Sonic Adventure 2 Battle - Not as Amazing as I Remembered... Sonic Adventure 2 Battle - Not as Amazing as I Remembered...
My introduction to you:
I remember back in the day when I was a lil' Shogun Gamer, I used to be a vice-president of a small sonic club my ex-best friend and I started in grade school. We were such Sonic fans, we had to get every sonic game that came out...even "Sonic Shuffle." On my to-do list of reviews, Sonic Adventure 2 was one of them. As I remembered back to my sonic club childhood, it dawned on me that I used to have lots of fun playing that game with friends. Maybe that was the spirit of it all, having friends over at your house rather than online and laughing together even in the most difficult times of the game.
The image that it was one of the greatest sonic games was branded in my childhood memory until the day I decided to review the game. After playing it all the way through within 8 hours (and spending lots of time messing around and purposely glitching the game), I then realized that the game isn't really as incredible as I thought it was, or at least, compared to what we have now, it's really aged over time.
Depth: 8
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle from the Gamecube is or was once a pretty cool game. Why do I say this? Well, it does have quite a bit to offer, but my recent play of it changed my opinion of the gameplay immensely. When I remember back to when I played it, I only remember having fun on the Sonic and Shadow stages, as well as using the Chao Garden. It turns out, those were probably the best things about Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, as well as the additional stages in versus mode.
There are a good amount of options in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. The Single Player mode has Story mode, stage
select, boss rush, and kart racing. The 2P Battle mode has a variety of options two player challenges related to the three gameplay styles of the game as well as some new modes that didn't appear in the original. There are also the extra modes of interacting in the Chao Garden and doing Chao racing or Chao fighting.
The story mode is a stage by stage game without any actual form of adventuring to each stage like its predecessor, which is unfortunate since the game was called Sonic Adventure 2. Throughout the story mode, you can choose between Hero or Dark side which include three characters to each all with their own unique style of gameplay and missions. As the game progresses, the stage features different characters and story cut scenes before and after stage. Playing as Sonic or Shadow is similar to Sonic Adventure's run to the finish style getting through obstacles and enemies as fast as you can...if you want to be fast. Tails and Eggman play similar to E-102-Y's stages which features slower gameplay as you shoot enemies down to get from point A to point B. Knuckles and Rouge, just like the Knuckles stages in the previous game are search for the three items (usually master emeralds) to complete the stage. Boss battles are featured for each character between certain stages also.
The Stage
Select mode allows you to play stages you've completed in the game, while being able to complete an amount of five missions that differ the gameplay or objective of the stages. For the list of 5 missions: The first mission is simply to complete the stage with the highest score possible, the second is to collect 100 rings, the third being to find a 'Lost Chao' (which can only be done with mystic melody), the fourth is to finish the stage within a certain time limit, and the fifth is hard mode. Hard mode simply adds more and different enemies, a few different stage obstacles, and makes certain paths more difficult, though some of the changes aren't too big. In one instance, you actually get to play as Tails outside of his Tornado mech for one of the stages.
The Boss Rush mode simply allows one to fight all the bosses from hero or dark side or even all of them together, while being able to time yourself which is always fun. As for Kart Race mode, or kart racing at all in this game, you get to play through highway like stages with other racers to go against. Honestly, this is the worst mode in the game not to mention, the worst designed (thank goodness the Sonic & All-Stars Racing series makes up for this.)
The 2P Battle mode features six modes you can play against your friend. Of these modes are the three major modes, Action Race, Treasure Hunt, Shooting Battle; and the more minor versus modes, Chao Race, Chao Karate, and Kart Race Fighters. The main three versus modes allow you to choose from four characters, two being the main story rival characters, and the other two being bonus characters that have appeared in Sonic Adventure or other games like Tikal or Metal Sonic. There are plenty of stages to choose from that come from single player mode, as well as bonus stages original to Sonic Adventure 2 Battle that are remixes of certain stages.
The Chao Garden is one of the really fun and reworked features brought back from Sonic Adventure. During story mode, one can access the Chao Garden by breaking a blue Chao box that contains a Chao key, which after the stage, will allow you to care for your Chao. By collecting small animals and colored Chaos Drives (little gem objects) from defeated enemies, metal pipes, and other various objects, you can build up your Chao's stats. Feeding and giving said items to the Chao can increase Stamina, Running, Flying, Swimming, and Power. In turn, caring for your Chao will allow you better chances at winning Chao Races or Chao Karate since stats play a big role in how well your Chao performs. Should you physically abuse, starve, or continuously harm it, your Chao will die and never come back and you'll have to start from scratch. Please let this be a learning experience.
