Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (GameCube) review "Seeing a Sonic game appear on a Nintendo platform before Mario is uncanny... unheard of. But it happened, and the port of the Dreamcast game is a nice introduction for the blue hedgehog on the purple cube. "

Seeing a Sonic game appear on a Nintendo platform before Mario is uncanny... unheard of. But it happened, and the port of the Dreamcast game is a nice introduction for the blue hedgehog on the purple cube.

Graphics 7/10

Models are nice and big,. While their textures are pretty non-existent. Environments look nice... everything looks nice. Just nice... nothing mind blowing. Some backgrounds seem pixly, probably due to it’s Dreamcast roots. You be blazing through most of the levels so you won’t pay to much attention to them anyway.

Lip sync is awful, but animation is smooth.

GAMEPLAY
In honor of Marshmallow’s SA1 review, I’ll rate each characters mode of play.

SONIC and SHADOW – (8/10) - Action

The heart of a Sonic game is speed, and the action stages do not disappoint. They two hedgehogs speed down city streets, highways, jungles, space stations... don’t blink.

Wait, you CAN blink... that’s the problem. When your running down the ramp just make sure you collect rings. Every once and awhile you have to jump rails or correct your course... it almost insults your intelligence about how linear these stages are. But isn’t that the point of Sonic? Yep, just have fun. And these levels are fun. But I suggests more interaction while speeding.

KNUCKLES and ROUGE - (2/10) - Seeking

These are AWEFUL. The player must search out randomly place Chaos gems and sometimes keys using a hot and cold system. Your exploring... but just randomly. Not only does it pop up right after a action packed level, but it’s boring. Add a bad camera into the mix, and it gets that much better. Thank god most of these levels have good music...

TAILS and EGGMAN - (5/10) - Shooting

The player rides this robot and shoots everything in sight by holding the B button then releasing. No challenge in that. Some latter levels are more interesting and involve * gasp * jumping. Like the seeking level, you just want to get back to the action stages. However it’s not terrible, and it’s fun for what it is.


RACEING – (0/10) Awful. Proceed to checkpoints and bump into walls with clumsy controls.

GAMEPLAY OVERALL (6/10)

The action sequences are great, the shooting is decent, and the seeking is just plain out of place in a action game. Each level has a number of other missions... like collect 100 rings and find the lost Chao. However they might as well change “find 100 rings” to “Never get hit once and don’t die.” If you get hit, you lose ALL your rings and only are able to regain a few of the ones you lost. Blah.

CHAO RAISING (10/10)

What makes it all worth it is the Chao raising, a Tomagatchi like simulation where you raise the ADORABLE little robots called Chao. You use items you collect in the game and use them to enhance your Chaos. It’s a the perfect distraction form not replaying the Knuckles and Rouge levels.

In fact this mini game is so addicting you might find yourself replaying levels just you parts to raise your Chaos. I didn’t get a chance in my rental to get real real deep (no hot Chao breeding this time), but I had a good time raising the little buggers. And their just SO CUTE! Visit the Chao Classroom! XD They’re SINGING! XD

There are many types of Chaos you can raise, and countless looks for them all. If you have Sonic Advance you take raise Chaos on the game Boy Advance.

SOUND 8/10

The voice acting is just plain bad... Only Dr. Eggman has a decent voice. (is that LeChuck from Monkey Island I hear? I think it is!)

The music is a mixed blessing. On the one hand you have these cheesey lyrical tracks, but they’re pretty cool really... but that’s just my opinion. The other tracks fair well, but nothing real memorable...

...except for “Cosmic Wall.” This track rocks. Listening to it right now. Very cool.

STORY 7/10

Dr Eggman, grandson of Dr Robotntik, frees a evil hedgehog named Shadow... the ultimate life form. He steals some Chaos Jewels and now the “Military” is after him. (on a side note, most of the action stages are you escaping these guys... but they never give chase... weird.)

He is mistaken for Sonic, and Sonic is captured. It’s up to of the worst voice acting available to save the day... or if you play he Dark game, ruin the day.

REPLAY 6/10

Replaying the action stages is fun....for awhile. I’ll pass on the others. Chao raising is a blast and will increase the life of the game. The Gamecube only 2 Battle Mode is nice... but again only for the Vs Action stages.

OVERALL 7/10
Honest Gamer score (70)

Sonic Team... Give Sonic Adventure 3 more action based levels and less exploring. This game is good for a rental, but I suggest you pass on purchasing. I hope Sonic finds a nice new home on Gamecube... he’s welcome to stay.

-review by Joseph Blanchette-
03/21/02

Community review by mortis765 (Date unavailable) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.