Shadow Dancin' (Sonic Adventure 2 (DC))

Member Name: kero-chan

Product:	Sonic Adventure 2 (DC)
Date:	29/07/01 (556 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Visually nice, Some great music, Good fun

Disadvantages: Loss of the adventure areas, Terrible english voice acting

Happy Birthday Sonic!

The release of Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast marks the tenth anniversary of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, a series which has spanned more hardware platforms than most are aware of. The original Sonic Adventure was the first true, Sonic Team produced game featuring the Hedgehog with attitude to be entirely in 3D and, unsurprisingly, this one follows suit.

As with previous Sonic games, this title follows Sonics attempts to foil the nasty world domination schemes of Dr Eggman (More commonly Dr Robotnik in the west). Like the previous Sonic Adventure title, it also features a slightly more fleshed out plot than the simplistic Mega Drive titles. This time around, Dr Eggman has freed Shadow, a black hedgehog created by Eggmans grandfather as the ultimate biological weapon. Together with Rouge, a treasure hunting bat, they intend to collect the chaos emeralds to power a weapon of astonishing power. Shadow, however, also has his own agenda.

Structurally, this game is different to the original Sonic Adventure. Gone are the six selectable characters with their own short game and interweaving stories. Instead, you have a choice of two different game modes - 'Hero' and 'Dark'. The Hero game has you playing as Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, whilst the Dark game has you playing as Shadow, Robotnik and Rouge. Apart from this selection you have no choice in the order in which you can tackle the stages - the plot determines which stage and character you play as at a given time. Also gone are the Adventure sections of the first title - no more Station Square to wander around. The completion of each stage results in a short animated sequence before moving you onto the next stage.

In terms of game play, there are three different types - both Hero and Dark sides have a character which plays fundamentally the same. The Sonic and Shadow stages prove to be the highlight of the game. As with previous Sonic titles
, these are fast-paced roller coaster rides which towards the end of the game require great timing to successfully traverse. Sonics new grid move - which allows him to slide down railings - becomes a key game play feature helping to differentiate from the previous title. As with all Sonic games, there are rings to collect. Carrying rings makes you 'safe' - as long as you have a ring you can take a hit without dying immediately. However, taking a hit causes you to drop all the rings you are carrying, and rings cannot save you from plummeting to your death. Whilst much of Sonic Adventure 1 could be completed by simply pointing the joypad constantly forward and occasionally jumping, this title breaks this up with some basic puzzles and more fiendish courses.

Tails and Robotnik are, in this game, stuck in functionally identical robot walkers. Playing like the robots game from Sonic Adventure 1, these are shoot-em-up stages in which you are required to destroy targets to proceed. These characters have an energy bar which is depleted when they are hit - collecting rings will slowly replenish this gauge. This means the normal Sonic scramble to collect the rings you have dropped proves ineffective in this title. As the walkers have somewhat limited jumping ability, there are also some nasty jumping sequences to be found.

Knuckles and Rouge stages play the same as the Knuckles stages in the first Sonic Adventure. Placed in a large area, you are free to roam around as you see fit. However, in these stages you need to find three pieces of emerald scattered around the stage. Aiding you is a basic radar which will begin to pulsate as you near a piece of emerald. As with previous titles, Knuckles (and Rouge) can scale walls and glide around, making jumps and the like simple. To this end, these stages tend to play more puzzle-like than the other characters stages. To a certain degree it reminds me of Mario 64 in their structure.

Visually, this t
itle is quite an improvement of the previous Sonic Adventure. Apart from an increase is visible detail and a reduction in pop-up, the slowdown has been pretty much eradicated. Cinematography in the cut scenes is also a vast improvement over the previous title. Whilst simplistic, character design is good, and the character animation is pretty solid despite the speed at which it goes.

Sound wise, the English language voice acting is dreadful. Thank goodness then for captioning, and the fact that they have the Japanese vocal track available even in the western versions of the game. Personally, I'd recommend everyone immediately to go into the options screen and change the language settings, allowing you to savour a very experienced and talented Japanese cast. Musically, the game varies. Each character has a very different type of music associated with them - my personal favourite is Sonics rawk soundtrack, whilst the hip-hop tunes of Knuckles are also pretty good (if repetitive). Some of the other music is just plain bland and dull in comparison though.

The game plays very well. Controls are very responsive, and the poor collision detection which caused problems in the original Sonic Adventure is gone. Whilst occasionally problematic, the camera is a passable effort. As mentioned previously, the Sonic stages are the most fun by a long way. The Knuckles stages I personally found quite entertaining, but they can be time consuming and often frustrating leading many to complain about them. The Tails stages I found annoying simply because Tails could traverse them in half the time if he just left the stupid walker thing and did them on foot, but game wise they are solidly put together, and the stage design is good. As you progress though the game you can also find power ups which upgrade your characters abilities - replaying previous stages using them allows you to find additional secrets and the like.

Whilst enjoying the title massively, I st
ill couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in places. It misses a certain grandiose feeling the first title has, and lacks some of the spectacular gaming set-pieces like the giant, winding stone snake of the first game. Its also lacks variety - in Sonic Adventure 1 all six characters played a little differently, but here there are only three types of game play. I miss Bigs' fishing stages, or the Amy levels where you were relentlessly chased by the big robot. Perhaps more importantly was the fact that three of the characters in the original had fast-paced Sonic style stages, meaning the better game play composed the bulk of the game. Whilst SA2 does have two small mini-games - a kart racer and a brief snowboarding section in the opening stage, SA had similar stages to both as well as the Tornado shoot-em-up stages. Whilst some complained about them, I really do miss the adventure sections - I felt they held the game together better than just the story sequences, and added a basic sense of exploration to the game play which is missing from the new game. For those who enjoyed them, they did improve the Chao sections though.

Still, I'm perhaps being a little overcritical - in its defense this Sonic game has a diverting two-play versus mode and is a little more difficult than a typical Sonic game. The game also has some impressive replay value by having multiple stage objectives and a grading system - replaying stages in an attempt to improve your scores proves strangely compulsive. In all there are 180 emblems to obtain by completing all the different objectives on each stage, collecting all of which gives you a small, if cute, reward as well as additional character costumes for the two player mode.

Overall, I think this is a very solid title, certainly one of the best twenty titles in the Dreamcasts not inconsiderably excellent software catalogue, and as such well worth picking up.

Summary: