Why Sonic Adventure 2 Was So Beloved

[Music] Sonic Adventure 2 is easily one of the most important games in my entire life I urge you not to click off the video when I say that it's the first console game I've ever played already there's kind of an expectation but I'm just gonna praise it to high heavens thanks to my nostalgia but I promise I have fair critiques to be sure this is a very personal video I've wanted to do since the beginning nowadays I don't like to think of my videos as reviews because what they represent are simply my experiences in gaming not really something made to recommend what you should or should not play last time I tried to highlight what made Sonic Adventure stick out among the crowd and today I'm going to emphasize what made Sonic Adventure 2 the highest rated Sonic game all the way up until 2017 because like its predecessor the game's reputation nowadays is far more divisive despite that it's probably the most iconic game in the series next to Sonic the Hedgehog 1 you would think that title would belong to my first Sonic Adventure but something about this game apparently clicked with people who'd have thought that a random game cube game my friend introduced me to it turn out to be a landmark in this big franchise oh and mark indeed this is the first title to ever be marketed as an anniversary game Sonic had been around for 10 years and boy did they want to show how much of a series had grown now while this may be the first console game I've ever played and by extension the first Sonic game I've ever played I do not have significantly more nostalgia with it than I do the Genesis games or Sonic Adventure 1 I picked those up pretty soon after and so with that knowledge I can firmly say that Sonic Adventure 2 is indeed the next epic thing they were going for it's gonna be a long video I naturally have a lot to say and if that's an issue I do apologize but it's time to dive in it's time to tell the story of what this game did to become a legend final act oh if there's one word I can use to describe this game it is aesthetic in the prior video I mentioned how much I love Yugi with Kawas character designs and those are everywhere on this game's interface I guess it's kind of a weird point to start out with but really open the game up and it just has this very unique feeling to it a distinct say it with me now edge that really cemented in your memory Sonic Adventure 2 has theming the core theme being hero versus dark battle to save a world or conquer it in later releases for this game here's a signature intro where sonic and shadow cross pass in front of a moon and like I love that they even reference it later in generations because it's that cool the logo it's got the scene and yang thingy going on even the beta logo had it and of course we can't mention good vs evil without talking about our playable cast I met you to have a character artwork pops out on the menus you know among the ever cool-looking assets but like the characters themselves really make a presence for the game I didn't mention it before but the last character you played in Sonic Adventure 1 wooden area the menu next time you booted it up in Sonic Adventure 2 you get to select the character to theme the entire interface after with their own background and dialogue it's really cool [Music] but on top of neat visuals and ever traits I'll mention as we go along the characters each play a major part in the story in Sonic Adventure it's pretty agreed that most of a story revolved around Sonic Tails and Knuckles with the ever three feeling kind of minor in the grand scheme of things even if they had a good story to tell on their own but in Sonic Adventure 2 each character has a rival on the opposing side and plays an equivalent role on top of a sleeker menu designed the game itself only takes place through two stories now as opposed to six meaning that my narrative is pretty streamlined however segregating six characters into two stories must be a major change to the game right well yes and for the most part I feel it works out for the better but I'm getting ahead of myself I just wanted to illustrate that the game has an appealing first impression the Sonic Adventure 2 battle bucks are just screams awesome like how do you not want to at least inspect it upon seeing it at Blockbuster Video and I mean I couldn't go without mentioning that with the hero in dark scenario this means you get to finally play as dr. Robotnik in a Sonic platformer you get to actively play as the villains of the story well as tempting as that offer sounds most people probably pick the hero side story first and so it begins Sonic Adventure tube Sigma Alpha - heading due south over the city we're on route everything's ago this is control tower and we had to go on radar report cargo status of captured Hedgehog forward over that's a full cargo secured onboard [Music] movies I like bloody Ben [Music] oh my god now if that didn't really in I don't know what would Sonic apparently got arrested jumped out of a military helicopter ripped a part of a wing off and used it as a snowboard to go down the slopes of San Francisco without any snow as a California kid myself this was the coolest thing I had ever seen and my god what an improvement from the slow weirdly animated opening cutscene of Sonic Adventure this image of Sonic cheekily looking at the camera and spinning down to the city below money shot bullets not beating around the bush City escape oh man this is quite possibly the most endearing 3d Sonic level you have opening where you shred the road and send cars flying with sick tricks and the game goes cool and then you land and yep sonic controls just about as good as he did before but now they're these big gun robots as your main enemies because the whole level Sonic is on the run from the military also now SATA can grind on Rails complete with these new grinding shoes up in the game's extreme factor and do I even need to mention the music no I don't what but how do you beat a killer whale destroying the boardwalk well [Music] holy shit yeah okay that that is a standout opening to a game now of course I should be fair many don't really think it's that great because it's a linear chute to the exit and that's okay but I don't really care because what I'm doing is super fun anyway besides there are numerous shortcuts that reward skillful playing a few things here and there to look out for if you bother to explore and what the game lacks an open design it makes up for with the ranking system those cool nice tight points earlier you want to get a whole bunch of those by the time you finish each level and so it basically inspires you to play as fast but also as stylish as possible grind those rails jump those ramps get them blink and you'll miss a gold beetle even if you don't care to get a crowning achievement at the end if a thing that makes the linearity of Sonic immature to stage is really fun is the fact that you're almost always active during them and again great control so yeah I think City Escape is a worthy successor to emerald coast after that gun finally catches up to Sonic and produces the first boss fight once you easily beat it the fan-favorite character Shadow the Hedgehog appears it turns out that Sonic was arrested because the military has mistaken him for the likes of shadow so where does he think he's going with that sorry so yeah basically Sonic is really pissed and tries to confront shadow but then shadow initiates chaos control did I mention how I really like the cinematic shots in this game baffled by his new counterpart Sonic is taken aback long enough to be cornered by gun and arrested it again damn it then we go back to the adventure field where we no no now we're taken to the perspective of knuckles who was fighting another new character Rouge the bet roost old the Master Emerald because she is obsessed with jewelry simple enough I guess suddenly Robotnik appears and steals it from both of them prompting knuckles to remember what happened last time knowing that he can restore the master I'm lit up it's broke and the he flies up and scatters the pieces around the region of course Rouge freaks out and the to race to hunt the fragments and so yes you don't go back to an adventure field to miss game no you just go straight to the next level furthermore now you're controlling a different character and gameplay style within the same story in the last video I brought up for numerous positives about the scope I thought the adventure field offered I also brought up that I didn't buy multiple gameplay styles that much because they were stories of her own I never interrupted a sonic to play as big so one would think that I'm not too happy about this massive change for Sonic Adventure 2 but you would be wrong really I think both structures have their merits in this game it makes sense for the story to be arranged how it is there are two sides to this conflict two teams working together and as we'll see later time is of the essence of the pacing is enhanced by the lack of hub worlds now as far as switching gameplay styles I guess that would be obnoxious if I didn't find them good to play but [Music] Knuckles the Echidna plays as he did in the previous game now with his own stages this as I applied in the last video allows for less restricted more creative level design and wait what is that sound creative music as well anyway where was I oh yeah so knuckles controls well again that's great in fact no I think he controls even better he feels faster and now he's got this drill dive attack where he can go up high and torpedo all the way down and mixed traversing levels a lot more fun he can swim too but I know what you want me to talk about I shan't delay it any further the Emerald radar Sonic Adventure any shard in your vicinity would be picked up on the radar Sonic Adventure 2 it only picks up one at a time now why would that be Sonic Adventure your hints come in the form if deke all flying to where the Emerald is located Sonic Adventure 2 you get actual hints from monitors now some could say that this makes it a lot harder to get the emeralds in yes yes it does but you may remember I didn't quite fancy the way it was handled before you know how when you're looking for Easter eggs as a kid your parents are typically waving you in the direction you're supposed to be looking that Sonic Adventure and that's not really to say it's sucked or anything but like I I prefer being older and looking on my own with maybe an uncle around the corner to give a vague hint every now and then now yes it does suck but I can be right next to a piece of the radar just won't pick up causes me to waste more time but that is unfortunately a side effect of what I ever wise consider to be a much better hint system I've heard it said many a time but these hints are worthless unless you know the entire level and don't know what these people are talking about you can use three hints per shard the first will be pretty vague but the second will be a lot more helpful and the third should make it a dead ringer the downside is that hints will lower your score however using hints will not destroy your rank if you are using them in moderation and paying attention to your surroundings so if anything they are tools to help you if you are really stuck and you want to get it done quicker but in the first place if we're discussing how long it takes to just get through the level and move on in