Sonic Adventure 2 Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/3/2020)

[Image from igdb.com]

Sonic Adventure 2

Developer: Sonic Team

Publisher: Sega

Genre(s): 3D Platformer, etc.

Platforms: Dreamcast, GCN

Release Date: June 19, 2001

In my review of the first Sonic Adventure, my goal was to issue a claim that one of my favorite games as a child wasn't a hot, steaming pile of garbage that everyone made it out to be. I thought I'd have to do the same for its sequel, Sonic Adventure 2, but this game has an entirely different reputation than it once did. For years, both games shared the same negative reputation of ruining the Sonic franchise by being cheesy, heavily flawed, and retrospectively starting the worse things to come. I felt like I had to defend the first Adventure game, one of my favorite games of all time and the one that I prefer between them because this reputation is still strongly felt. Meanwhile, the sequel is now lauded as not only one of the best Sonic games but also as the ONLY good, no, even passable 3D Sonic game. I played both of these games around the same time as a kid, so I have quite a bit of nostalgia for them. I always favored the first Sonic Adventure for plenty of sound reasons. I'm sticking with those reasons to highlight not why I think Sonic Adventure 1 is the superior of the two but why Sonic Adventure 2 is just as cheesy and flawed as the game that came before it despite garnering a reputation as the better Sonic game among public opinion.

By the time I played both of these games, the Dreamcast was dead and gone. I had never even heard of the Dreamcast when I first played the Sonic Adventure games as a kid. The impact that the first Sonic Adventure had on the system was something that I learned about from the internet. Sonic Adventure 2 came out at the end of the Dreamcast's initial life cycle before it was crushed under the mighty weight of the PS2 and the original Xbox. Both of these games were ported to the Gamecube as Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. I point this out because contextually, in Sonic's life cycle, both of his 3D outings were the introduction and the swansong of a short-lived console that turned out to be the last faint hurrah for the company that once made Nintendo's brow sweat profusely. Both of these games hold significant historical importance in not only Sega's history but Sonic's as well. As much as this was a revolutionary time in Sonic's life, this was also a fleeting period due to Sega's inability to keep up with the competition. After Sega's demise in the console wars, Sonic didn't have a place anymore. It was like the previous king's throne was usurped, and he remained in town only to shamelessly beg for money as he slept on the streets with nowhere to go. From here on out, Sonic was a multi-platform franchise which is probably why the games faltered as a result. Sonic didn't have the same backbone as he once did when he was being backed by Sega on his console. The Adventure games were the last point in which he did, so the point of contention about where Sonic lost his luster is after Sega dropped out of the console market, not in his jump to 3D. However, this doesn't mean that the Adventure games don't have their awkward foibles. I've already discussed this in detail with the first Sonic Adventure, so now it's the sequels that turn to be dissected for what it is despite the nostalgia I have for it and despite how much I just defended its legacy.

One thing that Sonic Adventure has over its predecessor is a better sense of organization. This is apparent in many aspects, including this game's story. Unlike how the first game divided the story by characters, the game is divided into the factions, "Hero" and "Dark," with a final story at the end after beating both of them. If you play Hero first, you'll have no idea what's going on because, like the first game, the game's overall plot is interwoven between the two stories. The story begins in the Dark section as Eggman is storming a military base. Yes, for the first time, you can play as the mad doctor in a mainline Sonic game. In this military base, he's looking for something referred to as the "ultimate lifeform." He is shocked to find that "the ultimate lifeform" is a black hedgehog that looks exactly like Sonic. This black hedgehog, however, is named Shadow. Shadow defeats the military's defense bot and makes a deal with Eggman to find more chaos emeralds to power the "Eclipse Cannon" that was made by Eggman's grandfather on a space colony called Ark. At the start of the hero story, Sonic is being taken to a prison by helicopter when he escapes. He confronts Shadow and gets caught by the military. It turns out that the military has mistaken Shadow for Sonic as Shadow has already stirred up enough mayhem to make the military chase after him. Tails busts Sonic out of the military prison with Amy alongside (don't worry, Amy isn't a playable character in this game. Thank god). What exactly is Eggman's plan for this space cannon? Well, he's feeling a little more ambitious this time around as he shoots for the moon...literally. To display the power of the eclipse cannon, he blows up half of the moon and sets a timer for 24 hours until he blows up Earth (or at least a planet that greatly resembles Earth. The geography of the world is a little askew) unless they comply with his demands of world domination. Of course, it's up to Sonic and his friends to stop Eggman before the time runs out.