An interesting factor to caring for your Chao is how you can really alter their appearance from their original form in many ways. Giving animals allows the Chao to have certain animal features on their body such as no legs by giving them a bat, which in turn makes them look like ghost. If you play a Hero or Dark side character, simply petting and carrying them will darken or brighten their appearance to Hero or Dark Chao (having three of one of them unlocks a hero and dark garden also.) You can also mate Chao together and have special breeds to create other appearances like shiny or jewel toned Chao.
If you think that's it for the Chao garden, you guessed wrong, as you can even take them to Kindergarten...Yes, Chao Kindergarten. By having them attend classes, they can learn certain talents that they'll perform with time. You can also check with the doctor to make sure they are healthy as well as receive a synopsis on their statistical grade and what kind of Chao they are. The Principal tells you the smaller basics to raising a Chao, and the Black Market allows you to buy some rare items with the amount of emblems you collect in the game from completing missions and stages.
There are plenty of other secrets in the game achieved through unlocking a total number of Emblems for each character, or all of them. One of these awesome secrets is the hidden stage, Green Hill Zone, which is full 3D Sonic Adventure version of Green Hill Zone in its full original form. This is actually very different in comparison to Sonic Generations being that you have full 3D gameplay and not a forward only 3D environment, yet still retains EVERYTHING from the original Green Hill. Interesting eh?
Having changes to gameplay can be fun, but then sometimes it can also be a dread. Of course, it may be opinionated of me to say this, but visiting the Chao Garden was honestly one of my best experiences in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. I will mention what the gameplay actually felt like for the single player modes in the difficulty section, but I'm just going to say right now...it's not as amazing as I thought it was and the game actually feels a little unpolished as well as a little glitchy at times. The modes are at least interesting still and give you a good amount of things to do, even with friends in single player mode, if you feel like sharing the controller.
Story : 7
The story behind Sonic Adventure 2 follows Sonic and friends, Eggman, the new characters, Shadow and Rouge, after Sonic Adventure 1. Without spoiling anything but what the first part of the game reveals to you, Eggman is up to no good and looking for ways to destroy the world. Upon breaching the G.U.N. Facility to receive his Grandfather's Ultimate Life Form, Shadow the Hedgehog, he is aided by Shadow in his conquest of world domination with the help of the Space Colony ARK. They both set on their quest to collect the Chaos Emeralds, eventually aided by Rouge the Bat.
Sonic on the other hand is pursued by G.U.N. mistaken for Shadow the Hedgehog, simply being referred to the "Captured Hedgehog" at the beginning of the hero story. Meeting Shadow the Hedgehog, he witnesses his power to use Chaos Energy of a Chaos Emerald to teleport, known as Chaos Control. From that point, he becomes enemies with Shadow, however, is captured by G.U.N. due to his ability, and his friends Tails and Amy must go rescue him. Knuckles and Rouge are found arguing over the Master Emerald, a large emerald that keeps Angel Island afloat, only for it to be nearly stolen by Eggman. Knuckles breaks the Master Emerald having to go recollect all the pieces of it again from his previous adventure, while Rouge does the same for her own personal benefit. However, her true motives become known later in the game.
The story throughout the game gets straight to the point and easily works out for a Sonic game. Though it may actually be a little bland at first and a little predictable, it certainly does its effects on a younger less exposed audience as it did myself when I was a kid. Though that's not to say the story is terrible, it's just fine and enjoyable like a movie for everyone, that is the rating for the game after all. However, what is interesting is what happened towards the true end of the game in which things really pick up. Though I won't spoil the story at this point but it certainly does leave a lot of questions to be answered, which they are in the "Shadow the Hedgehog" game.
Difficulty & Controls: 6
The controls for Sonic Adventure 2 Battle are well done for the most part, or at least, I couldn't find any flaws that caused me to become an enraged barbaric caveman and start throwing the controller around. Playing as the characters does feel slightly smooth, but there is a small lack of polish a few points, and this mostly has to do with the stage design and terrible camera on certain parts of the game. This in turn also makes the game a little more difficult than it should be, but these problems are minor and can be overlooked slightly...still though, it should have been tested better to avoid such problems.
