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Does SA2 still hold up for you?

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Solid SOAP, Aug 13, 2012.

  1. null1024

    null1024

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    SA2 has aged pretty badly, and has it's fair share of problems [worse hunting and shooting levels than SA1, mostly less interesting music than SA1], but on the other hand, the Sonic/Shadow levels definitely felt tons better than in SA1, there were far fewer "oh hey, glitching through the ground" moments, and the story, while not particularly good, was miles ahead of SA1. I can at least sit down, load up City Escape, Radical Highway, Metal Harbor or Final Rush, and enjoy myself. That's not a shortened list of the levels I'd still play, that is all of them. The camera is passable, the graphics are from the earliest era that I really can't say looks bad, and if anything, it felt a bit more polished than SA1. Didn't it have a lower budget?

    SA1 is chock full of problems, but I actually think it's aged better than SA2 -- the Knuckles levels in SA1 were actually pretty fun, Gamma's levels were enjoyable for the most part, especially compared to the Tails/Rouge bits in SA2 which were barely passable, Amy's levels were tolerable, and there are a lot more stages in it that I would feel like loading up to play [Icecap, Twinkle Park, Red Mountain [all 3 for everyone who can enter], and I'm too lazy to say the rest]. The Big stages can go and fuck off, there is no reason I should have the lure directly in front of Froggy and the bastard isn't biting. Also, I never liked the hub sections at all. At best, they were pointless, at worst, you didn't see some stupid item you needed to carry to somewhere to progress, even though you had an idea where it was, and you knew where you had to take it. Also, just glitching through objects and shit, like the tunnels in Speed Highway. And things like that are somewhat common. Oh, and every single cutscene in SA1 was retarded. ALL OF THEM. They sound stupid, they say stupid things, and their mouths move in the strangest manner. And the camera is fucking retarded.

    They have both aged badly. No doubt. SA2 delivers more fun Sonic levels [maybe not better, Red Mountain is still probably my favorite 3D Sonic zone, and it has more interesting level design than almost every level in SA2], but does badly at most of the other things it does. SA1 is a glitchy mess that provides at least moderately satisfying not-Sonic levels for most characters, and OKish Sonic levels.

    Also the cutscenes before the Sonic/Shadow fights in SA2 [in Green Forest and on the ARK] are the best, they actually have really cool dialogue and I'm pretty sure those two cutscenes are why people like Shadow so much -- "you're not even good enough to be my fake". First time I heard that, I thought it was the epitome of cool. Really.
    Hell, the overlapping actually adds to their goodness, instead of seeming like they screwed up.
     
  2. muteKi

    muteKi

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    Playing SA2 by emulator it just kept blowing my mind at how damn slow Sonic and Shadow are, especially compared to the two games it's sandwiched between. The spindash is nerfed beyond any usefulness, and Sonic takes forever to reach top speed.
     
  3. Dude

    Dude

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    I wish the SA2 engine was open source. In terms of technical execution, the second revision of the Adventure engine fixed many problems, the primary one being the collision / physics model. In SA2, sonic used a cylindrical collision hull, which allows for multiple points to check collision against. The playable surfaces were designed to have larger, more planar surface quality overall with less complexity. These two things combined significantly reduce incidents of sonic 'falling through' things. The camera system was also changed. They removed the option to rotate the camera and made a greater effort to keep the camera 'tween' positions occur farther away from collision surfaces. This resulted in less instances of the camera getting stuck behind something, and it also made it harder for players to get lost. I think it is a shame that they threw this engine out in favor of using middleware, they lost years worth of work in designing a viable system.

    But the generations engine is superior in every way. If you wanted to make sonic adventure style gameplay, it would be far wiser to tweak the generations engine than to try and revive the sa2 engine.
     
  4. Nova

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    I was thinking of this the other day - in some custom levels, there is a lot of extra terrain and unnecessarily large parts of geometry, so Sonic can run around quite freely until he hits a certain speed. I always wondered if it would be possible to successfully tweak it to make a more exploratory type of game.

    That said, I'm still a major fan of the mostly-2D, boost boost boost style that they've got the series rolling on at the moment so I have no desire to return to SA2's idea of a Sonic game.

    (Still looking forward to this re-release, though - it's going to be a good excuse to play it again, I have the GC version sitting gathering dust on the shelf due to lack of console to play it on so nostalgialol)
     
  5. BleuStar

    BleuStar

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    I'd honestly prefer SA1 over SA2 any day (going by the Sega Dreamcast titles). For me, the extra missions in SA2 a bit too difficult, especially trying to reach the A rank in all of them, whereas Sonic Adventure, all you had to do was complete the task (at times fairly difficult, especially with Big The Cat) and you're done. Sonic Adventure, in my opinion, also had more variety in music in comparison to its sequel which had a 5/8 of its music being rock or metal style tracks. The main thing however is the gameplay in feel of SA2 being a bit too updated, which makes sense considering it was the 10th anniversary milestone. SA2 feels less like a classic Sonic game (with grinding, somersaults and punching instead of the spin attack, Tails in the Cyclone, only Tails fighting Eggman, Eggman himself being playable, the linear stages and the limted level cliches) in comparison to the original which plays the closest to a classic Sonic game in comparison to any of the later games (except Generations but even moreso than Heroes).