Like the first Sonic Adventure game, the story is interwoven between the characters but is much less of a cluster fuck because the story is divided into three chapters and not six. The three stories are "Hero," which involves Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, "Dark," which involves Shadow, Eggman, and Rogue, and the final chapter involves playing all six of them. Even though the story is much more organized, there is still plenty about the story overall that bothers me. Overall, this game still has the same charming cheese factor that the previous game did, but what irks me is the overall tone of this game. This game is laughably edgy and pretty melodramatic. I guess I could chalk this up to the game being a product of its time. 2001 was a pretty edgy time in American pop culture, with nu-metal/alternative metal and industrial rock being some of the dominant music genres during this time. A lot of the soundtrack in this game even sounds like Nine Inch Nails. Even the returning characters like Sonic and Knuckles seem a little tenser. Maybe that's why every character constantly keeps interrupting each other in every cutscene (which is hilarious btw). No, I think that the reason this game has a darker, edgier tone than any Sonic game before is due to the new playable characters: Shadow and Rogue.

I do not like Shadow the Hedgehog. I know the overall opinion pertaining to him among Sonic fans is divided, but I thought I'd just get bluntly express my opinion of him right out of the gate in case anyone was wondering. No, it isn't because of his self-titled game (even though that game is dreadful) or because of his other iterations. I don't like Shadow the Hedgehog even in his first appearance in Sonic Adventure 2 because his edgy persona makes me wince. He's got the dark, arrogant aura that only a pre-teen would gravitate towards, and I didn't even think Shadow was cool when I was that age. One could argue that he's supposed to be a foil to Sonic, but is that accurate? Contrasting the two, Sonic is like the guy who gets too drunk at a party and tries to jump off the house into the pool, and Shadow is like the kid with the Katana collection who may one day tell some of the kids not to come into the school one day. Sure, they may lead different lives and hold different values, but they are still insufferable jackasses at the end of the day. The only difference is that the world in a Sonic game is supposed to fit around Sonic's character, and having Shadow in the limelight clashes with what Sonic is supposed to feel like. Every time the laughably dreadful Maria plot point comes up with Shadow, I have to remind myself that this is a Sonic game and not Final Fantasy. It's just not that deep, Sega.

Rogue is a tad different of a case, but her presence throws off the tone of the game just as well. Rogue just doesn't have any redeemable qualities either. She's supposed to be an independent character like Knuckles, only working in the other character's interests whenever it's convenient, but her own independent story does not paint her in a positive light at all. Rogue is a treasure hunter like Knuckles, but her specialty is jewel theft. The entire time she's trying to steal pieces of the master emerald just made me annoyed with her, and her partnership with Eggman just exacerbated this annoyance. She's supposed to also be acting as a government agent assigned to spy on Eggman but doesn't seem to be doing that well at her job. It's hard to tell exactly whose side she's on, but really, she's incredibly self-centered and doesn't care what diabolical schemes Eggman is up to unless she benefits from it, even if it is as insidious as blowing up a planet. She's also supposed to be a voluptuous, sexy femme-fatale character as well, which does not fit the tone of Sonic either One of my friends growing up admitted that his first erection as a kid was caused by Rogue, so what does that tell you? I don't mean to be a prude, but she seems so ill-fitting in the world of Sonic. Her self-centered personality does not help her case either. I will admit, however, that her stages include some of the best music in this game (Dry Lagoon especially).

