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Complimenting Sonic Adventure 2

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Sonic5993, Oct 5, 2020.

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  1. kyasarintsu

    kyasarintsu

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    I appreciate the effort put into the multiplayer, especially in the rereleases.
     
  2. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Oh I don't like that take. "I thought the creator's original design was wrong sooo here I am, I'm going to overhaul the character's personality because fuck it I can." Like what makes you so great to get to decide that? This criticism applies to the current writers too, and while I like their interpretation of Sonic since at least now he has character flaws (SA2 to Black Knight Sonic was too "perfect" imo), they're guilty of not knowing wtf was a Sonic, where as here he knew, he just didn't like it.

    Not sure what's worse, one approach seems very arrogant the other willfully ignorant.
     
  3. While I can get being offended, especially if you're a fan of Classic Sonic, it's an ambitious mindset and sure enough, it created a character and an era of Sonic that defined an entire generation.

    A lot of creators come to a series with a vision and try to make it a reality, and that...at times comes with having to step on the toes of what came before. Don't think a lot of Spider Man or Batman didn't do their collective groaning when their modern incarnations came about.


    I feel Maekawa meant no ill will with that quote, because I do feel like his take on Sonic still captures his spirit at the end of the day.
     
  4. Laura

    Laura

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    I still like Sonic Adventure 2 despite its many, many, problems. I thought the story was badass when I was 13, much like @Josh, but I can see it's just melodramatic and tonally a bit much for Sonic. That said, I still think the story is engaging for what it is, even though it's incredibly easy to laugh at. I'd be lying if I didn't say that the character rivalries are not entertaining in their own way. It's far better than Forces. In fact, that game has such a dreadful story that it's given me renewed appreciation for Adventure 2's for at least not being comically awful literally the whole way through (just a lot of the time, lol!).

    On balance, the Emerald Hunting and Mech Shooting are better in Adventure 2 than they were in Adventure 1. They are more fleshed out, have levels designed specifically for them, and have much more sophisticated levels. They are just more preferable at times in Adventure 1 because they were much shallower and were over with much more quickly as a result. But they weren't good in Adventure 1, they were just much shorter. The problem with Adventure 2 is that the alternate gameplay styles were not much fun to begin with and making them deeper just makes unfun gameplay more pronounced. I think the Mech Shooting is okay for what it is, as opposed to the Emerald Hunting, which is just awful. The main problem though is that Sonic's stages are just more fun.

    I think Sonic has great levels in SA2 except for some tedious later game levels. They are more linear and spectacle based, but I still think they are great and are really focused. Who doesn't like City Escape, Metal Harbour, Radical Highway, and Pyramid Cave? You'd have to be a madman. It's still a formula I'd like to see developed,
     
  5. Mana

    Mana

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    Sonic was a Shonen Anime Protaganist from Adventure 1 to Sonic and the Black Knight so it kind of made sense that he was flawless and kind.

    It's funny how many similarities the DBZ franchise and Sonic have because Goku had this same problem. In DBZ he was noticeably more mature and kind and an entire generation grew up thinking this is who Goku was. Que Toriyama returning to the franchise and deciding to go back to Goku's earliest character as a selfish guy willing to risk it all for a good fight and it left a lot of people alienated and confused.

    I grew up with flawless Sonic so getting used to a Sonic who can be a jerk at times is something that is still an adjustment.
     
  6. Sonic and DBZ are contemporary franchises (Remember, the Dragon Ball anime initially aired in the late 80's and early 90's in Japan before it hit the states) so the similarities are probably more than just a coincidence.

    But yea, it's just all what you grew up with, and therefore what's more comfortable to you. I never understood why people liked SATAM!Sonic and thought he was kind of a tryhard, but I later understood that this was considered "cool" to the people who grew up with it, and the show does genuinely explore Sonic's character in ways that the games never did, and probably never will. Its still not my preferred interpretation, but I can understand it's place in the series and why it's revered so highly.

    So yea, it's completely understandable why people who grew up on that type of Sonic would be more openly accepting of a Sonic who is more visibly obnoxious and flawed...I don't think the series utilizes that all that well though. At least when Sonic was a boring Shonen hero, you had the secondary characters to pick up the slack in terms of interesting character arcs and whatnot.
     
  7. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    There is only one good Sonic.
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  8. Mana

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    The special stages in Sonic 3 are based on King Kai's planet, Super Sonic is based on Super Saiyan, pretty much every major Sonic character from the Adventure era is based on a DB character (Sonic = Goku, Tails = Gohan, Knuckles = Picollo, Shadow = Vegeta, Silver = Trunks) so I know it's probably intentional.

    it's just worth mentioning because I do understand how that feels to see a character you used to love become way different than who you remember.
     
  9. Vanishing Vision

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    It doesn't, but picking up rings and ring capsules (and all item capsules, including those from checkpoints, which gives 1UPs a greater purpose) awards score directly. Since get hit will still break your pace and cost you some time bonus, and there aren't any sections in the game where intentionally taking damage will let you skip forward faster, not getting hit is still rewarded despite the lack of the traditional ring bonus.

    Furthermore, since the item (and according score bonus) you get from passing a checkpoint is determined by how many rings you have at the time, it's important to reach each checkpoint with a high ring total and not get hit before that.
     
  10. RDNexus

    RDNexus

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    What about Amy? Based on Bulma? xD
     
  11. Sid Starkiller

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    Chichi. She was a fighter in the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, and is into the main character.
     
  12. Don't forget being an annoying and nagging....witch.
     
  13. Sid Starkiller

    Sid Starkiller

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    I must be the only DB fan who's indifferent to Chichi.
     
  14. Frostav

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    The Chao Garden was, without a doubt, the best possible side mode Sonic Team has ever made. The amount of detail it has for a completely optional mode is impressive enough alone, but more than that, it's the best method Sonic Team ever came up with for incentivizing replayability, a thing they've struggled with ever since the move to 3D and the lessening importance of replay value for most modern gamers.

    I've met very few people who don't like the chao garden besides

    -speedrunners who don't play 180 emblems because of it
    -genesis oldheads that just plain don't like the idea of a non-platforming side mode in Sonic
    -completionists who hate how it's required for 100% completion

    Because outside of those people, I have literally never met a single person that doesn't love the chao garden. It's the one part of SA2 even people who otherwise think the game is a completely unplayable piece of shit love to death. I don't think I've seen an element of Sonic that is as unanimously loved as it, honestly.

    As a game, SA2 isn't quite as good as SA1 (whose higher adherence to the classics in level design and physics puts it a teeny bit higher), but the vastly superior garden in Battle alone makes it my favorite Sonic game of all time (Mania is super close as a second). SA2 for me is less a Sonic game and more just The Chao Garden Game with some fun minigames where you play as Sonic characters.

    But outside of that, I still respect SA2. It created an entire generation of new Sonic fans, and I'm one of them. It defined Sonic for me and thousands more. Classic Sonic is always something I will enjoy and respect...but he isn't my Sonic, and I view him with a distant appreciation--Adventure Sonic is my Sonic, and I view him with the kind of unending nostalgia that only playing a game when you were like 7 years old can. Even as I grow older and more muted on SA2 as a game, I still appreciate it in a way few games make me do.

    SA2 inspired me. It inspired others. It's more than just a game. it's part of the reason along with Pokemon that I'm a writer now because my first ever stories were Sonic and Pokemon fanfics.My favorite artist and a friend of mine can best be described as an Adventure Sonic fan (though he trends more for "IDW fan" if we really wanna get specific). I haven't mentioned the gameplay of the game itself much because it really is more than a game to me and thousands more.

    The very first two video games I ever remember playing on a console are Super Mario Sunshine and Sonic Adventure 2. I now consider myself a Sonic fan and not a Mario fan. Josh was right in his video: SA2 is the first video game I ever loved. it's the first video game I ever had nostalgia for. SA2 is why I play video games. I had played games before then. But SA2 was the first ever video game that made me go "yes, I want to explore this medium more". I barely even remember playing it. I don't remember a time of my life when I did not have SA2. I don't remember asking my parents for it or getting it. I literally was too young to remember. SA2 has always been a thing in my memory. It's impossible for me to look at SA2 without immense nostalgia and bias clouding everything.

    I know to many on this forum, SA2 was where it all went wrong, where the series finally diverted from what "made it good" in the first place.

    But for me, and thousands more, SA2 is why we like video games at all to begin with.

    I'm a fucking writer thanks to this game, christ. I write for money! Part of my OCCUPATION is thanks to this game. How the hell am I gonna look at this game with a properly critical eye when that's true.
     

  15. I've always been indifferent to her tbh; I just found it amusing how vehemently people hated her.
     
  16. Chaos Rush

    Chaos Rush

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    Say what you want about Shadow, but if you were a 10-year-old anytime from 2001-2005, then Shadow the Hedgehog (the character) was the coolest thing in the world.
     
  17. Jase

    Jase

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    This game on Dreamcast absolutely consumed my childhood. I love it and still do to this day! I wanted to share some memories about my experiences.
    But first, some opinions on SA2:

    Chao World is amazingly addictive, I have NO clue why they have no ever expanded on this concept or made mobile games or something. I'm currently playing SA2 on PC with my GF (she also is nostalgic over Chao World), mainly focusing on the Chao but taking turn completing missions and aiming to get A ranks. I popped the Chao World Extended mod on (never sat down to try it before) and we are having an absolute blast! (So many extra bonuses with this mod, like getting an egg for completeing a jewel race is such a lovely suprise!). Chao World's pacing is extremely slow now that I'm looking at this compared to when I was addicted to Chao World years ago. The mods really do help speed things up without ruining the fun - getting more chao and having them interact with each other is just so amazing.

    Sonic gameplay is awesome to me, I do prefer SA1 though, feels more responsive with the spindash in SA1, but you feel more physically-stable in SA2 for reasons I can't explain. Maybe it could be that SA1 levels are more terrain-like and SA2 is more flat-ground, therefore less opporunities to ramp off some sloped polygons on the ground? The mechanic of Sonic being able to "Spindash up a ramp and go flying" was SO GOOD to me, especially when combined with the timing of doing a Spindash-Jump, as you would fly further, higher, but this was must more the case in SA1.

    Hunting stages are GREAT and I don't understand why it gets so much flak! The radar system, I would agree, SA1 is preferred, but I would also think the hunting stages in SA2 would need to be a lot larger if the radar worked like SA1, otherwise you could easily run and glide around most stages in about 20 seconds to get within range of the emeralds and have a decent idea of what area they would be in, which would make it not really "hunting", but more "Ah, go roughly this direction and then pretty much amber and red mean your practically breathing on the emerald". Again, with slightly bigger maps than current SA2 maps, the SA1 radar would work great (Not painfully big, or too vertical such as meteor heard, those are cool ideas for a one-off but not "generally good" map designs for hunting stages).
    Knuckles and Rouge have such high run speeds, and the punch/kick action has a particular way of working, where if your characters speed is moving slowly/standing, then the punch will set your velocity to a low value. However if you start moving and time your punch correctly, you shoot off at high speed, almost like a mini boost!
    It feels satisfying to play, it's a nice way to pace the game after having high-action/timing-based Sonic stages. Hunting stages don't overstay their welcome (whereas say in Sonic Unleashed, Werehog stages could last 20 mins, a typical hunting stage is usually a few minutes or less).

    --------------------
    OK onto some personal Dreamcast-era nostalgia.
    This is all before the age of 12 or so (am 25 now).

    Like the confident gamer kid I was, I would use gameshark codes to help me get A Ranks, not sure what the gameshark CD was, I googled it and I recognised this.
    However, I think there were only 3 known codes at the time, one of the codes gave you 256 rings whenever you collect 1 ring. Cool, I could get a "Perfect" ring score and get a guaranteed A rank, but not for all levels, and I struggled hard but I did eventually get all A ranks. I remember struggling on A ranking Radical Highway mission 4, A ranking City Escape mission 1, getting any rank on Route 280 (Rouge's one), Mad Space (oh my god I still hate this level nowadays), and Eternal Engine (Younger me was impatient and wanted to shoot and run all the time, thus opening those doors and getting yanked out into space) in general.

    As a youngling, I didn't have access to the internet at all (this was back in early-2000's), my only access was a family member who I could occassionally ask to go on their PC, and they'd sit with me and let me browse the internet for "cheat codes" and "sonic pictures". I once came across this exact cheat website talking about a hidden password screen in SA2, where you could input codes to unlock many different hidden characters to play as, including some real zingers, such as: be normal chao, be blue knuckles, be fat shadow, and be Rouge's huge sister Mascara (wtf?). I tried SO HARD to comprehend why this secret was not working, as I thought the internet wouldn't lie to me.

    I had SA2 on Dreamcast as a pirated CD - I remember getting to Cannons Core and falling through the ground on Eggman's section (Little did I know, this was a anti-piracy measure iirc), my bro and sisters (none of us had internet access) were like "Noooo we worked so hard to get here, but maybe CD is broken or weird as it's a pirated copy or something". BUT THEN, like a true madlad, on my own, I hovered around for ages, hovering around thinking there might be a hidden path (I had no clue what the map layout looked like), continued hovering around and then I eventually found the section in the level where the map geometry goes vertically down for a while. So I hovered over, landed within, and shit myself. Got to see Super Sonic & Hyper Shadow in SA2 for the first time and I was hyped! Siblings were in awe too! In the end, the Boss was pretty alright, but then I sadly found out that you don't get to transform into Super Sonic like in S3&K... boo.

    The Chao garden, the amount of hours that my sister and I put into that universe, goddamn.
    We only had 1 VMU at this point, so we had to share a SA2 Chao save. We agreed to never enter each-others gardens when either of us played SA2. My sister claimed the Dark Garden, I took the hero, but eventually I moved into Neutral because I got invested in doing all the races (we had no idea that many more races would appear once you completed the beginner races).

    Without internet, and also remembering that SA2 on Dreamcast does not have the Chao's statistics display when you pick them up (You can view a chao's stats if you put them in your VMU, but I had a VMU that did NOT have a screen, so I could not view stats at all). My sister once was online for a bit, and she had looked up Chao stuff online and found out about Chao stats. Not having a printer, she wrote a nice chart of all the stats that animals give to chao on her pink notebook paper, each colour-coded with felt-tip pen for run, fly, swim, and power. We cherished those notes like a holy bible of chao knowledge. I wonder if I still have them in a memory box.
    Took me AGES to discover and understand the further evolution of chao (where you can give different animal types AFTER they evolve to get different styles).

    When I was about 12ish, I had my own PC (no internet) and more opportunities to be online on other computers for a few hours here and there. I used to downloads guides, notes, roms, emulators, and pop them on a couple of floppy disks to take back to my own computer and play around with. Eventually I had a Dreamcast emulator (Had used Demul the most), and Cheat Engine, and was able to poke around SA2 (booted off my non-legit SA2 CD) and I fulfilled SO MANY curiosities I had as a kid thanks to Cheat Engine and Demul/Chankast/NullDC (What if you could reach the rooftops of City Escape? What is beyond the end of the level on City Escape? What's outside the boundaries above Dry Lagoon? What happens if you fly to the little floating islands in the Hero Garden?)
    For a couple of years, I continued abusing the game with Cheat Engine and tried to reach harder-to-achieve goals, such as: Can you be Mechless Tails in any stage? Can you get Super Sonic in any stage? Knuckles in City Escape (My one YT video that got 200k views then randomly got deleted due to "Video Tags are not relevant to the video". MY ONE CHANCE, GONE).
    I spent, SO MANY NIGHTS trying to use Cheat Engine to hack my way into getting Super Sonic/Shadow into any stage, but never did succeed!
    Eventually when the PC version was released, I was able to trick the game into doing this with CE, but it was a very broken and unstable way of achieving this, and more experienced people made much better mods to do these things!

    --------------------

    OK I'll stop there but heck yes this game is awesome, not as deeply invested in it but still get enjoyment whenever I play a level. If a HD Remake was coming out, it would be the first time I would ever actually pre-order a game.

    Edit: Wording for clarity
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2020
  18. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    I couldn't help it. Whenever I see those panels I think of this. (Thanks, Cybershell.)
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2020
  19. Mana

    Mana

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    Could you put some type of NSFW warning or hide that behind spoilers please?
     
  20. Rudie Radio Waves

    Rudie Radio Waves

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    Many a game.
    Canonically impossible. Only a mono-eye should pop out of Sonic's mangled corpse.

    Right...?
     
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