a story well I'll just say that I didn't need to be a speed runner to figure out but I'm supposed to use the clues the game provided to make progress I didn't expect to get may rank my first try anyway not sure why would any who that little tangent aside I think these stages are actually a lot better than what we got before because they're requiring me to be more engaged with layout I'll get more into aspects I don't really like later but for now wild cannon is a fine level and as the first knuckles level it's very easy to beat it without using hints anyway it has a reliable means of vertical transport as significant landmarks and it's able to take full advantage of away knuckles controls meanwhile tails spouts exposition to himself offline with tornado okay but seriously he heard that sonic got arrested on TV and like any good eight-year-old sidekick he sprang into his new mech to break the law and bus sonic out of jail yeah when I was a kid tails is one of my favorite characters for this reason even dating back to Sonic 2 where despite being rather young and shy tails was eager to prove himself capable it's kind of relatable anyway it appears amy also got the idea to raid the military base and so did Robotnik because Amy apparently can't fight him herself tail steps in and now we have our first character battle [Music] that was easy oh boy a tails level well I love how tails controlled in adventure 1 but with original levels Oh this'll be great he's still in the mech the road to the trash I'm just kidding so yes II 102's gameplay lives on in spirit through Tales now while I would like to play Tales as I would normally I'm not really gonna question why he wants extra firepower to break into a military base contextual way I think it's plausible even if it's had arbitrary the real reason why there is this drastic change in the characters moveset is because it was actually Robotnik who adopted gamers play style and they needed an equally genius rival to balance it out well there is one other reason but I'll discuss that later so basically but three gameplay styles I liked most in the first game have been kept and geared up for this game to me this is only good news both stories share the same 3 gameplay styles hence the rivaling characters now for Sonic and Knuckles I thought their gameplay was mainly improved feeling more organic and focused on what that respective character does best so the mech shooting yeah I think the same thing heresy I know but if you remember my one critique of gamba was that his levels were too short and too easy again a byproduct of having to share levels with other characters in adventure to be level design is more catered to the idea so it feels more satisfying but there are a few key differences for one no timer just get to the goal 2 tails has a health bar but he refills with rings I guess they figured to be taking so much damage but the normal ring system wasn't good enough then again I guess if I could recollect rings the bosses would literally be no challenge and 3 this is the thing that people really don't like about these levels I turned somewhat slower ooh the actual reason for this is submit you can aim around at targets of that moving everywhere but of course if it's a sonic game slower equals worse right well again as I said for Gama it is a slower gameplay style than that of sonic or knuckles but it's not to slower dragged out to where I feel like it's jarring ly different it's not like oh man the new turning is so bad when I'm joking and weaving in my seat to try and get my bearings and now but at the end of a day for me what matters most is that the gameplay fits within the parameters set up by the game it doesn't need to be my hyper specific taste of what Sonic should be Sonic Adventure prioritizes action platforming big the cat is not that Sonic Adventure 2 further accentuates the action by utilizing points making the sonic levels crazier adding more dynamic gimmicks to Knuckles levels and allowing tails to blow up even more shit than gamma could what I mostly care about is fun in its own right not the subset of which fun is and that is what I always get from essay 2 entails levels you're rewarded with points by racking up lock-on combos this in my opinion makes it to where you're always active like the other two play styles I mean not only are there a lot more enemies maybe even too much but the act of speeding through mowing down rows of gun robots of proper timing I don't know I find it rather badass moving on tails allows Amy to go rescue Sonic presenting this portable moment the reason I'm in here is because of that fake Hedgehog did you see it where is it now if I tell you marry me no charm character it's a it's nice oh yeah there's also foreshadowing with writing on the walls that Sonic didn't do ok from this point onward I'm not gonna detail the whole game like I've done so far I just wanted to show exactly how the game feels when you first boot it up have a game play styles and levels have been greatly reworked from essay 1 still gonna go through the story and mention what needs to be mentioned about the gameplay but there's like 30 levels in this game so I'll have to lay off a bit but that said metal Harbor this level fuckin rocks there's a bunch of military fighter jets the scenery is all bright and of course Sonic rides a space rocket for no apparent reason only to bust through another shaft and port is made of a jungle to get a rank it's basically required that you get to the very top of the rocket and the timing on this is tighter than my asshole gets while playing it mmm also at one point you have to take a little detour to get yeah character upgrades are back and you get them in levels now cool in Sonic Adventure of a Lightspeed dash was a neat ability that let you - along a trail of rings only problem was that you had to stop and charge it with a spin - in this game you could do it by simply pressing the B button near some rings however in this kind of sucks same button syndrome it's a problem that these games suffer with all the way up to unleashed it's gone from being a minor inconvenience in the classics to being pretty annoying in the 3d games there are so many times where I want to do a dash but I keep doing this new somersault move like a doofus and I get really anxious when they put these over bottomless pits because guess what also uses the B button but hey when it works for light - is the bee's knees it's another reason why metal Harbor is fun I really like chaining together strings of light speed man now the cutscene you've all been waiting for so far so good hey that's blue hedgehog again of all places I found you faker thank you I think you're the fake Hedgehog around here you're comparing yourself to me huh you're not even good enough to be you think you eat those words my entire life have always wondered what makes this cutscene so quotable is it the music well yes is it the cockiness and shadows voice counteracting be incredibly pissed off Sonic perhaps is it the fact that like a real heated encounter sonic interrupts shadow as he's speaking also probably yes for whatever reason no rivalry can match madam sonic and shadow it's a very welcome dynamic and how about that boss fight ooh his last scene wasn't enough how about this part the choreography of these cutscenes it's amazing so then Robotnik actually succeeds in blowing up an entire military island with our heroes just barely escaping good lord whatever he's up to it's queer that Robotnik's forces are more powerful than the entire United Federation army figured I'd mention it because it's kind of worth asking why gun hasn't been able to do anything about him in the past elsewhere knuckles is still searching for the Master Emerald so we're in pumpkin Hill you ready this is where every treasure hunting begins to really open up pumpkin Hill is considerably bigger than Wilde Canyon and as such knuckles gets a ton of room to glide around I quite like it there are three major landmarks and also rockets to help you get up high so it never feels like you're getting lost or taking too long to get to where you want to go and just I mean look at this place how can you forget the absolute spook that is pumpkin hill one concern many people have with the world of Sonic is the realism of 3d games took but I guess I've never found it to be an issue until oh six took it to the logical extreme it's still the Sonic universe where you have giant pumpkin mountains Bungie vines and a kindergarten janitor who runs a black market in his closet ray sells the newborns of his own kind I'm not making that up so yeah despite the not US military getting involved this still very much feels like a sonic game speaking of which ah he said his name is dr. Eggman yeah Sonic Adventure 2 signifies dr. Robotnik officially referring to himself as dr. Eggman in the West his real name is still canonically dr. IVA Robotnik but I guess he grew accustomed to the name Sonic used to make fun of him with after all he is the one making egg team robots anyway dr. Eggman unveils a new Space Station that happens to be me shape of his face like my death egg and [Music] Oh Eggman blows up half a moon as a threat to humanity but if they don't surrender in 24 hours dire consequences will happen Jesus we're not at the end of a game yet but the stakes are already pretty well done and this is by far one of Eggman's shining moments sending the entire world into mass hysteria with the press of a button if there's way more to discuss about him later but this couple of a destruction of prison island establishes that Eggman is even more dangerous than he was before so our heroes witness vast account of a conclusion that Eggman is probably searching for more Chaos Emeralds to power up the space colony tails apparently has one himself and can use it to track the others but of course sonic tails and Amy are now technically criminals so they got away the police as well I like how extreme the government is about trying to capture them you have the entire city escape thing but now you got million-dollar wanted posters bullshit fighter jets destroyed highways it's a war zone just to capture a little boy in a mech in Mission Street tails we'll also get the jet boosters which make his levels a lot more fun allowing players to not only a platform faster but also to take really big shortcuts again I do not find the mechs too clunky at all the next day as everything is settling down tails discovers that the rest of the emeralds aren't really picking up on radar inferring that Eggman took them all into space and then Oh knuckles coincidentally bumps into our heroes after finding more shards an aquatic mind side note I want to mention that this is the level where people probably start to dislike knuckles stages and I mean I get it it's a multi tiered water level I don't find it a huge pain in the ass to do it's pretty easy to navigate in the central area although it's not really fun when the emeralds spawn them aside hallways that can get a bit labyrinthine for my liking but the real reason I mentioned aquatic mine is because there's a particular upgrade hidden deep within the bowels of the level that lets knuckles breathe underwater this is very helpful for a later level but I'm not using it because most people aren't going to know about it very first playthrough anyway tails figures I bet Eggman is negotiating with the president and if they can trace the call