The levels in this game also seem to be better organized by sections in the story, fitting level layouts that coincide with a general level of difficulty (for the most part, Eggman does visit Space Colony Ark way before the other character do). As this game's story progresses, the game goes from city levels and jungle/military base levels to the more difficult sand levels and space levels instead of having a smorgasbord of different level themes like in the first game. A stream of levels between the two stories fits where the characters are in the overall story. Each character in the story also has a gameplay mode with a boss every so often to break up the pace. Sonic has essentially the same type of gameplay as he did in the first game, with Shadow following suit. I may not like Shadow as a character, but if his presence in this game allows more Sonic gameplay, I'll take it. The Sonic levels are just as good as they were in the first game, with City Escape arguably being the greatest level in any Sonic game. Shadow's levels are just as exceptional, but they are generally a little harder than Sonic's, which seems to be a prevalent occurrence between the two factions. Every "Dark" character's gameplay serves as the marginally harder version of the "Hero" side's equivalent. This also goes for Tails and Eggman's gameplay which seems to have adopted the E-102 Gamma style of shooting chain-combos until they reach the end of the level. I'm glad they changed Tail's style of gameplay from the uninspired flight races of the first game and that they found a way to incorporate Eggman as a playable character, but these levels are just okay. The mech-walkers that both characters use are clunky, and their levels can be painfully long due to the slow pace of their gameplay. Knuckles is again finding pieces of the master emerald after a scuffle with Rogue and Eggman that shattered it. It might be the same gameplay style, but it is greatly improved from the first game. The levels are much better designed for Knuckles, and the levels aren't as easy as they were in the first game providing a substantial challenge instead of running through each of his levels with too many easy hints. One of the hilarious aspects of this game is the choice of music for all of the Knuckles' stages. For some reason, Sega found it apropos to incorporate an entirely hip hop latent soundtrack for each of his stages, ranging from jazz-rap of Wild Canyon, light horrorcore of Pumpkin Hill, relatively abstract leaning Aquatic Mine, the even smoother jazz rap of Death Chamber, to the cloudy production of Meteor Herd. His main theme in the first Sonic Adventure game had some rapping and a heaping amount of soul, but now Knuckles has evolved into a total motherfuckin G. I'm going to try to sound least racist as humanly possible, but was this Sega's attempt at appealing to the "urban market"? Did they get statistics stating that Sonic Adventure didn't sell well in low-income urban areas? It still baffles me to this day why they decided to do this for Knuckles, but each track spits absolute fire. . Rogue takes the difficulty curb to the next level. Except for Dry Lagoon, her levels are the harder versions of Knuckles. Egg Quarters and Mad Space still infuriate me to this day, and no, Rogue's stages do not have a hip-hop flair, but they do kind of sound like the music in a Persona game.

The final level after beating both stories is a tense race using an amalgamation of each character's gameplay styles to beat the clock and save the world. Sonic destroys the Eclipse Cannon, but Eggman's grandfather has another backup plan from beyond the grave. In the case that Space Colony Ark failed, he rigged it to collide with Earth to spite all of his rivals by killing all of them. Now we all know where Eggman gets it from. All six characters race to the cannon's core, where they find the Biolizard, the actual "ultimate lifeform." They destroy the Biolizard and save the world, but Shadow uses up all his energy as his version of Super Sonic and falls to the Earth. Poor Shadow. I guess we won't be seeing him anymore *cough* *cough*. I think the ending chapter of the first Sonic Adventure is sweeter, but the finale of this game is much better executed. Cannon's Core is one hell of a level that combines every gameplay style to the best of its abilities and not just a final boss battle as Sonic. Just make sure you have all of the upgrades before attempting this level. After all, I was stuck on the Knuckles portion of this level for a long time because I didn't have his air necklace. As far as the final boss is concerned, the Biolizard is a hectic experience. Suddenly, you have to worry about blind spots everywhere that will kill you instantly if you're not careful, and his last two phases with the pink eggs/balls are a testament that the homing attack needed to be worked on. It's a boss that becomes frustrating due to the game being awkward and not because of organic difficulty. The last phase of the boss with Super Sonic and Super Shadow is a piece of cake and will take you about two minutes. It practically serves as a relief from the previous fight.

So, now you've beaten every story. Now what? Well, there's plenty more to do in this game because it's a completionist's wet dream (or nightmare, depending on your perspective). Every level has four more submissions to complete, along with earning awards for getting all A-ranks in them. This is all conducted in the level select map, which I think is a much more organized improvement than the first game. I much preferred the open world in Sonic Adventure 1 as a kid, but this couldn't have been feasible in this game. A vast portion of this game takes place in space, after all. The map is convenient and appropriately fits this more linear style of Sonic game. Believe me, you'll visit the stage select map quite often to improve your grades. Yes, if you've played any modern Sonic game, this is where the grading system for each level started. If I grew up an anxious perfectionist, then I hold this game responsible. The Sonic games have improved on this system over the years, but the grading system is quite harsh in this game. If you die even once at any stage in this game, it is guaranteed that you'll get a D or an E. If I got a D or an E in school, I'd get grounded, so subconsciously, I thought the stakes were as high to get good grades in this game too. Getting A-ranks in all of these missions will take you an incredibly long time to do, but if there's one thing keeping you from achieving that 100% rank and unlocking a 3D Green Hill Zone as your reward, it's the Chao Garden.

