Sonic Adventure 2 Discussion, Speculation, Media Topic

[TheOcelot]

Xbla charts are up for the week of 3/12.

 

http://majornelson.com/2012/12/13/live-activity-for-week-of-dec-3/

 

SA2 has moved back up the charts and now stands at 6th.

 

Out of interest, Sonic the Fighters is 10th. Not a bad start.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Silent Nightwing

[Your Vest Friend]

Yay more ranting. :/

I don't think it can ever be understated how fucking awful these kart stages are. It wouldn't be as bad if they were limited to 2P mode, but as it is they're a compulsory component of the story mode, so I have to endure them if I want to do everything. In fact, I think it's safe to say that they're probably the worst stages to have ever been in the Sonic series ever. Let me give a breakdown of the various issues, from the design perspective to the technical aspects.

 

• Firstly, these stages are the embodiment of highway in the sky design. All it is, is a course suspended in mid-air with a flat cloud background (a flat city background pops ups eventually) with the only items of interest being rings, balloons and some cars. Visually it is a bore and very bare bones. Again, it wouldn't be so bad if it were limited to 2P mode, but this is within the story itself.
• Secondly, the lap element of the stages are completely botched. The laps themselves aren't measured in the normal racing way (i.e. each lap is recorded separately). Instead, the laps are cumulative, so the first lap looks normal but the second is just the previous lap plus the new one, and the third lap isn't even measured because it's just the time taken to complete the stage. Furthermore, the lap changes don't even act as checkpoints since dying makes you restart from the very beginning, so there is literally no point in having separate laps and time extensions in the story stages at all. It should have given a single time limit to race against, like how Green Forest and Security Hall have time limits. 
• Speaking of dying, these stages have an utterly stupid glitch; if you select the stages from the stage select menu, it counts starting it as a restart and costs you a life no matter what. How the fuck did that get by the bug testers?
• Finally, and probably the most important part, the control scheme is the least intuitive of any karting I've ever seen. Aside from boosting, all the controls are basically mapped on the X button (or whatever the drive is on other consoles). Accelerating is bog standard enough, but that standard form hasn't got enough turning to do...almost every single corner you can think of. To get to the drift mode, you have quickly let go of X and press it again. This in itself is monumentally stupid, but it gets worse. The problem with staying in drift mode is that it sacrifices a huge amount of speed, even when you're not turning. As such, drift mode is as detrimental as it is essential. And then we get to the worst part; switching back from drift mode to standard mode is a crapshoot. Sometimes, you'll be wanting to drift around the corners consecutively when there's suddenly a switch back to standard mode despite you not doing anything to trigger it. Other times, you'll want to switch back to standard mode to get down a long straight, only for the kart to stay in drift mode no matter how many times you press the X button to disengage it. It makes simply navigating the track far more cumbersome than it should be, because the control scheme is just at it's root illogical.

 

Aside from the rant, a question; can you influence the Black Market to get certain eggs in? This isn't a case of me wanting a certain top-end egg and not having enough emblems for it, it's an egg colour I know I have more than enough emblems for, yet has never appeared in the Black Market the entire time I've played the game. I've been grinding rings until it appears and I've managed to buy 3 lime green eggs (4500 rings) with over 32K to spare. 

[Solkia]

Don't forget the unfair difficulty.

 

How the fuck they expect you to beat flawless A.I.s in one of the worst controlling kart racers in history is beyond me. I busted my balls just to beat the easy mode, I never bothered with the others.

[Soniman]

Just thanks christ that they're only 2 levels of these monstrosities 

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

Yeeeah, that's one of the reasons I loathe Adventure 2. Kart Racing in that game is ridiculous. They shouldn't have bothered making that mode at all. A poor response to Mario Kart. A bland track, with funny A.I. I'm sick of hitting the walls and occasionally spinout like crazy. The karts were slippery like soap.

[- Eternal Paradox -]

Yeeeah, that's one of the reasons I loathe Adventure 2. Kart Racing in that game is ridiculous. They shouldn't have bothered making that mode at all. A poor response to Mario Kart. A bland track, with funny A.I. I'm sick of hitting the walls and occasionally spinout like crazy. The karts were slippery like soap.

 

First game had karting too.

 

 

The karts were slippery like soap.

The karts were slippery like soap.

...soap.

Edited December 18, 2012 by Paradise

[Thrippa]

Aside from the rant, a question; can you influence the Black Market to get certain eggs in? This isn't a case of me wanting a certain top-end egg and not having enough emblems for it, it's an egg colour I know I have more than enough emblems for, yet has never appeared in the Black Market the entire time I've played the game. I've been grinding rings until it appears and I've managed to buy 3 lime green eggs (4500 rings) with over 32K to spare. 

Some of the eggs have an emblem range rather than just a minimum; if you have too many you may not see them anymore.

[Your Vest Friend]

....Fuck.

 

That is monumentally stupid. 

Edited December 18, 2012 by VEDJ-F

[MamboCat]

First game had karting too.

 

I seem to remember that wasn't so bad. It had an awesome remix of the Sonic 3D Flickies' Island music... and they were like widdle bumper cars. :3 (OK so Sonic saying "WOOHOO!" like a poor man's Homer was a tad irritating, but the game play was fine, IIRC...)

 

The driving levels and the kart game are incredibly annoying for me. I can't seem to control the damned things properly. Blech.

 

Ah well, at least Rouge's car is an amusingly shape...

Edited December 18, 2012 by MamboHoHo!

[Your Vest Friend]

I think the reason why the bumper cars were more tolerable is because they controlled better, didn't take up whole stages, and didn't bother with time-limit, car-avoiding, wall-avoiding bullshit. 

