don't click here

Complimenting Sonic Adventure 2

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

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Hey, Green Hill was in the game, that's gotta count for something. :V
     
  2. Frostav

    Frostav

    Member
    639
    202
    43
    It's for the Steam version, yeah. It's uploaded to gamebanana, but that site seems to be down? Regardless, if you wanna read about all the changes, here's the Chao Island wiki page:

    https://chao-island.com/wiki/Chao_World_Extended

    And for your second question, s....ort of. It has a code that allows for 16 chao in the neutral garden, but the limit on 24 chao total seems to be hardcoded into the save. In addition, I don't think that the hero or dark gardens allow for more than 8. However it does have a "multisave" code where each of the 10 save slots in SA2 Steam gets to have its own chao garden (in vanilla the chao garden save is universal across all of them), so that does let you have 240 chao in one installation if you want.

    It has a bunch of other nice codes like one that makes the beginner and jewel races give exp so you can level chao stats without having to grind action stages (and the final two jewel races level ALL the stats enough for about 2 levels each run--it's useful for when I wanna just watch youtube or twitch, I'll keep the game open and play races to grind all my chao, and when they level up from the races they get the maximum possible stat bonus their grade allows).

    There are few other useful mods like this one called "Chao data menu" that adds a special option on the pause menu to give you super detailed stats on whatever chao you're holding, but once again it's on gamebanana and I dunno what's going on with that site right now:

    [​IMG]
     
  3. Only for viewing

    Only for viewing

    aka Superstarxalien Member
    186
    55
    28
    While I'm kind of annoyed at how there's yet another one of these threads, I feel kind of weirded out to see that this one is about complimenting rather than bashing. For the life of me I simply cannot see this game as the downfall of Sonic in any kind whatsoever, unless you talk about the beginning of Sonic as something to be ridiculed because of the sheer amount of fan content that ensued from this game alone.

    I kind of like this game. I haven't played it in a while so I don't have strong emotions for it, but everything this game does feels... meaningful. It feels like something. It's raw, unbridled shonen anime at its core, and while some of its gameplay choices are weird I still get a kick out of it most of the time. I don't think I can say this about most of what came after for Sonic in 3D, although some of Generations' levels are quite fun.
     
  4. Gestalt

    Gestalt

    Sphinx in Chains Member
    Do you know that feeling when you visit a place from your childhood only to find out that it's nothing like you remember? With SA2 it's not the case at all. It aged perfectly. Everything still works the way it's supposed to. Strange, isn't it? Starting with the sloppy voice acting to the funky animations, SA2 manages to be still the same as before perception-wise. Pretty remarkable if you ask me.
     
  5. kyasarintsu

    kyasarintsu

    Member
    371
    143
    43
    I really appreciated this game's huge step up in terms of presentation value over its predecessor. While it didn't aim for the same big scope of content it sure felt like a more impressive package, with slick menus, sharp and smooth graphics, and much-improved pacing in both progression and plot.
     
  6. That's kind of the thing about this game; it's either what many consider "the last good Sonic game" or "the first bad Sonic game". There's never really been an in-between with this game, you either love it you don't.
     
  7. Overlord

    Overlord

    Now playable in Smash Bros Ultimate Moderator
    19,218
    965
    93
    Long-term happiness
    Because it isn't universally, despite what you want to believe? I did say imo. It is indeed grindy as hell and tediously long, and wasn't what I'd bought the game for.

    And for what it's worth, I had the GameCube versions of both SA1 and SA2 before the Dreamcast ones - not by that long, but first.
     
  8. Frostav

    Frostav

    Member
    639
    202
    43
    It pretty much is, honestly

    Weirdos like you who don't like it are so in the minority it's not even funny. People who think SA2 is an unplayable piece of shit with zero redeeming qualities that was never good still like the chao garden. Every single mention of SA2 on gaming websites has someone going "why didn't they bring the chao garden back?" and like fifty people going "dude right that was awesome!"

    The chao garden might honestly the most universally liked feature in any Sonic game ever. People who don't like Sonic like it.
     
  9. Gestalt

    Gestalt

    Sphinx in Chains Member
    The answer to this is crystal clear: Because they don't really fit into the universe anymore. Why waste a good idea on something no one seems to like?
     
  10. Azookara

    Azookara

    yup Member
    Chao Gardens in a new Sonic game would confirm a million copies sold on day one, and that's a promise.

    Don't underestimate how bad people have wanted that to come back. Fans, haters and the indifferent alike love Chao. It's baffling how popular they were, and continue to be talked about anytime anyone brings up Sonic to a non-fan who's roughly 20/30-something.
     
  11. Antheraea

    Antheraea

    Bug Hunter Member
    but then TSR and its animations had chao in it (with chao merch!), and Chao In Space literally got shown at a short film festival. they clearly think they still belong in some capacity, and people who are not into Sonic, or Sonic fans who aren't super into the new games, seem to like them too.
     
  12. Gestalt

    Gestalt

    Sphinx in Chains Member
    True, and I'm surprised no one screamed "Sellout!" when they did that. Well, Chao Gardens would work very differently today. No emblem hunting, no multiple characters to play as, no Chao Drives. I'd say that their cuteness factor alone is not enough to justify a comeback.
     