The Chao Garden is a virtual pet simulator exclusive to the Sonic Adventure games. In retrospect, this was Sega's attempt at competing with Pokemon, which was a global phenomenon at the time. If they had kept up with the Chao Garden in subsequent 3D Sonic games, it might have had more of a lasting impact because many people that played this game seem to remember it fondly. There was one in the first game, but I didn't mention it at all in my review of it because I never bothered with it. With the Chao Garden in this game, however, I spent countless hours training and forming sentimental bonds with the adorable creatures. The Chao Garden seems cute and appealing on the outside, but as it progresses, you start to realize that it's all kinds of fucked up. Firstly, once your Chao's evolve from their initial childhood state (although who could ever tell that they got older), they can evolve into hero chaos, dark chaos, or remain neutral. The hero Chaos are adorable little cherub-Esque creatures with halos, wide eyes, and happy expressions. The dark chaos looks like little deviants with menacing grins and spiked balls over their heads. How it is that an infantile creature like a Chao can gain some perspective on morality and use that perspective to shape their adult lives is beyond me, but that isn't the worse part. Once this happens to one Chao, you unlock a hero garden and a dark garden. The hero garden is an immaculate place with a heavenly fountain, structures that look like they are from renaissance paintings, and everything is so damn pleasant. On the other hand, the dark garden has a spooky aura, ominous bat hills that overlook the garden, a diminished version of the music in the first garden, and a pool of blood. Yes, your cute little chaos can go to either heaven or hell. What exactly could a Chao do in childhood that commends him to heaven or condemns him to hell? I have no fucking idea, but it's all very disturbing. With the heaven and hell concepts, you'd think there wouldn't be another level of Chao evolution after essentially the Chao afterlife, but you'd be wrong. After a certain point, your Chao can grow old and die. Yep. Not even Pokemon had the balls to pull that off in their games. My first Chao was a white hero Chao named Yosh. He was not the strongest Chao or the most capable Chao, but he was my favorite of the 25 or so chaos I had. One day, three years into playing this game, he found his own little corner to himself in the hero garden, sealed himself into a droplet casing, and then disappeared forever. Even though I reloaded the game several times to try to prevent this from happening, it was inevitable. There is a chance that your Chao can be reborn and become a child again, but it is too late. Fuck this game.

Lastly, if you are the completionist type of gamer and getting all A-ranks wasn't enough, you are in for a treat with the challenges the Chao Garden has to offer, and by treat, I mean vexing horror. To get all of the remaining emblems in the game, you have to train your Chao with the animals, fruit, and Chao drives to beat every single racing league and best every Chao at Chao karate as well. The only thing is, you can't just raise any Chao to their limits and have them come on top. As the races and karate matches progress in difficulty, your Chao will face other Chaos that look a little off, to say the least. They look this way because these kinds of Chaos are an advanced breed that will best any regular Chao at anything regardless of the Chaos level of skill. To combat these Chaos, you will have to breed several Chaos to finally get one with perfect stats. Once you start this daunting task, you will drastically shift from a loving pet owner to a ruthless Chao farmer. First, you will have to wait for the Chaos to grow into their second phase. Next, you will buy all of your genetically inferior chaos fruit aphrodisiacs to make them breed so their child will have marginally better stats than they do. If you don't want a cluster of inferior Chaos littering your garden, you will have to send them away through the machine in the garden, which is like this game's equivalent of taking Old Yeller out back to put a double-barreled shotgun bullet to the back of his head. After several painstaking hours and several misplaced Chaos, the game will finally grant you the perfect Dr. Manhattan Chao, but it's not enough that he's the Chao ubermensch. You still have to level up the Chao like the others by giving him Chao drives and animals which requires heavy grinding sessions through the action stages. Once this is over, you will have completed the game, but the Chao Garden will have become the Chao abattoir in the process, and there will be films documenting your atrocities. My advice is that getting Green Hill Zone in 3D is overrated and to treat the Chao Garden casually because the completionist route is a grueling process in more ways than one.

I must admit; that even though the first Sonic Adventure game is nearer and dearer to my heart, its sequel is the better game. It took the foundation of the first game and organized its presentation, gameplay, and overall mechanics, which is what a good sequel should do. No, it is not the ONLY good 3D Sonic game, as some might say. It has plenty of awkward aspects to it that the first game presented much more effectively. Maybe I liked the first game more because it's Chao Garden didn't traumatize me like this one. It's certainly a possibility.