    The better thing about Sonic Adventure 2 would have the fact that it is less glitchy than the original, which is why the linear level structure works, and the updated Chao Gardens.
     
  6. Palas

    Palas

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    Pretty much this, except I got to play it carefully and didn't like it.
     
  7. Burnt Ash

    Burnt Ash

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    Ah. Sonic Adventure 2. Several Sonic games have fallen out of grace with me, and I think I can say that SA2 isn't among those games. There are a few Sonic games that I can say that I like without hesitation, and among these games is SA2. While there are a few aspects of the game that I do not like any more (Read: Most of Rouge's stages), I still like everything else. The speed stages, for the most part, I find to be pretty cool, and I replay almost all of them whenever I decide to replay SA2. The mech stages, I also liked back then, and I still like them now. Sure, there's absolutely no exploration whatsoever, and sure, it doesn't play anything like a Sonic game, and yes, it's completely awkward to have Tails in a mech. In spite of this, I can still manage to find some level of satisfaction in completing the levels, defeating chains of enemies, and pretty much just playing with the mechs in general. The hunting stages, are something that I used to think were average, and now I think that most of them are pretty great, well Knuckles's stages anyway. Yes, the fact that the radar can only detect one emerald at a time is odd, the massive levels in comparison to SA1 is a bit off-putting, and the hint system can be completely obnoxious at times, but like what I said about the mech stages, I still like them, and I don't find the radar or hint system to be a problem most of the time. And so, I can say that I like the treasure hunting levels (favorite would probably be Meteor Herd). So yes, overall, SA2 still holds up with me, just as it did 7-8 years ago, when I first played the game. SA1, on the other hand...well, that's another story.
     
  8. Blastfrog

    Blastfrog

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    As games in general, I didn't find SA1 or SA2 to be terrible, but I still prefer the classics. The mechanics work well around the levels they were designed for, I don't really see what the issue with them is. I also don't see how they've aged all that badly, to me, it still feels like the same games that they were 11-14 years ago. It's around Heroes where I really started to dislike things, I can't even identify specific reasons why, I just really hated that game.
     
  9. Sey

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    Every 'main' Sonic game pre-06 had something special and unique about it, something to really fall in love with. What really impresses me about the 3D Sonic games in general is that each one of them is totally different to the last, even SA1 and SA2 have very distinct voices. They could have so easily churned out yearly sequels building on the SA1 engine with little thought behind the process but they constantly strove for change.

    SA2 is pretty near the top for me. Around 80% of the stages are enjoyable to me (including every single Eggman and Knuckles stage; Cosmic Wall is amazing), the soundtrack is great, the story is the most complex and interesting of the entire series and the grinding physics are fucking wonderful. The game does have its problems however; cutting the hub worlds was stupid and the speed levels are far more linear and dull in general. Metal Harbor especially sums up every single problem with modern Sonic. Mad Space should have also never made it into the final product, if they couldn't get it to work then they should have scrapped it.
     
  10. Captain L

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    Sonic, Eggman, and Knuckles were originally supposed to be the only playable characters, so it explains why their levels are more polished. I'm not a fan of any of the treasure hunting stages or a big fan of the shooter stages, but they aren't terrible. At this point, the only levels I ever play are City Escape (to get Chaos Drives for my normal Chao), White Jungle (to get Chaos Drives for my Dark Chao), and Metal Harbor (because I fucking love that level).
     
  11. Eric Wright

    Eric Wright

    Born into this. Oldbie
    Sonic Adventure 2 has always been little more than tedious at best, for me.
    - unengaging characters
    - boring plot development
    - cringe-worthy dialogue
    (bad story execution all around, and unnecessary from the very beginning)
    - non sonic/shadow levels were dismally time-consuming
    - Sonic/Shadow levels were short and mostly linear, except for the areas with cliche button/switch and pushing-things dynamics just for the sake of adding time. Half the stages lacked any rewarding fluid paths to traverse, or had very abrupt transitions from one segment to the next (my favorite levels in the game are two Sonic stages... the green forest and the impressively short one where you're running on the base in the ocean with the rocket that launches at the end... lol I don't even remember the stages' NAMES )

    The music was alright, but still not as atmospheric and charming as SA1, and I still prefer the music from S3&K, Chaotix, and 3D Blast.