they can locate Eggman and now we get a driving level think of it like this game sky chase only more fun I mean all you're doing is trying to get to be in before the time runs out and you lose your target you only do this once per story but it's pretty easy and stuff it's wow yay we found the president Sonic and Tails jump into the president son go limo and steal his transcripts no fucks given then our heroes group of meta and seeker pyramid base to which knuckles also joins because I saw Eggman go inside the pyramid and more importantly I saw that Batgirl go inside with him as well but you saw them too right yeah so now we initiate this epic moment where everybody except Amy storms the base tails gets a fun level with plenty of shortcuts and explosives sonic gets a really cool level and a way past cool ability and Knuckles gets probably the worst level in the game yeah I think that's about right the upper two levels go by quickly and feel really satisfying to pull off but def chamber is a bit of a maze every other knuckles level is fine by me because it's usually one white big area bits easy to navigate death chamber however splendid by a whole bunch of hallways upper areas and side rooms and every door needs to be opened by hitting an hourglass switch this is where the radar actually does become a big problem as it takes a long amount of time to go back and forth throughout the lair even with hits the level tends to drag on a bit too much and this is coming from someone who's played the game quite a bit I guess that's another thing to consider I don't find the other gameplay styles much worse than Sonic because I'm almost never stuck in a level long enough to ever boring to play even if they aren't necessarily the same high speed action they don't feel slow because they're paced incredibly well with this in mind that def chamber is a good example of how not to do a treasure hunting stage one thing I also want to point out about this pyramid chapter is that you actually fight some new enemies egg man's badniks complete with small animals popping out instead of a chaos drives used to power begun robots now for head and base you also fight a few gun robots but these decreases you get deeper into the pyramid of Sonic and Knuckles this is because gun is onto Eggman but they aren't really able to make a breach it's a pretty miniscule detail but it's consistency but I appreciate nonetheless also Eggman has mass-produced eat 1000 robots which resemble gamma it kind of reminds me of wily and his fondness for guts made I got sidetracked sorry I just kind of like have a charm of Sonic Adventure is still present despite my earlier jokes about the character battles - pretty decent bosses are thrown at you at the end of Eggman space King boom boo scared the bejesus out of me as a kid I literally remember not beating the game for a month because I was too afraid oh but it took a fight I like our ridiculously fast knuckles runs away from him like look at him go you're supposed to wait until he starts barfing and fires go around him and weaken him with light and when you do this if you're really good you could catch up to a multiple time speed on him before the light comes back it's way more fun than most of the bosses and that's a one then as it looks like you're in the clear Eggman surprises Sonic with the egg golem much like King boom boom the fight doesn't feel too dragged down by mandatory waiting a skilled player can meet the fight go faster by accurately predicting the boss's movements finally everyone boards one of Eggman's spare rockets that sure loves mechanical things doesn't he now Betty has one or two spaceships lying around here somewhere hmm they head off into outer space so this is the space colony where Eggman is hiding is everyone all right no the hatch doors are all ended knuckles the only thing in the cargo bay are the wood man don't sweat it right when the shuttle don't touch that lever okay I guess it's that time where we talked about those wacky cutscenes despite my general enthusiasm for these cutscenes they do leave a bit to be desired they're avast improvement over slow plodding cutscenes of adventure one but I would be lying if I said they haven't shown their age at all most notably the lip movement is still synced to a Japanese dialogue it's less distracting than it is an essay 1 because the facial animation is much better and I feel that they made it work fine for the most part yeah we'll see about that bad girl but it undeniably takes me out of the immersion whenever it doesn't work so well secondly instead of having stock animations or the characters stand there awkwardly Sonic Adventure 2 employs the use of motion capture this does mean that the range of animation is substantially improved however it can lead to some Jake moments like Eggman walking around with a half shit in his pants Sonic characters aren't quite fit for regular old human anatomy so it can look really out of place and another thing now granted I hear this is mainly a problem in the game Cuban HD ports of the game but well it's not like anybody's playing a Dreamcast version in 2019 actually there are plenty of better aspects about the Dreamcast cutscenes but somebody else already did a video on that anyway these cutscenes are pretty dated however like si1 I don't think they ruin the story sa-2 is trying to tell also like essay 1 I can't recall many platformers at the time which even attempted such a story by the end of 2001 we'd see jak and daxter the precursor legacy Devil May Cry and halo combat Evolved just to name a few the former of which really pushed a video game animation to the next level with the latter - not quite reaching that but still presenting evolution for in-game cinematography what I'm getting at is that the standard hadn't really been set in yet for these cutscenes to be considered horrible at the time hence people met the story vonlee oh yeah another thing people tend to complain about is that the characters cut one another off I mentioned it briefly with the sonic versus shadow cutscene the real reason for this is that the English clips will sometimes go on too long and overlap one another however I guess this may sound a little dumb but I never took issue with it I figured that people tend to interrupt each other in the real world so that was just a natural element to me his cutscenes Hope's also sometimes it actually does happen in Japanese [Music] Julie stay cute before food you know while we're on the topic the voice acting is also a decent bit better now recurring actors like Ryan Drummond Dean Bristow and Jennifer Doyle are to feel a lot more natural and seemed to be really fit for the roles we're playing while new actors also bring a nice range of emotion in the picture Scott Dreyer is particularly my favorite voice for knuckles because he emphasizes the calm and collected but also really serious aspect of the character better than anyone else although he can sound a tad mumbly thanks to the game sound issues [Music] talking to you is a waste of time tails is now voiced by Connor bring us the brother of his actor from essay 1 he's better but he always sounds like he's reading from a script and for the new characters David Humphrey is still be best shot a voice for reasons I'll show later while Lani Minnelli makes a fine sassy but professional Rouge the acting isn't superb but there are plenty of takes but I'd probably issue a redo for but for conveying the feeling the game was meant to give I think it doesn't swell job no problem we can find it right knuckles what why do I have to find a key we're counting on you buddy the world's greatest treasure hunter anywho now that I've used my patented YouTube laugh at the cutscenes card let's get back to the actual content sonic tails and Amy Lane safe we have a space colony while knuckles goes off to recollect the Master Emerald tails does a bit of research and reveals that the space colony actually isn't some kind of new death egg but rather an abandoned research facility from over 50 years ago called Ark if that's the case it makes you wonder why it seems to be built with Eggman space on it hmm then tail shows minis created a near identical fake chaos on what that they can use to sabotage egg man's cannon this is like what the third time tails has done something incredibly game-changing in this story seriously after proving how competent he could be in the last game tails is practically leading the operation in adventure too but of course not at the expense of our main hero Sonic and Tails once again gone a coordinated mission to shut off the machines power supply and switch to Chaos Emeralds while amy gets left behind again meanwhile knuckles goes to probably my favorite treasure hunting stage in the game it's by far the largest stage yet but I don't feel that it's too difficult to get through because again Rockets are there to easily get you where you want to go I love the high jumping the giant dive you can do from atop the numerous containment areas you can explore and the sense of gliding over this giant hunk of space the inherent speed of knuckles makes a really big level like this fun to navigate then you get about average and if you don't know but you could cheese it like this it's not alright battle although it can be a little disorienting for new players I'm sure after best knuckles and Rouge bicker at one another for a bit and then Rouge at trips and almost falls into the lava even though she can fly I like to head can him as she faked it and that knuckles would save her but I guess that's just me excusing weird plot devices in a sense of reluctant gratitude Rouge gives Knuckles for master emerald pieces and it's finally restored the two seemingly have an intimate respect for one another and this is a really good moment for knuckles as a character one thing I really like about Sonic Adventure 2 is the dynamic between our heroes and villains every recurring character is challenged in some new interesting way by their opponent we'll see more of that in a bit for Sonic and Tails but knuckles his case he's been rivaled by someone who's equally as powerful and resourceful and given that he spent his entire life alone only recently making some friends the fact that he has to deal for thieving woman is something of note for knuckles to feel infatuation towards someone who simultaneously drives him bonkers opens up the serious and focused shell he normally exhibits knuckles becomes a bit of an easier going person as he interacts with Rouge in later games and I think it's a cool dimension to add to the character back to the main group tails paves an entrance for Sonic but then an unexpected event occurs oh god damn it Amy's wandering around got her kidnapped why is she even here despite her whole I'm gonna be a stronger person speech and blast game she is a constant liability in Sonic Adventure 2 it's really odd considering that everybody else is participating even more than they did previously by the way I love the story recaps in this game it adds yet another layer to the characters as they give some pretty interesting thoughts on whatever is going on crazy gadget is probably the worst Sonic level you get pelted by artificial chaos tentacles that most people can't possibly dodge the camera can have a bit of a difficult time adjusting to your rapid turns and the antigravity switches can be quite finicky because again same button syndrome all right almost to