Meccanical
Member
I rank SA2 as "so bad, it's good".
I seriously can't tell if some of the last levels are brilliant or terribad.
Crazy Gadget especially.
It's so damn cool, but what the hell man.
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Sonic Adventure 2 HD |OT| googoo g'joob googoo g'joob
- Thread starter Hot Coldman
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I rank SA2 as "so bad, it's good".
I seriously can't tell if some of the last levels are brilliant or terribad.
Crazy Gadget especially.
It's so damn cool, but what the hell man.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Every Sonic game has an amazing first stage. City Escape is highly unrepresentative of SA2.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Neither of the Adventure games, imo, held up that well over time.
Sounds exactly like how I feel about Sonic Unleashed. It looks great, it sounds great, the Sonic stages require a good amount of skill to S-rank and that's what made them fun, there's some clever stage design in some of the areas, there's some sidequests and stuff, but the game certainly has its share of problems and weirdly-designed bits that make you wonder "why the fuck did they add this?"
Maybe that's what he's been working on lately. :vGreen Scar said:
Nocturnowl
Member
Hold onto your hats folks, the final outing of Nocturnowl's nostalgic notes is here, can sonic stop the cannon? will Tails finally have a solid stage? will Knuckles continue his high grade streak? there's a lot of text for this one so yeah, just dropping that warning in there.
Eternal Engine
Probably one of Tails better stage now Ive replayed it, to think I thought it was the worst up until now, its leaps beyond hidden base at least. Right so this stage has TNT attached to bits of wall or floor that if shot open a suctioning hole into space, humorously one is placed right near an Omochao allowing you to watch him suffer a cycle of being sent into space, instantly respawned and off into space again. This stage introduces us to the games most annoying enemy, the prototype Chaos things with the stretchy arms, this stage also has Tails cannon upgrade so now I can go back and get that item from the end of his first stage! Well I can but I wont.
Sonic completes his chaos emerald switching trickery only to suddenly receive word that Eggman has Amy, what a tricky situation! How will sonic deal with such a predicame-MEANWHILE IN THE ASS END OF SPACE AT 2:45 OR SOMETHING RED LOADING SCREEN!
Meteor Herd
Once more Knuckles interrupts the main plot with his side story, I must lament for I got an E rank this time, entirely because I forgot there an upper section of this stage accessed by a rocket I walked past 3 times before noticing, leaving me wandering around the bottom and middle areas perplexed as hell but at least I got Knuckles some swanky sunglasses. This stages layout is pretty bad, the central tower is nice and all but the mid section is like a bunch of platforms and containers just scattered around.
After eventually scavenging the emerald pieces its time to throwdown with old Bat Breasts herself who of course reintroduces herself with long time no see, the fight is set around the same center tower area from meteor herd except the middle area being open sends out elevating air jets now as opposed to hoarding super shades, Rouge can pull special attacks out of her cleavage whenever she damn well feels like meaning you have to keep moving. After delivering Knuckles knuckles to her face enough times for a victory we leap to a cutscene of our combatants panting loudly at each other with locked eyes, oh my. While debating over the emerald and such other trifling matters Rouge loses her footing and looks to be falling to her grizzly demise, gentlemen Knuckles saves her before she plummets to her death. Boy that was a close one, I mean she could just use her wings and fly/glide to safety or perhaps those air jets that have been billowing out from said gap all fight long would simply prevent her from falling into the pit but shut up, she was totally screwed and Knuckles saved her. Rogue goes all tsundere for Knuckles and hands over her collected emerald pieces, Knuckles reforms the emerald on a precarious beam of all places and now he has to carry the damn thing round everywhere I guess, smart move knucklehead.
Meanwhile back at things that actually matter its getting crazy, crazy gadget that is.
Crazy Gadget
Probably the most disliked Sonic stage in the game from the way people dread it at least, it runs at a much slower pace, is filled with those stretchy armed chaos bastards and involves a few dubious sections where bad camera angles can really ruin your day. The main gimmick this round is gravity, Sonic pulls levers to alter room gravity to progress, sound interesting but it really isnt as nothing clever is actually done with it. Has one lovely bit of inverted light dashing that can easily end up with Sonic using the bounce bracelet to kill himself, Sonic gets an upgrade to break iron crates just like everyone else, how exciting. The final section is a sprawling set of blocks floating in space leading to a gravity switching session, I love the little Ha-Ha! From Eggman as he announces the perils of this room, its so smug sounding.