Just to get on touch with how the controls work, Sonic and Shadow for starters are able to run fast with gained momentum, jump and use the homing attack to attack enemies or overcome obstacles, use the spin dash for high speed or a grounded attack, grind on rails, and use somersaults to break boxes, attack enemies, or roll underneath objects. There's quite a few maneuvers to use for the two which all help you through the stages, but at times may become frustrating due to some of the stage design coming at you to quick when you first play. Overall though, this can be overlooked and getting better at a stage comes with practice and losing lives, otherwise, it would be too easy.
Knuckles and Rouge for their treasure hunting stages are not just equipped with treasure searching skills, but also fighting techniques. A radar is provided for the two to find the main treasures to be acquired mimicking a hot and cold search. Both characters can glide, dig into soft walls or the ground, climb walls, a standard three hit combo, a three hit running combo, a 360 motion rising attack, and the drill attack which drills into the ground and also damages enemies. You won't necessarily be using combos as much as nearly every enemy dies in one hit and bosses only take one hit before invincibility. By using the digging skills, you will acquire treasures, rings, and power ups not found in enemies or floating in certain locations. Playing in their large stages can be at times frustrating, but sometimes you just have to get lucky, but at first, that may not happen.
Tails and Robotnik work just like E-102-Y from Sonic Adventure, both in stages and controls. They are able to jump (and hover with a certain upgrade), shoot bullets, target enemies with a lock-on laser, release lock-on beams, and use a close range pushback attack. Their stages are actually the least flawed in the game to some point, and their controls are actually not as bad, except for their jumping physics which at the peak of their short jump immediately fall. The camera can be quite a hindrance to their stages as it is any character in the game, but there aren't as much life threatening situations that you won't see coming at least thanks to the hover ability on a few leap of deaths situations.
The camera and stage design is actually what can make the game very frustrating to play at times, and not to mention, make the actual character controls feel like their bad, but it's all an illusion of some of the bad mechanics that occur from time to time. For example, when I was trying to speed run certain stages for Sonic or Shadow and spin dashing like a madman, on the parts that are automatic in which the character will run around a loop for you like a train on rails; the game would get confused between me trying to actually control Sonic or Shadow and the automatic part trying to take over, and before I know it, I gain full control suddenly and end up flying off the stage. However, when this doesn't happen, I don't fly of the stage vice versa to when I let the game do its automated parts. This can be pretty annoying at times, and with some of the camera issues, it's only worse.
The actually camera in the game really affects all the characters in which sometimes it'll get caught behind a wall, or maybe you'll want to check the stage for something but the instant you move it's right behind you again. The camera being behind you isn't all that bad but when you really need to use the camera to see something and it unfortunately resets the instant you move, it becomes overwhelming. Sometimes it'll just feel messy and move around in strange glitch ways due to scene changes of the sort. At least the knuckles and rouge stages do have a different type of camera view for most of the stages allowing you to have a little more control on open areas and an fixed camera on others. However, there are a few times where you may wish it wasn't fixed or zoomed up a little too much keeping you from seeing what's around you.
The difficulty of this game is really just all a part of the stages as the bosses aren't anything too difficult to deal with. Stages for Sonic and Shadow will increase in their challenge with each stage, however, none of them are completely impossible and in fact, the harder they get, the more fun they are. But there may be a few parts that annoy you to death thanks to enemy placement and reaction speed required to pass some obstacles. Otherwise, it's nothing too difficult to deal with but playing with them is certainly exciting when compared to the other characters. Tails and Robotnik are as simple as it comes, having to just work your way through by shooting plenty of enemies, and only crossing life threatening obstacles that only pose a threat if you don't deal with enemies ahead of the obstacle. Knuckles and Rouge on the other hand can be the most overwhelming, stressful, unforgivable stages by far in this game, since searching for treasures even with the help of the clues can be incredibly ridiculous and take up huge amount of time; unless you kill yourself to respawn the treasures after each treasure acquired. It is possible to get good at these stages and enjoy it, but some players might not have the best time with it.
Kart Racing which I left for last is absolutely, terribly designed. It is by far the worst part of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and just has overall terrible controls and is just ridiculous. I simple left this part for last as it pains me to even speak about this mode. All you can do is drive, brake, tap the drive button to have more control over turns (atrocious control), and boost when you have 20 rings. All of it just feels wrong as if no one actually tested this mode before releasing it.
