To be fair, I still find it hard to believe anyone expected anything different. I mean, look at every other 'HD' collection recently released. Devil May Cry HD Collection, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, Ratchet & Clank HD Collection, etc, etc... They are all the same deal as this release - upscaled to 720p, with certain cut-scenes trimmed back down to 480p simply because they involve particle effects or textures that would look terrible stretched up. I can't believe people are making a fuss about this - correct me if I'm wrong but didn't MGS/DMC/everything else 'HD' get by with minimal hate? Sega did the same thing, but released it not as part of a collection but a single game. And before anyone cites pricing as an issue here, let's look at the price. Most of the other HD collections released recently have had a RRP of £29.99. We can round this up to £30. That's roughly £10 a game. This release is, including the Battle Mode DLC, roughly the same price as one of those titles. Seriously, what's the issue? I don't see it. EDIT: As for the eyes clipping and various other graphical oddities, I'm playing the Xbox 360 release and I'm not really noticing any issues that weren't already present in the GC version. This isn't me defending the game for the sake of it, but I really, really don't see many new issues, if any.
Actually, the games in those collections that did have multiplayer like Ratchet & Clank 3 and MGS: Peace Walker did get online multiplayer added. But yeah, aside from that, this release is pretty much like most other HD re-releases. With some exceptions like the re-releases of Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. If a HD re-release has new features, the publisher or developer will let them be known before it gets released.
Yeah you should've went back to it every once in a while because you would've noticed those issues as you got older. the background music has always been blaring compared to the soft voice acting and the pacing is because they were trying to match the same second-by-second dialog they had in the JP version. Ryan in an interview once said that they told him he had to match a certain sentence in English in 16 seconds because the JP voice actor did it in 16 seconds which is hard because English has a longer vocabulary then Japanese.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Other supposed HD games can be criticised just as easily, but I would imagine the issues are less obvious there. For one, we're dealing with PlayStation 2 games and that tends to mean better graphics, and some of these things even had widescreen support. The other point is that these games were never monumentally broken to the point where the flaws are obvious and things need fixing. Also part of the appeal is having multiple games in one place, but I'm sure if you dig around in the comparitively smaller Metal Gear Solid or Devil May Cry communities you'll get similar complaints. In Sonic Adventure 2 you can fall through the floor. The camera isn't always pleasant. People talk over each other. It is a glitchy, broken mess that hasn't stood the test of time. It's also older than everything you've just mentioned so the conversion process is less effective. We also know a great deal about how this game came to be, and what it went on to inspire, so people already have a mixed view on Sonic Adventure 2 - the expectation perhaps is to give us a game that fixes problems - a game that is better than we remember it, rather than exactly the same or worse. There are elements of nostalgia, but that's thrown out of the window when you start introducing higher resolutions and tweaks for modern systems. Also this must be the sixth or seventh "Dreamcast" to Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 conversion since 2010. Sega has released games, received feedback, largely ignored that feedback, and released more games (I still think Jet Set Radio is an exception thanks to that PS Vita release). They're half-hearted conversions which look pretty awful and could do with more testing - it gets flagged up by people every few months, but nothing seems to be getting done about it. Other studios would punished if the quality isn't up to spec. People have lost their jobs for less. Even if people don't want to agree on these games being "bad", it's hard to deny that they're doing the absolute minimum. Slacking is never good no matter how many companies are getting in on the act. Also I'd be interested to know what the original development team thinks about this (not Iizuka) - whether they agree that stretching assets is a good idea.
I have some weird problem in SA2, maybe someone can help me, as I have no idea what the fuck did I do wrong? I'm playing Dark Story I'm not sure is it a glitch or not, but I am unable to get the Treasure Scope item from Security Hall, as I do not have Iron Boots, which breaks iron stuff. But How am I supposed to get iron boots If I havent been in Mad Space yet? I have done only Dry Lagoon and 2nd is Egg Quarters and now 3rd Rouge level is Security Hall. Did my game break? As some emeralds are inside the safes which I cannot open and I'm unable to finish the level. I'm losing my patience grr, I cannot get the last emerald in Security Hall because it's behind a safe, but I need Scope to get to the safe, but I can't reach to scope as it's behind iron boxes and Iron boots come in Mad Space, but I havent even been there. I'm so confused :S. Maybe I missed something... right now I really do not know what.... I have played SA2 Battle on Gamecube and I do not remember that error in that game, I remember I was in Mad Space with Rouge.
You have to backtrack to get the Treasure Scope, as in return to Security Hall after finishing Mad Space. To open the safe you need to hit all three switches (A, B and C) in the upper room with all the lasers and fans. You don't need the Treasure Scope to complete security hall.