Having overcome the crazy gadget Sonic meets up with old Eggers in the hostage hoedown, Sonic plans to use the fake emerald to trick Eggman only for Tails to bugger everything up. Im actually more impressed with Eggmans guess work here really, so Eggman locks Sonic in a capsule and blasts him off into space killing his longtime rival, well thats how it looks in the dark story version, here in the hero side we get to see Sonic pondering if he can use chaos control with the fake emerald which of course he can.
Tails fuelled by the fact that sonic finally asked him to do something (and not because Sonic is assumed dead) is going to destroy Eggman, you know Im pretty sure Sonic has asked for Tails to do things many times before but okay, fine, whatever motivates the Fox to succeed, seriously this guy loves sonic too much, even when he dies he screams Sonic!. Boss time, Tails/Eggman round 2 and I was lucky enough to have Eggman walk into the explosions caused by the hazard containers twice allowing me an easy victory before he started spamming his hyper beam special.
Knuckles is elsewhere pondering this strange energy he feels, no its not light headedness from the lack of oxygen in space but its Sonic using fake chaos control to avoid certain death, I guess he really was the faker after all, I still count his survival as bullshit by the way. Sonic aims to go back to plan A which is to exchange the cannons emeralds, he leaves Knuckles with the task of looking after Tails and Amy, well considering this is the guy who tried to crash the space shuttle and kill them both earlier I cant help but view that as unwise but its not like theres much choice of people here in space right now.
Final Rush
Grind rails as far as the eye can see and honestly its not that bad, despite it looking like a stage where it would be easy to fall to your death its really not. The stage being so grind rails centric does make it a bit too automated at times but its one of the better stages in the game regardless. It also has these vertical rails attached to structures which can be really fiddly at times. Not much else to say here, the final moment has a chase section but theres no fear of sonic actually getting hit by the falling debris that pretends to be an actual threat. You can pick up sonics mystic melody here which allows you to activate the small ruins seen in every stage, they are almost all criteria for lost chao collecting missions.
So its time for the final showdown, Shadow turns up wondering how Sonic could have used Chaos Control with a fake emerald, sonic sidesteps any actual proper answer to fill this plothole with his usual quips and Shadow just goes along with it because its useless to try and get an actual answer, so there we go, Sonic can use fake chaos control because hes a guy who loves adventure! The boss battle itself is pretty awful really, for the first three hits you can easily just spindash into Shadow but for the last two hits Shadow catches onto your spindash game leaving you to either spam homing attacks until it actually works or try and make him chaos control in front of a line of rings in time for you to light dash into them which is pretty damn situational.
And thus we are done with a kind of rushed finale where Sonic stops the cannon and pulls a cheesy grin, Tails is happy, Eggman nabs an emerald and the credits play a vastly inferior version of it doesnt matter that is pretty bad compared to the original from SA. In the off chance youd forgotten that this game has a dark side story line they throw some cheesy trailer at you post credits. Of course youll need to do those stages to reach the gripping conclusion to the entire tale.
As for this style of gameplay, Sonic controls well, stages like final rush highlight this with small platforms and careful angling towards rails but that aside I still dont see what makes this style of Sonic gameplay so appealing that people cry out for SA3 over the formula Sega have going right now. Most stages are actually pretty basic, even compared to the ones from the first Sonic Adventure, you get the odd set piece but most of it is linear Sonic running forward stuff with basic stage gimmicks. Sonics abilities are barely utilized as well, at best you might find something new behind an iron box in a previous stage. People say its more open, well SA1 certainly has some wider areas but this game sticks to a very narrow format most of the time, I think Sonic being more easily controlled and having random animals scattered in corners make people think this game is more open than it actually is.
The shooting stages are the epitome of mediocre, excelling in nothing at all. Treasure hunts are a bit of a guilty pleasure for myself, Knuckles and Rouge control well and its enjoyable to climb and glide around, I wouldnt call them good but they probably get more flak than they deserve, its stages like Meteor Herd and Mad space that are just too big and can turn the whole hunt into a real chore.
All of this comes together to create a solid but sort of unremarkable game, though considering what would follow up until the better half of Unleashed its not hard to see why people felt this formula worked so well for 3D Sonic.
Eternal Engine
Probably one of Tails better stage now Ive replayed it, to think I thought it was the worst up until now, its leaps beyond hidden base at least. Right so this stage has TNT attached to bits of wall or floor that if shot open a suctioning hole into space, humorously one is placed right near an Omochao allowing you to watch him suffer a cycle of being sent into space, instantly respawned and off into space again. This stage introduces us to the games most annoying enemy, the prototype Chaos things with the stretchy arms, this stage also has Tails cannon upgrade so now I can go back and get that item from the end of his first stage! Well I can but I wont.
