Game #929: Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

  Wait a minute.... did I just enjoy a Sonic game!?

 I've played my fair share of Sonic games, I mean, I grew up with Nintendo, and during the PS2 era I was chomping at the bit to try the Sonic Adventure games. Years down the line I'd finally manage to play Adventure 1 through the PC port and it was mediocre. Still, I wanted to play the second game, but it was only ported to the Gamecube. Years went by, I tried a few more Sonic games, like Sonic Heroes, and slowly but surely I realized.... Sonic isn't very good. While I waited for this game to arrive, I was watching ProJared's review, and even though I didn't play the game... everything sounded about what I'd expect of a 3-D Sonic game. Then I watched a 50 minute defense of the game that did little to convince me otherwise, as most of his points were 'git gud'. Well, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle finally arrived and I just finished it 100%.... and I liked it.

 First of all, the music is amazing. I'll always praise 3D Sonic's soundtrack, and this is no exception. On the other hand, the game looks ugly. It's super colorful, which I adored, but the animations, man, they are awful. It's hard not to cringe and laugh at some of the expressions and movements characters make. And Eggman's running animation is absolutely dreadful, Xbox's Shrek kind of bad. And the story? It's not too bad, but the dialogue is terrible and characters cut between each others lines. But hey, this is the game that introduced Sonic's very own Vegeta, Shadow, so that's alright. It's not a pretty sight... but it makes it kinda funny, so, in a way, it's almost enjoyable.

 The game is divided into two campaigns: Hero, featuring Sonic, Tails and Knuckles and Dark, featuring Shadow, Eggman and Rouge. Hero's campaign is lengthier and features mostly Sonic levels, which made it more fun, while Dark has about 3 stages less and there are way too many Eggman stages.

 I thought I was gonna hate having three different half-baked gameplay styles, and they sound awful on paper. Sonic and Shadow get speed stages, Knuckles and Rouge get scavenger's hunts and Eggman and Tails are shoot'em ups... but they kinda won me over. Pretty much every Sonic and Shadow stage is fun, except maybe Sonic's final stage that had a few frustrating bits. I thought I would hate Knuckles/Rouge stages, since you have to find three items(Usually gems) using a hot 'n cold radar, a radar that only highlights the gems in order, so you might pass next to another gem but the radar won't tell you. I bet this sounds awful, it sounded awful to me... but I wound up liking these stages, not gonna lie. They are smaller than Sonic's, so prancing around isn't much of a hassle, and there's a lot of verticality to traverse via Knuckles' and Rouge's gliding. Eggman/Tails' stages are definitely the most boring, they are too long and too simple and too slow paced. They ride a mech and you hold down B to target enemies, let go, and continue on your merry way. That said, they become more tolerable as you unlock upgrades like gliding that makes you feel as if you were moving faster.

 Beating the game should take between 5-7 hours... but you have a Stage select feature... because every level can be replayed but under a different objective, every stage having about 4 different objectives, like collecting 100 rings or the such. I didn't like the game so much as to spend time replaying these bonus objectives, but hey, it's a nice addition for people that like the game.

 As with pretty much every other 3-D Sonic game I've ever played, characters are super slippery and the camera can be a pain in the rear... but, y'know what? I didn't die as much as I did on Sonic Heroes due to sloppy movement. I think that, while slippery, it's not as bad as it would get in future games. Having better level design probably helped too.

 Overall I had a lot of fun with the game. 3-D Sonic games get a bad rep, deservedly so, but Sonic Adventure 2 feels as tight as a 3-D Sonic game can get. Some parts are better than others, no doubt, but I'd say the highs overweigh the lows.

 7.5