-tone color Chao or 2-tone shiny Chao chaos you folks I think we got something good on our hands this gin is crazy the amount of customization uniqueness and variation is astounding that's not even the end of it when it comes to how unique each individual child can be there are two hidden stats luck and intelligence according to the Chou Island website they determine your child's likelihood of success in certain situations in races both animals and chaos drives increased these stats but apparently chaos drives increased the luck stat twice as much as animals every child is born with a unique facial expression that may be influenced by the personality is also a sign with such as crybaby naive smart or curious and more the personalities affect their behavior in the gardens and apparently they can even have up to three personality values at a time this also affects what kind of fruit they'll like additionally all Chow have different stat grades as to how competent they are within a single stat so even if two Chow are both level 99 in swim one is still going to be better at it than the other if you want the perfect Chow with the perfect grades and every stat you're gonna have to invest in breeding check and mate as soon as they reach adulthood and will enter a mating season a few hours after evolving but if you don't want to wait you can buy a heart fruit from the black market and feed it to to Chow to immediately initiate them to begin mating all you have to do once a ring of flowers appears around 1:00 Chow is place the other child next to it and they'll produce an egg as both parents will pass down their range of stat grades you'll want to keep breeding Chow with the best stat grades as they appear until you have the perfect specimen don't worry incest is enticing you can also take advantage of Chow passing down their genetics to get some really unique looking Chow such as breeding a blue monotone Chow with a default two-tone Chow to get a two-toned blue Chow it's all very complicated stuff if you want to know more link is in the description for sapphire Chow channel where you can find a video going into the mechanics of genetics and inheritance but the looks and stats of the Chow aren't the only things that you can influence from the Chow Lobby you can go to the Chow kindergarten which contains a whole bunch of useful stuff particularly a classroom which you can send up to for child learn a new behavior with some being able to be leveled up the more classes that Chow takes in it once you place a Chow in class it'll take several minutes before you can take them back out weird thing is though time and class doesn't pass unless you're out of the child so if you put your Chow in class the best way to pass time to gather resources and all the stages in the station left in general the biggest part of the chow kindergarten is the black market where you buy item is used in the gardens with rings you collect from the stages the items for stock are random for a certain amount of time and the more emblems you have the rarer items will be unlocked to become available here you can buy monotone color CH Alex as well as more expensive shiny CH Alex you can buy Chow fruit which are insanely useful for increasing all stats of chowie bully you can buy hats which child will put on their heads and you can buy seeds which you can give your child a plant in their respective garden provided they have the shovel from winning one of the races the seeds will grow into a tree which will drop fruit so you don't have to buy that kind from the black market anymore the kindergarten also includes the doctor's office where you can be your child stack rates personality type stage in life and so on it includes the principle which will tell you all about the mechanics of the Chao garden and lastly the fortune teller which is used to give nicknames to your Chao she'll always give you really dumb names the first time but after that you can name your chair self obviously my nicknames are much better than anything she can hope to come up with accessible from the neutral garden are the Chao races and Chao karate where the stats of your tower put to the test in Chao racing you oh my God he's got again in shell racing you enter one of your child from any garden into the race with seven other Chao you don't actually control your Chao their stats determine how well your child will do in the race including the hidden stats of intelligence and luck but you can cheer your Chao on which will give them a short burst of speed at the cost of stamina which directly corresponds to how high their stamina status but you can't just spam the function as once your child runs out of stamina it'll start running much more slowly so you need to strategize using it in situations where you either need to make up for your child's mistake or make up for lackluster stats to gain the edge there are multiple categories of unique races tracks paths and multiple difficulties within each race the beginner and jewel Chao races individual tracks all challenge a certain stat such as a race being based mostly around swimming or race based mostly around climbing the only thing I don't like here is that you must clear every single difficulty