Game Review: Sonic Adventure 2

Game: Sonic Adventure 2
Console: Sega Dreamcast
Developer: Sonic Team
Release Date: 18th June 2001

Sonic Adventure 2 had a big act to follow as the sequel to Sonic Adventure, the first true 3D outing of Sonic the Hedgehog, and in my opinion one of the better games in the Sonic series as a whole. While the original had a few issues such as having to trudge through stages as Big the Cat and E101 to unlock Super Sonic, stages based on those of Sonic, Knuckles and E101 (loosely) appeared in Sonic Adventure 2 as part of Light and Dark stories, which contained stages for the three characters in each team in rotation.

Sonic and Shadow's stages contain the core gameplay you'd expect to find in a 3D Sonic game, with platforming, ring collecting and jump attack boss battles. Tails and Dr. Robotnik's stages are similar to those of E101 in Sonic Adventure, controlling a mechsuit around the levels and using lasers to bring down enemies in order to continue. Finally Knuckles and Rouge play almost identically to Knuckles stages in Sonic Adventure, with 3 of a certain thing to collect and a radar indicating the proximity.

There are some stages within both the light and dark stories which are really fun to play such as City Escape, Aquatic Mine and Green Forest. Unfortunately there are also some irritating stages which don't play so well such as Eternal Engine, Crazy Gadget and Meteor Herd. For these stages it's really up to the player as to how much patience they have in order to get through and play the better stages waiting beyond. Sonic Adventure's problem was whole characters with annoying stages, but Sonic Adventure 2 has good overall stages with some that need to be tolerated.

Depending on how players like to complete the games, this can be a good or a bad thing. With Sonic Adventure, nearly all of Sonic's stages were good, but anyone wanting fun gameplay from Big the Cat or E101 would have been disappointed. Here the character roster has thankfully been thinned down to three gameplay styles, two of which play consistently well. The level design overall is fairly good with plenty to do and see. I've never really bothered too much with the chao garden but it's clearly superior to the one featured in the first game.

Graphically the game looks good; while there's moments where the camera will zoom in on a particularly low resolution part of the level, when playing normally all of the stages give a good sense of size and scale, but feel less connected to the overall events of the plot than the stages of Sonic Adventure. Soundwise the voice acting is predictably bad, as it always is, and there's often interruptions while other characters are speaking and badly mixed sound levels.

Overall Sonic Adventure 2 can be fun to play; if it was a part of your childhood or you just have particularly fond memories of the game then you're likely to get some enjoyment out of running through the dark and light stories. If however you've never played the game before, or don't like 3D Sonic games, then there's not much to impress or change your opinion. Between Sonic Adventure and it's sequel there's really not a whole lot in terms of quality.

Rating: 79/100
Grade: B