Honestly, it all comes down to the stage design and there are some game breaking glitches that can actually help you pull of incredible techniques to speed run, or get you killed pretty fast (though this doesn't happen often at all.) The camera is perhaps the biggest issue in the game and makes it Sonic Adventure 2 seem terrible for those who have plenty of terrible camera moments. It isn't so often that this happens at least, until you start trying to do some over the top speed runs noticeably, or just happen to land in a bad area.
Addictiveness: 7
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle does has some charm, but only in certain fields. For starters, playing this game with a friend is usually pretty fun, or at least from what I've experienced from my childhood to this present day. Though, most of the time, you'll find yourself replaying the Sonic and Shadow stages more than any of the other stages due to their more exciting and reflex challenging design as well as all sorts of different ways to come back to the stage and do speed runs...and this applies to both single player and battle mode. On the other hand, Chao Garden is just one of the things I really came to enjoy most as it just felt right, caring for a cute little Chao that would grow up to kick some butt, not to mention, I can raise him in my own image if I choose.
The other modes in the game, I didn't come back to as much, considering how frustrating it was to play certain treasure hunting stages, and the simplicity behind the shooting stages. Worst of all is the kart racing which is just absolutely terrible and I'll never play it again. However, through my friends, I discovered that it actually can be pretty fun to play treasure hunting or shooting stages if it really appeals to you. In VS mode, all the modes are lots of fun, so make sure to have a friend come over and play.
Graphics: 6
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle's graphics aren't as much improved from its older version on the Dreamcast. In fact, the lightning isn't as good and a few graphics are missing in certain cut scenes. Regardless, the graphics aren't that much different that it would be a reason to play one over the other, as the Gamecube scenes have a better frame rate than the Dreamcast version. The truth is, in comparison to some other games that came out like Super Smash Bros Melee, the graphics aren't that good. Of course, it was released very early with the Gamecube in 2001 so it can't really be helped, not to mention, it was an early remake. This can be easily overlooked at the graphics do just fine for Sonic Adventure 2 Battle back then and it is more about having fun and what not.
I don't have much I can say about the in-game graphics really. They are similar to the cut scenes on some extent, but it's nothing so special once you've played a few other games on the gamecube. The colors stand out quite well and there isn't anything in the game that would pain the eyes. The stage layouts on the other hand are pretty cool and bring life to most of the stages in the game. The character designs work for the Sonic world...except Maria...Maria is scary looking (you'll see what i mean when I play the game.)
Sound: 9
I don't know a single person who doesn't remember the City Escape song who's played this game many times. If I start singing the song to a friend, they join in, why? Because it made the first stage fun and memorable to play. By mixing in really catchy tunes that are unforgettable, you make the game memorable for those little things that count, similar to Green Hill Zone.
The music in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is pretty good for the most part and the music for each character-based stage is geared toward that character's theme style. Sonic stages consist mostly different styles of rock music for the most part, Tails stages (5 stages, one being a kart stage) and his theme song differ just a bit having some keyboard and pop rock themes, Eggman features techno rock, Shadow also has rock music but nowhere as bright sounding as Sonic's tunes, Knuckles' themes are Rap, and Rouge's themes are Latin jazz (pretty good ones at that.)
All the music in the game for the most part is pretty good and enjoyable, or at least I think it is. The sound effects are also good...but the English voice acting is just not that good unfortunately. I really love voice acting so I pay attention to a lot of the voice actors out there, and Eggman is the only character I really enjoyed in English. I'm not one to say Japanese voices are always better or anything because there are some great English voice actors out there who just fit the character, like David Hayter, but I suggest playing the game with the Japanese voice actors if you want to connect more with the cut scenes in the game.
Overall: 8.1
I really used to feel this game was a 9 out of 10, but perhaps playing other games might have ruined my opinion of that. Though, if I hadn't played other games, I wouldn't be able to look into the few things that turn me off a bit because the game has been re-released on Steam and Playstation Network. So some of the flaws are actually worth looking into because this is what people will be buying if they never played Sonic Adventure 2 in the past. It's still a fun game to play, but it loses a slight bit of appeal and polish thanks to some of the new games today.
Graphics
6 Sound
9 Addictive
7 Depth
8 Story
7 Difficulty
6
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