Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

"Quite possibly the best Sonic game to date!"

I've been a Sonic fan since I first discovered video games and this is a truly amazing game. If you have ever played a Sonic the Hedgehog game then you will love this game.

Gameplay: 10

The star quality of any game should be its gameplay and this game is no exception. To begin, you can play either the Hero story or the Dark story. One of the unique qualities of this game is that you can play both the Hero characters and the Dark characters to get a complete picture of the entire storyline from both sides. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are the characters in the Hero story while Shadow, Dr. Eggman, and Rouge are the characters in the Dark story. Each story consists of a number of levels with cutscenes in between most of them. The levels for different characters are intertwined to follow the plot, so the first level is Sonic's, the second is Knuckles', etc. In addition, between certain levels are boss fights which can be pretty difficult.

The levels of each character are designed differently. Sonic's/Shadow's levels are designed for speed. The basic idea is to get through their levels as fast as possible while destroying enemies, collecting rings, and performing tricks to get the highest number of points. Tails'/Eggman's levels are often a bit more difficult to navigate. They have to walk around on machines and shoot enemies for points. In Knuckles'/Rouge's levels you must find three pieces of the master emerald hidden in each level that are randomly placed.

Each level in the game has five different missions. The first is simply to clear the level and advance the storyline. The second is to collect 100 rings as fast as possible. The third is to find a lost Chao somewhere in the level. The fourth is to beat the level in a certain amount of time. And the fifth is to clear the level on a harder difficulty (that usually means the level has extra enemies and changes in the level design to make it harder). You will also find upgrade items throughout the levels that allow you to acquire new moves and complete some of these missions.

For each mission you get a rank on how well you've completed it. You get either A, B, C, D, or E ranking depending on how much time you take or how many points you collect. Completing a mission also gives you an emblem. The ultimate goal is to collect all 180 emblems. You must have A rankings in everything to get all the emblems.

The game also has other gameplay features including Chao World where you can raise Chao (small creatures used as pets) and can have them compete against other Chao in races or karate. There is also a kart mini-game and then there's multiplayer mode where you can compete against a friend in a number of different formats.

Control: 9.5

If you've played the Genesis Sonic games then 3D will take a little while to get used to. Even if you've mastered the game it's still easy to die if you aren't careful. You'll definitely want to master Sonic and Shadow's homing attack move because once you learn to control it you'll find it's the most important move in the game.

People complain about the camera in the game and that it gets ''stuck'' often. This very rarely happens, but it does. 99% of the time the camera is great. Some people also complain that there are too many forced camera views, meaning that there are too many places where the camera stays in a fixed spot. I don't know why people complain about this because you can always rotate the camera if there is something worth seeing behind you. The game doesn't have forced camera angles in places where there are secrets.

Story: 10

The story is great, particularly because you can play both sides of it. I will not reveal any plot details, but let's just say that you may find that the story is even better than you think after playing both stories. ;) The cutscenes tell you what's going on quite well, but they even leave you with a few mysteries until you completed the entire story.

Graphics: 10

The graphics are excellent! The character models are done very well and I guarantee that several of the levels will take you breath away, especially the later ones, You will marvel at their incredible size as well.

Music/Sound: 9.5

I love the music in this game!!! I feel it's very well written and it gives you a great feeling for the mood of the game. There's a sound test where you can hear all of the tracks as often as you want too!

The voice acting is good. Every character in the game has voice acting with captions. My only minor complaint is that the lips don't match up to the English voice acting; I think it matches the Japanese but I'm not sure.

Replay Value: 10

You will play this game for a long time to get all the emblems, over 100 hours most likely. Many of the emblems can be quite difficult, even frustrating to get. You can play a level anytime you want once you've played it in story mode. You can also play the stories over and over again or start them in the middle if you'd like.

The multiplayer feature means you can play the same formats as in single-player mode, but against a friend. You can see who can find pieces of the master emerald fastest or who can grind the best! You can raise chao to fight with your friend's chao! The fun never ends!

This is a true masterpiece from Sonic Team. If you want a recommendation to either rent or buy, definitely buy this game. Then you might agree with me that this is the best Sonic game yet.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/03, Updated 01/01/03