Sonic completes his chaos emerald switching trickery only to suddenly receive word that Eggman has Amy, what a tricky situation! How will sonic deal with such a predicame-MEANWHILE IN THE ASS END OF SPACE AT 2:45 OR SOMETHING RED LOADING SCREEN!
Meteor Herd
Once more Knuckles interrupts the main plot with his side story, I must lament for I got an E rank this time, entirely because I forgot there an upper section of this stage accessed by a rocket I walked past 3 times before noticing, leaving me wandering around the bottom and middle areas perplexed as hell but at least I got Knuckles some swanky sunglasses. This stages layout is pretty bad, the central tower is nice and all but the mid section is like a bunch of platforms and containers just scattered around.
After eventually scavenging the emerald pieces its time to throwdown with old Bat Breasts herself who of course reintroduces herself with long time no see, the fight is set around the same center tower area from meteor herd except the middle area being open sends out elevating air jets now as opposed to hoarding super shades, Rouge can pull special attacks out of her cleavage whenever she damn well feels like meaning you have to keep moving. After delivering Knuckles knuckles to her face enough times for a victory we leap to a cutscene of our combatants panting loudly at each other with locked eyes, oh my. While debating over the emerald and such other trifling matters Rouge loses her footing and looks to be falling to her grizzly demise, gentlemen Knuckles saves her before she plummets to her death. Boy that was a close one, I mean she could just use her wings and fly/glide to safety or perhaps those air jets that have been billowing out from said gap all fight long would simply prevent her from falling into the pit but shut up, she was totally screwed and Knuckles saved her. Rogue goes all tsundere for Knuckles and hands over her collected emerald pieces, Knuckles reforms the emerald on a precarious beam of all places and now he has to carry the damn thing round everywhere I guess, smart move knucklehead.
Meanwhile back at things that actually matter its getting crazy, crazy gadget that is.
Crazy Gadget
Probably the most disliked Sonic stage in the game from the way people dread it at least, it runs at a much slower pace, is filled with those stretchy armed chaos bastards and involves a few dubious sections where bad camera angles can really ruin your day. The main gimmick this round is gravity, Sonic pulls levers to alter room gravity to progress, sound interesting but it really isnt as nothing clever is actually done with it. Has one lovely bit of inverted light dashing that can easily end up with Sonic using the bounce bracelet to kill himself, Sonic gets an upgrade to break iron crates just like everyone else, how exciting. The final section is a sprawling set of blocks floating in space leading to a gravity switching session, I love the little Ha-Ha! From Eggman as he announces the perils of this room, its so smug sounding.
Having overcome the crazy gadget Sonic meets up with old Eggers in the hostage hoedown, Sonic plans to use the fake emerald to trick Eggman only for Tails to bugger everything up. Im actually more impressed with Eggmans guess work here really, so Eggman locks Sonic in a capsule and blasts him off into space killing his longtime rival, well thats how it looks in the dark story version, here in the hero side we get to see Sonic pondering if he can use chaos control with the fake emerald which of course he can.
Tails fuelled by the fact that sonic finally asked him to do something (and not because Sonic is assumed dead) is going to destroy Eggman, you know Im pretty sure Sonic has asked for Tails to do things many times before but okay, fine, whatever motivates the Fox to succeed, seriously this guy loves sonic too much, even when he dies he screams Sonic!. Boss time, Tails/Eggman round 2 and I was lucky enough to have Eggman walk into the explosions caused by the hazard containers twice allowing me an easy victory before he started spamming his hyper beam special.
Knuckles is elsewhere pondering this strange energy he feels, no its not light headedness from the lack of oxygen in space but its Sonic using fake chaos control to avoid certain death, I guess he really was the faker after all, I still count his survival as bullshit by the way. Sonic aims to go back to plan A which is to exchange the cannons emeralds, he leaves Knuckles with the task of looking after Tails and Amy, well considering this is the guy who tried to crash the space shuttle and kill them both earlier I cant help but view that as unwise but its not like theres much choice of people here in space right now.
Final Rush
Grind rails as far as the eye can see and honestly its not that bad, despite it looking like a stage where it would be easy to fall to your death its really not. The stage being so grind rails centric does make it a bit too automated at times but its one of the better stages in the game regardless. It also has these vertical rails attached to structures which can be really fiddly at times. Not much else to say here, the final moment has a chase section but theres no fear of sonic actually getting hit by the falling debris that pretends to be an actual threat. You can pick up sonics mystic melody here which allows you to activate the small ruins seen in every stage, they are almost all criteria for lost chao collecting missions.