for every single race for all emblems which can be extremely tedious just in the jewel race alone there are six tracks with five difficulty levels each so that adds up to 30 races that must be completed doing each of the six five times with only Changez the challenge hero and dark races are when things get really interesting though every race in these categories features unique challengers and tracks such as Czech clone a unique chap Challenger from essay 1 literally racing against animals a Chow parody of the Power Rangers against the single chaos cow or against oh my god the hero and dark races are unique in that you can only enter hero and dark Chao into them respectively so this means you can't just bulldoze the entire racing mode with just one Chao you'll be facing off with hero and dark Chao in both modes the races here actually have unique music fitting to the tone of hero and dark and the hero races even alter the looks of the tracks that look much spookier in therefore category there are prizes to be won such as a ball radio TV pogo stick bubble blower or sonic doll half of them simply give your child more actions to perform at their leisure but the others are actually permanent objects that get placed into the gardens every child can use and as I mentioned you can win a shovel and watering can from two of the races which will allow a child of plant and water seeds so you can add more trees with nuts or fruits to the garden and lastly your Chell will be awarded medals on their bodies upon winning certain races chuck rowdy is the other mode here your chest squares off with another Chao and there are three difficulty levels with one extra level named super mode only unlocked after clearing all other difficulties like racing you don't control your child here their stats instead determining how well they'll perform but both shall have a zeal bar that goes up and down depending on how well your child is doing if your child drains they'll become discouraged and you must match the a button to cheer them on to get them back into the fight each match has a 90 second timer and both Chao have the health bars the one who loses all their health loses the match but also the child that gets knocked out of the arena will automatically lose noteworthy here is that child with no legs are at a massive disadvantage as the higher level kick move is much faster than the higher level punching and obviously chat with no legs or feet can't kick but also funnily enough the lower level punch can end up being advantageous to exploit ring outs as long as you keep a chalice power stat under a certain level the child will only perform lower level punch attacks thing is though these attacks end up being much faster than the higher level punches so even if it doesn't do any damage to high level opponents it can still be used to wring them out and win them I'll link a video by sapphire Chow demonstrating this very thing it's hilarious most of the stats have been repurposed for this mode swim is now defense increasing how much damage your child can take fly is now evasion increasing your child's ability to dodge enemy attacks run is now speed decreasing the amount of time your child will take to attack rather than just standing around power is self-explanatory increasing damage output but also making attacks knock back opponents further and as mentioned the higher it is the more powerful attack animations are unlocked and lastly stamina corresponds to the amount of zeal your Chow has karate isn't as fleshed out as the races are but it's still an interesting mode where you can put your child's stats to the test and both racing and karate are required to get all 180 emblems a lot of people say games that will keep players coming back for years often have elements of creativity to them I agree with the sentiment looking at games like Halo 3 or minecraft but also as that's just with Sonic Adventure 2 demonstrates when you have such a deep and complex system that allows you to get so creative with such cute little creatures it's no wonder why the Chow garden is so beloved but it's not just the creative aspect of it that's only half for even just a third of the story what makes that creativity meaningful is the time and investment it takes to get the kind of Chow and the exact look you want it's because it requires replaying the main game mastering it an investing time to raise the Chows stats and see them gradually change over time is what makes the end result so rewarding that Chao may look awesome on its own but most importantly it's a symbol of the hard work you put into making it perfect all that stuff is an extremely important aspect that makes getting creative so addictive I think it's pretty clear and most people can't agree with a potential new adventure title a Chao garden must follow because it's not just a disconnected side mode in both essay 1 and 2 the Chao garden in the main gameplay play off of each other complement each other and synergize to elevate the game to the next level to succeed in the Chao garden and make the Chaumont you must replay the main stages but to get the most out of the main stages for the Chao Grodin's you must learn and master the inherently replayable nature of the game and because of that when replaying the story or stages since the Chao garden has encouraged you to become a better player your time replaying the story or levels will be enhanced thanks to the high skill ceiling suffice to say the Chao gardens take the adventure games to the next level despite not making any appearances in game for years upon years the mark they've made on the sonic franchise says enough in and of itself next up let's tackle Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack even though essay 1 is my favorite essay 2 soundtrack definitely doesn't disappoint there's a heavier emphasis on rock and electric guitar but there's still a wide variety of musical styles and vocal themes the soundtrack and sc2 was created by a collaboration of composers namely Junsu noise Tomoya at any Fumiya kuma tani and Kenichi taquoia along with several vocal performers generally Junsu now handled the rock focused levels and character themes Tomoya tani handled the knuckles level themes Fumio kuma thani handle rouge and shadows level and character themes and Kenichi toh kweh handled the event themes the music that plays during cutscenes in general the 2d sonic game soundtracks were more pop inspired jazzy tunes that became amazingly catchy ear worms if I do say so myself however with essay 1 and 2 the music is driven by long melodies that twist and turn and go up and down that work to capture the atmosphere of the location or story to take the listener on a musical journey or adventure if you will in Sonic Adventure the philosophy behind the level themes was for the music to reflect the levels atmosphere aesthetic and pace sa-do does much the same however because of the linear story system and all the characters having their own exclusive levels the music now reflects the tone of the story at that point in time and also the characters themselves who play in them now I definitely am NOT educated in music so I can't really describe the music in any sort of official descriptive way I'll just describe how the music sounds to me and how it makes me feel I'll go into detail with the Tony beets of level music in the story analysis but in general some extremes tend to feature heavy rock making use of electric guitar as the primary driving force of the melody with heavy bass underlying at all shadow seems are similar but with a more dark overtone to them making more use of mixing styles you'd hear at a nightclub or rave his love of music also features vocal undertones which i think is a really subtle way of alluding to the inner voices that plague his mind and drive him to act in the way he does more on that in the story analysis tails and level themes make heavy use of electronica but are upbeat and positive sounding reflecting his both optimistic and youthful character and his intelligent and mecha maniac side Eggman's level themes are much the same but the positive tone entails his tracks are instead more dar and devious sounding perfect for someone such as Eggman knuckles level themes are probably the most infamous of them all all of them featuring jazzy hip-hop raps the lyrics of which are always describing what's going on in nipples head at that point in the story in a very tough I don't need anybody's health way might I add I don't care what anyone says these raps are amazing near worms I could listen to all day ruses level themes featured jazzy upbeat tunes with a feminine tone reflecting rouges self-confident cunning personality her level music all features non lyrical vocals that sing along to the melodies in a smooth almost seductive way these themes are really easy on the ears and are a joy to listen to your while hunting returning themes from Sonic Adventure 1 have been updated in particular I'd like to mention that invincibility theme it uses Sonic's si1 themes opening guitar melody but also uses a melody that calls back - you can do anything the theme song for the Japanese and European versions of Sonic CD [Music] this isn't the only instance of that songs melody making its way into the adventure games the song calm after the storm also incorporates it [Music] honestly you can do anything needs to make a return not only in full form but as a recurring jingle throughout the games just as a nice form of musical tradition for the Sonic series so just like sa1 sa-2 features crush 40 to perform the main theme of the game but also ever playable character still has their own theme song for Sonic Tails and Knuckles they're all reprisal zuv their si1 themes with the same lyrics but completely overhauled in every other way where sonic steam and sa one was quintessential 90s his theme an sa-2 is quintessential 2000's tales is sa one theme had a tone of longing and yearning whereas sa two theme is confident indecisive knuckles I say one theme was passionate and intimate with rough jumps two tough intense rapping whereas NS a to the intense rapping is pushed to the forefront of the new themes Eggman finally has his own full vocal song which is just as boisterous as you would imagine it sings about how amazing is and how much he hates Sonic and how he deserves to be Emperor of the world Rouge esteem is a smooth intimate groove that goes on about how she's free