Delta Starfire

It was well recieved on release. This is the game that had such a high Metacritic score for a Sonic game until Mania came along and beat the record.

Ah, okay. Thanks. I've been out of the Sonic fandom loop for such a long time that I just don't have the same working knowledge of the various games' reception anymore. Then again, maybe I never did. I was re-playing SA2 a few months ago for the first time in years and I felt it held up pretty well still.

From what I've gathered, It's always been a relatively divisive game. You had fans and press outlets alike split. Some claiming it to be the best Sonic game ever made, while others downright hating it. Honestly, I think the only reason why I (and many others around my age) think that it was remembered fondly at one point is because we were the people doing that. As far as I can tell, my general generation still loves this game while the reception of it is far more mixed in other age groups. SA2 was a lot of peoples' first Sonic game with Battle being dropped on the GC.

Yeah, what I recall is more divided opinion at the time of release. But it seems more fondly remembered these days, so I was wondering if opinion on it has since softened, or if it is just the people who always liked who still talk about it most.

I still think it says a lot that the Battle GC port that came out half a year later got worse reviews, despite virtually being the same game with added multiplayer content.

I really can't help but think reviewers were caught up with the whole "Sega going third-party / last Sonic game for a Sega platform" atmosphere and were cutting the game some slack in light of that.

The problem is that back then I couldn't give an accurate answer. Like the Dreamcast magazine that I was reading didn't even get to the Sonic Adventure 2 review because it finished around then and it was all PS2 coverage then where I was from because the Internet wasn't much of a thing. So there weren't much reviews of the game around. The Gamecube version got positive reviews though but much of it was "Sonic on a Nintendo console OMG!" type of thing.

This is my guess. The reviewers loved the game and fans of the time were more split. Some absolutely loved it while others were picky. There were complaints about the Tails/Eggman stages, there were complaints about the camera. Those two issues are the ones that I remember. I think a few even complained about the game not being finished because they had problems with the final stage with the DC version. Don't know if it was down to a dodgy print run as it was common with the console or American copies of the game. In my case, I saw it as the decline of the series but wasn't a terrible game, more of an okay/quite good game. This was from the Gamecube version as I don't recall seeing the Dreamcast version around back then like most of the late games on the console like Headhunter, Virtua Tennis 2 and Shenmue 2.

For the Nintendo fans, it was their first Sonic game (either that or the more forgotten Advance) so there is that nostalgia effect. A lot of the positive about the game is due to that and that is why it is fondly remembered. The ones who were more picky about the game, you don't see much online.