So its time for the final showdown, Shadow turns up wondering how Sonic could have used Chaos Control with a fake emerald, sonic sidesteps any actual proper answer to fill this plothole with his usual quips and Shadow just goes along with it because its useless to try and get an actual answer, so there we go, Sonic can use fake chaos control because hes a guy who loves adventure! The boss battle itself is pretty awful really, for the first three hits you can easily just spindash into Shadow but for the last two hits Shadow catches onto your spindash game leaving you to either spam homing attacks until it actually works or try and make him chaos control in front of a line of rings in time for you to light dash into them which is pretty damn situational.
And thus we are done with a kind of rushed finale where Sonic stops the cannon and pulls a cheesy grin, Tails is happy, Eggman nabs an emerald and the credits play a vastly inferior version of it doesnt matter that is pretty bad compared to the original from SA. In the off chance youd forgotten that this game has a dark side story line they throw some cheesy trailer at you post credits. Of course youll need to do those stages to reach the gripping conclusion to the entire tale.
As for this style of gameplay, Sonic controls well, stages like final rush highlight this with small platforms and careful angling towards rails but that aside I still dont see what makes this style of Sonic gameplay so appealing that people cry out for SA3 over the formula Sega have going right now. Most stages are actually pretty basic, even compared to the ones from the first Sonic Adventure, you get the odd set piece but most of it is linear Sonic running forward stuff with basic stage gimmicks. Sonics abilities are barely utilized as well, at best you might find something new behind an iron box in a previous stage. People say its more open, well SA1 certainly has some wider areas but this game sticks to a very narrow format most of the time, I think Sonic being more easily controlled and having random animals scattered in corners make people think this game is more open than it actually is.
The shooting stages are the epitome of mediocre, excelling in nothing at all. Treasure hunts are a bit of a guilty pleasure for myself, Knuckles and Rouge control well and its enjoyable to climb and glide around, I wouldnt call them good but they probably get more flak than they deserve, its stages like Meteor Herd and Mad space that are just too big and can turn the whole hunt into a real chore.
All of this comes together to create a solid but sort of unremarkable game, though considering what would follow up until the better half of Unleashed its not hard to see why people felt this formula worked so well for 3D Sonic.
Hot Coldman
Banned
I always thought Crazy Gadget was one of the more inventive levels, which is worth something. It's just not really polished enough to pull it all off.
Meccanical
Member
I hope you got Knux's breathing mask Nocturnowl.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
You know how I like to make fun of the "we're sonic heroes" line?
This whole thing feels like the precursor to the "Because we're Sonic Heroes!" level of bullshit in the plot.
Meccanical
Member
Don't remind me of some of the awful lines in the game.
Tails completely killed the mood at the end.
WE AWL DID IT TOGETHURRR
Hot Coldman
Banned
Meanwhile, Chaotix go to break Eggman's legs
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
I can't believe I almost forgot about SA1's level of Shakespearean literature:
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, RIGHT?!"
Hot Coldman
Banned
I can't believe I almost forgot about SA1's level of Shakespearean literature:
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, RIGHT?!"
*cue slow camera pan out to show the obliterated city, filled with thousands of corpses*
Meccanical
Member
Oh man, all I could think about during that CG sequence was how so many people had to have died and how it would be so expensive to clean up.
Good thing nothing happened to anyone some how.
Nocturnowl
Member
The stage style in itself is used for Eggman and Tails for Lost Colony, Eternal Engine and Cannons Core, as such it feels more suited to mechs with smaller rooms, doors and short corridors. Sonic himself feels a bit out of place as his style doesn't quite mesh with the layout. the gravity stuff never really moves beyond walking from one switch to another, as complex as the final area looks it really is pretty basic with only two inspired uses of the gravity, those being the poorly camera angled homing attack off an enemy to move Sonic from one side of a block to another block and the spring to reach another part of the yellow area. It's not particularly bad as a stage at all but i'd rather play any of the other stages with their greater sense of flow.
I do however like the tubes, they remind me of better times, they remind me of chemical plant.
If I had left them behind I might have got an A rank on Aquatic Mine but breathing in Cannons Core takes higher priority so yes.
You know, what can I say? I Die Hard!
Damn you sonic, using my favourite movie against me.
Meccanical
Member
I'm not gonna lie though, that cutscene before the last Sonic v. Shadow fight still gives me goosebumps.
Cheesy goodness.
Was stoked to see it return in Generations.
Cheesy goodness.
Was stoked to see it return in Generations.
Nocturnowl
Member
It's all about that epic staredown during the animation where Shadow's name is being typed on screen.
sogood.jpg
Hot Coldman
Banned
:lol Love that post.
Meccanical
Member
Yessss. Love that.
Seven Force
Banned
Caved and brought the full game after playing the demo ._.