the end hey uh oh okay okay we're just gonna bounce up no oh but I like how Eggman taunts you throughout the level and now one of my favorite moments in the entire series dr. Eggman holds Amy at gunpoint as Sonic enters with the fake emerald he menacingly demands no Sonic lay down the Emerald if he wants Amy to live and Tails looks at Sonic as if to say stick to the plan I love this look on Sonic's base knowing that he's about to totally troll Eggman but instead what follows is one of the most cleverly written exchanges in the franchise you into a big-time villain doctor [Music] you thought you could trick me [Music] Wow in an amazing display of wit Eggman Bates tails into revealing the fake emerald causing what appears to be Sonic's demise as a kid I mean it was genuinely emotional when amy was bawling her eyes out as Eggman sombrely bids his arch enemy a good farewell then the completely shook tails acts upon Sonic's final wish and battles Eggman one last time now that was a scene everything from the facial expressions to the camerawork to the intensity of a music I still regard it so fondly and the game follows up with a completely mindless boss fight yeah you're supposed to joke around Eggman and shoot him it's not necessarily easy nor hard you just kind of do it and hope you win how lame something I glossed over however is that just before Sonics capsule exploded he remembered the fake emerald could function as a real one I'll be a less powerful so to escape death sonic uses chaos control which he learned from watching shadow do it at the beginning of a game he just barely pulls it off and people do not seem to buy this how could Sonic pull off an advanced technique his first try using an emerald that's fake how could he do it just by watching someone else do it once how you ask well first I think it's worth noting that he's been able to go super using them since 1992 it's not exactly like he doesn't know the first thing about Chaos Emeralds secondly and you could call this contrived but the emeralds are miracle gems so if one were to focus all of our mental energy while on the brink of death I don't see how it's implausible to be done that's just my guess I don't see how it's much more of an asshole than gamma being able to regain feelings upon seeing their family it's fiction it doesn't ruin the plot anywho sonic just happens to pop up near knuckles and with an exhausted final effort he rushes to McKinnon to put an end to Eggman scheme once and for all final rush this is a great final level primarily your grinding over the large bottomless pit of space these rails extend so long though that you're able to get some really big momentum and there are tons of alternate paths that skilled players can use to increase their rank plenty of jumps to make and of course a section at the end Murray run down a building from falling debris that was cool then you get this awesome scene where sonic is intercepted by shadow who was amazed when he managed to pull off chaos control the two gradually pick up speed more and more and as they do that music continuously amps up - frankly absurd volume levels [Applause] but you know I can't let you miss your days are coming to an end [Music] at last sonic and shadow know that their victory will decide the world's fate and we have our final duel the second fight against shadow is much better than the first and the music is fittingly intense and climactic you can attack them normally but eventually he'll start to deflect everything you do then it's a matter of mind games you got to keep a good distance and wait for him to try attacking you before quickly striking first time players will probably find the fight a little difficult but I think as the final boss that's quite alright if you have skill timing and a good handle of Sonic's abilities you can make very quick work of shadow once you finally prove who've a superior Hedgehog is sonic surprises tails and Amy by triumphantly foiling dr. Eggman's plan a mere minute before if a cannon would be ready to fire again yeah and that is the end of a hero story I love it while it is a little unfortunate that we lost hub worlds and self-contained character stories the flow presented in Sonic Adventure 2 makes it all worth it to me my major problem with Sonic Adventure was the fact that Sonic's story has significantly more time put into it enjoy to behead than the other playthroughs Sonic Adventure 2 treats the main gameplay styles of equal focus creating a more complete experience I find that all three but carried over gameplay mechanics have been fine-tuned to feel fun of their own merits and when they aren't fun it's the fault of a level but I'm playing and not the entire component I also really enjoyed the way the story has amped up from before and we've only seen one side of it not only is the tension grander than ever but our heroes are all pushed to the absolute limit in what was the ten year anniversary Sonic nearly dies invites his most dangerous opponent yet unearthing new abilities while doing so tails is constantly in a battle of tactics with dr. Eggman the same person who he feared in the previous game and Knuckles gets a bit of that bad titty that I mean knuckles also meets somebody of equal strength and is finally able to work together with his new friends there are some very silly moments like the entire premise of the military mistaking this guy for this guy but it doesn't change the core entertainment value it doesn't make what feels like an epic action movie into something that doesn't make sense or something uninteresting but I'm getting a wee bit excited sonic has always been about being cool about action and about being next level and that is what I get out of just a hero story of Sonic Adventure 2 I know the videos gone on quite a but I still have a lot to add um a dark story the large list of things to do the incredible music the multiplayer and so I hope you'll stick with me a bit because now men steals the research from the military base located on an island to the south the military's top secret weapon is now sealed in the space in park the seven Chaos Emerald when all of the keys have been world conquest sonic adventure to the outside store long live the Eggman Empire yeah that if you pick the dark side first you actually get to see how the story begins with who's gonna win knowing the danger lies with God sorry dr. Eggman has apparently gotten ahold of his grandfather's diary which claims the military is holding a top-secret weapon naturally your first dark level is iron gate where you finally get to play as dr. Eggman and raid prison island in Sonic Adventure tubes stories very much are two sides of the same coin tails climbs upward through prison lane to break sonic out of jail Eggman reaches down through ayran gate to retrieve shadow in the city sonic escapes the military in broad daylight shadow attacks the military at nighttime knuckles rides the wind of wild Canyon Rouge dives into the water of dry Lagoon one can see it as lazy but I find it very charming and besides level counterparts still contain their own set pieces that make them worth playing Eggman gets to the core of Prison Island and awakens shadow who says he will grant Eggman one wish no that does not mean he's a genie you simple what shadow means by this is unclear so he instructs Eggman to meet him on the space colony Ark Eggman retreats back to his base after failing to get the Master Emerald from knuckles and Rouge only to find that the military is swarming the place with robots after you break through those baddies Eggman decides to see what shadows up to and the moment he turns on his computer shadow pops up on the news apparently having stolen that Chaos Emerald from the bank I like how AG man scratches his ass as he watches TV very grim dark storytelling right guys anyway shadow is up against the police as we see a flashback of him running with this girl named Maria who then sends him to earth using the capsule but Eggman later uses to kill Sonic Shadow interprets this memory in the iconic way we know revenge then you go to his first stage radical highway where you grind down a Golden Gate Bridge dodged airstrikes roll under construction and bounce around buildings easily the second most memorable level of the game but it turns out that Rouge had sent a tracker on Eggman and followed him to his pyramid base thus we get egg quarters apparently she's also in contact with somebody else it's worth mentioning that this level is pretty similar to deaf chamber however it isn't as tedious because there's no giant Center room hourglass doors or walls to dig through know if a gimmick in this level is that Rouge is looking for three keys to enter egg man's computer room however you also need to avoid the security beetle flying around you can either try and run away before it can see you or Rouge can hide in the shadows it's not too menacing if you get caught you just take damage but it's unique number less it turns out that egg man's computer can actually function as a teleporter and so Rouge follows him up to the orc claiming it's her mission to see what he's up to I promise this is where the story gets a bit more interesting dr. Eggman makes his way through be completely deserted although oddly military in forest colony and finds shadow in the central control room and this once again is a very quotable scene something about the grandiose way everybody pronounces fair lines wave a camera zooms in on shadow space as he says the world could be yours it's amazing see a shadow reveals that professor jail Robotnik created not only him but also the ultimate weapon codenamed via Clips Ken however to reactivate it he and Eggman need to gather the seven Chaos Emeralds once they do this they will have unlimited power against anyone who dares oppose them now this begs a lot of questions even by Eggman himself his grandpa Gerald Robotnik created a space colony Ark and was funded by the military to continue his research there for the betterment of mankind however as Eggman stated at the beginning of the game it was shut down because Gunn feared it so what made that happen what about shadow or V Eclipse cannon were supposed to benefit humanity in the first place the plot thickens just then Rouge jumps in and declares that she has a deal to make with Eggman if he gives her his emerald radar she will assist him in collecting the Chaos Emeralds I like this part where she bribes him look the blue emerald and he's like oh shit she got me a man shadows like yes she did anyway so our villains head back to prison Island and Eggman is understandably skeptical about Rouge taking him back here so to make sure Rouge isn't setting him up to be arrested this is where Eggman has shadows that dynamite packs to blow up the whole island in 30 minutes I love this portion of a game the unapologetic destruction that is weapons bed the tents kind of stupid but not impossible to beat time limit of security hall and the epic rush through white jungle it really feels like some tactical mission that only has one shot at being pulled off you have Eggman fighting tails Rouge gets locked in a safe and fights a third more difficult rendition of Big Foot and to top it off shadow fights Sonic now shadow seems to have some mental parallel between Maria and Rouge so he goes and saves her but convinces himself but it was just from the Chaos Emeralds I really could it's the Chaos Emeralds I have to