    I don't miss Sonic Adventure 2 at all, the only nostalgia it carries for me is time spent with a good friend of mine during the time of its release, my girlfriend at the time loving the shit out of it, and a lot of the Dumb Internet Forum Stuff I spent a portion of my time with.
     
  12. When I got it on Gamecube in 2001, I loved it. It was my favorite freaking game of all time and I felt SO accomplished when I finally got all of the emblems! I logged in over 100 hours into that game, which is more than every other game, even to this day! Recently, I went back into it. While its not as amazing as it was back then, I still love it and its still one of my favorite games. Speedrunning, playing the Hard Mode versions of stages, 2P mode, and Chao offer tons of replay value. Shooting stages are okay, I much prefer Eggman's to Tails'. Not much of a fan of the treasure hunting stages, especially most of Rouge's (Mad Space can go die in a fire) and in comparison to how they were in SA1. Speaking of which, Sonic Adventure has aged like cheese, but this isn't the topic for that.

    The kart racing is absolutely terrible, however.
     
  13. Zephyr

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    The game is linear as shit, and the treasure hunting/shooting levels don't do much to help it out. Its level design is vastly inferior to its predecessor.


    In the game's defense though, grinding actually requires some degree of skill to master in this game. You have to balance to maintain speed, momentum is actually a factor, etc.

    The Chao World is still as addictive for me as ever. Also the 2 player mode makes for some great fun with friends when you're trying to dick around (or if you're drinking).
     
  14. After putting it off for quite some time, (due to not having a computer good enough to run a DC emulator... I know...) I finally started up Sonic Adventure for the first time in almost 8 years. The first thing that hit me was the menu screen, with that sweet nostalgic Crush 40 intro, and the awesome Sonic Adventure 2 logo. That's pretty much where it ended.

    Even with a proper controller plugged into my computer, giving a pretty accurate Dreamcast experience, the controls were awful! I guess in that 8 year time I have gotten used to better control schemes with the newer games. But man, it was a chore to get through some of the levels, and not just put the controller down. I played through the entire story fueled solely on memories, and then, after the binge and once I got past the end credits,it was over.

    I shut the game down, and haven't opened it since.

    It was pretty much the same story with Sonic Adventure too. Although it aged slightly better. While there are good elements to Sonic Adventure 2, I am not one of the fans who wants another one. Maybe if SEGA could pull off the atmosphere with nicer controls, a good story, and make it play smoothly, (which will most likely not happen,) I am done with Adventures in general.

    As a further note... If they ever make another treasure hunting death timer level, I will be done with the game, and possibly franchise. That was unbelievably awful
     
  15. Chaos Warp

    Chaos Warp

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    Eh, it still holds up decently for me. I like the speed stages, even though I thought Sa1's were quite a bit better. I also had fun with the shooting levels, even if they don't really fit in a Sonic game. A few of the small hunting levels are okay (Wild Canyon, Dry Lagoon, Security Hall), I honestly hate all the others. Seriously, it was a stupid decision to both gimp the radar from SA1 AND make the stages bigger! The plot pulls off dark themes in a Sonic game rather well in my opinion (at least better then any other Sonic game), and the soundtrack, while not featuring as much variety as say SA1 or Unleashed, is still good in my opinion. Overall, it's still a decent game and if I had to rate it, I'd give it 7/10. Nowhere near perfect, but still worth playing.
     
  16. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    I never much cared for sonic adventure 2, even when it was a new game on Dreamcast.
    It didn't hold up back than, and it sure as hell does not hold up today.
     
  17. BluGenesi

    BluGenesi

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    I never had a Dreamcast or a Gamecube so for me I never got to play SA2. In fact, I played sonic labyrinth before SA2.
    About a year ago I borrowed a copy of it and played it on my Wii, I thought it was really well made.
    The Emerald stages were super fun, while the mech stages made me cringe, I loved the speed stages, despite it was not close to beating generations by a long shot.
    I played the PS3 port demo just today and my feelings are the same.
     
  18. Nova

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    After having not played it for about five years (due to a scratched-up GC disc), I can honestly say I'm having an amazing time playing through it again.

    Yeah, the emerald hunting sucks and the mech stages are tedious and repetitive but at least in my opinion, they beat the Werehog/storybook games/other tripe we've had to put up with since.

    Maybe it's just nostalgia, but for me, playing SA2 is habit forming.
     
  19. Blue Blood

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    Is that even true? I know the first trailer for the game only showed them, but that doesn't confirm the other three weren't playable. And beta info from the game shows that you originally chose to play Sonic/Shadow, Tails/Eggman or Knuckles/Rouge instead of Hero or Dark.
     
  20. ashthedragon

    ashthedragon

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    I've 19 hours of gametime on the XBLA version ( in only two days). I think that says it all.


    god, I love this game. And now I'm seeing things I've not noticed when I played it last time, 10 years ago. And loving it even more.