Sonic Adventure 2 XBLA Review

Taking a break from all the narcissistic ramblings about me, I thought I would write a small review on my time with the XBLA version of Sonic Adventure 2. I guess this will also tie into my previous stories involving Sega, however just to assure everyone reading that my blog will most definitely not be solely about Sega or Sega related items. It's just happenstance that I decided to start this thing while I was in the end stages of completing Sonic Adventure 2, I think I know what inspired me and a shout-out will be in order after I say whatever it is that I am about to say.


Firstly if you've read my previous entries you'll know there is quite the amount of Sega nostalgia derived from some of my earliest days of gaming. I did however stray from the path of Sega and into that of the other 4 lettered console manufacture, also starting with an "S". After owning both the Master System and the Mega Drive our family jumped to the Sony Playstation and from then on a dearth of anything Sega came across my TV screen. No Saturn or Dreamcast for me, the later being something I'm extremely disappointed I didn't get to experience. Only one friend of mine had a Dreamcast and I only went to play it a couple times, what I did play I enjoyed greatly.

It's because of this that whenever there is any Dreamcast game available to me I have, for the most part, bought and played it. While I play most games for fun, some games I just want to experience for... I don't know - historical reasons, i guess you could say. If you've never played Sonic Adventure 2 and you've that in mind you'll have a pretty great time, but if you come just looking for a good game you might be disappointed.

Overview
It's with this context that I had quite a fun time with Sonic Adventure 2, nostalgia derived from the first few Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Master System mixed with a sense of curiosity of what I would have experienced had I stuck with Sega. Even still it wasn't a smooth ride, it just makes the completely valid problems with the game just that little bit easier to deal with, but let's not start out with the negatives.

Running towards the camera happens more than it should in Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Adventure 2 is a decent game with none of the conveniences or streamlining we get in the newer games. This is obvious as it was originally released in 2001, while that doesn't seem too old, it's literally a generation ago in the console ages. All the classic Sonic characters make their return including a few new ones. The game itself is split into a few different sections, with the Hero and Villain sides of the main story both playable. Once beaten the campaign levels are available in the level select screen and open up offering 5 challenges in each level to complete. These range from score, collecting rings, time, harder versions of each level and hunting down an illusive lost Chao hidden somewhere in each stage.

Chao are needy little things

Chao's are back, returning from the original Sonic Adventure. If you haven't played a Sonic Adventure game before Chao's are little creatures you can raise in a separate area to the main game. It's a surprisingly deep and involved process for a meta-game you don't really have any reason to involve yourself in. Many Sonic Adventure enthusiasts love the Chao meta-game and spend hundreds of hours raising their Chao in a pseudo Tamagotchi fashion. When you defeat an enemy in the main game they drop animals or Chaos Drives which you can pick up and bring back to your Chao to absorb. Each item your Chao absorbs can raise and/or lower their different stats which in turn affect how they do in special Chao Races and Battles. Placing well in these events can get you items that will affect your Chao's mood, you can also pet your Chao and perform all kinds of actions to make it love or hate you. Eventually your Chao can evolve and also breed, to create many more and different Chao. As I said it's a fairly involved process, and this is only scratching the surface, for something that really has no bearing on the main game.

Rational

TRUCK!

So you're not lacking for content in Sonic Adventure 2, it took me over 50 hours to complete everything it had to offer. I grabbed every Emblem, got all the A-Grades and raised 2 Chao's to high enough levels to complete every Chao challenge. The rough edges slip in here and there however, the most prevalent being the shoddy camera angles. The game switches back and forth between a third person style camera in which you have some control to predefined cinematic angles that can really through you off and at times make you jump or run off in the complete wrong direction. To anybody who has been playing video games for a while you've run into stuff like this and accept it as a limitation of the era, but it still doesn't make it any more frustrating. When you're mid level and the time limit is bearing down on you, only for the camera to switch unexpectedly sending you soaring off into space for the tenth time in a row you really begin to feel your blood pressure start to rise.

One wrong move and you're in the drink!

Another real downer is the abundance of glitches in the game, things just don't act like they're supposed to sometimes. Maybe it's a sequence where you don't have any control that ends in you supposed to be grinding down a rail and your character just falls through to oblivion or using your homing attack to try and take out an enemy only to be sling-shotted out of bounds. Nearly all of the levels have instant death drops all the way through the levels which can lead to frustration and some intense near misses. Especially when going for the challenges as a death mean restarting the level over again.

The last gripe I have with the game is with a context sensitive button being packed full of sometimes more than 5 available differing actions. You can cycle through them with another button but when time is of the essence this can lead to unnecessary frustration and death. The most egregious being when playing with Sonic the same button can be used to shoot along a trail of rings or zoom straight down for a descending bounce attack. When the only way to the next platform is to zoom along a trail of rings in the air that you have to jump to, there is no time to cycle to the correct option, you cross your fingers and hope you go across those rings and not straight down into nothingness and a level restart. Fortunately you can get used to the exact timing required to consistently pull this off, but it's something that causes unnecessary frustrations.


Summary
Apart from those 3 main gripes, the rest of the game is enjoyable, especially if you're a Sonic fan. The gameplay is varied, with the different mission types keeping things fresh. There is plenty of challenges here to keep you busy, not to mention raising your own Chao army if you want. If you're not a Sonic fan, I wouldn't recommend it, as you will more than likely be turned away by the frustrations an older game like this can deliver.


Shout out to TehMonitor on Youtube, and their excellent Sonic Adventure 2 A-Rank Guide videos. I think listening to them and working my way though the game also partially influenced me into starting this blog with the intention of working towards creating something like their channel in the future!