Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Review

 I love Sonic, I’ve played a lot of the main series Sonic games, and Sonic has been with me since I was little and had Mega Collection Plus on the PS2 back in the day. However, the series has had its ups and downs, and there’s no denying it. I love the great sense of speed and action-filled levels that have replay value Mario can only wish for. When SEGA went 3^rd party, they had a bit of a hard time finding feet with the blue hedgehog. Sonic Adventure 2 was the last Sonic game to be made by 1^st party SEGA, with a re-release on the Gamecube. What followed were games like Sonic Heroes, which was a good game but the levels had a ton of bottomless pits and design that would lead you to questionable deaths, and the Shadow the Hedgehog, which was an ok game (despite it being hated by the general public) but it took the series in a direction too serious for what the series originally was about, and it resulted in being very awkward and mellow-dramatic. Then there was Sonic 06, which I have yet to play but it is one of the most hated Sonic games of all time. I’m here today to review the game that I think was the start of SEGA’s poor decisions with the blue blur that persisted in the 2000s. Sonic Adventure 2 is actually one of the more popular games in the Sonic series, often being labeled as the best 3D Sonic game. I obviously disagree, but to what extent you may ask? Well, I’m gonna look at this game thoroughly and asses what exactly I find wrong with it. I’m not shaming anyone for thinking this game is the masterpiece it’s praised to be, I’m just here to give my personal opinion on the game. Are we clear? Ok then let’s get started!

Graphics

This is the first game I’ve reviewed that has aged a considerable amount since it was released. I’m gonna be straight-up and honest here; this game has aged HORRIBLY visually. Some of the cutscenes are almost cringe-worthy to watch, just look at this one (start watching at 10 seconds): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaWkTfGG67I. Now I know this is an early 6^th generation/ late 5^th gen game and most other games from that time period haven’t aged very well either, but that’s still something that should be counted as a flaw in my opinion. What I’m gonna do here is I’m gonna compare this game to other games that came out around the time the original version came out and judge it based off of that.  Comparing this game to the likes of Majora’s Mask, Phantasy Star, and Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3, I’d say that this game looked considerably good back then. It’s hard to judge a game by it’s graphics if it’s an early 3D game, but from what I can tell it looked decent so I’ll give it an 8.

Plot

I’m gonna try and make this as quick as I can because the 3D Sonic games have a tendency of having very complicated plots that honestly take what was once a simple premise for a story far too seriously, especially in Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06. This game falls under that category.  Basically a black hedgehog named Shadow is causing trouble and Sonic is being mistaken for him. At the beginning of the Hero story, Sonic escapes a plane that was taking him to a prison by the military. He later bumps into Shadow and fights him. The victor of these character fights depends on whether you’re playing the Hero or Dark story. Shadow is apparently a project from Eggman’s grandfather Gerald Robotnik. Shadow was made to be the ‘ultimate life form’ and there are apparently several prototypes of Shadow. Shadow had a childhood friend named Maria who was shot and killed by military forces, and it has traumatized him ever since. Eggman wants to use the Eclipse Cannon, which is on the Space Colony Ark where Maria was killed, to blow up the moon. When he thinks he has all 7 pieces of the Master Emerald, he finds out that one of them is a false emerald, thus making only a fraction of the moon exploding. Sonic is shot out of the spaceship Eggman is on by an exploding capsule that assumingly kills him, but apparently he was able to use chaos control using the fake emerald, which doesn’t make any sense. When Sonic Team tries to make their games edgy, they just end up making everything look awkward as hell with plotholes like the fake emerald suddenly able to do chaos control.  The Dark story shows the story from a different perspective with a few cosmic differences here and there. Once you complete both stories, you unlock the last story where you play this level with all of the playable characters in the game and then fight Biolizard with Shadow. Biolizard was a prototype of the ultimate life form made by Gerald Robotnik, and Biolizard is apparently about to destroy the world. When Shadow thinks Biolizard is gone for good, he reawakens ass Finalhazard by fusing itself with ARK. Sonic and Shadow use the power of the chaos powers to go super Sonic/Shadow, and defeat Finalhazard and save the world. The theme in this boss battle is awesome. Live and Learn is probably my favorite theme from the Sonic series. After the fight is over, Shadow loses his energy and falls to Earth. Sonic saves Shadow’s ring cuff and shows it to Rouge when he returns to ARK. The characters reflect on what happens and thinks about what to do next. Sonic waves goodbye to Shadow in the same way Shadow did to Maria. Now that I’ve gotten the story out of the way, now I wanna talk about one of this game’s many flaws; how the game makes you play through the story. You play through one of 3 types of levels, which is traditional high-speed Sonic action, treasure hunting, or mech shooting. The game makes you play through them in a certain order in order to advance through the story, unlike in Sonic Adventure 1 where you had the choice of playing the level type you wanted to. The game also makes you play through 2 stories, which adds to the frustration. Now this is just a sample of what’s to come in later 3D Sonic games, namely Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. I’m gonna give plot a 6. While it is a little epic, it takes itself a tad bit too seriously, has plotholes, and I don’t necessarily care for how it makes you play through the different levels. It is one of the better plots for a Sonic game, but I still don’t care for it that much.

Gameplay

Oh boy, here we go. I already explained how I don’t like how the game forces you to play through certain stages in a certain order, but there’s a reason why, and it’s that I don’t care for 2 of the 3 level styles. The regular high-speed levels with Sonic and Shadow are fun and have replay value, but I still do find then a bit buggy, especially the ones that are in space. I really don’t like the treasure hunting levels with Knuckles and Rogue. They do have exploration in them, but the areas they have you exploring in aren’t very intriguing in my opinion. You have a radar that tells you when you’re near the emerald or treasure that the game wants you to find there and then. In Adventure 1 the radar went off whenever you were near treasure, but now it makes you look for a them in a given order which really breaks the pace of these levels and makes them drag the hell on. These floating monitors give you vague hints of where the pieces are which remind me of the old man in the cave from Zelda 1. They’re just not very fun to play and I dread every time I have to play one. But guess what? You’ll be spending most of your time in these levels since they drag on and there are a total of 9 of these stages! There are 9 speed stages too but the treasure hunting stages drag so they really take up a lot more time than necessary. The mech shooting stages are ok, but in the earlier ones with fewer upgrades they feel really slow and clunky. The final stage is pretty cool. It doesn’t have most of the things wrong with the regular stages. There are also 2 kart racing stages but they feel insignificant. Probably because they take little to no skill as you just drive down a highway. They are kinda fun though. In Adventure 2 Battles there’s a robust multiplayer mode where you can play as   several different characters. I haven’t been able to try it out myself so I have no opinion on it. It does look fun though. There’s also a Chao garden that I admittedly don’t care about. I’m sorry but I never got into raising Chao. They are cute though. The gameplay gets a 5. It’s shown its age over time with how buggy the levels can be and only 10 of them are truly enjoyable, but even those levels have their problems.

Music

This game has some pretty awesome music. The main theme Live and Learn is awesome and I particularly like the theme for City Escape, Metal Habor, and Eggman’s theme. However, some themes are mediocre like most of the themes for the Knuckles stages, which are cheesy rap songs. I’ll give the soundtrack an 8.

Overall

In conclusion, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is an okay game for me. I don’t particularly like it that much but I do like replaying some of Sonic and Shadow’s stages to get higher scores. I didn’t grow up with this game like most people who love it, so maybe the fact that I don’t have nostalgic immunity toward this game is why I see the flaws more clearly than those who grew up with this game. It’s not a bad game, nor do I dislike it, but it isn’t something I would consider to be very good either. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle gets a 27/40 and an average of 6/10.
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