and in charge of her own life and destiny but if obsessing over treasure is really the key to her happiness shadows theme is definitely the most complex out of the bunch and we can glean from it some insight into his character in the story I'll go into more detail with this theme later but theme features chaotic instrumentation chanting vocals and heavy repetition to reflect the state of shadows mind over the course of the story even if the characters don't have their own stories anymore they still went the extra mile in giving everyone their own theme that really flushes out their characters I do prefer all of the si1 versions of the reprise songs but the vocal themes are something that has become synonymous with Sonic and si 2 does not disappoint even with all these different styles and composers at all manages to come together to create one hell of a legendary soundtrack and hence the overall experience and immerse you into each character a level or story moment while we're on the subject of sound let's talk a bit about the sound effects in Sonic Adventure 1 the classic sound effects have been updated to sound more believable and take advantage of the more powerful hardware [Music] strangely though sa-2 seems to walk back on some sound-effects and instead use classic sound effects [Music] but the basic jump sound has been replaced with a more realistic woosh sound and shadow actually has his own unique jump sound honestly I prefer si once she jumps down it has this cool neon digital twinge to it that I really like I want to dive into the art direction for a bit both Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were heavily inspired by Sonic Teams real life experiences visiting Central and South America and living in San Francisco during the production of sa 2 the locales and even characters of adventure 1 were inspired by or even recreated from locations they visited during development with Si 2 the locales of the game were hugely influenced by San Francisco from the steep hills of city escape to the Golden Gate Bridge a look of radical highway and Mission Street even to the allusion to Alcatraz with all the prison Island levels apparently the destructible cars in City escape were the devs of way of venting their frustration toward the traffic they had to deal with daily because of the more powerful Dreamcast and the team's real-life inspiration there was now an emphasis put on realism in the environments when it came to textures and general aesthetic in the same vein of how the 2d Sonic games all took strides to show off the Genesis / mega drives power the adventure games do the same with the Dreamcast opting to show the kinds of worlds that can be created in 3d in terms of art style the 2d games played with the strengths of the hardware with color death and geometric textures giving a techno dreamworld vibe whereas the adventure games play to the strengths of its hardware with the photorealistic textures and vibrant lighting that's not to say the 2d games were completely surrealist or abstract compared to other platformers at the time the Sonic games took more care into making each location and level feel more grounded and part of an actual world even with this distinction though the adventure games do well to make sure all the locations are just as imaginative and still feel like part of the Sonic world but they're more realistic but still surreal aesthetic layouts and assets without a doubt the passion and excitement sonic team approached as they wanted to with when a long way in making these games not only good but memorable so let's talk about the character designs and first I want to talk about the two new characters and how they're designed shadow and Rouge shadow went through quite a few different iterations before his final design they were clearly going for some kind of really dark anti Sonic and it seems like they really wanted him to have only one eye for a while and let me just say I'm so glad they went with the final result it's a much more sophisticated take on one at dark would look like he very much does resemble Sonic but has his own unique look sporting a striking black red and yellow color scheme with his arms and belly being covered in fur unlike with Sonic not to mention manly trust her of manliness but I think what I love most is that there's so much in his design that is meaningful shadow uses air shoes to achieve top speed but not only does this give him some really unique Footwear this informs his running animations as well stylishly skating all around and also feeds into a theme of essay 2 which is part of fishy allottee namely with the fake Chaos Emerald artificial chaos Master Emerald ultra replica Chaos drives shadow isn't naturally gifted like Sonic as so he instead utilizes these shoes to even the playing field secondly he has these rings around his wrists and ankles which fit perfectly within the Sonic series and come into play as power inhibitors of sorts and later games and iterations of shadow lastly his quills curve upward curiously in the exact same shape as Super Sonic this little design choice is an important piece of the puzzle to the overall story of the game and then we have rouge the bat and she is just a treat