The Game | The Levels |
Characters and Features | Good and Bad Points |
The Game: |
The first thing to note is that the whole Adventure segment is gone, so you can't chose the characters, just the Light or Dark side. And it's not a separate story for each of the characters, but one after another, so you'll go through the story playing each character as their skills are needed.
When it comes to enemies, there are tons of new robots from G.U.N, but Robotnik/Eggman uses many of the same one's we've seen before. Most notably is the E-102 look-alikes (called E-1000's). There's also Kiki the Monkey and those Orbinaut ones that have either spikes or flames circling them. In the G.U.N Headquarters and the Space Colony ARK you'll also find some robots that look remarkably similar to Chaos from the first game...
The Levels: |
When the game starts, you can choose between two storylines: Hero Side and Dark Side . Once you have finished both, the Last storyline will be unlocked, in which both sides have to work together in order to win the game.
Hero Side
The Beginning Enter Knuckles Rescuing Sonic Prison Island Escape Face off with Shadow Ghost Mountain World Domination Aquatic Mine Where's Eggman? Eggman's Hidden Base Shuttle Blast-off Space Colony ARK Last Pieces of Master Emerald Sonic in Trouble Last Chance |
Dark Side
The Beginning Enter Rouge Hidden Base Again Shadow's Past Infiltrate Hidden Base Gathering of the Dark Get Chaos Emerald Face off with Sonic The Eggman Empire Last Chaos Emerald Hidden Base Intercept Face off with Knuckles Eggman's Plan Mystery of Shadow The Last Battle |
Last
The Beginning The last Mission The Ultimate Battle Remaining Hope |
When you complete a stage, it is added in the "Stage Select" screen, and you can then re-select it to play it again and improve your scores. It also shows which emblems you got and which rank you received for each mission.
This screen also allows you to enter Chao World after you have
successfully unlocked it by finding the key to it in the action stages,
which is more convenient than it was in the first "Sonic Adventure"
game.
Characters and Features: |
2 player mode is pretty cool, whether it's racing with Sonic and Shadow , blasting at each other with Tails and Eggman , or finding stuff with Knuckles and Rouge . And there's 1 Player Kart Racing too!
Emblems: | The Sonic Emblems are back, and if you manage to get all 180 emblems, you will also unlock a 3d version of the original Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1 (all you not-so-skilled gamers who want to see this cool zone too can download a ready-to-use Main Save File with all 180 emblems here). |
Goal: | Instead of having certain goals, Sonic, Shadow, Tails, and Eggman just have "get to the Goal Ring" instead of "Save Tails" or "Beat Eggman in 2 minutes" goals; sometimes with time limits, sometimes not. Rouge and Knuckles both have "Get 3 Chaos Emeralds/Master Emerald Pieces/Keys" for 1st mission. |
The other missions are:
Language: | You can have the text in 5 languages, and the voices in either English or Japanese. |
Good and Bad Points: |
I also miss the Adventure Stages, since they created variety in the pacing of the game. Without them, it all seems terribly liniar and monotonous. The player is catapulted from level to level without a break, and because the game types are so different it's inevitably jarring. In SA1, you were able to randomly select characters and unfold the plot in your own space and time, which was much more interesting.
The story isn't as captivating as the one in SA1 either, because there isn't any significant character development, and the pacing is just dreadful. We start in mid-action with Sonic escaping from the G.U.N. helicopter, but by the end of the level we really haven't learnt anything surprising. The start of the Knuckles / Rouge section is the most arbitrary of the lot with Rouge just chucked in there as if she had already been there. Everything seems rushed to me, while SA1 managed to mix character development, a blossoming plot, and variety in gameplay with the trademark Sonic speed and badnik-bashing action.
Of course Sonic on the Dreamcast is 3d and looks fabulous, but alas most of the levels feel like you are on rails, just going forward, where the Genesis levels feel like they have more depth and allow you more freedom. In the old games, there were multiple platforms and levels to jump around on, and there also was more emphesis on destroying enemies, where on "Sonic Adventure 2 it's just hit the zippers and keep forward.