Sonic Adventure 2 Discussion, Speculation, Media Topic

[Cortez]

Hmmm, really don't like how they've removed Omochao's voice whenever a hint mentions using one of the controller's buttons...

[TheOcelot]

I finally completed the time trial (mission 4) of Pumpkin Hill, affter about 30 plus attempts. Thank god it was an A rank! The time limit of three minutes makes it stupidly difficult.

[JaidynReiman]

Took me forever to get all A's in SA2, but eventually I did.

I noticed a lot of people discussing the kart stages. On the kart stages, here's my assessment:

Route 101: Hard Mode is insanely difficult to even complete. This took me FOREVER to get down right. Luckily once you win you get an instant A rank. Pretty sure it was my last A rank here.

In Route 208, Hard Mode wasn't so bad at all, really. The problem was Don't Hit The Walls; this one took me forever.

As far as the easiest A's are concerned...

Believe it or not, I mastered Knuckles stages first. Shadow's came next, and then I got Rouge's. Yes, I got all A's in the "dreaded" treasure hunting stages first.

Despite what it seems like, Eggman's Cosmic Wall is insanely hard to master. There are tons and tons of things to lock onto. But its score requirement for an A rank is incredibly high.

I don't recall what characters I did next. Its been a while since I got the A rank. I just recall doing Knuckles, Shadow, and Rouge in that order, then after that its a blank.

I did have most of the chao emblems early on, but to get the last chao emblem I had to raise an entirely new chao which took me a while to do... That being the Dark Race emblem. I raised a chao named Cheng early on (I let them name him) to a Hero Chao, so I could do everything but Dark Race. Eventually I lost Cheng (as far as I can tell he didn't die; we literally just lost him through constant memory card jumping), but it didn't matter much because I had to raise a new chao anyway.

Other aspects of SA2...

Yes, rail jumping in SA2 sucks ass. Oftentimes, the only way to accurately jump from rail to rail is to NOT try and balance yourself and just jump off the rail and land on the rail next to you... not the best thing in the world.

I do like the balance system, though, and I think that if they improve the balance system, and also go back to less-linear rails (having rails in a variety of different places that don't strictly follow a pattern), I think this would make grinding more interesting in newer games.

I didn't mind Treasure Hunting much at all, but it definitely shouldn't come back. Shooting... only if its during normal gameplay. Not with a character in a walker, but if say Omega is re-introduced, he could have similar gameplay, but still make him running through normal stages as well.

[Crash]

On the HD Version of the game I have 95 emblems. I'm having a lot of fun as it's my first time playing the game all the way through. I might get all the emblems on the GameCube version and then buy a DreamCast to get all the emblems on that version too. I know it sounds repetitive but I won't do it all at once.

The rail grinding sucks on the game though!

[JezMM]

Hmmm, really don't like how they've removed Omochao's voice whenever a hint mentions using one of the controller's buttons...

If it was me I would have just replaced the button names with a generic "jump" or "action" spliced in from another sentence. Omochao already talks robotic-ish so it prolly wouldn't have sounded that off.

(Even though games that use the "generic speech" route sound ridiculous when a character says "To jump, push the jump button").

Edited October 14, 2012 by JezMM

[Solkia]

Then I invite you to explain why holding in the direction of the rail I want to jump to and pressing jump causes me to go past the rail and fall to my death. Is there some particular condition I'm failing to pay attention to?

Now, the exact same thing has happened to me in Sonic Heroes, but nowhere near as frequently and consistently as in Sonic Adventure 2.

I don't know what to tell you. I haven't played it in a while, but I never recall having trouble with it.

GETTING on the rails however, I've died about 2435364753521243574235465345 times in Final Rush because Sonic wouldn't get on the stupid rail. You have to be dead on.

[Djawed]

I got all 180 emblems and A ranks a long time ago on the NGC (I think it's 8 years ago). When I buy a sonic game it's always guaranteed I have to 100% it. But I gotta be honest that i'd never be able to go through that torture again. Well not only because it'd take long but I don't think i'll be able to waste my time on those horrible and non enjoyable treasurehunt+mech levels again. Let alone A rank all the missiions.

