Sonic Adventure 2 Review (XBLA)

I’ve now finished Sonic Adventure 2 for real. It was nice that Sega had both of the Sonic Adventures released on XBLA. Playing Sonic Adventure 2 again after such a long while reminded me of why I liked this game better, although some things about it also made me appreciate the first Sonic Adventure a little more as well.

On with the review…

Gameplay: 3½/5 – There is sadly not as much gameplay variety as in the last game, though at least the very best of the gameplay styles were picked up for the sequel. I quite like the structure of this game better with each story allowing you to play as multiple characters with varying gameplay style. I also found both storylines to be of satisfying length.

• Sonic and Shadow’s speed-levels: These were mostly good but I felt Shadow’s levels were far better designed. Sonic’s weren’t bad, but I felt that the game held me up more than I wanted to. There just wasn’t the same feeling of flow in Sonic’s level as there were in Shadow’s. However, Sonic’s final level was really great and I loved the gravity shifts.  Conversely, Shadow’s final level was murder. I hate that the spin-dash is practically useless in this game, but there are other moves that make up for it.
• Knuckles and Rouge’s treasure hunt: I really liked Knuckle’s levels a lot in the first Sonic Adventure and I felt this game stayed faithful to the style with vast interesting levels. However, in Death Chamber the camera would get very annoying at times, but generally speaking these were my favourite levels in the game.
• Tails and Eggman’s shooter levels: Tails and Eggman play similar types of shooter levels as Gamma did in the first Sonic Adventure. These were my least favourite levels, mainly because you can mow down enemies so easily (and the sound-effect for the aiming laser is really irritating), it’s barely a challenge. Both Tails and Eggman did provide some decent platforming challenge which was nice, but my biggest annoyance is that unlike with Knuckles and Rouge, you really don’t have camera control most of the time.

Graphics: 4/5 – Time has been a little cruel to the game and most items in the game tend to have rather sharp edges. However, the look of the game over-all is extremely nice and there is still quite a bit of variety which is also swell. In this regard the game is about as good as the previous one.

Animation: 5/5 – I find the animating of this game to be vastly improved from the last game. The cutscenes are far more dynamic and characters don’t just bop in place like they did in the last game when they’re not doing or saying something. The camera-angles and character reactions are all far improved from the last game and it also feels like the cutscenes move the story along.

Music: 5/5 – This is one area where the sequel has honestly gotten better. The individual character themes are excellent and even Amy’s main theme didn’t bother me so much (probably because we don’t hear it as often). I’m, generally, very happy with the high amount of rock music in this game, but it’s luckily evened out by a steady supply of Rap and RNB music in Knuckles and Rouge’s levels. And just as a personal preference, I do think Live And Learn is a better theme song than Open Your Heart.

Sound: 3½/5 – The voice performances were mostly fine. Sonic, Eggman, Shadow and Knuckles were clearly the best performers over-all. Both Rouge and Amy indulge in a bit of over-acting, but it was tolerable for the most part. Compared to the last game where he was just a little underwhelming, Tails sounded absolutely horrible for the most part. It didn’t feel like his voice-actress was even really trying, but instead just reading the lines off the page. One really annoying aspect of the audio section is that in many cutscenes character lines overlap. I have no idea how Sonic Team managed to screw something like that up and it really ruins a few good gag moments in the game.

Plot: 3½/5 – I had previously thought of this game’s storyline as very straightforward compared to the last one, but really, this one surprised me with its seriousness and solid themes. Shadow, Maria and Dr. Gerald Robotnik all turned this into a really appealing story. However, I couldn’t say the storyline is actually better than the last game because the Heroes’ story isn’t nearly as interesting as the villains’.

Replay value: 4/5 – I’d say it’s on the same level. You have loads of bonus features and can do token challenges for each of the levels which is nice. However, the slightly higher challenge of this instalment might eat away at the enjoyability just a little bit.

Difficulty: Normal to Hard – Another improvement compared to the last game was on the challenge. Levels might have even been a bit over-abundant with enemies, but it’s nice that you can’t breeze through the game quite as easily as you could with the last one. However, the further you get the challenge starts getting even a little frustrating and in the floaty levels, you tend to often die for misjudging a jump for instance. I really would have liked more grounded levels as in the first Sonic Adventure, because these death-falls can be avoided easily as Knuckles or Rouge, but not nearly as effectively by the other characters.

Score: 83% – Sonic Adventure 2 is a solid sequel. It does quite a few things better than the last game, specifically in the areas of game-structure, animation, music and over-all challenge. However, the game has a few annoying features such as the overlapped speech and the ineffective camera-controls, but over-all it’s a game worth checking for Sonic fans and 3D platformer fans.