Sonic Adventure is certainly very far from the "Citizen Kane of gaming", but it has a unique style to it that appeals to so many people, at least those who grew up with it. I was able to turn the volume down, put on a podcast series, and just, you know, Sonic Adventure and chill. I played it as supplementary to the interesting conversations I was listening to, and rarely did I get frustrated with the game in the week I took to beat it. However, the same is definitely not true for Sonic Adventure 2. The Hero story got pretty annoying, the Dark story was frustrating, and I went through the entire Last story seething with rage. Make no mistake, I don't hate this game just because it has technical flaws. Playing through it was actively making me angry, and I don't get mad with fair games. Every ounce of hatred I have for this game is because of how poorly it works as a sequel, as a game. I hate this game just as much as it hates me.
No comment.
Next is the mech gameplay, consisting of Tails and Eggman. The bad placement gets even worse, as the mechs are way too slow to do anything but get hit by the dropping robots and Artificial Chaos. The timer is removed, and now the challenge comes from, wait for it... a health bar! Not only is it arbitrary in a game series where rings are the universal health, it makes everything exponentially harder. It takes ten rings to recover about a third of the health lost from a powerful hit, and take a little over three of those hits and you're dead. The controls are clunky, platforming sections can require you to get multiple shots midair with no ground, and overall it's way less fun than Gamma ever was.
I ain't gon' let it get to me, I'm just gon' creep. Down at Pumpkin Hill I gots to find my lost piece.
I hope I did a good job highlighting why this game isn't really the improvement many people say it is. Again, I played through these games in about a week each, and the first was a much better experience than the second. Once again, I apologize for the lack of article last week, as I spent a week sick with bronchitis and a sinus infection. Anyways, we're back your regularly scheduled S.S. Amino. This is your captain, signing off.