you can really tell with this design that they went all in with femininity as a core concept with her bra and the tips of her boots being pink hearts from the beginning you can really tell that they wanted her to have a curvy figure and color scheme that accentuated her legs to complement her primary attack kicking to balance up the size of her boots at the bottom she has big ears at the top her eyelids hang low in a sultry manner allowing us to get a good look at her blue eyeshadow which really pops out from the rest of the design and I think completes it next and this is something I wish I went over in my essay 1 video Sonic Adventure featured updated designs to every existing character necessitated by the evolution into 3d and a more story and dialogue driven setting I'll have a link in the description with an excerpt from the sonic art book with yu-gi-oh kala the character designer for essay 1 he talks about how because the camera was above and behind sonic using his shorter 2d design created by now to Oshima covered up too much of his body and made his head look huge so they made all the characters a bit taller adjusted their proportions gave detail to the bottom of all the characters shoes and made sonic spines longer and curvier with the taller look that gave his for a deeper shade of blue which all had the side effect of making Sonic look older from the 2d games considering Sonic's shade of blue was always getting gradually darker in the games and the at work I think this is really fitting and it works really well as portraying the characters growth through his design almost like he's going through puberty and in my Union this new look ended up reflecting Sonic's rebellious and action-hero persona much better other characters under one great change as well such as Amy who now has a much different silhouette from Sonic and a classy red dress and boots Eggman was also redesigned to look a bit more anatomically plausible and egg-shaped while making him look cooler and more menacing this redesign helps us take Eggman more seriously and since with sa two were meant to identify with him more I feel like it makes a lot of sense lastly every character was given colour irises that contrasts with their other colours Sonic was given green irises to reflect the green pastures he's always looking out into like Green Hill I suspect tails his eyes were made blue because he's always looking into the sky flying and dreaming big and Knuckles eyes might have been made purple a color of royalty to reflect his ancestors heritage of plundering riches you ago I took what he thought were the most iconic part of socks design his eyes and quills and focused on making those really expressive and he created some really amazing 2d art work for both adventure games and the advanced games that really showed off the strengths of these designs and how dynamic these characters could be with them where the 2d games artwork were simple with a pop jazzy flair to them the adventure games have a looser more graffiti style essay ones end game models carry with the general look of US artwork but are a bit shorter and have a more rounded look to them the updated DX models adapt uuk how is 2d artwork into 3d more faithfully and I prefer them in that game only without the glossy plastic lighting and texture work they have si to makes his character models in the same fashion according to the artwork though something of note is that the textures and lighting on them are a lot less detailed than si ones models making them look more flat with the exception of shadow however whose fur does actually have some detailed texture work making him look somewhat out of place compared to everyone else this is definitely something a remake or at the very least a graphical overhaul can improve on with si - and I want to talk about Sonic's running animation in the 2d games once Sonic reached higher levels of speed he took his arms in front of him as if prepared to roll into a ball in essay 1 and to he'll now put his arms behind him in a ninja run of sorts I suspect it was changed because now that we're in 3d and the camera is behind Sonic most of the time instead up at the side having a ninja run made it easier to distinguish from his lower speed animation than tucking his arms in front of him I actually prefer this way of conveying his faster run speed because one it's a subtle way of communicating Sonic's growth and that he's much more skilled and graceful than he was in the past and two it just looks cooler only thing that nests a - omitted from sa one was that sa one had another run animation that was reserved for top speed where he would stop bobbing up and down as he ran and his legs and feet would be moving so fast they'd be a blur I wish I say two kept this as it's just another way of conveying what level of speed you're at through the character's body language and while we're on the subject knuckles run animation as notable - I've always liked the way he runs and si wanted to when he runs he's very rough not like Sonic who is more graceful in comparison I always thought that this was a nice little detail that conveyed Knuckles personality nicely he could run extremely fast himself but unlike sonic he has