say right and so he uses cats control to save her a mere second before the island blows up memorable action set piece did you get the idea back on the ark we see a more peaceful flashback of shadow in Maria this time between Earth apparently never having been there wondering what it's like shadow is shown to basically be kind of a newborn not really knowing why he was created but what shadow does know is that Professor Gerald works to ensure peace for all mankind he wants to visit earth to find his purpose ironically bringing us to now where he's well he's definitely found a purpose you know I didn't come to save you I came back for the Chaos Emeralds yeah yeah but then again everything is ready to go I love the relationship between these three this is the part where Eggman blows the moon in half right while in the hero story is this big deal our heroes are kind of afraid this is what happens in the dark story directly after this shocking event why are you so upset well that was really impressive you've managed to create complete havoc on the whole planet does this now mean we control the planet and can do as we choose at this rate the cannon will take too much time to charge of it if you want to unleash its full potential you'll need all seven Chaos Emeralds where our threats fell on deaf ears look at you throwing a tantrum like a little kid totally embarrassing ah it's brilliant I love how the hero side is all about teamwork how great it is that friends will have your back but the entire dark story has Eggman and Rouge bickering while shadow just doesn't give a sh in tries to get his job done anyway Rouge pulls up a newspaper that says tails got a Chaos Emerald after sanic aventure won as a reward for saving station square so many give a dark version of a cart level which fittingly is a bit more difficult because it's later in the plot than it was for the heroes Adventure 2 is pretty good a difficulty balancing it's comforting that the levels I don't really like happen to be at the end where it at least makes sense that they'd be harder to beat speaking of the end game let's go there after the heroes managed to escape Eggman's pyramid ambush the doctor informs Rouge Buettner on the way to the arc however Rouge takes this opportunity to trick him into giving her the Ark's computer password she bang goes snooping around into information about shadow and once she finds some really alarming news she stops everything to go steal the Master Emerald pieces that pull out of a shuttle oh my god it's mad space I said that deaf chamber was the worst level in the game and trust me that wasn't only for the hero story most people liked mad space of that title and I can see why the incredibly finicky anti gravity can make planetary exploration a chore and the hints are actually very different this time ferocious final level they decide to write the first hint in Reverse and subsequent hints will actually be direct lies that the player must do the opposite of I think Omochao tells you about this but you can't assume the player will always want to talk to him know most players once dead deliberately avoid him throw him off cliffs or send him into the cold vacuum of space again and again I love this game mad space has the scope of meteor herd but it's made just a little more obtuse to the point where it's not fun but you know what is fun if you press the a button while cutscenes are playing in my dream cast for HD versions of the game big the cat will appear whoa you can also find big with them the levels to the many many Easter eggs of Sonic Adventure 2 I can't really shake the feeling that they had a lot of fun making the game back in the pyramid base Eggman detects that strangely the heroes have 2 Chaos Emeralds this leads him to deduce that they're going to trick him with a fake emerald meaning yes Eggman knew during this entire scene what was going on and he baited tails into telling him anyway because he's just that much of an evil dick oh but before that we have this incredible moment wait shadow I am the one who should be telling them the end is near not you now is the time to end this long in history has been intimate juiciest if something happens finish the job Oh again 10th anniversary the final game on a Dreamcast this was the climax of everything that's happened in the series so far dr. Eggman is finally on the cusp of victory as he goes through easily the best mech level in the game and then since sonic hurtling to his doom not to mention that he has enough respect and Trust in shadow that if anything happens he'll take care of it definitely beats the previous partnerships some activist scene where sonic theoretically dies this is what Eggman says after ending this long battle with his arch enemy and this is what Eggman was actually thinking I'm dr. Eggman the greatest scientific genius of the world I finally did it I've defeated Sonic that's annoying Hedgehog has now gone forever nothing but floating chunks in space now what are you going to do now tails if you are against me you'll suffer the same fate as your buddy Sonic by far this is the characters best appearance so yeah I think that about does it for how good the recurring characters have been treated but how about our new characters while everybody else is distracted Rouge decides to take the 6 Chaos Emeralds and book it but then shadow arrives having learned that Rouge is actually a government spy ladies and gentlemen we've done it it took a long time for me to utter the word but we found our first say it with me now plot hole now I'm sure you're gonna bring up gun mistaking sonic for shadow or Eggman having a rocket when he already has a space teleporter but to understand why these are not plot holes I'm gonna do a quick Google search plot hole an inconsistency in my narrative or character development of a book film television show etc an inconsistency Wow there's nothing quite inconsistent with the government being colorblind Yvette's just dumb writing now here's an inconsistency if gun was in cahoots with Bruges of a whole time and how come they didn't just give her the Chaos Emeralds when she went to prison Island now perhaps her secret agent status was only granted by the president under wraps and so other factions wouldn't know about it but then if that's true why did Rouge assist Eggman and blowing up the Iowan did she get in trouble for it no and that makes no sense unless we're to believe that the president was willing to let an entire island of people and equipment go just for Rouge to keep her cover actually maybe that's not out of the equation but I don't really buy it Rouge never remotely talks about any of it and it just comes off as a way for them to hide whose side she's really on anyway it doesn't ruin the plot but as a bit of a sonic adventure to connoisseur I find it really puzzling when people mistake suspension of disbelief for outright plot holes that make the story nonsensical frankly while it does take thinking to fully piece the two stories together Sonic Adventure 2 is a fairly straightforward narrative and it's holes whatever you may find don't make the plot implode on itself huh rant over back on topic Rouge reveals that the information she was ordered to discover inferred that shadow is not actually the ultimate life form as shown in this report which you can actually read by the way it's pretty interesting he's supposed real shadow is some lizard thingy just then Eggman warns shadow that somebody's trying to make their way to the canyon but before shadow can leave Russia hypothesizes that shadows memories may not even be real shadow insists that even if that's true he is still himself he still made a promise and that's all that matters not only does this imply that shadows memories have been tampered with causing him to do all these horrible things but it's a great moment for his character showing that he values his personal identity and will stop at nothing to make his old friend happy and while he deems ruj a pathetic creature she's still able to make him actually think about what he's doing shadow is the first-ever villain that in the same game he was introduced in was also playable well okay maybe you can count knuckles but with three-dimensional character motives that couldn't be explored on the genesis how could shadow not make an impact the same kind of goes for Rouge being a more neutral figure literally just doing a job so she can collect her jewels I can give you two reasons as to why Rouge is a great character in the first being her personality you can comment on her appealing design all you want but Rouge also has a very distinct attitude and chemistry of knuckles shadow and Eggman that immediately make her a popular addition to the cast despite them being brand new characters I feel like shadow and Rouge fit right in with the other four that we've known since the 16-bit era and that is why the whole hero and dark thing can work so well it's why the whole story can work because the six characters really are a driving force for a much grander conflict so to wrap things up here shadow goes through final chase and has the last boss fight Oh sonic I like to think that he canonically won on account of a fact that he's literally more powerful than Sonic in every way but then you when he beat the hero story sonic blows up the cannon but a man seems to get away with the real emerald in the dark story shadow stop sonic from taking out the cannon and Eggman defeats tails as well finally emerging victorious with all seven Chaos Emeralds but not without a warning before he fires the cannon huh now I have gone through both sides in Sonic Adventure 2 I tell you how great the dark story is but well I think I've already done that simply I think the gameplay is just as fun as the hero side while also having its own levels and boss fights to make it worth playing just like Sonic Adventure I love the differing perspectives without a game emphasizes time til the Eclipse cannon fires it's really cool to see how everything plays out in relation well like this part in the hero's story where after Sonic and Tails invade the president's limo the secretary gets a call from an agent it has no bearing on the hero plot whatsoever put him a dark story directly after Eggman throws a tantrum this happens this makes things a whole lot and then brugge proceeds to inform the president that she's looking into shadow there are no adventure fields and no differences in character delivery but i feel what the world of Sonic Adventure 2 is just as ambitious and the story even more so attention to detail in every turn character monologues that reveal interesting trivia continuity from essay 1 with things like tails's ownership of a Chaos Emerald or the fact that Gerald Robotnik developed artificial chaos as an experience I think sonic adventure 2 carries and improves the adventure spirits masterfully even with its major gameplay changes I don't have much else to add them a dark story and how it differs from a hero story since they're both on the same level of quality but there is one thing about it in particular that I should note I mentioned that Tales was included in mech format because the game needed a rival to dr. Eggman however the truth is that this also appears to apply to shadow and Rouge after of e3 2009 ceman trailer only showed sonic knuckles and dr. Eggman fans were excited although soon there was outcry at the thought of tails not being a playable