Heyo people of Vizzed today I for some reason decided let me review Sonic Adventure 2 for some reason. I've played a ton of Adventure 2 so this will once again be very bias.


Graphics 5/10 -
Graphics is not one this game's strong point they may consider adventure 2's port HD but it definitely doesn't look it. Animation wise while there's nothing special here it definitely get's the job done and is a big step up over the first Sonic Adventure.


Sound 8/10 -
This is almost certainly the most iconic soundtrack in the Sonic Series between character themes and level themes so get ready for another rambling about music segment. Starting with character themes I would argue they made each character theme fit even better with the character it represents compared to the first adventure game. For starters It Doesn't Matter being much more fast paced will always fit Sonic more even if I heavily prefer the Original version of the song. I don't have much to say for Tails and Knuckles if anything the first adventure titles did about the same with them. So to cover the new songs we have to start with Shadow with his theme Throw It All Away and I honestly don't even know how to begin describing a lot of things in this song. I guess to give it an attempt it feels mysterious which is very fitting for Shadow in his debut game. Rouge's theme Fly in the Freedom feels like a jazzy spy theme which fits perfectly for the bat obsessed with stealing gems. E.G.G.M.A.N. is the perfect Eggman theme and anytime they want Eggman taken seriously just bring this theme back and it instantly sells the feel of Eggman means business. Before talking about level themes I have to talk about Live and Learn Crush 40's most iconic song by far while it's never been my favorite I can completely understand why it's likely the first song many people think of when they think of Sonic. As I get older I seem to understand the lyrics more bit by bit and makes me appreciate the song more over time. Now I got to talk about probably the most iconic level theme in the series Escape from the City it's so catchy and perfect for a first level it's iconic status is well earned. Before we end up talking about every single song in the game I'm going to try to end by talking about just a few more that I think are worth mentioning. One that I have to mention is Keys the Ruin for Pyramid Cave the guitar rifts in the song are incredible and I never realized for years cause I was to busy hating the level and the stupid ghosts. While everyone knows it I can't stop talking about level themes without mentioning A Ghost's Pumpkin Soup and Knuckles level themes in general. I'm not sure who at Sonic Team decided Knuckles needs rap but I would personally thank them Knuckles level themes always cracks me up I mean maybe I'm weak but I can't listen to them with a straight face and I don't think I ever could. Really random but I got to bring it up while I'm thinking about it I really enjoy the Chao Race theme it goes perfectly with watching your Chao race and hoping you leveled them up enough. Because I only just now noticed I didn't give any love to Shadow's level themes I'll talk about how Shadow's level themes often continue the mysterious tone with Shadow and I think the song that does it the best is Rhythm and Balance for White Jungle. With how iconic this soundtrack is you might wonder why I didn't rank sound higher and the answers are simple while I love some of the songs I hate others like the song for Kart racing Chasing Drive which I find really repetitive and annoying though that could be because of how bad I was at it back when I tried to A Rank every mission in the game. The other reason is while I think the voice acting is good in this game I know the cast can do better as proven in Sonic Heroes so in hindsight it makes the SA2 voice acting slightly worse for me.


Addictive 10/10 -
Oh boy how do you even start talking about what makes Sonic Adventure 2 so addicting well there's one thing I'll start with so I can get it out of the way. The Chao Garden adds 1000s of hours worth of gameplay to Sonic Adventure 2 if you have any interest in raising cute pets and evolving them and such this will surely give you your moneys worth. I can't even begin to go into everything you can do with Chao's but you can give them different animals and they will get some of their features and start to act like said animal so if you give them animal parts from a swimming animal they could be a faster swimmer. The robots you kill playing the game also give you Chao Drives which will increase a stat for your Chao depending on what color it is. If the little I described with the Chao interest you should definitely look into it more. Now that's out of the way what else makes Adventure 2 addicting? Well this is the Sonic game to introduce the dreaded ranking system so now you can spend hours replaying the same levels over and over again to get an A Rank. I'll get into the ranking system more with the depth and difficulty part of the review.


Story 7/10 -
Giving this story a 7 might be selling it short some but I don't wanna cover all of it so it's time for another really brief and vague summary. Eggman finds a mysterious hedgehog in GUN base and releases it and starts plotting while Sonic is mistaken for the new hedgehog (somehow) and arrested.


Depth 10/10 -
So not only does this game have the ranking system it also has 5 missions for every level meaning not only do you get to A Rank the normal playthrough of the level you also have 4 additional times to play the level with different conditions and A Rank those! What fun! Some of the mission types are really difficult on the right stages like 100 rings as quick as possible can really make you wanna pull your hair out on a level where rings are hard to come by. Another example is how there's a Chao hidden in the level you have to find as fast as possible which normally requires the Mystic Melody upgrade which you have to find for your character and even then some of these Chao are hidden in spots you would never think to look even following the whole use mystic melody formula. Something I failed to mention till I brought up mystic melody is character upgrades you can find like the ability to use the light speed dash or the bounce bracelet which are required for story. There are some more hidden upgrades to find by exploring more which is very rewarding unless you just find magic hands and then well who cares about magic hands. One upgrade I always make sure to grab in a playthrough is the Air Necklace found by Knuckles in Aquatic Mine allowing Knuckles to breathe infinitely underwater makes one of the last stages way easier. Between the ranking system, additional missions, and not to mention the Chao Garden Sonic Adventure 2 offers tons of things to do to keep you busy for hours on end.


Difficulty 7/10 -
If I rated the difficultly solely based on the story missions it would probably be a 4 or 5 but for some reason I can't allow myself to give it a simple 4 or 5 because I have the painful memories of trying to A Rank this game! I could not tell you how close to insanity this game brought me back when I was trying to 100% it (something I need to get back to eventually) One of the ways you can try to A Rank a stage is by collecting every ring in a level but normally that isn't viable because a lot of stages have rings out of bounds you can never collect but one stage it is viable taught me just how evil the game designers really are. Metal Harbor taught me the cruel reality of this game where I thought man it's really hard trying to play this level perfectly just to get a B Rank what if I got every ring in the level to make sure I got an A Rank so I did just that or so I thought because it turns out I missed a single ring! So I went insane trying to figure out how I could of possibly missed a single ring and when I was ranting like a mad lunatic on call with a friend I joked maybe they put it on top of this platform with the pulley on it and that's where the one ring was I wish I had my facial reaction recorded because that ring scarred me I can't play the level without grabbing it every single time to this day.


Overall 9/10 -
Sonic Adventure 2 is a great time if you decide to play try not to lose your mind going for A Ranks!