Sonic Adventure 2 was a title most Dreamcast owners were curious over about how different it would handle things over it's predecessor, and back in it's day it was met with mixed reactions. (Very much like the first Sonic Adventure) Usually most people praise the gameplay sections of Sonic and Shadow for the more straightforward platforming action gameplay, but berate the clunky platform and shooting-segments from Tails/Dr. Eggman's stages, and the incredibly large and oftentimes tedious stage design of Knuckles/Rouge's treasure hunting stages. Although met with mixed reactions, Sonic Adventure 2 was overall regarded as one of the better outings SEGA's mascot has received in his 3D career.

With the game's release on Steam, I've tried this game out after I played the Gamecube port many years ago on, and personally I think it's a pretty decent port with HD graphics, a curious leaderboard system for the really hardcore fans of this game, and the 'Battle' content originally from the Gamecube port as DLC, which includes a pretty decent 2-player vs. mode and a overhaul of the main menu theme and other minor extra's.

The game's divided into 3 main gameplay modes, which you tackle as 3 characters on both the Hero and Dark side of the spectrum, complete with their own set of stages. As explained above the characters' gameplay styles are very drastically different, and most newcomers will often struggle with even finishing alot of the stages past the first few ones in the story, because of the somewhat harsh difficulty curve in the stage design. A new mechanic introduced in this game was the ranking system, in where dependant on how fast you cleared the stages and how well you overall did in your run, the higher the score, which is oftentimes easier said than done. Frequent issues were the rather clunky camera angles that shifted all over the place during gameplay, and you can't manually control the camera while moving around, alot of the enemies in Tails/Dr. Eggman's stages wold often spawn out of nowhere and collide with your character, taking a big chunk of damage and risking their high score streak, and that you can only detect one objective out of 3 at a time in the Knuckles/Rouge stages, and they usually randomize with the locations of the items, requiring you to both know the large stage layout and also collect them as quickly as possible, making A-ranking alot of the stages quite a difficult task in itself.

There's also the Chao Garden in where you can raise your virtual pet Chao, either for time-wasting fun, or to have them compete in races or karate mini-games. It's a nice distraction and improvement from the Chao Garden system in the original game, but raising them can be very time-consuming (unless you use a in-game glitch mechanic to abuse it) and you have to remain in the actual Chao Garden to wait for your Chao to mature and grow better stats. It's a alright inclusion, but nothing I would spend time on personally.

Flaws aside, Sonic Adventure 2 is still a title worth playing if you're a big fan of the blue hedgehog and it's a moderate price on the Steam Shop. Just don't expect too have a easy time on the game if you're trying to shoot for all the unlockable content in the game.

Sonic Adventure 2 was a title most Dreamcast owners were curious over about how different it would handle things over it's predecessor, and back in it's day it was met with mixed reactions. (Very much like the first Sonic Adventure) Usually most people praise the gameplay sections of Sonic and Shadow for the more straightforward platforming action gameplay, but berate the clunky platform and shooting-segments from Tails/Dr. Eggman's stages, and the incredibly large and oftentimes tedious stage design of Knuckles/Rouge's treasure hunting stages. Although met with mixed reactions, Sonic Adventure 2 was overall regarded as one of the better outings SEGA's mascot has received in his 3D career. With the game's release on Steam, I've tried this game out after I played the Gamecube port many years ago on, and personally I think it's a pretty decent port with HD graphics, a curious leaderboard system for the really hardcore fans of this game, and the 'Battle' content originally from the Gamecube port as DLC, which includes a pretty decent 2-player vs. mode and a overhaul of the main menu theme and other minor extra's. The game's divided into 3 main gameplay modes, which you tackle as 3 characters on both the Hero and Dark side of the spectrum, complete with their own set of stages. As explained above the characters' gameplay styles are very drastically different, and most newcomers will often struggle with even finishing alot of the stages past the first few ones in the story, because of the somewhat harsh difficulty curve in the stage design. A new mechanic introduced in this game was the ranking system, in where dependant on how fast you cleared the stages and how well you overall did in your run, the higher the score, which is oftentimes easier said than done. Frequent issues were the rather clunky camera angles that shifted all over the place during gameplay, and you can't manually control the camera while moving around, alot of the enemies in Tails/Dr. Eggman's stages wold often spawn out of nowhere and collide with your character, taking a big chunk of damage and risking their high score streak, and that you can only detect one objective out of 3 at a time in the Knuckles/Rouge stages, and they usually randomize with the locations of the items, requiring you to both know the large stage layout and also collect them as quickly as possible, making A-ranking alot of the stages quite a difficult task in itself. There's also the Chao Garden in where you can raise your virtual pet Chao, either for time-wasting fun, or to have them compete in races or karate mini-games. It's a nice distraction and improvement from the Chao Garden system in the original game, but raising them can be very time-consuming (unless you use a in-game glitch mechanic to abuse it) and you have to remain in the actual Chao Garden to wait for your Chao to mature and grow better stats. It's a alright inclusion, but nothing I would spend time on personally. Flaws aside, Sonic Adventure 2 is still a title worth playing if you're a big fan of the blue hedgehog and it's a moderate price on the Steam Shop. Just don't expect too have a easy time on the game if you're trying to shoot for all the unlockable content in the game.