  13. Sid Starkiller

    Sid Starkiller

    Member
    1,457
    358
    63
    Virginia, USA
    Paying off student loans
    There's no reason they couldn't make it work. No emblems? Have some other incentives like concept art or character skins. No Chaos Drives? Just have something in the garden that can remove specific animal parts. Not really sure how the multiple characters fits in, other than maybe Hero/Dark Chao, but that's what Hero/Dark Fruits are for. If they decided they want to, they could make it work.

    Even if they don't put them back in the games, merch would be nice. BUT! I want more than just the basic baby Chao. I want Hero and Dark Chao. I want the different evolutions. There's a variant of the Shadow Funko POP that has him holding a Shadow Chao, and I bought it just because someone remembers that the different Chao forms exist.

    EDIT: As for SA2 itself, the biggest non-Chao thing I can say is that it was my first taste of the villain's POV. It's fun to see the other side, whether they're a well-intentioned extremist or a cackling madman.
     
  14. Overlord

    Overlord

    Now playable in Smash Bros Ultimate Moderator
    19,218
    965
    93
    Long-term happiness
    lol ok lad

    I'm dipping out here because you're clearly blinkered. Have fun grinding Chao.
     
  15. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

    no reverse gear Wiki Sysop
    8,543
    2,465
    93
    Northumberland, UK
    steamboat wiki
    Thank Christ - I thought I was the only one. I wish the energy spent writing opinions could be pumped into something more productive, like say, the many, many wiki requests over the years.


    Also I don't much care for Chao gardens. They were a fun novelty at the time, but now they seem to be more of a means of justifying the existence of VMUs having separate controls and a screen. You can get away with that in Sonic Adventure where there's half a dozen different play styles by design, but less so when you're only focusing on Sonic running fast. Though my memories of Sonic Adventure 2 would be that your decent Chao would "die" before you could get all the race emblems. That and they didn't translate all the voices.

    It was arguably done better in NiGHTS, where you could affect normal gameplay and ruin the music.
     
  16. Josh

    Josh

    Oldbie
    2,123
    1,087
    93
    USA
    :yousay:

    The appeal of the Chao Garden for me was pretty much entirely built on the peripheral it was designed for: The Dreamcast VMU. By the time SA2 rolled around, not only had the novelty wore off and my VMU batteries all died, Chao Adventure 2 was _such_ a time-consuming downgrade from the original that the whole system just wasn't interesting anymore. Literally, I had more fun messing with Fusion's Chao Editor in that game than I ever did playing it "legit," and that's the only reason I had Chao Race emblems. The GBA Tiny Chao Garden was still better than CA2, but it was a walled garden, so to speak. It didn't have the same "Tamagotchi + Adventure" appeal. And in the long run...

    Yeah, that's exactly it. Of _course_ people who don't like Sonic like it... it's not Sonic. I'll give the Chao Garden system credit for incentivizing replay value in SOME way, but its execution was still quite divorced from what makes Sonic gameplay so unique and appealing to me. Meticulously destroying every badnik in a level so I can pick up all the GREEN animals and raise a Chao that looks like Sonic was interesting for a while when I was 11, when I didn't find grinding so tedious. Especially when I could then bring that Chao to SCHOOL with me and not battle it against other kids because absolutely no one else had a Dreamcast because they were all DUMB and WRONG </3.

    But, trying to do it now just ruins the fun of blazing through Speed Highway.

    Oh, I'm supposed to be complimenting SA2, huh? Maybe we should split this off into a discussion on the efficacy of the Chao system?
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2020
  17. Mana

    Mana

    Good! Great! Awesome! Outstanding! Amazing! Member
    783
    315
    63
    The person who disagreed with him literally called him a weirdo so I say he made a good call. There was no way he was getting an actual intelligent debate out of someone who's doing namecalling.
     
  18. Frostav

    Frostav

    Member
    639
    202
    43
    See...to people of my generation, whose first Sonic games were the Adventure titles on the gamecube (a lot of Sonic fans)...chao are Sonic. They are an incredibly important and integral part of the series. I lament the loss of them because they are a core part of what I consider a 3D Sonic game, and while I have enjoyed post-Adventure Sonic games sometimes, they always feel like they are fundamentally missing something because of this.
    "You don't actually enjoy the thing that you say you enjoy and are just too stupid to notice"

    Haha.

    Blow me, you twit.
     
  19. TheInvisibleSun

    TheInvisibleSun

    OVER THE TOP TECHNO-BLAST Member
    1,626
    193
    43
    Buffalo, NY, USA
    The Water
    I know this wasn't an entirely serious post, but I've always kinda hated this take. The Shadow one stands out the most, because Shadow's character is never even similar to Vegeta's, like ever.
    Yes. Not gonna lie, Shadow was very cool, and he successfully replaced Knuckles as my favorite character at the time. Shadow's character is designed quite well, and it really appealed to the 9-year old me. Unlike Sonic at the time, Shadow was always serious, calm, cool and collected. Rather than running, Shadow gently air-skated (somehow, no other game has replicated his skating animation as well imo). Also, I still think that Shadows voice acting in SA2 hasn't been topped yet.

    I also still love how smoothly the non-mech characters feel to control, ignoring level design (this was arguably the saving grace for the Hunting stages for me; Knuckles and Rouge are fun to move around as imo).
     
  20. Antheraea

    Antheraea

    Bug Hunter Member
    actually yeah, I agree with this, for all the problems the hunting has, the devs clearly had fun making the levels - there are a ton of secrets, hidden spots, nooks and crannies that made me wish, as a kid, that you could have the hunting levels as chao gardens or "hideouts" that could you could just casually run around and have fun in without time or enemy pressures.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.