character ironic to top it off the new mysterious ultimate hedgehog was also not shown to be playable when interviewed Yuji naka would give numerous different answers on the whereabouts of tails and it seemed to lead to the idea that he was part of a story but not playable pre-release contains material of Sonic and skyrail which as we all know is a shadow level in the final game but at last tales shadow and Rouge were all shown to be playable a mere two months before the game was to come out almost an entire year after a game was announced indeed in less than a year's time the game must have been drastically altered to include these three characters and thus creating the hero and dark scenario we know today in the final game there are six stages for Sonic and four for shadow five stages for knuckles and Eggman four stages beurre Rouge and Tails well if you don't count Picard levels and you know I really admire this about Sonic Adventure 2 the sonic franchise is infamous for rushed games and Sonic Adventure 2 was apparently one of them however the fact that they could seamlessly integrate cloned characters and have the story worked perfectly around it all in just a year's time because fans wanted tails to be playable again I have nothing but respect for having managed to pull this off as well as they did and while I would love to see the hypothetical game or we have a sonic story a not story and an Eggman story I think it worked out for the better but you got to know characters like shadow and Rouge through gameplay I don't give a shit that tails is in the mech because well as dumb as it sounds I still felt like I was tails only now using his inventions on a gameplay merit I've heard some say but even if you were to enjoyed the other characters wouldn't it just be better if it were only sonic and Shadow honestly no I would rather have a gameplay variety and character involvement that we have now because that is just to be experienced sonic adventure to set out to achieve from its inception Sonic Adventure 2 was all about opposites the balance of good and evil past and present other shit like that and I feel that the final structure for the game emphasizes that trait really well I don't think it would have had the same effect otherwise despite the no doubt large restructure of the game since its reveal Sonic Adventure 2 feels like a complete package that was able to realize everything and wanted to accomplish and that includes optional content no Sonic game is able to match for sheer amount of content available in essay 2 okay content that actually matters on top of over 30 levels to play there are 4 extra missions for each one there are also kart races boss rushes and oh yes Macau garden but to get every emblem you also need to a rank every mission and this makes 100% adventure 2 a very big task now I've said my piece as to how rankings enhanced general gameplay by making the player feel more active but to perfect the entire game is truly daunting most of the time it's pretty fine if you can a rank the stage normal even you can probably do its missions too but there are moments that can really test my patience beating a mission is pretty simple a ranking a mission is wherever real challenge lies I kind of like it but I also understand that maybe proving you could beat a harder challenge in its own right would have been fine enough for most people in every level the second mission is to collect 100 rings for our speed characters it's easy but tails and Eggman will have a hard time because enemies can just fly in and quickscope you a rank gone knuckles and Rouge you have to kind of scour beer for rings so it's a bit of a challenge for them as well mission threes though I really like every character can find the mystic melody which will allow them to play some kind of energy flute at these tiny mystic ruins shrines your goal will be to find a lost child this prompts you to explore the level in search of the mystic ruin shrine which will then lead you to the little onion boy these are hidden in pretty clever little locations and I think it's really fun looking for them and again good decision on sonic team getting an a-rank on mission 2 & 3 only requires that you do it fast because it wouldn't make sense to do random tricks in a mission where you gather rings mission 4 is quite simple do the level under a time limit but for an a-rank put a little flair into it and for mission 5 they actually design a hard mode for each level for the speed and met characters these are really fun I've played the game enough to urban normal stages are pretty easy so these are really welcome it throws off my muscle memory every time but for knuckles and Rouge these missions suck the emeralds aren't randomized but trying to find them is equivalent to a needle in a haystack and the hints don't always help either what the fuck how do I get this emerald oh I see I just got to stand on this platform and use my sunglasses upgrade to find an invisible spring yeah there's a lot of that kind of shit in these missions I have wondered levels for what felt like an eternity looking for these it's well it's brain tingling but more often than not I just want out well at least the ARINC is easy once you've already found them all oh yeah also the cart levels have their own missions which include not hitting the cars and not hitting the walls I think these are really easy but I figured I would mention it because they're a little infamous to newer players but how about that chao garden to get all emblems in Sonic Adventure 2 you'll need to raise chess and we can't compete in races and if you're playing Sonic Adventure 2 battle Chow karate oh my god raising a child is already more fun now because you don't need to run back and forth across a map to do it now in this game all you got to do is find one of three chat boxes in a level and then your character we worked at the end of the stage after that you can just revisit it on the world map any time actually very many quality of life changes to a chao garden at least compared to Sonic Adventure DX again I can't really speak on the originals have you ever wanted to increase your chest stats but you hate how animal parts look on them well gun robots and artificial chaos are powered by chaos drives these techno crayon thingies will increase a single step or a Chow although it may not be as powerful as an animal stat boost explorative players will find that every level has its own set of animals and Chao box is hidden away including cool new legendary animals like a like a dragon or a Phoenix yeah in Sonic Adventure DX if you wanted to buy something you could only buy one in adventure to battle you can hold up to five Thank You game oh guess there's also just a child kindergarten in general here you can learn more about how to raise Chao you can see your Chao stats in greater detail you can have this idiot give your child a stupid name or do it yourself and you can drop your Chao off in school to give them cute little abilities oh but by far the biggest innovation in Sonic Adventure 2 made of a Chao garden is morality depending on which character you raise chat with they will lean towards a certain allegiance if you decide to mix it up they'll be neutral thus you get a hero in dark oh oh good lord you know for kids you can also abuse chat with a hero or dark character making them go to the opposite alignment but you're not gonna see footage of me doing that I would rather have shout of a hedgehog take a break from mass genocide so he can pet baby Chow hmm Chow races are a lot better this time around as well for two reasons one if I know I'm gonna lose I don't have to wait there for it to fucking happen - in this game your chat has a stamina bar which means you can press the a button to give him a little boost in Sonic Adventure 1 you needed to like hope your chow sparkled and then press the a button to make it go faster and this was never very clear your chest still needs to be really proficient to beat all the races and they added a lot more of them but now there's a little bit more control over the outcome boo Chao karate this well it's really amusing and cute but they too is very simple just press the a button when more zeal is running low and yeah hope they win once you be the select amount of chat races you and lock little toys for him to play with it's so precious I love the chao garden it's not really the reason i play the game but again i appreciate that they have this entire sub game to play for i have hours and hours of playtime and this is just a bonus on top of that this game is packed to the brim of cool shit look at how ake man runs around the room look at him but alright no more stalling what do you get upon scoring those final emblems what does this giant Sonic game reward you with for completing everything you get [Music] no no III did not just spend all that time complete the entire game just to play the same goddamn level employed over and over again well no current date Jeb there's something different about this one at the time this was really special for the 10th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog your grand reward for completing the entire game is a full 3d reimagining of a classic Zone that started at all right down to the original level design and badniks being completely recreated yeah the camera kind of sucks but who cares at this point it wasn't a standard anymore for the games to have greenhill levels Sonic was expanding into some maybe it was a bit too far past the days of old but the main point is that Greenhill had never been seen in this way before it even has a classic sound effect so Sonic Adventure 1 homing attack guy I can't get mad at this this is awesome and again in 2001 or Valley but when I first played the game in 2005 I wouldn't shit my pants but like Sonic Adventure DX there's more to collect throughout the game that just your final reward alternate menu themes you get amy Omochao maria and you can do a secret input to get the United Federation Secretary II yeah okay you can also unlock alternate vehicles and characters for the kart racing like oh wow egg Robo and by a ranking a character stages you get alternate multiplayer costumes Oh multiplayer yeah Sonic Adventure 2 can have two players battle it out in just about every gameplay capacity you would hope for action races mech shooting treasure hunting kart racing Chow racing Chow karate everything it features exclusive characters like Metal Sonic a child Walker and even chaos I really wish you could unlock these characters in single-player though I don't see why not on top of trim down story levels multiplayer also has unique stages to explicitly made for two-player battles the chat multiplier is more of a GameCube and Dreamcast kind of thing the idea is that you take your memory card to your friend's house and like pit your Chao against him doesn't really hold the same charm in the HD version where there are no memory cards or GBA games but yeah it's kind of a same deal for me as ratchet deadlock right hallo or Mario Party but man I love that they took the time to add multiplayer to begin with good multiplayer no other platformer in this series even came close to Sonic Adventure two's battle mode and it wasn't a waste of development because everything else felt complete regardless of my opinion on whatever it may be my only grave of two players that once you unlock the alternate costumes they