you don't need the scope to open the safes, you only have to activate the safe's locks in the upper room, the one with the security lasers. there are three switches there, one for red section, one for blue and one for yellow ( the one in the top of the wall you come to start in the room). Activate the switch of the color you need ( or activate all just in case)
This, I can agree with. Though these aren't really wrongs, just perceived as such. That's not the issue though, these are complaints to level at the game itself. I'll add more to this point next. On the 'multiple games in one place' - if you bought NiGHTS, JSR and SA2, it would set you back about the same or less than one of those collections so this remains a moot point in my opinion. Why would they fix it? This isn't intended for anyone other than people who can't play their original copy, don't have it anymore or just want it on yet another system (why is beyond me). I'm fairly certain Sega never made any claims that they were going to fix any of the underlying issues with the game itself and nobody should have expected this from them. Sega have proved time-and-again that they simply just don't work that way and when respected companies like Konami and Insomniac aren't 'fixing up' their HD offerings, what makes you think Sega would do it? Except they did listen - to a few complaints. Yes, it may be a simple upscale but the most common complaint I heard about SA(DX) 2010 was the lack of widescreen support. This has, obviously, been addressed. Also, blurry textures have somewhat been fixed - play through City Escape in this release and look at the posters, trash bins and other such objects and the differences become immediately apparent. Sure, it's not 100% redone but it's better than the 2010 SA(DX) port was - so they have been addressing fan concerns, at least to a limited extent. Whether you think the game is bad or not, doesn't change the fact that this port never promised to be anything other than that. Anyone expecting a miraculous, bug-fixed, remastered game were setting themselves up for disappointment, just as with other HD collections.
Confirming it on my end as well. Bounce Attack with proper timing is the only way to get up there now.
Hey, remember that test level I found in the Gamecube version? [youtube]http://youtu.be/JBM-vbOluas[/youtube] Sorry for the cam recording, I was playing over HDMI so my capture equipment wasn't set up. I was also trying to play with one hand while holding the camera. Spoiler No action replay required this time. During the Dark side story, finish Mad Space and exit the game during Rouge's boss fight against Knuckles. (I mean, completely exit. Choose Exit game, then quit the game. Load up your save file, fight knuckles, play through cosmic wall, and after it's over you'll be sent to the test level as Eggman instead of the rest of the game. You can exit out and the game will resume where it was supposed to go when you continue. There might be more to this than what I mentioned. Maybe the fact that I never died during Cosmic wall could be a requirement for this. Edit: As Jimmy pointed out below, I wasn't the first person to run into this. But now that I went back and read that post, it's good to know that it happened to me almost the exact same way. So it should be easy for others to reproduce.
RedMetallix found that too, it's on Page 58 XD Seeing it in action though's always good. Might try that out, see it first hand.
This is where the game starts getting fun: finding what lovely atrocities cropped up thank to Sega of China's work. :specialed:
Just finished the game again for the first time in a long time. Spoiler We actually streamed the whole game from start to finish. Me, some friends, and some guests like Scott from VGCats. It was really fun, and I'm putting all the parts up here.
Except for the part where the majority of people in the world have really shiity internet. You're talking about an online mode that just sends out inputs to the host. Forget it. Terrible net code. It has never been a good at all. Also, most of the games I want to play online, nobody plays online whatsoever. The lifespan of Sonic Adventure 2's online play would never justify the effort for the developers. Nobody here is going to go "Hey lets play Nights Journey of Dreams together!"
If I set out to stab some children, then go out and put some knives in their chests, I have succeeded in my quest to adjust the population figures. But you wouldn't applaud that. The plan is terrible and should be criticised. And carrying out the plan shouldn't be forgiven on the basis of achiving the goal. Same applies here. The plan was to re-release a half-baked conversion of Sonic Adventure 2, which they succeeded in delivering. But the plan sucks, and just because Konami have similar plans doesn't make it suck less. They have done the absolute minimum. Any adjustments are so minor that most of the population won't notice. And I'm not a fan of that, personally. And it's debatable as to whether widescreen offers anything meaningful to the game - nicer than having borders perhaps, but this game is mainly played from a third person perspective... so really it should be draw distance that's altered. IIRC there's not a lot of left-to-right movement in Sonic Adventure 2.
Not just the Tails Chao, but any kind of special Chao. Amy, Knuckles and any of the Jewels. In SA1/DX you found Gold and Silver in the Adventure fields, and maybe you could buy more in the Black Market I'm not sure. But for SA2B, you could only get them from the GBA games. It really, really sucks that SEGA didn't think about adding those to the Black Market. They'd have been such teeny additions.
All the more reason why it's only worth raising three chao in this game: Two to unlock the heaven and hell gardens, one to keep neutral and utterly rape all the races and Karate. Reconfirmed for most worthless filler addition to the series.
That's a terrible argument when Sonic 3 & Knuckles has online play on XBLA. I guarantee you Sonic Adventure 2 HD is going to get a LOT more purchases and players than S3&K's XBLA release did, and will have a longer lifespan. There is no excuse why that could have had it, and SA2HD couldn't have had it. The precedent is there. SEGA just dropped the ball. But you know, it's not JUST sa2hd that this is a problem with. Sonic games in general usually have had local multiplayer only. Sonic 06, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Colors (except the DS version, oddly enough), etc. It's not a problem just with SA2 HD, but sonic games in general. SEGA just needs to get with the times, they can't really ignore the multiplayer aspect of sonic games anymore, they just can't. It really is, you know, kind of pathetic when Backbone and modders can program multiplayer for SEGA's games and yet they are unable to do it themselves. Here's hoping the next sonic game that has local multiplayer doesn't have to deal with this garbage. edit: Now, the only argument I'm trying to make here, is that SEGA should not be releasing a local multiplayer only game this far into the game generation. Nearly every single videogame that has multiplayer these days supports online, "local multiplayer only" is a dying trend, and so SEGA seems to be clutching to an idea that has long since been lost in the rifts of time. As far as an SA2 goes, they missed out on the opportunity to create an online community for their game, have SA2 be played competetively, creating longevity for their title. They could have even took it a step further by adding an online chao garden mode. That would have sold a ton. They really underestimate the appeal of those little critters.