Meccanical
Member
Why.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
It was so fitting.Nocturnowl said:
Yeah, it was pretty cool. Honestly, SA2 was the only game in which I found Shadow to not be bothersome. Even with his popularity, he shouldn't have been brought back. He ended up pushing Knuckles out of his designated spot as Sonic's rival.BlackJace said:
Meccanical
Member
I always felt that Knuckles needed his own game, all those Flashbacks in SA1 about Tikal and his ancestors yet SONIC is the one to take down Chaos alone?
That's not right, this seemed like something that Knuckles had to do, but whatever.
That's not right, this seemed like something that Knuckles had to do, but whatever.
tiggerkiddo
Member
Exactly. I thought he was cool in this game but he should have stayed dead. He would be much more memorable if that had been the case.
Ein Bear
Member
Sonic Unleashed should have been released as 'Sonic & Knuckles 2', with the Werehog swapped out for Knux.
Seven Force
Banned
Nocturnowl
Member
See I can't hear this without picturing Eggman's horrified face, not the intended effect i'm sure.
Knuckles isn't allowed to be central to the plot anymore, we should feel lucky that he even got to be in MOUNTAINOUS REGION in SA2.
Meccanical
Member
I HAVE BEEN SAYING THAT FOREVER
Thank you.
While I was playing Unleashed, all I could think about is how much better this would be if instead of that beam turning Sonic into a werewolf for no reason, Knuckles was there somehow and the two ended up being fused together, Sonic is out in the day, Knux is out at night.
Would have been hilarious.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Lord Iizuka-sama disagreed and felt that Shadow should have his own game. Shadow has guns and he's extreme to the max and he looks cool and shit. If Iizuka had his way, we'd have Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog 2, and Shadow Returns... also Shadow cameos in other games, with him headlining Sonic Battle and Sonic Battle Duodecim where he's the main character.
Knuckles is a boring treasure hunter. Kids don't like that and Iizuka doesn't think it's cool.
I'm joking
I've been saying this in the Sonic Community Thread forever. But they'd need to speed up the Werehog animations, ditch medal collections, and ditch the levelling mechanic altogether. Then it would be completely passable.Ein Bear said:
ryūkotsusei
Member
ALL HAIL SHADOW
Meccanical
Member
I think people would have been more accepting if Knuckles got to primarily use his KNUCKLES for once.
Save that treasure hunting stuff for Rouge and the twins.
Seven Force
Banned
Yeah, even with Knuckles inserted into the stages, I still think it'd be janky as hell.
Would work wonders aesthetically, though.
Hot Coldman
Banned
ryūkotsusei
Member
DETERMINATION OF THE STRONG
JStein0222
Member
Not gonna lie. Half the fun of this for me has been doing the whole Chao thing. Trying to make a "Shadow" Chao, named him Zero <3
Meccanical
Member
I almost bought this game again for chao, but it wouldn't be the same so I decided against it.
Dark Chao Garden was crazy though, I would put my hero chao there just because I thought it was funny, they seemed happy.
Nocturnowl
Member
I pretty much stuck with the standard Garden, best music, easy access to race and karate, better race unlockables.
The amount of hours I put into that mode, too many and I still never got all the emblems.
Remember how you could take Chao to school and they could learn an instrument then when one started playing it in the garden you could put other chao next to them and they'd break out their intruments or singing abilities and have a good old jam session? so good.
What the hell was up with that blinking statue in the School office, creepy stuff.
The amount of hours I put into that mode, too many and I still never got all the emblems.
Remember how you could take Chao to school and they could learn an instrument then when one started playing it in the garden you could put other chao next to them and they'd break out their intruments or singing abilities and have a good old jam session? so good.
What the hell was up with that blinking statue in the School office, creepy stuff.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
The radar shows objects in a certain order. You can be right above something but it won't tell you because it's not the one it wants you to get first.
It's the major reason I don't mind the Knux stages in SA1 but can't stand him/Rouge in SA2. They decided to break the radar system for no particular reason.
No, I know that. I'm just shocked I found 2 keys without radar before finding the first one.
Also I just beat Crazy Gadget for the first time in my life!
The problem is not the Werehog itself but rather the gameplay. It's so slow and boring... and really out of place in a Sonic game. Beat 'em ups has no place in a Sonic game.
Azure Dream
Member
Actually, the Werehog itself kind of WAS a problem. Not only were those stretchy animations ugly, but the framerate in the HD versions would bog if the camera got closer to him because of the fur technique they used.
It's pretty evident if you play the Wii version, because they use prerecorded versions of the HD cinemas, except they run without framerate drops.