actually come with new abilities - yeah right in multiplayer if you collect rings you can use special attacks to beat your opponent characters all have slight differences from one another in this regard for example amy may not have a spin - or light speed but she can spam abilities like a little bitch metal sonic can't use special attacks at all but in exchange he moves insanely fast sonic and Shadow are balanced but when they have their new racing suits good luck beating Sonic while Shadow gets to use a five-second chaos control every twenty rings sonic gets to use sonic wind it sounds balanced but what actually happens is that this version of sonic wind will not only hit the opponent and knock them back but it will also take a waiver control for a few seconds meaning that it's practically an upgrade to shadows measly chaos control giving this version of Sonic a blatant advantage over his regular self ergo making him the ideal speed character this also applies to knuckles and Tails as Mach speed tornado one mech can pretty much break the game as well alright alright I've had my fill I'm a load of content this game has I think appeared to be admirable but somewhat clumsy post game with Sonic Adventure this is a major improvement tons of legitimate challenges tons of cool things to unlock a satisfactory multiplayer a Chao garden that whatever you think of it has people coming back to this game just to play it alone what more could I even ask but what makes it all just that much better is the soundtrack too many I'm going to sound like a total dunce but this is without a doubt one of the greatest video game soundtracks I've heard of my life that is no hyperbole you'll not believe how hard it was to go this entire script about just taking a break to gush about the music even then I think I've let it leak out a few times just a few multi-dimensional Sonic Adventure 2 original soundtrack Gaia why camera keeping the weird titles here fittingly the cover features literally nothing but the characters character character characters see it's all relevant this soundtrack does something very unique in that it's themed entirely around the protagonists in Sonic Adventure I noted that the vocal themes were amazing tracks that felt like music the main cast would legitimately listen to Sonic Adventure 2 it's that but for every stage I mean alright the comic critique of V OST is that it's mostly rock but I don't find that to be a bad thing at all because it's just that damn good - what's aiming to do it remains varied enough to have a cohesive sound while also being very memorable sonic has high-energy rock tunes that always keep you moving [Music] tails follows up by sharing similar tastes but with his own synthesized appeal to it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and Knuckles features the incredibly iconic raps buy hunted P dr. Eggman has bitchin metal pieces with more of a grungy industrial percussion sound [Music] [Applause] rouges music is very jazzy with beautiful vocals and shadow well his music kind of alternates between rock and techno but either way it fits the artificial life-form motif outside of some MIDI cutscene arrangements instrumentation is top tier and the music fits whatever scenario it's placed in I love a Jensen toy slap bass the record swipes Bashir proud energy that this soundtrack emits the boss music is great the levels are great but cutsie music is great that tchau music is great everything I remember every single track and of course each character has their own theme song to be played in the cutscenes the heroes all have completely new renditions on bare Sonic Adventure 1 themes and I think they're just as great if not better [Music] the [Music] the dark side has completely new vocal themes though boasting the classic that is dr. Eggman's theme [Music] again I love this shit nothing makes a character stand out more than when they have an incredible theme to a company of our entrance I must reiterate the theme music is probably a huge factor in white people remember scenes like this there's the reason shadow left a greater impact than Metal Sonic but I digress the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack once again raises the bar of a sonic music attains featuring plenty of vocal tracks tons of artists a unique character based identity and well I just think it sounds good it's one of the many shining examples and Sega's repertoire of music and I think it's safe to assume that the franchise wouldn't be the same without it well I think that about does it I've gone through just about every square inch of this game but I feel like talking about and there's so much more out there but because I value my lovely audience I think it's finally time to talk about the last stories on ik Adventure 2 last episode wishes are eternal so regardless of who won the final battle Eggman still makes off with the final Chaos Emerald and attempts to fire the cannon I guess he was pretty serious about that 24 hour time limit however just as he does so a projection of the man the myth the legend himself Gerald Robotnik shows up and plays around the entire world promising revenge upon all of humanity for taking everything away from him by gathering all Chaos Emeralds and activating the Eclipse cannon it actually triggers a program that'll make the entire arc fall to earth and destroy it Rouge gets a call from the President and a wait a minute why didn't she take the emeralds that was what she was here the entire time to do what did she really get scared but shadow would kill her if she did it's not like she was off doing anything she was just sitting around after shadow went to go stop Sonic one job you had won anywho everybody shows up and watches the final message from Professor Gerald before he was put up against a firing squad oh then Eggman arrives and shows the contents of his grandfather's diary here the truth is revealed 50 years ago the military arrived on the ark to stop professor Gerald's research out of fear that it can be you against them they put the professor into custody and killed everyone on board including Gerald's granddaughter dr. Eggman's cousin Maria Robotnik during the raid shadow sent to earth by Maria and later was retrieved by gun under military confinement the professor was forced to continue his research in the art was shut down the story they released him a public beam that there had been an accident Gerald learned that Maria died on the ark and went insane only wanting everything to end because of this he designed shadows mine to be and that quote perfect pure and if anyone wanted to fill the world of destruction they should release shadow from his captivity what he didn't say in his journal was that shadow would enact his master program to literally destroy the planet so this obviously raises some more questions how much did Eggman know Maria how did jail program the art to fall to earth if he was in prison why didn't the military just destroy shadow in the arc okay well the answer to that one is probably cuz they wanted to use the research but anyway it's all very vague and certainly deeper than any story thus far none of us super complicated to where I can't understand anything but it's quite a bit more unsettling than the story of chaos the way the camera pans around the room is everyone's kind of disturbed if a creepy music the delivery of Professor Gerald I think I hit the market wanted to she meant everything to me that she died because of my research I lost everything I had nothing more to live for like we did see what's to avenge fry somehow some way more of a professor Gerald will be shown in later titles and I think it's pretty cool how it's kind of a landmark in the lore of Sonic the Hedgehog now it's clear why dr. Eggman released shadow but ironically he was totally duped by shadow and his own grandpa dole so now for the very first time Eggman works together with the heroes and leads an operation to stop a colony from crashing into Earth to do this they need to reach the core of a colony and use the Master Emerald which knuckles can apparently just pull out of his ass to counteract the energy of the Chaos Emeralds and thus oh yes one big epic final level that features everyone but shadow and the music will change as you switch gameplay styles the main gimmick here is that there would be switches which will stop time and allow you to press onward as such fare a buttload of obstacles that you need to get through bagman and Tails then you get to play as knuckles and Rouge in linear puzzle like settings not gonna lie I think this is really cool it shows that they could design point-a to point-b stages for knuckles in 3d and despite my defenses earlier I think this is an optimal approach should he return one day now if you don't get the air necklace and aquatic mind knuckles we'll have to rely on air bubbles making it a pretty tense journey to the end of the area finally you get to play as Sonic and what yeah I guess professor Gerald was pretty big on ancient echidna culture oh maybe he designed shadow off the supersonic mural and hidden palace zone I mean why else would he be a hedgehog speaking of shadow Amy finds him patiently waiting for the end his job is complete he's fulfilled Maria's wish and now he can die in peace what amy says you know what I'm tired of doing nothing and she goes to try and convince shadow the one who said office in motion to help well this apparently works because akin to chaos shadow learns from Amy but not everyone on earth as a complete douchebag this triggers his real memory of Maria showing the what she wanted all along despite the selfishness of those who killed her was foreshadowed to bring peace to all mankind again if you happen to miss for two instances where it's implied that Gerald altered shadows memory the fact still remains that he had interpreted a friend's dying wish the wrong way genuinely thought that what he was doing was right especially since he's never even been to earth before so no they're not this is true it's a detail of his character that's been absent from so many games this kind of fragility in his mind yes he's willing to go to extreme measures do things by any means necessary all that but at his core shadow isn't this heartless dude who doesn't care about anything when thinking about why he saved Rouge despite the fact that he was planning on killing everyone anyway when he sheds a tear upon realizing what he's done wrong for him a time in which he was one shadow was easily the most fleshed out villain in a series but once ami share kindness breaks through to him he runs off like oh fuck gotta go and we get shadows portion of a Last Story a boss fight against the big Moose himself the bio lizard wait what yeah this was what we saw on the report earlier it'd be prototype of the ultimate life-form this is probably the most difficult boss fight in the game featuring a pretty dynamic range of attacks balls that you got to be quick i'ma draw to avoid waterways that can carry you to your doom more balls and the bio wizard chasing you from both ends all of this plus a sick boss theme and the feeling of shadow finally being a good guy I mean I just I just whoo as Shadow finishes the prototype off knuckles upset the Master Emerald and recites the very same bursts but to call use to call upon it in Sonic Adventure 1 I really like the way the game ties them to be original by the end here the colony stops falling but