Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

"Best 3-D Sonic Game(better than the newer ones)"

Sonic has made his debut since 1991. The original Sonic was great because it should the hedgehogs speed and worked very well. Sonic 2, 3, and knuckles were also great games. Though some weren't good like Sonic Spinball. Sonic 3-D Blast was okay, but not great. Most of the GameGear Games were also not satisfying. Some were good, but others were useless. The Sonic Adventure Series has been fairly underrated. I mean a lot of game sites like gamespot and ign just underrate sonic games. Whats wrong with a sonic game with treassure hunting and shooting. Mario has different types of gameplay styles and people didn't mind. Of course, I like Mario, but Sonic has been having hard times. Sonic Adventure 2 battle is easily the best sonic game of 3-D because of the variety of stuff to do. It was nice to play the old-fashioned games, but different gameplay styles work just as well. Honestly, everytime I play a game new to series whether it was the first or second one, the first game I play would mostly be the best and this game is the perfect example, because it is so varied.

Gameplay: 9/10 In story mode, you have a choice of choosing the hero side or the Dark side. Hero consists of the Characters: Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Dark consists of Rouge the Bat, Dr. Eggman, and Shadow the Hedgehog. It's either battle to save the world or conquer it! The story is pretty detailed and nice. Dr. Eggman wants to find his grandfathers research project Code named "Shadow". Soon Shadow helps eggman rule the world and Rouge will make her appearence as you progress through the game. Meanwhile, Sonic, Knuckles and Tails try to stop Eggman from taking over the world.

Sonic and Shadow have speed levels where you have to reach the goal ring. They play like the orginal sonic games from the Genesis. These provide a lot of entertainment. While the stages are short and these levels are only 33% of the game, that doesn't mean the game goes down. It definately doesn't. I'm in for different gameplay styles.

Tails and Eggman have shooter stages. These are fairly simplistic yet fun. Some are challenging. While theres something to be said about Tails flying by himself, he has always been a mechanic and likes to experiment with airplanes so it isn't a terrible choice at all.

Knuckles and Rouge play a role in treasure hunting games. You'll to find three pieces of the master emerald ( Some could involve keys too). There is a detector at the bottom with the HOT OR COLD type. It could turn green to yellow and to red to indicate how near you are to an emerald. While some people may say it's boring and doesn't fit to a sonic game, these stages are still very fun. However, it can be pretty frustrating when making your way to the later levels. These stages are incredibly huge and fit the game.

The controls are very straightforward and easy to get used to. Sonic/shadow stages are just simple. With the control stick to jump and the A button to jump and do homing attacks. There also summersaults and spin dashes too. Hold B to do spindash and Press the B button to do a summersault. Tails/Eggman stages are also easy as well as knuckles/Rouge stages. You use the B button to shoot robots and other types from the G.U.N Millitary. Knuckles stages have you press the B button to dig. Knuckles and Rouge can also fly. There are also powerups for each stage for each character. You won't need all the powerups to beat the game, since this game isn't too hard.

As for the multiplayer, it wasn't spectacular or anything, but a decent and much better than Sonic Heroes Multiplayer. Unlike Sonic Heroes in which levels are very short, levels here are only a few fractions short. There are enough stages to choose from with little options to choose from. Theres even a scoreboard between P1 and P2 and you can erase it anytime. You only start with about 3 modes but you unlock more as you play the game You can unlock level 4 stages. Not all of the modes are good, but the sonic,tails, and knuckles stages(you'll know what I mean) are fun multiplayer games for a while.

Theres also a Chao Garden where you can raise your chao(s). This can be alot of fun for a long while. You can enter them into Chao races and karate and play them in multiplayer, though you may not want to play them in multiplayer. If you have a GBA, you could do advance things with your chao. There are also 180 Emblems to collect, but you may or may not like doing that anyway. Geting all those A ranks can be hard, but can add a lot of value. The worst thing about the gameplay is the addition of the Kart Racing. It was nice they tried to include another extra, but it wasn't well done. The kart controls stupidly and doesn't handle well, making it seem pointless and unnesscesary.

Graphics:8/10 The graphics look nearly realistic. The characters look stunning, though can be chopy and pixeled in multiplayer. The Backgrounds are excellent from the beautiful roads of City Landscape to the Scary pumpkins at pumkin hill. The Framerate never drops. Although some textures can look pretty rough. The camera, is the worst camera out of the 3-D sonics, apparently because when you want to go back and then you move, the camera will swap back to the direction to where your supposed to go, but it doesn't really to much kill the game.

Sound:8/10 -The music is great, though not as good as the music in Sonic Adventure or Heroes but still very catchy, like Pyramid Cave and some the Boss level music. However, the rap isn't as good, but can be tolerated. Soundtrack itself is very outstanding. Some may not like this type of music and I understand that because it won't be for everyone, I know that. Sound effects get the job done and even the voice acting is good. The dialogue is good for what I know of. I may not know what voice would necessarlily fit, but if I don't know, then it's good in that way and that kind of aspect.

Value: 9/10- The story mode is fairly short, but can be very challenging depending on what stages you are in. though I think it's so varied that the replay value can be very high. Multiplayer can last you for awhile and Chao raising is very addicting. Lots of other stuff to do(save for the kart racing though, but that doesn't do any grievience to screw the game up. You can go for the A Rank Challeng and collect all the Emblems and find some Chao unlockables and multiplayer ones as well.

Micellaneous: This game has been released after a few months when the original Sonic Adventure 2 came out. Right now, this game has a very nice port. It was great for Sega to bring the classical sonic games to Gamecube. The addition of more multiplayer games, better chao raising with more chao gardens, making it a game that will last you quite a long time. Yes there aren't as much sonic stages as the shooter and treasure hunting stages combined, but you'll still have fun with these stages. Give them a try. Don't Listen to Gamespot or Ign.

Best 3-D sonic. However, just rent to be on the save side, even if I bought it from the start. Thats only if your unsure. If you a sonic fan ,then give it go!
If you played the Dreamcast, then you may want to stick with that if you have it.
Have fun playing this game.

Score: 8.7/10(A-)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/06, Updated 01/09/06