[Komodin]

Hm, I'm just wondering...

 

Since it's been over ten years since the game's first release, what are your (generally speaking, of course) thoughts on the bonus level, Green Hill? Personally, I think it should've had all three acts in it; as is, it's just too darn short.

Edited December 18, 2012 by Komodin

[Solkia]

It's a lame reward. Going though 150+ tedious as fuck missions, kart races, and chao raising is not worth doing for a Green Hill throwback.

 

Green Hill should have been a game completion reward, and the emblem collecting reward should have been something else.

Edited December 18, 2012 by Underaged Hot Anime Elf

[MamboCat]

Never got all of the emblems, so I've never seen it. *sob*

 

Although I am told I didn't miss much...

[TheOcelot]

Hm, I'm just wondering...

 

Since it's been over ten years since the game's first release, what are your (generally speaking, of course) thoughts on the bonus level, Green Hill? Personally, I think it should've had all three acts in it; as is, it's just too darn short.

 

Green Hill is okay. Unlike Generations GH, the SA2 version is pretty much an exact (3d) copy of Green Hill Act 1 from Sonic 1. The pacing of the level is quite slow compared to the other Sonic levels in SA2. This is partly because the level and camera often changes direction when you move through the level. As a result it is easy to fall off the edge and die if you go too fast. Also, if you homing attack the pirana badniks, that can often lead to cheap deaths. This is because if you hit the badnik when it is moving downwards, if the badnik is too low down when you make contact, you might not be able to get back up to the level, and you therefore fall and die. 

 

GH is good, but nothing special. Not really an adequate reward for getting 180 emblems and completing the chao missions. 

Edited December 18, 2012 by Silent Nightwing

[Your Vest Friend]

Decided to take on the Last Story. Cannon's Core is...a decent challenge. Biolizard and Finalhizard? Piss easy. 

[Komodin]

Decided to take on the Last Story. Cannon's Core is...a decent challenge. Biolizard and Finalhizard? Piss easy. 

 

So, what are your thoughts on the game, overall?

[Your Vest Friend]

So, what are your thoughts on the game, overall?

 

Just like the casual playthrough I did a year ago or so at a friend's house, I believe that this game hasn't held up very well at all, certainly worse than SA1 (despite it having less polish in the...graphic? Presentation? Department, anyway). Aside from the kart racing stages being nightmares, the Sonic and Shadow stages have them slipping and sliding everywhere I didn't want them to and the treasure hunting stages were just too buggy. I'd say the best of the lot were the mech stages, therefore. 

 

As for the plot, there's just no way to take it seriously nowadays, at least for me. It's riddled up the wall with plot holes and ass pulls, including what I said about the Biolizard in the status updates (to the people that say that it was foreshadowed properly; bullshit. Yes, he appeared one time in the reports while Rouge was looking into them, but there's no way Knuckles would have known about that. And how come Shadow wasn't aware of this back-up plan, surely a Chaos Controlling mutant lizard is a bit hard to miss). Speaking of Knuckles, he was rendered completely useless by the Biolizard, and looked an idiot because of it (and other things in the game). I swear that's sort of foreshadowing to what would happen in regard to the reintroduction of old characters later, but that's off topic. 

 

And David Humpreys is terrible as Shadow here. He's so much better in Heroes. But that's a really, really minor point.

 

 

That said, learning the nuances of Chao raising, the stupid thing where egg colours are rotated based on emblem count aside, has been a pretty pleasant experience. Not enough to make me want Chao raising back in future games, but it's definitely the part I pay most attention to here. 

[goku262002]

And David Humpreys is terrible as Shadow here. He's so much better in Heroes. But that's a really, really minor point.

Aww c'mon man, nobody can't nail a voice the first time around. by the end of his carrer with shadow in SHTH he was pretty much shadow in my eyes and still is.

[Your Vest Friend]

Aww c'mon man, nobody can't nail a voice the first time around. by the end of his carrer with shadow in SHTH he was pretty much shadow in my eyes and still is.

 

Except I hear so many talk about how great his voice in SA2 elsewhere, I have to say otherwise. 

 

Also he didn't do Shadow in ShtH. 

[Shane]

I looove David Humphrey as Shadow. I mean, there's other cases where I admit my favourite probably isn't objectively the best (like with Ryan Drummond), but I really feel David nailed the role with an actual unique voice, and any acting issues can probably be

Edited December 19, 2012 by XD375

[goku262002]

Except I hear so many talk about how great his voice in SA2 elsewhere, I have to say otherwise. 

 

Also he didn't do Shadow in ShtH. 

 

Nah even I don't think he was great in SA2. then again the direction for the SA arc was all over the place.

From what I remember from long ago, Humphrey did do some work for shadow and I thought I remember there was a statement from him saying SEGA was going to keep what he recorded. After all, Humphrey & Griffith do sound similar so they would be able to easily blend and have people not notice.

Edited December 19, 2012 by goku262002

[Faseeh]

Yeah well he did and he didn't. david recorded 95% of the dialoge before he got replaced by jason. they decided to keep the recordings he did because there was soo much work involved and they were at a point where they couldn't re-do it all.

 

Citation?

[Shane]

None of David's dialogue is in Shadow the Hedgehog. That's if the story about him recording dialogue for the game is even true to begin with.

[Checksum]

I'm curious to hear more of his new voice, forget the guy's name. I haven't played Free Riders so I've only heard "You've got diss Sonic!"

[Your Vest Friend]

You should be able to hear it in Sonic Colours DS as well.