Perhaps if I had never done it and didn't have my save file on the NGC/WII, I may have bought the HD remake, but it seems kind of redundant now. I do have to say that i'm very proud though, well proud at my youngerself lol

[Emmett L. Brown]

Hmmm, really don't like how they've removed Omochao's voice whenever a hint mentions using one of the controller's buttons...

I completely agree. They should've given us the option to remove his voice from ALL the hints.

[Badnik Mechanic]

They should... thought they would never do this.... held a competition for someone to record new voices for Omachoa.

Then again that would have been complicated and took time so that would never have happened.

Anyway, playing through SA2 HD/Upscale has kinda affirmed my original stance on SA2 when I played it originally... that being it's not that great of a game. But now that I'm older and more grumpy theres a lot of other things about it that particually annoy me, and they're not things that the new port has brought, but things which already exist in the game.

Voice Acting: Christ this can get really bad at times.

Dialogue: This kinda goes with the voice acting, but goodness me it's terrible. Examples are vast, Tails' introduction for instance, his entire openning gambit is nothing but exposition and it's all the same tone, it's just like a child in one of those school assemblies who is in a 'play' that stands up reads something they've learnt and sitting down just before they finish what they were saying. Another instance is the scene where Knuckles comes out of the sewers, exactly why does she grab him and pull him to aside telling him to get out of the way? They're just standing there doing nothing when we see them? Why is Knuckles suddenly in the way?

Boss Fights: At times... Sonic 06 is more enjoyable. No really it is. The bigfoot fight with Sonic, is it just me or do you seem to take hits from those missiles even though you're convinced you're ok to hit it? King Boom Boo... ... really...? Why does this boss fight exist?

Treasure hunting: It was dreadful in the Dreamcast version, and it still is... yeah lets limit your emerald/key finding to a specific order instead of activating the radar when you're near one... thats a good idea.

Chao: This is not fun, it has never been fun, if you think it is fun you are wrong. You are wrong. Yes you are wrong. You are.

The fact that every level is really difficult to play unless you have the upgrades: Ok we tend to slag off modern game design occasionally... or a lot depending who you are... but heres one thing the modern games to extremely well compared to SA2. Most of the time you can play through a stage with no upgrades and still do quite well... with SA2, the only way to get A ranks most of the time is to have all the upgrades and use them in each stage. Even City Escape, the first level, you practically need a lot of later upgrades just to stand a chance of scoring well here... example would be the grind rails, without the 'bounce' upgrade, grinding down those handrails is so frustrating.

Sound levels: Has nobody at Sega realised that the sound levels for SA2 are totally off? Sometimes the music is that loud it's hard to hear the dialogue at times, this problem is quite aparent whenever Amy is on screen and they play her theme, the music level is that loud it drowns out the dialogue completely.

Mind you... playing this port now.. with all the years it's been does make some of the dialogue choices quite funny... especially Shadows line during the second fight where he goes "I'm the coolest!" lol nope.

[HUNTER297]

So I am still playing and I want to write some words.

First is that game easily surpassed Unleashed and Colors in terms of gameplay variety and enjoyment for me.

Now now before you flame me let me tell you story of my friend. His name is Mariusz and he doesn't like Sonic at all. He likes platform games but he just not enjoy modern Sonic games that much.

But then he went to my place like every weekend. I was playing SA2. He said "Oh another Sonic" I asked if he didn't wanna try and he said why not. And then he became a Sonic fan. He immediately bought SA2 for his PS3 and after a week gave me guys review. He said that it's great platform game with nice story and varied gameplay. Best thing? His favorite gameplay was TREASURE HUNTING!!!!!! Yes! He said that exploration feeling is great and his favorite levels were Security Hall and Meteor Herd.

Why I am telling you this? Because it proves something. It proves that weSonic fans in pursue of pure Sonic formula lost something. We lost the enjoyment coming from gameplay. After playing SA2 I turned on Unleashed and God it's so boring. The game isn't varied and game gets boring too fast.