to visibly exert himself and the twitchy nature of his run conveys his more rough around the edges an impulsive personality Bruce shares a similar quality to her run animation however I feel like it doesn't fit her as well I don't know how do you think a treasure hunter spike combo should run si - featured a deal between Sega and soap shoes a brand of shoes meant for grinding on Rails complete with billboard ads in the urban levels of the game but biggest of all they took a leap and actually changed Sonic's shoes to reflect the soap brand and they look amazing not only do they go right along with a new grinding mechanic but these shoes really gel well with Sonic's hyper athletic character and stylish new design and the shape of the shoes really go together well with Sonic's silhouette when running as they're shaped in a dipping curve whereas his old shoes were shaped more in an arcing curve but they also have this really detailed futuristic look to them but I love especially when you obtain the Lightspeed - powerup what's great is that they still remain faithful to his original shoes with the red white and yellow color scheme and placements of each color honestly I want these shoes to return even if the soap brand doesn't actually exist anymore I think they look beautiful on Sonic and I definitely like them more than his original shoes not the crap on them or anything so the character designs were updated to properly work in 3d but also to reflect the direction the series was always building up to and growing into as a fantasy sci-fi shown in action series in 2d the classic designs work there because your view of everything is more detached and the plot is expressed through action rather than dialogue the taller more detailed designs of all the characters work better for a setting where you're much more involved the action with heavy amounts of dialogue this is something the sonic OVA understood as well as the character designs there were very similar to the adventure games and that they made the characters look more mature to better fit the more story-driven setting with more dark moments and honestly I prefer if all sonic games went with the adventure designs 2d or 3d not really talking about the modern designs as seen and unleashed and onwards as I think they're a little too tall stiff and not very expressive also side mouths 100% of the time really bothers me more so ugiy yubico as artwork and as a one and twos and game models with obvious graphical improvements si wanted to already show how well these designs work in a 3d story and dialogue having setting but I think these design could also work really well in the 2d games too the advance & rush series already proved this they're not too tall such that controlling them would feel unwieldy but I also believe that Sonic games should strive to tell good stories regardless of 2d or 3d and I think the adventure designs are best suited toward that end and also it it adds some nice cohesion and consistency between all the games which is something sonic could really do with more of that's not to say the classic designs are outdated or anything or should be totally scrapped I just think the adventure games made really valuable evolutions that the character designs that the series really benefited from and I don't think the Sonic series should artificially limit itself to how complex its stories are allowed to be but why am I so adamant on stories and sonic games though you may be wondering I mean this is just a cartoon blue hedgehog we're talking about right well join me in part two when we dive into analyzing the story going bit by bit where we'll also talk about each level as they come up and go deeper into some songs like and subscribe if you haven't already and consider a support on patreon to help me make more stuff like this and my fan made Pokemon anime series manifest art while we're at it check out my twitch where I stream animation progress and games peace out you [Music]

Channel: Ruby of Blue

Views: 298,735

Keywords: sonic adventure review, sonic adventure analysis, game design, game analysis, why sonic adventure is good, sonic adventure game design, sonic adventure design, sonic analysis, sonic review, sonic is good, sonic the hedgehog, why i love sonic, what made sonic so great, sonic adventure, sonic adventure 2, sonic adventure 3, sonic adventure 2 is good, sonic adventure 2 is bad, sonic adventure 2 overrated, sonic adventure 2 review, sonic adventure underrated

Id: q9HpmGiEs3A

Length: 85min 16sec (5116 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 19 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/RubyofBlue]

Sonic Adventure 2, just like the first game, has received an unfair lashing in recent years and an undeserved reputation as a bad game. I'm here to go into detail with SA2 to explain why it works, and why I, and many other people enjoy it. In this part, we'll go into every part of the general gameplay, as well as the Multiplayer and Chao World, as well as the soundtrack, art design, and character design. Part 2 will analyze the story, and go into individual levels.

[u/-Musashi-]

Liking the praise this game is getting lately. In fact I saw a video praising it about 2 weeks ago.