Sonic Adventure 2: Battle GameCube Review @ Gaming Target

Written by Chris Reiter on May 12, 2002

Review: Now you can be a Nintendo fan while playing a Sega game on your Nintendo console.

Two rivals, two companies, two mascots. Two and two makes four. And in theory, four stars are significantly great. Sega's movement into the third party industry has led them up to new areas. A little more than 10 years ago, when Sonic was invented, you'd never think that one day he'd be on the same platform from a company that was at war with Sega, the creators behind Sonic. But, things change, and eventually everything you once knew is no more. That's just the way the world works.

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is actually the port of last summer's Dreamcast game of the same name, excusing the "Battle" subtitle of course. The story behind this port, or should I say modified creation is a two way street. On one side, you've got the heroes trying to save the world, and on the other, the villains trying to wreck it. Between two quests -- hero and dark -- you can play the role of either a good hedgehog or a bad hedgehog, and their companions. With Sonic's team, you'll traverse through levels of Sonic's fast dashing, loop twisting, and rail grinding; Tails's robot controlled platform jumping and laser targeting; and Knuckles's air soaring, emerald collecting, and wall climbing adventures. Just the same, you can act out these exact parts as Shadow; a Sonic replica, Dr. Eggman; a Tails replica, and Rogue; a Knuckles replica. Either way you play the game, the overall story revolves around Shadow's attempt to collect the world's chaos emeralds; Sonic's hunt for Shadow to clear his name and to find out who this dark character is; Tails's quest to aid Sonic who's in trouble with the law, as he's thought to be the evil hedgehog, Shadow; Dr. Eggman's desire to take over the world; Rogue the bat's want for the world's chaos emeralds; and Knuckles's pursuit to piece together the broken pieces of the chaos emeralds and protect them.

Between the two sets of storyline, you'll control 3 of the 6 different playable characters. As the heroic cast or the evildoers, the gameplay varies for each. But for each, the gameplay is a similarity, and yet, not so similar to the other one, for all three of the playable characters in one quest. For example, Sonic's gameplay adheres to Shadow's, Tails's connects with Dr. Eggman's, and Knuckles and Rogue's both are the same, and again, not. One example would be how Tails's movements and Eggman's are exact, except for one slight difference. Tails can only lock onto one enemy, while Eggman can lock onto many when homing in on an enemy with their robot devices. The same goes for the other characters, as both the bad and good modes will share in the same type of gameplay, but, you won't be able to see certain movie sequences, or explore the same levels as in the other quests, which adds to the overall replay value.

Within the gameplay, however, controlling the characters is fun and yet not so fun. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is plagued with camera angles that just don't fit so well. When in motion, you can explore the large areas with your character, in the hunt for the end of the level or the items within the area (depending on what character you're controlling). Often at times, the camera will lock in place behind you, or even in front of you...especially if you're in an awkward position on the screen. Because of this, it's hard to see an enemy's location or even items that lie close or in the distance. And a lot of the time, you'll be struggling to twist your character around attempting to collect rings; collect 100 and you'll gain an extra life, animals; used for chao breeding within the inner mini game, and robot fragments; after defeating an enemy, a colorful piece of crystal will hover in the air, which you can nab to help power up your chao.

Even with a misuse of poor camera positions, the gameplay is still entertaining at a good amount. Using such characters as Sonic and Shadow, you'll be able to run at high speeds down hills, and even on the side of walls in urban and extremely twisted areas. With Tails or Dr. Eggman, you'll be locking onto enemies and jumping on and across platform tiles in robotic laboratories. And as either Knuckles or Rogue, the exploration of emeralds has you soaring through wind and watery areas that are colorful and rife with life. It's amazing how much Sonic's worlds have changed in only a little more than 10 years.

Mentioning the change, the graphics being in pure 3D are quite extraordinary. Each and every character model is defined with colorful charisma. The GameCube hardware really pushes Sonic's vast world of robots, grassy greens, blue seas, and everything else in between to a whole other world of extremely well put together details. To say that the graphics and animations aren't at their peak, I would be wrong. For example, Sonic's body consists of everything he has always been: a blue hedgehog with the works. His animations, though, are like they have always been from the games to the cartoons. Visually, you can see the whites and reds on his shoes in a crystal clear perspective. Even when Sonic dashes, the speed lines that follow behind him can be detected. Just as well, the other characters all have their own animations, which consist of the way they have always acted and as always, are well done to the very end.

And as everyone knows, a game can't be without its sound. Sonic's sound is nothing but the best, for this particular title. One thing that is to be known about Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is that the sound system is very loud. If you are to pop the game into your GameCube, you will find that the heavy riffs and cutesy techno noises that fill the game with its score are so loud that you'll need to turn the TV's volume down a good notch. The height of the sound even drowns out the movie sequences when characters speak. Even though there are subtitles that can be read with the dialogue, the loud noises sometimes get in the way of what could be a better gaming experience. One nice thing about the sound, though, is that in a Bonus area from the start of the game's menu, you can access a list of full character theme songs, and even in-game noises which some are great and then, some are not so great (depending on if you like to listen to cheesy noises). All in all, this feature is one of the best in the game.

Lastly, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle even has a multiplayer mode for you and a friend to battle against in races, shoot outs, or even go head to head in combat against one another. Amongst the list of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Dr. Eggman, and Rogue, you can also choose to play as one of another set of characters, including Amy, Sonic's biggest fan. Another unique feature has to do with the chao raising. As you progress through the one player story mode, and collect more and more animals and crystals to raise your chao babies (weird creatures that can be given objects so that they adapt to that particular item), you can then use your chao in such arenas as racing and kung-fu fighting tournaments. Not only that, but with the Game Boy Advance Link cable, a separate copy of Sonic Advance for the Game Boy Advance, and the Game Boy Advance hardware, you can link up the two platforms to send your chao from the GameCube Sonic title onto the Game Boy Advance Sonic title, so that you can continue to raise your chao babies seven further. With this many features, there's a good amount of replay value involved for the likely Sonic fan...if you are a Sonic fan at all, that is.