Maybe Sonic Adventure 2 isn't good Sonic game. But it is great platform game. And that's the point. We should try to think about great platform game with Sonic instead of ultimate Sonic formula. Such thing doesn't exist. Diversity is the key. People should realise that Sonic is a platform game and not different genre called "Sonic games" that needs just one formula that will never change like FPSs

[goku262002]

New big glitch discovered, which can be done on any version of the game.

I'm going to try this out on my Dreamcast later. I don't think anyone has managed to get into the Dreamcast test level.

Now thats just fucking awesome, I didn't know you could move around after the results screen thought it just froze you whereever you were at.

[TheOcelot]

TSSZ review of SA2 (oh dear here we go):

http://www.tssznews.com/2012/10/14/review-sonic-adventure-2-xbox-live-arcade/

Ryan Bloom doesn't like SA2 very much. Come to think of it, I have never seen him give any Sonic game a good score.

[neezTHEhuman]

I don't know what to tell you. I haven't played it in a while, but I never recall having trouble with it.

GETTING on the rails however, I've died about 2435364753521243574235465345 times in Final Rush because Sonic wouldn't get on the stupid rail. You have to be dead on.

You got to be facing the same direction that the rail is going in before you land on it, if that makes any sense. I eventually learned this after repeatedly trying to take the first big shortcut in Final Rush.

[Lady Soniko]

Wait, people don't just crouch on every single rail? I didn't know there was any benefit to not crouching. If you crouch you can still balance with the control stick, in fact it is required to move the control stick with the grind rail to keep your speed up. And you still won't ever fall off if you're holding crouch.

I also agree with Grumpy Old Guy, rail switching is massively unpredictable in this game. Sometimes it works, sometimes I fly horizontally past the other rail, sometimes Sonic literally just flicks off the current rail by about 10 inches and falls to his death straight down.

Sometimes it works and Sonic starts grinding the wrong way.

when you start slowing down in Sky Rail, laying off the crouch actually builds your speed back up so you can crouch again, otherwise crouching is useless when you start rebounding off invisible walls and clinging to the side of the rail.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Now that the game is in HD/Upscaled whatever... you know what makes me laugh?

When I do the chao racing, depending on the stage you select, the camera will often zoom in on Omachao, and he's holding a... very very detailed starters pistol, only the way he's holding it with that grin makes it look like he's going to execute all the chao. It doesn't help matters that sometimes the chao on the starting line look depressed or scared either.

[Solkia]

I'd hardly call it upscaled/HD. Maybe it's just my HDTV, but I see hardly any difference between this port and the GC version through S-Video.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Solkia-kun

[Cyalume]

So there are people who think that the controls have improved since the Adventure era? Not to offend anyone, but I must be missing something. Unleashed/Generations (modern) Sonic plays for me like he's trying to run on ice, almost. And the faster I go, the worse it gets. I've never had any such problem in Sonic Adventure/2/Heroes.

It's particularly noticeable when boosting, having hit a dash panel, etc, and then trying to move from left to right.

[Blue Blood]

I'd hardly call it upscaled/HD. Maybe it's just my HDTV, but I see hardly any difference between this port and the GC version through S-Video.

It's just your TV or your eyes. This rerelease of SA2 is rendered at 720p and upscaled to 1080p. It looks markedly better than the GCN version.

So there are people who think that the controls have improved since the Adventure era? Not to offend anyone, but I must be missing something. Unleashed/Generations (modern) Sonic plays for me like he's trying to run on ice, almost. And the faster I go, the worse it gets. I've never had any such problem in Sonic Adventure/2/Heroes.

It's particularly noticeable when boosting, having hit a dash panel, etc, and then trying to move from left to right.

I think it's cause at high speeds in SA1/2, you can still turn very sharply just as easily as you would do at low speeds. It can make things feel twitchy I guess? But yeah, I totally have to agree with you. I've never had any problem with the controls in the Adventure games.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Blue Blood

[SilJeff]

So there are people who think that the controls have improved since the Adventure era? Not to offend anyone, but I must be missing something. Unleashed/Generations (modern) Sonic plays for me like he's trying to run on ice, almost. And the faster I go, the worse it gets. I've never had any such problem in Sonic Adventure/2/Heroes.

