10 years of experience makes a fantasic game (Sonic Adventure 2 (DC))

Member Name: Castor Troy

Product:	Sonic Adventure 2 (DC)
Date:	14/07/01 (415 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lasts a long time, great sound and graphics, great gameplay

Disadvantages: not dark enough, some people may not be beothered to get all 180 emblems, needs too many memory blocks (128) to save a chao to the memory card and play the mini chao game

What a way to celebrate your tenth birthday…

I’ll begin by stating that this game is a must have for any sonic fan, and anyone who wants a superbly made game with longevity to make a tantric lover jealous. You can tell that Sonic team have put a lot of work into making this game worthy of being released on the blue fella’s tenth birthday, with absolutely beautiful graphics which really show off the Dreamcast’s capabilities, smooth and engrossing gameplay, and (maybe surprisingly) a good sound track.
Now then. Let me get more detailed.

I’ve finished this game, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The gameplay is utterly fantastic and the game is very difficult to put down. Even now I’m still playing it whenever I get the chance, in order to collect all 180 emblems and get the rather nifty prize for doing so.
The plot involves a supposedly evil hedgehog named Shadow, who’s motives are unclear as he goes about working with Dr Eggman, who is wanting to take over the world (how novel of him). Rouge the bat helps them, too. our heroes are on the case to stop them and a whole adventure ensues.

The game is split into two halves, the hero side and the dark side, with an option to play as either, and both stories interact with each other and cross over. Each one contains three characters, and each pair of these have different styles of levels to complete which makes this game very fresh throughout.

First off, you have Sonic for the heroes and Shadow the hedgehog for the dark. These levels are similar to the ones in the first sonic adventure, (although they are even faster and even smoother) where you have to zoom through a level as fast as you can (though It’s not essential, and exploring is important to get the most out of the game).

Then you have tails for the hero and Dr Eggman for the dark, both of whom are in mechanical robot things. For these characters, their levels are
similar to a shoot ‘em up where, you guessed it, you have to shoot up the enemies.

Finally, knuckles for the heroes or rouge the bat for the dark, similar to the knuckles sections of the first sonic adventure, you have to hunt for the pieces of the emerald as quickly as possible. There are also racing levels for tails, and rouge.

Both the stories interact throughout, and in case you are thinking this, shadow does NOT play the same levels as sonic, or robotnik as tails etc, each level is completely unique.

In order to finish the game, you must complete it with both the hero and dark characters, which unlocks a final level, the contents of which I wont spoil for you.
The game doesn’t end there, however. There are 180 emblems to collect this time around, instead of 130 in the first game. And this time you actually get a prize for doing so. I shall mention what that is now, but in case for some reason you don’t want to know, close your eyes now! (it’s a secret level, which is a 3D version of the green hill zone from the first sonic game on the megadrive).
Which is cool.

Anyway, the emblems. You really have to work for these, which makes the game last for a very long time. You get an emblem for each of the three levels of racing mini game, 10 emblems from the chao races (which I will get to later), 3 for the various boss time attack mini game, 1 for the begginer,expert and advanced tracks of the racing mini game (where you can race as any of the 6 characters), 5 for each mission of each level, and then 1 for each character for getting an A ranking on every mission of every level (the most difficult thing to do)

You see, each level has 5 missions. You have to finish the first mission of a level to access the second, then the second for the third, and so on. But to finish the game you only need to finish the first mission in any sloppy way you want to. When you play through the game on story m
ode, you just work through the first mission. But afterwards you can go into "stage select" in order to replay them.
The first mission, as I said, is to simply finish it. Your grade depends mostly upon score, which you get for collecting rings, finishing the level fast, and doing various tricks. You’ll find out how to get a good score yourself, I’m sure. The second mission is to collect 100 rings, with time being the main factor upon grade. The third you must find a lost chao hidden on the level, again time is important. The fourth mission you have to do the same as the first, but in a very tight time. And the 5th, you must finish it on hard mode. All of this just adds to the games life.

Also, like the first sonic adventure, you can breed creatures call chaos. You get to their garden by collecting a key during any level, and after you have the one garden you can access the hero garden through growing a good chao and a dark garden through raising a dark chao. The chaos goodness depends on which characters you use to take care of it (hero or dark).

Throughout the levels you can collect animals hidden around the stages, and chaos drives from robots. Both of these you must mix with your chao in order to make them run faster, fly, be stronger, and swim. Each animal and drive has a different effect upon your chao, and making a good chao is important as you can then race them in the chao races to win them toys and get the final few emblems. They also have a nursery, where they learn tricks and you can go online to the chao bbs or sonic adventure 2 web page, but that can only be accessed through going to the garden from the stage select option, not the story mode. Like the first game too, you can download a chao onto your memory card and play a mini platfrom/adventure game on it to get seeds to plant in your garden and get fruit (which increase stamina) and also just to make your chao more useful.

One last thing worth men
tioning, is the ability to download additions to the game onto your dreamcast. This is something the sonic team only has promised at this time, but even now you can download a new theme for the options and such.

This game is utterly fantastic, and I have so much (maybe too much) to say about it. I feel this review is long enough as it is, So I’ll just leave you by saying that I can't think of many a flaw in it. Even most of the sound track is very modern, even though there are some cutesy tunes too. Perhaps the only negative thing about this game is that it isn’t dark enough, but it IS darker than other sonic games, which is very good, allowing it to please tastes for a wider audience and not seeming too childish. The game is also very in-depth, making it seem much more adult than ever before. I highly recommend this game to anyone, sonic fan or not.
And I hope I haven’t left too much out, though inevitably I have.

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