After several days of posting spiteful commentaries I have decided do something a little different. Instead of crucifying a soft target I am here to stand in defence of Sonic Adventure 2. But before I suit up and start jumping into bullets I feel a bit of background needs to be explored. Asuming you already all about Sonic the Hedgehog and his populater series of 2D platforming games from the 16 bit era (if you don't know or care about Sonic this may not be the article for you) I'm just going to skip ahead to the very first Sonic Adventure game. Sonic Adventure was the first Sonic game to be released for Sega's ill-fated Dreamcast and promised to be just that; an adventure. As well as fast-paced 3D platforming action the game would feature an open world to explore and a more involved story that would come to life through various voice-acted cutscenes. This was a huge step for Sonic and in the end the game fell a little short of the mark. Whilst recieving fairly positive reviews the game managed to cause many fans to turn away from 3D Sonic games. The open world was largely empty, some character's individual adventures were either too short or poorly designed and the game was prone to some pretty bad glitches. To be honest this wasn't Sonic's worst game; other 3D titles such as Sonic 3D and Sonic the Hedgehog (360 and PS3) have caused many fans to renounce newer Sonic titles altogether. But I'm still a believer; a cautious one, but one all the same. I believe beause I've played Sonic Adventure 2.
The Sonic Team obviously reflected heavily on the successes and failures of the original SA when developing it's sequal. What they created was a well paced, more balanced and more fun Sonic experience. The aweful open world was amputated like a gangrenous limb and this helped the game progress at a much speedier and natural rate. Let's face it, a meandering Sonic game is not a true Sonic game. The different characters also get a more even story length than in its' predesessor. The other characters are also more fun to play than they were previously. It is a common criticism of SA2 that the treasure hunt and platform-shooter levels are alot less fun than the fast, action levels. While it's true to say that the latter is where the game truely shines the other levels I found to be a pleasant bit of variety well mixed into the rest of the game. Sonic is also given alot of new abilities; my favourite being the ability to grind down rails on Sonic's "Soap Shoes." The game is not without its flaws though. The camera in particular can be dodgy at times. But I stand by this game as one of Sonic's best. I still play the Gamecube version and Ihave actually enjoyed getting 100% completion. It's one of a very select few games that have had that kind of replay value for me. Whilst the purests may not appreciate it, I enjoyed it thoroughly and would recommend it to anybody who's interested.
Overall Score - 90/100
I liked it so fuck you!
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