It's particularly noticeable when boosting, having hit a dash panel, etc, and then trying to move from left to right.

[Jango]

Phew, got all A ranks in normal levels, except the Last story, simply because I'll do... last First I'll rise my Sonic chao! Tips please!

About my playthrough:

Man, thank God that in treasure hunting hard mode missions the emeralds/keys whatever are always at the same place. I can't imagine the nightmare if they were in random places like in the normal mode. I always make that first playthrough to find them (most of the time it took me 20 or more minutes...), and once I find 'em all, I restart the stage and grab them quickly. Rouge's Egg Quarters stage gave me some trouble, I didn't know that you could grab bombs... I've found that out that by accident: I accidentaly kicked a bomb and Rouge grabbed it, since I was close to it... I was like "HOLY SHIT MY LIFE IS A LIE". It was my latest emblem. Other stage that gave me lot of trouble was Cosmic Wall hard mode, I've tried some 20 times to get the 100 thousand points. Once I got it, my score was 100.020. YES, FOR 20 POINTS, YAY!

I did the kart racing minigames too, they are really fun haha Talking about it, imagine if the hard mode of Route 101 and 280 where: "don't hit the walls AND the cars!" Now that would be impossible, thank God the hard mission is plain easy on that one.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Jango

[Blue Blood]

I didn't know that you could grab bombs... I've found that out that by accident: I accidentaly kicked a bomb and Rouge grabbed it, since I was close to it... I was like "HOLY SHIT MY LIFE IS A LIE".

lol, you can do this with the bombs that Kikis throw in SA1 too!

[Danj86]

BRAAAGHH! BLAGH!!

*ahem*

I've not really had many problems playing this game. I fucking love it! XD I enjoy raising Chao, playing Final Chase and Crazy Gadget, blowing up anything that moves, looking for shiny things, grinding and beating up cool bosses.

I just don't see all the problems people claim...

I've got all the A-Ranks, completed all Kart racing and Boss trails. Just need to get the Chao related emblems and things are moving alone nicely.

I'd like to make video guides for the game, like locations of lost chao, tips for chao raising and getting A-Ranks, simply because I love the game so much. Even though others have probably already done the same. But I have no idea how to film myself playing games, like other people have done.

I also finally switched Supers during the final battle for the first time after not knowing you could do it for over 10 years. lol

Edited October 15, 2012 by King-Boom-BooJ86

[SilJeff]

BRAAAGHH! BLAGH!!

*ahem*

I've not really had many problems playing this game. I fucking love it! XD I enjoy raising Chao, playing Final Chase and Crazy Gadget, blowing up anything that moves, looking for shiny things, grinding and beating up cool bosses.

I just don't see all the problems people claim...

I've got all the A-Ranks, completed all Kart racing and Boss trails. Just need to get the Chao related emblems and things are moving alone nicely.

I'd like to make video guides for the game, like locations of lost chao, tips for chao raising and getting A-Ranks, simply because I love the game so much. Even though others have probably already done the same. But I have no idea how to film myself playing games, like other people have done.

I also finally switched Supers during the final battle for the first time after not knowing you could do it for over 10 years. lol

Loved that intro there

[Jango]

lol, you can do this with the bombs that Kikis throw in SA1 too!

Seriosuly? That's crazy hahaha

Anyone got tips on how raise a Sonic Chao and how do I unlock the other Chao Gardens?

[SilJeff]

how do I unlock the other Chao Gardens?

1. take a freshly hatched Chao

2. pet it a LOT with Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles until it grows little ears on the top of its head

3. (not sure if this step is required) level up its stamina

4. wait for it to evolve

5. Boom, you now have a Hero Chao and access to the Hero Chao Garden

Do the same thing, but with Eggman, Shadow, or Rouge to get a Dark Chao and access to the Dark Garden