then the bio wizard goes gear and chaos controls out of here according to Eggman he is now one with the colony and is going to make sure that it crashes although Sonic doesn't really know what changed in his mind he looks at shadow with the knowledge that they can stop us together and [Applause] okay sonic and shadow take the Chaos Emeralds and OH super sonic and super shadow so our final boss is oh okay the final hazard well I guess that begins the monster of a week quota somehow this battle against a giant lizard of the space colony shoved up its ass manages to be climactic the inspirational dialogue between our previously opposed protagonists the fact that you literally have five minutes until the earth is destroyed with a screen getting all red and the characters starting to panic as time goes on and of course the main theme live and learn blasting from the speakers the whole way through [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] but anyway the actual boss fight is pretty alright the one thing I don't like about it is that these lasers seem to kind of have a mind of their own it's not really apparent when we're going to Juke you and send me flying all the way back but otherwise this is a pretty unique final boss fight we get to freely control the flight of sonic and shadow it's kind of like doomsday zone but in 3d if you start running out of rings you can also go over or under the final hazard to switch characters so even with the increasing amount of lasers and flying eggs you should always have a way to pull yourself back up and with that I think you have a simple and fair final challenge it's epic it's fun it's memorable and I like it did you really think you had a chance with the orchestral horns increasing in intensity the mere minutes away from everyone's destruction sonic and Shadow fly up to the space colony Ark and pull off a super-duper chaos control together counteracting the Ark's velocity and saving the entire world however I guess shadow was so fueled by his desire to save humanity that he uses up all his chaos energy and he seemingly dies the ark is teleported back to its rightful position in space everyone on earth celebrates am a scary little girl has her demons revoked but sonic makes his way back to the ark with only a single inhibitor ring left from shadow Rouge Express is concerned towards shadows whereabouts but to no avail the credits begin to roll by as our cast slows down to have a melancholy moment where they talk about the events that just transpired Sonic & Rouge come to be understanding miss shadow was a hero in the end regardless of what the professor had in mind dr. Eggman just has a normal discussion with tails about how he looked up to his grandfather and wanted to be a great scientist just like him he's actually kind of hurt that his hero his family tried to kill him but tails assures his archenemy that they're both great scientists were able to solve this problem together and for once they stand in agreement Knuckles wonders if Rouge will go back to rapidly searching for jewels but surprisingly she says no instead she hints that there's something or someone else that she feels like pursuing right now and Knuckles can just happily leave it at that finally Sonic realizes what truly made shadow the ultimate life form and this ending is one of my favorites like it's the one everybody remembers people remember death of shadow people remember this calm moment of everyone looking out into space and just talking the soothing peace in the background of the subdued voice delivery the fact that we get to see the more human side of all these characters it's the little details that elevated above that of previous games and the final shot Sonic Adventure 2 ends on it's really great almost unparalleled it's for cherry on top of everything the game accomplishes and I couldn't have it any other way Seiler Shadow the Hedgehog [Music] [Applause] Oh God my throat hurts I mean what do I even say at this point guys Sonic Adventure 2 without a doubt in my mind is the best Sonic game I know I know that is betrayal to say in 2019 but really if you need to know why I believe this game is better than sonic 3 & knuckles sonic generations sonic mania well I think the previous hour should suffice but too long didn't watch Sonic Adventure 2 tried its damnedest and succeeded in just about every category it needed to and no that's not me saying it's perfect if that's me saying that in every area I found it to matter Sonic Adventure 2 was fun and that's what games are about fun it's that simple there is no other Sonic game out there that is as ambitious or successful with that ambition than this one okay maybe three knuckles for its time but adventure 2 really was that game II wanted to be the ultimate next-gen entry the game which was so big that even the pinnacle of 2d sonic had competition everything from a great controls the scope a destruction the stylistic appeal the set pieces the hours upon hours of things to do secrets to find the number of stages the bosses the art the music the world mistakes the lines which I can quote word-for-word because the voice actors actually gave a shit about the characters they played you're pretty persistent for I had you on the way over here was more dangerous than you could ever be that is what I care about I don't care about the fact that Sonic's levels are a tad more linear than they were in Sonic Adventure I don't care about the fact that egg man's net goes beep and no I don't even care about the extra minute or two I may spend because of a gimp radar none of the issues I have mentioned in this ridiculously long video I've ever made me quit play me never made me dock points for what I thought was a really substantial experience there isn't another game like it and you know to get kind of personal here Sonic Adventure 2 really was the thing that taught me how games could be something more games have done a long way from a frog jumping across a river or a yellow ball eating ghosts games could have stories big-budget music Merritt's that elevated above time-wasting entertainment doing that was what made sonic adventure to the top performing sonic game until 2017 don't misunderstand me I'm not saying it's high art that only the most sophisticated of video game analysts can understand I'm more suggesting that it was a platformer which went all-out to ensure it would meet expectations I guess but sonic mania is a much less flawed game but I'm not really blown away by it New Super Mario Bros 2 is a less flawed game but what about it is interesting even one of my ever favorite games ever but thing I probably regard closest to the word perfect I don't exactly have the same fondness towards because I have such a respect for what this game stands for in 2001 every little thing had to count for Sonic Adventure 2 not only was this the 10th anniversary of a mascot franchise not only did it have to live up to four previously acclaimed Sonic Adventure not only was for a new competition popping up left and right but again it was the final Sonic game on the Dreamcast which as we all know was the final Sega console the company was on the move to become third-party and once that happens it's kind of up in the air but a really become of Sonic let alone any of Sega's other properties I mean obviously the series would continue but it really was a strange time when they announced fair shift of software in February of that year they've stayed to bet sonic would be introduced on the gameboy advance but who knew if Sonic would eventually take a radically different direction who knew of Sonic would eventually be outright bought by Nintendo Sony or even become an exclusive for the Xbox a floodgate of possibilities was opened and regardless of if this can be a good thing Sonic Adventure 2 signified the end of an era not per Sonic but for gaming as a whole eventually Sonic would make his third party home console debut on the Nintendo GameCube with Sonic Adventure 2 battle this version of the game would go on to be the best-selling GameCube title within the first week of its release and naturally most people played the game this way that's the version I grew up with and loved so it led me to explore the games I missed and I wasn't disappointed it's what got me into Sonic and I know for sure but I'm not alone in that sentiment sonic would continue on after this and eventually the franchise became a joke in the general media not a joke like bubsy or a movie tie-in game no it was really different it became a thing that people were very engaged in seeing a high-budget go towards disappointing bad or even downright horrible games from a franchise but used to be the top competitor to Mario the mascot of a console lineup that was what made sonic the big controversy but it still is but before all that even with the massive changes in innovations made in Sonic Adventure which no doubt turned off many people the franchise was still held in a very high regard people expected big things with this franchise in Sonic Adventure 2 got that exact treatment Sonic might appear on other next-generation systems in the future but right now all I care about is playing one of the best Sonic games ever on one of the best consoles ever if this is Vlasic game in these declining dreamcast years it's satisfying to know that Vadim cast didn't go out with a bang with a sonic boom Anthony Chao IGN 2001 of course I'm not old enough to know how it was really like back then I only have critical records to go off of I got into a series when games like Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Riders were new but what I can tell you is that from personal experience Sonic Adventure 2 battle was one of her premier GameCube titles and a list of primarily first party games be them a kid teen or adult everyone I knew who owned a gank you played and loved adventure 2 when Sonic got his legendary debut into Super Smash Bros what music did they play Green Hill Zone no Sonic speeds my game [Music] it's fucking live and learn from Sonic Adventure 2 and why well I hope I did a find enough job explaining that today I still love the game so much but I can endlessly pop it in beat of that same day and have a grand old time it's not too short to where I find it mindless but not too long to right don't want to see it through a game which you'd think I would be bored of after all this time but I'm not the game had such a distinct appeal and legacy which if anything I'd say proved that Sonic wasn't just a product of his time the 90s cool factor of Sonic the Hedgehog was something that could be expanded somebody to show that the franchise wasn't cool because it rode trends or anything it was cool by being itself it was about the heart for Sonic Adventure 2 to be of a culmination of everything one of the most important video game franchises would strive towards that is why it's one of my favorite games of all time and it's not impossible for it to be outdone [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: JebTube

Views: 474,753

Keywords: Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Dr. Eggman, Dr. Robotnik, Knuckles, Rouge, Review, Rant, Great, Bad, 3D, Dreamcast, Gamecube, PS3, 360, Steam, Battle, Chao, Hero, Dark, ARK, TheBlackHoodedGamer, Best, Worst, IGN, Retrospective, Marathon, Maria, Amy, Multiplayer, ProJared, SomecallmeJohnny

Id: 5Ii63QA_lBQ

Length: 91min 16sec (5476 seconds)

Published: Sun May 26 2019